Newie trying to sort out finances

FireWyrm

Groupon is also useful. Although we are advocating a little austerity, if you clamp down too much, it just ends up being counter productive. In our case, the husband and I are going for a steak lunch on Monday courtesy of that site. The meal would have cost £40, we're getting it for £17. I consider that we deserve a little R&R and so I'm willing to part with under twenty pounds to achieve that purpose. Like I said, live, but not at the old price...its about finding new ways to budget.

Try Quidco also for offers. If you're coming up for insurance renewal, there are always offers there too. I always buy my petfood through them for instance and as well as free delivery, I get 5% cashback on top of only every buying the weekly offers anyway.

You've made some fantastic changes in the last 24 hours since you first posted and made a dramatic about face in your attitude. This whole thing takes time and effort and it doesnt happen over night. Remember what I said about a 'change in mindset' which is exactly what you have appeared to achieve so far. Now, its not about massive changes, it's about slow, incremental ones that happen over the course of months.

Have you thought about restructuring your finances at all yet? I strongly suggest you separate your running expenses from your bills accounts. You could probably also use a couple of e-savings accounts for 'piggy banking' your savings if you have any.

What are your plans for the longer term bills? What are they? What about Christmas and special occassions? Do you have any ideas how you would like to do that on a budget?

There is still much to think about and once you get into the swing of things, you'll be chomping at the bit to make even more savings.

matttye

FireWyrm wrote: »

Groupon is also useful. Although we are advocating a little austerity, if you clamp down too much, it just ends up being counter productive. In our case, the husband and I are going for a steak lunch on Monday courtesy of that site. The meal would have cost £40, we're getting it for £17. I consider that we deserve a little R&R and so I'm willing to part with under twenty pounds to achieve that purpose. Like I said, live, but not at the old price...its about finding new ways to budget.

Try Quidco also for offers. If you're coming up for insurance renewal, there are always offers there too. I always buy my petfood through them for instance and as well as free delivery, I get 5% cashback on top of only every buying the weekly offers anyway.

You've made some fantastic changes in the last 24 hours since you first posted and made a dramatic about face in your attitude. This whole thing takes time and effort and it doesnt happen over night. Remember what I said about a 'change in mindset' which is exactly what you have appeared to achieve so far. Now, its not about massive changes, it's about slow, incremental ones that happen over the course of months.

Have you thought about restructuring your finances at all yet? I strongly suggest you separate your running expenses from your bills accounts. You could probably also use a couple of e-savings accounts for 'piggy banking' your savings if you have any.

What are your plans for the longer term bills? What are they? What about Christmas and special occassions? Do you have any ideas how you would like to do that on a budget?

There is still much to think about and once you get into the swing of things, you'll be chomping at the bit to make even more savings.

Yep Groupon is an amazing app. Bought my fiancee a cupcake set on there. Was supposed to be £90 and I paid something like £30 for it.

Also got two sets of tickets for two to wildlife parks at less than half price

jessie4109

Just a suggestion for being sociable in the future, does your home allow you enough space for entertaining?

About once a month I have friends round and will cook a meal for us and open some wine. This can vary from lasagne, salad and garlic bread to curries to chicken fajitas. Friends will often bring a bottle with them but I will have some in the house (just bottles from Aldi lol) I find this to work out much cheaper than going out as neither me or my friends have a lot of money to go out somewhere.

Connie

Re salad:

If you have space for pots/tubs, either indoors or outside, buy a couple of Living Salads (99p each from Lidl).
Stand the punnets in water to soak roots thoroughly; remove from cartons and divide each into 6 or 8 clumps, and plant in pots of compost.
They'll keep producing leaves all summer. Just pick regularly and keep watered.

Much cheaper than buying bags of salad, and easier than growing from seed (although that's the cheapest way).

FatVonD

ilovelondontown wrote: »

In fact I was reminded that we are supposed to be seeing friends tomorrow for a dinner in town, having cancelled on them twice previously and them already asking where we should book to meet, I'm feeling reminded of why we are in the situation we are, because we are sociable people, we see different friends all the time, how do I explain to them that we don't spend money in the same way anymore, because we are in debt?? My only thinking is that we do, we don't have anything to drink and just get a main meal each.

Search online for vouchers, chains like Cafe Rouge, Zizzi etc always seem to have BOGOF deals. Print an extra voucher out for your friends so you don't feel like a skinflint!

On the subject of takeaways, while going down a brand or two is great most of the time think about having something a bit nicer for the nights you'd be tempted to have a takeaway. For instance, I knew I was collecting a Tesco order today and we had nothing exciting in the house for last nights dinner. We bought Chinese/Thai curry from Sainsburys (current deal, 4 mains plus 2 sides for £10.) It tastes way better than the Tesco ones so it was still a 'treat' but it was a quarter of the price of a takeaway.