Quarter life crisis - advice needed on spending & life

ellesbellesxxx

Nope!


How do I claim my free regular hot drink?

Simply show your myWaitrose card if paying at a manned checkout.

If you are paying for a self-serve drink at Quick Pay, make sure you scan the barcode of your chosen drink at the Self-serve machine, then scan the relevant barcode at the Welcome Desk to get the cost of your drink taken off. You can then pay as normal at Quick Pay and don’t forget to also scan your myWaitrose card!


Just be careful not to get carried away in there whilst you pass by everything else - or is that just me?!

maddiemay

Blogger wrote: »

I cannot agree more! there are so many temptations everywhere and if you give in to one you will easily give in to pretty much all. This ia where the debt problems start I think. You will always want more than you can afford if you do not learn to control yourself. We were lucky because our desires did not outweigh what we could afford so we did not get into debts. I also love all those things you listed but like you I also not buy and reserve these pleasures for occasional treats which makes them that extra special.

Elena_Handcart

Many thanks for your posts and advice! It is invaluable! Our earnings outweigh our spending budget by 1200 roughly but it depends. Sometimes unexpected cost pop up so we end up being skinned, things like relocation cost or additional travel costs, or "necessary visit" to relatives.. THis is why we try to minimise everything we can. In the past we used to go on holidays twice a year for a week or so but now I we stopped. Our badget is only a fraction so we will have to be more creative.

For traveling there is not much we can do sadly. He already walks to and from work and uses TFL for just necessary travel but I am travelling form Zone 1 to Hertfordshire. So this is TFL cost for zone 1-5 + train from Zone 5 to Hertfordshire. Before travel fares went up I used to get up really early to catch a train off peak hours and buy ticket daily thus saving £5 a week but after the increase there is no point My train fares went up approximately 18% and tube by £100 off per year.


House share- yes, we looked into that. The location which satisfies most people would be further than where we live so my partner would be paying zone 1 tube fare to get to work which is £112 per month. In addition the average house was approximately 2.5K +bills. So on average we would be paying more than here + travel costs. Normally when you share with friends people pay per person and not per room but if you rent a room somewhere then you pay for room and slightly extra for couple. It is definitely worth looking into.

Student loan is a government loan. you only pay back if you earn over 19K per year and interest is very low too.

Zoology Dragon
You are right. Food budget is something we can look into definitely. Where did you shop if you do not mind me asking? Was it markets or major supermarkets?


Soundgirlrocks We live right on the edge of the City of London but it definitely is £66. Perhaps it is a mistake from council but I am not going to ask them to correct it :rotfl:

ellesbellesxxx fantastic advice for waitrose! but dont you have to buy anything in their coffee shop like pastries to get free coffee? I normally go for coffee only but I think minimum spend there is £1.50.

maddiemay


Thank you very much for your post!

2 years ago I got hit by a car when I was cycling and the car did not even stop. Luckily I did not break anything and it was a minor damage to myself. It is extremely dangerous to cycle in central London. We took the bike to his parents house and it now lives there.

I got spending app, so does my partner and it VERY useful to control one's spending!

I think many factors determine how much you can save. Our location is good for some things and not so good for frugal living. I can never find tesco value toothpaste or tesco value tuna because tesco nearby me does not stock it and if I have to order online the delivery costs negate the savings when you have no space for bulk purchase. Right now I am concentrating on few tips from here and to increase my income by all means I can.

I hear you on "location" I live in a sweet little country town, small tesco (no/hardly any value items), weeny little Boots, there is an Aldi and we have sorted out the items we like, but for more choice we have to travel round trip of 52 or 56 miles, consequently whenever we visit a larger town or out of town shopping area I do a little raid on £shop, Wilkinsons etc, etc and top up on a few items, also for me it is quite a balancing act, as I feel I need to go someway to supporting the small shops here, pretty much the only source of employment in this beautiful, but rural area. Huge divide between rich and poor here, I guess I am extremely fortunate to fall in the middle!

Trying_to_be_good

For your Council Tax - I was in Westminster a while ago and I think they had the lowest council tax in the country - it was ridiculously cheap compared to other places I have lived.

I think you're spot on that it's about choices and what you're choosing to spend, and what to save. Of course you can spend less and save more, but not if you're then not enjoying life - you're not having to pay off debt as many here are, so you have that choice.

Personally, I'm a mortgage-free wannabe (MFW) so have a similar choice - I could hammer the mortgage and achieve my mortgage-free dream fastest, or live a bit during the process, spending for some enjoyment an some investment for the future, and be mortgage-free sometime/much later. I choose the later :-).

Hatster

A couple of ideas re the toiletries - first of all, with toothpaste (and everything else) it is worth checking relative prices per 100g and then checking the ingredients. I was in Boots recently and found some Colgates toothpastes costing about 5 times the amount per 100g as some others for the same active ingredients.

