The 1% Challenge - 100 ways to make your 1%

niknok_2

happytails wrote: »

You must have some bits in, odds and sods, list them and we can see if you can incorporate them into some dishes.

Id look at getting a big sack of potatoes and having potato with each dinner. Maybe a big bag of pasta. Corned beef is good (You can make a corned beef hash cheap!), Cheap cereal and longlife milk? Go to the supermarket after 7 today and see if they have anything reduced especially meat? A frozen bag of mixed veg? I hope those ideas may help a little and maybe reduce your amount of spend on the CC.

Well my insurance looks like it will be about £800-£850 for both of us together annually. I think at the moment its £1300 (half is annual and the other is monthly) so a big drop We've got 6 months and a bit until its due so think we will get this overdraft out of the way, the holiday and the revised work in the house that needs doing then get some money put aside for the car insurance. It never ends!! Then ive got the CC to pay off and the balloon payment on the husbands car! All in 18 months. Thats about £10,500 :eek: I think ill stick to breaking it up in mangeable amounts and doing a debt/saving at a time!

ok off to go tidy the lounge and find some more bits to sell.

Sarah x

Thanks so much for all your tips! I went and had a look through my cupboards, listed what I had and what meals I could make and then headed to the supermarket. We usually do a shop every 2-3 weeks which is around £110 this time I managed to get enough for at least 2-3 weeks for £60!! This included free nappies which sainsburys are doing an offer on. Thanks so much

liz-paul

Good tips there Sarah. niknok there is a grocery challenge on the old style board each month that even if you didn't want to join it can be worth a read to help reduce your grocery spends. In a year I've gone from a monthly spend of £550 - £600 per month to about £400 - £425 without feeling like I've suffered. Not to mention we probably save £80 - £100 per month by rarely having takeaways (instead of at least one a week) and probably another £100 per month by cutting back on eating out (esp lunches, we now usually take a packed lunch for family days out).

niknok_2

liz-paul wrote: »

Good tips there Sarah. niknok there is a grocery challenge on the old style board each month that even if you didn't want to join it can be worth a read to help reduce your grocery spends. In a year I've gone from a monthly spend of £550 - £600 per month to about £400 - £425 without feeling like I've suffered. Not to mention we probably save £80 - £100 per month by rarely having takeaways (instead of at least one a week) and probably another £100 per month by cutting back on eating out (esp lunches, we now usually take a packed lunch for family days out).

This is something we used to do a lot of! We would be buying food shopping and then going out for dinner or having 2 takeaways a weeks and were spending silly amounts on wine every week.... pregnancy has its perks and we have saved a bucket load on alcohol and going out.

Just worrying that we are going to struggle in about 3 pay days time because that when my pay drops to half!

On a positive note yesterday I made my first 1%!! £12 I forgot about in a bingo account which is going into my account this week and an ebay sale of £5!

Mightyoak

Hi all, just a quick update - I have listed a load of stuff in eBay and it all sold!! It will never cease to amaze me what people will buy and pay for, especially if somebody else wants it!! Anyway managed to raise £250+ in a week so after fees and postage I will be at least 15% into my challenge:j BTW is anybody else shocked at the amount of money you have to pay for postage after the PO revised its fees I feel another forum topic coming........

If you can be bothered to list your items they will sell, I have just put stuff on thats been lying wardrobes for months - it nearly went to the tip or charity. I dread to think how much money I've sent to land fill.....

anyway, keep up the good work and stay motivated!!

Mightyoak

Just transferred £110, 10% DONE!!!

happytails

Thats great Mighty Oak!Well done! I need to stick more stuff on Ebay. i keep adding to my pile of stuff to sell and only listing 10% of it LOL

Another area of massive spend is the husband buying lunch at work. Im going to start seeing if he can take a packed lunch instead. They have a microwave so some days it can be HM soup and a roll with some chopped veg and some fruit, other days it can be sandwiches. He has a wide thermal mug for soups etc which we can probably put stew in etc. I reckon he spends about £2-3.50 most days which is quite alot! (ive asked him to make note of his spends but i bet he doesnt)

Ive spent some of the morning prepping my friends birthday present so need to sew that up tonight when the kids are in bed. Hopefully the husband wil make some more pizza dough and BBQ sauce tonight, i know he is making chicken goujons.

Off to 'hop & bop' with the kids in 20 mins so best get ready seeing as 1 of them is refusing to get dressed! LOL

Sarah x

Mightyoak wrote: »

Hi all, just a quick update - I have listed a load of stuff in eBay and it all sold!! It will never cease to amaze me what people will buy and pay for, especially if somebody else wants it!! Anyway managed to raise £250+ in a week so after fees and postage I will be at least 15% into my challenge:j BTW is anybody else shocked at the amount of money you have to pay for postage after the PO revised its fees I feel another forum topic coming........

If you can be bothered to list your items they will sell, I have just put stuff on thats been lying wardrobes for months - it nearly went to the tip or charity. I dread to think how much money I've sent to land fill.....

anyway, keep up the good work and stay motivated!!

fedupandskint

£9 odd made so far on ebay - still 29 items to finish at the weekend. I'll be back then with a proper 1% update for profits once fees have been paid and have transferred to repay CC debt

Little_Miss_Uni-Debt

Hi Folks,

How are things going for everyone? It has been a quiet week for me for percentages. I've had a little Quidco cash back and I've made some little over payments as the month is going along.

I have got a good system going now where my overpayments are built into my weekly budget, before I'd just put aside my percents as I made them and I wasn't making the most of my weekly wages.

So now each weeks wages gets directed to different places...

Week 1 & 2 go to the joint bank account to cover bills, food & savings towards annual payments etc. All 'housey' payments are made from there.

Week 3 - Goes to covering minimum payments and a little extra too. Each card is reduced by 0.25% and my highest apr card comes down by 2.5%

Week 4 - Plus any cash made from percenting is all overpayment to my highest rate apr card! I aim for 5% but since I've been working this way since Feb it has worked out at 3% or 4%, which isn't too bad!

Week 5 - On the occasions there is a fifth Friday in the month (like May ) This can all go to overpayment too! However I might put some aside for emergency car repairs as I always seem unprepared for them. A portion might even go towards a day out.

I usually transfer over round amounts so any cash that gets left in my current account is used for petrol, the occasional mobile top-up and birthday presents. I can still have the odd treat as long as it stays within the boundaries of what's left. I also like use this to round down my cards to the nearest £5. It keeps me motivated

So I'm clearing between 6% and 8% on each 4 week cycle! Maybe with 5 weeks in May, if I work hard - it could be 10%+ and I can get rid of my highest rate card! Hurray!

Hope you are all finding new ways to build up those percents! It's getting to be nicer weather now so I might even brave a car boot soon!

braddy970

Good morning all, my minimum payment for cc debt2 has come out this morning £52.49 bringing my % up to 37.93% / 100% debt 1 still at 42.05%/100% and debt #2 is at 11.68%/100% almost at 12% x

niknok_2

Morning everyone.

I'm really getting into this! Its only been a week since I joined and I know my 1% isnt massive on my first target but this week ive secured 1.5% which im chuffed with. I have transfered it into a savings account so that I can keep track and then make a payment when I get to about 10%

Sat down last night and we added up EVERYTHING we owe. Not pretty at 22k and being on mat leave BUT i'm battling it now and it will only be going down from now on.