Buy Nothing for Six Months

madaminx

ImDoingItForMe wrote: »

I will be interested in following this to. Ive done the grocery challenge for a couple of months and now can shop for a whole month on just over £40 (theres only me though). I have also stopped shopping as a past time. Ive managed to save £800 towards my holiday by not buying rubbish and I still managed to have nights out, meals out occasionally. My wages are minimal, I only work 30 hours and am according to some newspapers on or below the poverty line. But I don't actually need or want for anything. Its a case of cutting your cloth. Oh and hair dye, I still do mine and yes to me its a necessity, I just buy them reduced (damaged packaging etc). Haircut now cost me £5. Ive enjoyed the challenge.

WAOW, I'm totally impressed, please advise on how you manage food shopping on just over £40 pm. There's only me too paying off a car and a mortgage and all the other related expenses such as insurance etc. Please advise. Would love to hear your advice.

Thanks

helzbelz_57

just a quick update from me

today I got my letter from income support confirming that they would be backdating my claim to the 20th of june due to their error so I checked my account and hooray! they had paid it in already so I took it and paid off £450 of debt there and then so that brings the debt down to £3175.

I did also have some necessary spending to do and I thought it best to do it whilst I had that money available so I bought youngest son two school jumpers as I've been trawling through the CShops and no joy at all as he is very tiny so I conceded defeat and bought them new. I also bought bread, milk, water (as we were walking and it was v warm) some sweeties and crisps for our dvd night tomorrow night and I got my eldest a new pair of trainers in the peacock's sale for £5 as his are coming apart at the soles. until today I had been doing very well with not spending but I can start again tomorrow with NSDs and i'm carbooting on sunday so hopefully will have a bit more to put towards debt repayments by Monday.

hope it's going well for everyone else.

mishmogs

helzbelz_57 wrote: »

hi this is a great thread and couldn't have come at a better time for me.

I decided last week that I needed to pull my head out of the sand and sort my finances- I have just over £3500 of debt and I have set myself the challenge of having it paid off by 01/01/2014 so just under 5 months.

I started on 01/08/2013 and so far I am enjoying it. I'm a bit hungrier than usual but that's because I am used to eating lots of junk.

my rules are pretty much similar to most people on this thread. I have two children aged 4 and 8 and a new uniform has to be purchased for the 4 year old starting school in September.

I am really not a big consumer, I don't smoke, drink, buy clothes, music, newspapers, magazines, beauty/hair treatments but my one big vice is junk food- I buy far too much and I also eat out of the house far too often as I am very lazy when it comes to cooking so I think that will be my biggest challenge.

I have cancelled sky tv and will cancel my talk talk phone and broadband too and am going to see if I can reduce my orange mobile bill somehow.

another big expense for me is my car so i'm hoping to sell it and buy something much cheaper (I need a car for work as I work random hours out in the sticks with no public transport)

I am also going to pull out all the stops in getting as much more work as I can and have already had a massive clearout and sorted lots of stuff to ebay and carboot.

I will be watching this thread for support and hopefully updating with success.

good luck to you all.

(i'm going to read the rest of the thread as I only read to page 5)

Hello Helzbelz, I have only been on this thread for about a month and it has helped me not buy anything new and like you, I have further reduced our outgoing. Sky - gone and BT vision at £9 per months in its place a saving of £30pm. Our mobile contracts are going in a couple of months, I didn't want the da*n things anyway but HWMBO wanted the latest gadget and said I should have it too... grrrr if only he had listened to me in the first place eh??!!

I took water and a sarnie with me whenever I went out anywhere and its saved me a fair bit of dosh so far. I have started to pay myself £3 each time I take out my own food (which is 99% of the time) which I save and will use to pay off a chunk of my cc at the end of the month. Would this help you as an incentive to cut out the junk food?

I thought we needed some new bedding but I had a root around my airing cupboard and found a set of bedding which I had forgotten about and have been using that. No spend!

I have been clearing out bits n pieces every day and sending them to the charity shop once a week, 3 bags last week and 2 this week. Am aiming to clear a cupboard or a drawer at a time. The bathroom has been done and I won't need any shampoo, conditioner or shower gubbins for the rest of the year.

I got the book Zero Waste Home from the library and it was ok, made me look at the stuff I have and question if I really need it. I have also reduced the amount of stuff I had in pots in the garden and will get rid of a couple more come the autumn. There is plenty of stuff in the garden borders already!!

Been using the library a lot more this year and when I want a book and have 'tried' it from the library, I ask myself if its worth it and will I use it. More often than not, I can find what I need to know on tinternet.

I thought we were doing ok food wise, spending about £40-£50pw for two of us, sometimes less. I think I still need to look at this and try and get it down. Its not easy!!!

Enough rabbiting for this evening, will check back next weekend and report in.. ttfn

helzbelz_57

mishmogs wrote: »

Hello Helzbelz, I have only been on this thread for about a month and it has helped me not buy anything new and like you, I have further reduced our outgoing. Sky - gone and BT vision at £9 per months in its place a saving of £30pm. Our mobile contracts are going in a couple of months, I didn't want the da*n things anyway but HWMBO wanted the latest gadget and said I should have it too... grrrr if only he had listened to me in the first place eh??!!