Also, if you live or work anywhere near a branch of TKMaxx, it is worth popping in and checking their toiletries section from time to time. Although most of it isn't worth buying, I am currently fully stocked up with some absolute gems of shampoos that should have been far more expensive.

Both nice ways to get the same quality for less!

littleweasel

I'm going to be controversial here and say if you are able to save £1000+ a month then you are already well on track to save a deposit. Yes, if you want to do it quicker you will have to consider adopting some of the suggestions mentioned in the thread. But your rent is very cheap for 1br in London Bridge, you don't seem to waste a lot on other stuff (the gym is the only thing that sticks out), and saving £1000+ a month will get you a deposit for a decent size place in a couple of years. Yes, other people might have help from their parents and buy earlier without having to save the deposit themselves. But there are plenty of others who don't, and plenty of others who don't have enough surplus to even start saving. It seems like you are in a good position to save quickly, so I would do that to the point where you are unwilling to sacrifice quality of life to save faster.

Do you take lunch to work? That occurs to me as something that could potentially save you money. If I need to, I can comfortably buy everything for breakfast, lunch and dinner for less than £100 a month, and I live in Zone 1 too (I get Tesco deliveries 2x a month and just top up bread and milk. I say 'need to' as if I end up eating out it ends up being more than that - but the eating out is totally non-essential)

Barbeduk

Sorry, you are very young and your age is influencing the way you are viewing your mother's situation. She is only 53, not 73! I am 47, the choices I've made in my life were mine to make, some good, some bad. But I would never allow my children to help me out financially unless they were rich enough to afford to, which you obviously are not. Check her benefits AND her spending. If she is getting everything she is entitled to, why does she need a top up from you and your partner?

immie

I can sympathise with you that £40 on clothes sounds a lot but in reality doesn't stretch very far. Have you tried getting higher denier tights? They are more sturdy and are harder to rip. The 'temperature control' ones from M&S are £9 for a pack of 3 but lasts a lot longer than their normal range. I also buy them a couple of sizes bigger so the fabric isn't being stretched all the time (rips less !). Infact, since I switched to these tights I haven't had to throw away a single pair :-) one has a few pulls in it from my BF's 3 dogs but they do not ladder at all.

Almo

Hi Blogger,

You`ve had lots of good advice already, I would second the surveys/points suggestion, which you may have missed. I also think food could be cut, even living in London - get a supermarket delivery or use your travel pass to go to a zone which does have Aldi etc, even if you only get a couple of bags from there you`d save a bit. I think you can shave a fair amount off your food budget.

You`re entitled to spend money on coffee and gym and holidays etc, and you have no debt so in a sense it doesn`t really `matter` but unfortunately you just can`t have it both ways; you have those things and take a little longer to save or you cut them out and save faster, but are less happy while doing so. If you`re training to be an accountant I assume your salary will rise sharply on qualification - the accountants I know in London earn a huge amount more than I do! How far off is qualification?

gfplux

If your sister is a student in Germany you should be able to Skype with her for no cost. I assume you are using Skype OUT and calling a mobile or fixed line. She is a student. There will be wifi on campus and also in all the coffee shops and bars.
You should not need to pay a penny to call her or she you. She can use her laptop or a smart phone to Skype. Or even the computers on campus.

Blogger

I decided to post here for those people who had been following this topic and for those who now want to embark on a journey of saving the deposit.

:j :j :j :j :j

I am please to say that we saved small deposit which will allow us to put an offer on a tiny 2 bedroom house in London. We are in our twenties and we get no help from anyone else.

The simple answer to how this is done is not by cutting everything but somehow increasing your income. If you already lead a lean lifestyle then there is not much you can cut. Realistically you can save on things you can control. Transport, rent and bills are pretty much fixed in short term so hard to completely get rid of.

So this is how I increased my income and decreased expenditure:

1. buying & selling on ebay mostly. Made approximately £4K from this. Buy on one account, sell on the other. Simple arbitrage.

2. Getting that pay rise! Almost got sacked for being too rude and direct with my manager and yes it could have backfired but I got 8% pay rise. Not much I know but a bit of extra cash helps!

3. Switched from season ticket to daily tickets and worked as many days from home as I could to save £16.80 per day which is my ticket cost.

4. Planned for gifts months in advance. I bought my sister a trip to Paris 8 months in advance so I got a bargain.

5. Plan your lunches and take them with you at least 3 days out of 5. I was surprised how much my food bill was lowered by this.

6. Did not spend anything on clothes. It is not a necessary expenditure and clothes can wait, so can the holidays.

7. Eat healthy food. You will be surprised how much cheaper it is if you are willing to cook!

P.S. And no, I did not cut down on coffee and I did not cut down helping my mother. Again, money is a great thing to have but there are other important things in life which gives us the little pleasure we so much need sometimes.

Now moving to mortgages department of this forum

Good luck to everyone.