Second Purse Challenge Thread #2

mountainofdebt

Just wanted to say that in 24 hrs I've 'saved' £6.06 as I needed to buy one of the bags of dog treats.

The other scary thing is that I've realised that I've been throwing away vouchers for £4 for goodness how long ....needless to say no more - it all goes into the pot from now on!

My initial aim is to save / pay off £400 on my credit card...if I can do that then it will effectively be cleared as I pay £266 each month before I use it to pay that amount in bills on it, so at the moment it is effectively treading water......never thought multi buying would help me pay off my debts lol!

Mothership - how did you come up with the idea?

Mothership

I don't remember actually conceiving the idea, lol. What I do remember is the panic I felt trying to make ends meet. I think it started with a box at the bottom of the wardrobe, I'd buy something for it every week, like tea, coffee, sugar, pasta, rice, tinned stuff. Like beans , corned beef, tuna, then progressed to toilet rolls , soap, shampoo, toothpaste etc, things that you always run out of. Then when a bill came in i used my food budget money to pay it. Then there wasn't supermarkets, just a wee pokey chain Galbraiths lol. You paid full price for everything then.

When my kids were young, it was even harder . There was always something needed, shoes, replacing lost jackets. Every imaginable crisis. My box became a cupboard, then when that was full, anywhere I could find had stashes of something, soap in the underwear drawer, toiletries under the bed. A whole cupboard in the kitchen full of pasta rice and tinned stuff. Things if i had to could provide most of the ingredients for a meal. Then when i got a freezer, I did the same with that, there was one drawer full of meat for main meals. If it came to it I could usually get by with only buying fresh fruit n veg , and perishables like bread milk and butter etc; using the remainder of my food budget for other much needed things.
One year I got a purse for xmas, and £10 in an envelope, I put the tenner in the purse, hey presto the 2nd purse was born. i was supposed to spend the £10 on myself so every time I bought something with it I payed it back to the purse. I spent the whole lot one week on something i used a lot of, and paid it back as I used it. Before i knew it there was £30 in the purse. Then I did it with everything. Before long the purse was bulging and I needed another purse, When I had over £50 in the second I'd put this money in the 3rd Purse, this purse was for ' treats'.
I used the 2nd Purse for stocking up, the 1st purse was my weekly food budget. I payed back what I owed to the 2nd purse "the shop" before I went food shopping.
As my stock went up, my weekly expenditure went down, I had a good supply of staples, and money in every purse.
It was a system that worked for me and gave me the means to feed my family, pay any surprise bills, and provide treats for all of us.

However even though I aways did this, I started buying stuff like convenience meals, from marks & Spencer etc, I ended up spending £600 a month on food. As the energy bills started to rise I had to use £200 of this just to pay fuel bills. Although I used the purse system I never really saved until I joined this site, I started an ISA, putting £200 a month in it, from my food budget, I've saved about £10,000 since I joined , but spent £4,000 of that updating my kitchen. so theres £6,000 in that now.
That left me £200 per month for food etc, I have £1213 in my 3rd purse, thats now a separate bank account.
I spend £10-15 per week on perishables, bread milk etc. So most of my budget goes right into the 2d purse as soon as I get it. I keep the balance in that at £100 so theres always money for bargains, but only things I use all the time.
Just think all the money I've mentioned above would have gone to the supermarkets if I hadn't got a grip. It makes you think doesn't it. How much money was I throwing at them year in year out??? Scary isn't it?
This system isn't as it seems 'Playing shop' Its survival in an ever changing world. Its us against the big profiteering SM's . Playing them at their own game.

Hope this answers your question :T

moments_of_sanity

It's amazing how these things 'come to life' isn't it

So today I bought cat food that was £2 a bag cheaper so when buying it back I will put the £8.99 into my normal purse and put the £2.00 into my second purse (have i got that correct?). I also saved £0.38p a tub on cat treats so will do the same for them when I use them up.

Apparently there is another Morrisons voucher this week for meat/fish, if this happens I will put the £5.00 saving into the second purse. Quite excited now about how much I will be able to save

mountainofdebt

Thanks Mothership for sharing how you developed the idea of the 2nd purse.

My mum is very similar to you in that if something is on special offer she will stock up on it, usually toothpaste, toilet paper etc as I have done but it never occurred to either of us that although we were 'saving' money we weren't really; or should I say we never had nothing to show for that bogof buy and I guess this is the fundamental principal of the 2nd purse.

As you can probably gather from my username I have quite a bit of debt that, whilst is getting under control, I would really like to clear asap. By doing this, I can see that debt being chipped away quicker and the ironically thing will be that spending will help!

EstherH

Just popping in to say hello. It's great to see MOTHERSHIP and everyone else posting again. I really do think that hiding this thread away in the top sticky has made people forget about it.

I've just bought a tray of tinned tomatoes and baked beans from C0stc0.

My savings are for Christmas.

Esther xx

moments_of_sanity

I too went to Costc0 yesterday EstherH and bought Aquafresh toothpaste that worked out to 47p a tube, some Imperial Leather shower gel that worked out at 70p and 2.27kgs of bacon. It worked out at just over 70p for 4 rashers.

For the toothpaste and shower gel I plan to 'pay' £1 each for and the bacon I will pay £1.50 for 4 slices. The prices are equivalent to what they charge in the supermarkets.

I bought 12 Imperial Leather shower gels, 24 tubes of toothpaste and the bacon with money that was owed to me and didn't need to put back in the bank so felt it would be better to make some extra money from it

EstherH

That's great MOS. Your well on your way.

I have shower gel stored up from one of the other offers a while back. Must check and see how much is left as 70p is a good bargain. I am really sloppy with keeping track of my stock at times but it all seems to be working well for me.

Esther x

mountainofdebt

lol mothership you're not going to believe this.

I was telling my mum a very simplified version of this challenge and she piped up that she used put £5 (bear in mind this was 20 odd yrs ago) and then when there were bargains she would use that £5 to buy them and then pay back at the full price as she used the bargain.........sound familiar????

Anyway I have a question.

I went to morrisons today and the shopping would have cost me £14.64 but I had £3.66 in discounts and used a £5 voucher so it only cost me £5.98. So I assume that I put in my savings jar (I'm finding it easier to save as I buy) £8.66 less the cost of the newspaper to get the £5 voucher so £8.26 .....is this what you would do????

EstherH

Hi MoD, If you aren't wanting to buy back from yourself but just put the savings away then yes, that's what I would do. I do save voucher money separately too. However, the idea of buying back from your self is that you eventually build up a large kitty for buying bargains - mine is £100 - and then anything over that is for the third purse savings. Mine is money for Christmas and so far this year is around £350.

Esther x

AlwaysHappy

Ok folks, I think I have a problem.... I can't stop buying bargains. My freezer is full to busting _ I had to split a pack of 8 beefburgers into 2's to squeeze them in and yet I continue...had a £3 off £10 spend on meat at wa*rose so HAD to use it, got the aforementioned burgers and 2 lots of chicken fillets on the 3 for £10 deal, I usually then pay £3.50 back to the purse for each of the £3.3333333 meats, today, £3 went straight into savings, and I now have more meals. Th burgers will do my ds 4 nights that he doesn't like what me and oh are having. To the problem, so in todays example there were lets say 3 meals bought, none of them used today, so, what happens is the stock builds. I've just looked at my spreadsheet, and I'm stock rich cash poor, my stock (at cost) - all bought from the purse I add stands at........ £1138.90 BUT unless I stop buying, it will never convert to CASH. I'm hoping that by admitting this, I will be able to make a conscious decision to USE MY STOCKPILE.