I took water and a sarnie with me whenever I went out anywhere and its saved me a fair bit of dosh so far. I have started to pay myself £3 each time I take out my own food (which is 99% of the time) which I save and will use to pay off a chunk of my cc at the end of the month. Would this help you as an incentive to cut out the junk food?

I thought we needed some new bedding but I had a root around my airing cupboard and found a set of bedding which I had forgotten about and have been using that. No spend!

I have been clearing out bits n pieces every day and sending them to the charity shop once a week, 3 bags last week and 2 this week. Am aiming to clear a cupboard or a drawer at a time. The bathroom has been done and I won't need any shampoo, conditioner or shower gubbins for the rest of the year.

I got the book Zero Waste Home from the library and it was ok, made me look at the stuff I have and question if I really need it. I have also reduced the amount of stuff I had in pots in the garden and will get rid of a couple more come the autumn. There is plenty of stuff in the garden borders already!!

Been using the library a lot more this year and when I want a book and have 'tried' it from the library, I ask myself if its worth it and will I use it. More often than not, I can find what I need to know on tinternet.

I thought we were doing ok food wise, spending about £40-£50pw for two of us, sometimes less. I think I still need to look at this and try and get it down. Its not easy!!!

Enough rabbiting for this evening, will check back next weekend and report in.. ttfn

this is a brilliant idea and yes I think it would be really helpful to get me in the way of cutting down.

I had a spending day yesterday unfortunately. my children were due to spend Friday- sunday with their dad but he cancelled so we decided to go to a once a year family event yesterday as they were pretty gutted about not seeing dad. as I had no food in (wasn't expecting to have dcs here), there was nothing to take with us so we got food on the way and then the event went on a lot longer than expected and we had a bit of a walk to get home afterwards so we got food again in the town before setting off so that was a good chunk of money I hadn't expected to spend but we had a fab day and the event itself was free.

starting again today with NSDs- tomorrow is my usual grocery day though and all we have in is cereal,milk and bread and a naan bread that we're going to make into pizza for tonight with some pesto and cheese. so there will be spending tomorrow but i'm doing a meal plan this evening so it shouldn't be a big spend.

i'm also doing the clear-out a drawer at a time and it's working for me. I didn't get to the boot sale today as i'd need to be there at 6am and dcs were shattered from yesterday- also, ds1 could be trusted to stay with me throughout the sale but at 4 ds2 is just too flighty and I would end up having to leave my stuff too often to bring him back. it's on again next weekend though so hopefully exp will have the dcs then so I can go.

madaminx

wondercollie wrote: »

You don't want to know what they charge for Filofax refills if you live in North Americas. Usually it's cheaper to buy a ne set in our version of TK Maxx!

You can get cheaper filofax refills on ebay. :-)

Broomstick

Has anyone consciously kept their version of no-spend going?

I decided to go onto an essentials-only budget at the start of the year. (I was already pretty close to it.) Obviously household bills are being paid (with the goal to reduce these bit by bit) and I'm also allowing the purchase of:

- food to prepare from as near scratch as reasonable and drink (we don't have alcohol),

- most basic of household items (bin bags, washing up liquid etc - am heading towards going greener on some of this),

- the simplest of toiletries and first aid supplies,

- essential items to do with our self-employed work,

- costs of keeping the car safely on the road (the new bulb for the car headlight was allowed, the car-wash isn't!)

- a basic budget for all presents including Xmas 2014

- emergency supplies like flood protection, alternative lighting, gas canisters, good quality hot-water bottles etc.

- maintaining a basic set of the outdoor clothing we each need to keep us warm and dry (strong shoes or wellies are allowed as purchases but woolly hats and gloves can be made at home from the pre-existing wool stash!),

- things to enable the mending or using of items we already have if we can't borrow these items (duck tape and polyfiller for DIY were fine as was elastic to mend trousers because I had none of the right size in my stash).

Nothing else should be bought. Making or making do, borrowing, being given surplus from other people who are decluttering are all fine.

I'm keeping a note of anything where I've decided to buy something, together with my justification for getting it, if it falls outside my rules.

I broke the rules when I bought someone a birthday card and could have made it but chose not to send this particular family something that may well have been looked down on. I'm finding that it really helps focus if I make myself justify non-essential spends in writing.

The other thing that has helped enormously is seeing a 'novelty' tin like this for sale:
http://media.houseofcards.co.uk/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/398x398/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/r/e/receipts_bs.jpg

Says it all really (but there's no way I'm buying one!)

B x

karren

I'd like to try more no spend days as really want to get spending in check this year
We have a 14 year old and 10 so sometimes no choice but I do try best not to buy junk but it ends up here!

mcculloch29

I wonder how everyone is doing?
When I became more markedly disabled that was a wonderful incentive to stop spending as I can't get round shops as easily. Most of my week is NSDs.
I do a lot of surveys online and use the resulting vouchers for birthday presents for family and anything I need. So far this year I have 'earned' £80 with other amounts nearing pay-out.

I spent £31 last week on Am@zon on items related to my disability, but I also try and buy things that will save me money - my battery charger and rechargeable batteries for example, or the long-life energy-efficient GU10 bulbs in the kitchen light fitting, or budget cookbooks (Jack Monroe's and some second hand ones, one cost me 1p . )