Addicted to Starbuck$

crimson.addict

It's new years eve according to the Ethiopian calendar according to an e-mail this morning from Starbucks... It was upon announcing this to the office and trying to work out how to sneak out of work for a coffee that i realised i may be slightly addicted.......that teamed with the fact that i spend around £100 a month at starbuck$.....

Anyway, that's where the name came from.

I started this diary because i have been a little slack with my savings recently. I haven't paid into my ISA at all this year. Now i don't have a lot saved away but i am trying to save a little life buffer and would possibly like to eventually buy a house.....

My sister has asked if she could borrow £2000 which she will pay me back over 2 years. I have agreed to do this but i realised recently that i will lose a good chunk of interest every month.

So, to tie it all in, my mission is to loan my sister the money as agreed and i pay it back to myself before 2014. Should i manage this, i will treat the money she pays me back as a little bonus to myself.

Something tells me i need to cut back on the coffee haha.

There are 16 paydays until 2014 (i get paid weekly) That's £125 a week i need to save. I also need to pay my rent and my loan and living costs so wish me luck

crimson.addict

Step 1 - Sort out where the money is coming from and actually transfer the money to my sister. For this i will need to call the bank

crimson.addict

Sorted, my sister has her money and she is setting me up a direct payment.

Good news, she has agreed to pay me £100 interest as this is what i would have got in my ISA

Bad news Three mobile have stolen £17.36 from me! Tried calling but as i am not with them i can only get through to sales (line goes dead when they transfer). I have put in a complain which will be answered in 72 hours apparently so we will see.

Now to sort out my spreadsheets

FalseEconomist

Good luck! It sounds like things are moving forward. My husband is also addicted to coffee- so I bought him a dolce gusto machine to try and persuade him not to spend a fortune in costa- this was without reckoning how much the flipping capsules cost

farnesbarn

I feel your pain...except my drug of choice is costa!
good luck
fb

Silly_Spender

Good luck cutting out the coffees! I'm quite lucky in that there isn't a Starbucks in the shopping mall I work at, or anywhere that does a frappe that compares, else I'd be spending far too much on them!

Do you find you have the same drink every day? May also be cheaper if you try and recreate it somehow. For example if I go, I generally have a shot of hazelnut syrup in whatever I have, so I bought a bottle of the syrup and I can put it in my own drinks at home now. And it doesn't cost all that much, even from Starbucks itself, less than the price of an actual drink and you'll have it for a while.

trixie888

Loving sister.

crimson.addict

FalseEconomist wrote: »

Good luck! It sounds like things are moving forward. My husband is also addicted to coffee- so I bought him a dolce gusto machine to try and persuade him not to spend a fortune in costa- this was without reckoning how much the flipping capsules cost

I bought a Nespresso machine for that very reason. Whilst the coffee is amazing i'm never at home to use it. I only really sleep at home.... Once i manage to get my own place though i can see it coming in handy

You however deserve a medal for managing to live with a coffee addict haha

Silly_Spender wrote: »

Good luck cutting out the coffees! I'm quite lucky in that there isn't a Starbucks in the shopping mall I work at, or anywhere that does a frappe that compares, else I'd be spending far too much on them!

Do you find you have the same drink every day? May also be cheaper if you try and recreate it somehow. For example if I go, I generally have a shot of hazelnut syrup in whatever I have, so I bought a bottle of the syrup and I can put it in my own drinks at home now. And it doesn't cost all that much, even from Starbucks itself, less than the price of an actual drink and you'll have it for a while.

I have all different drinks but mostly stick to the following 3.
Chai Latte - haven't yet managed to replicate it yet. They use a syrup you can only get in the states
Cool Lime Refresher - again, they use a syrup that i can't get hold of
Caramel and Hazelnut Latte - I have 2 pumps of each in my drink. I have tried buying the syrups for this but i find they are tasteless and if you use enough to actually taste it its far too sweet for me...

Now i'm craving lol

farnesbarn - Thank you for stopping by. At SB, once you buy 50 drinks you are a gold member.... it took me 2 months to achieve this

trixie888 - She'd better believe it! lol.

I can see from your status your sibling is very kind also.



Thank you all for stopping by and posting. I did stop by a SB last night but i was going shopping and the football was on so i HAD to get out the house..... What's a girl to do

trixie888

crimson.addict wrote: »

trixie888 - She'd better believe it! lol. Currently three of my sisters owe me money, none as much as that though. It's an ongoing drama lol

I can see from your status your sibling is very kind also.



Thank you all for stopping by and posting. I did stop by a SB last night but i was going shopping and the football was on so i HAD to get out the house..... What's a girl to do

Haha! Siblings do give-and-take... I did the same thing to both of my brothers. Now that I am in deep S*** and he's doing damn well, it's his turn to help me out. I owe him 4 times that amount on my status and slowly paid him but the remains will probably be paid next year.

So lucky to have sweet siblings, haha. Way to go girl!

crimson.addict

trixie888 wrote: »

Haha! Siblings do give-and-take... I did the same thing to both of my brothers. Now that I am in deep S*** and he's doing damn well, it's his turn to help me out. I owe him 4 times that amount on my status and slowly paid him but the remains will probably be paid next year.

So lucky to have sweet siblings, haha. Way to go girl!

The sister i have just loaned money to has set up a bank transfer so i won't have to ask her for money. We have agreed 2 years to pay back and she has set the transfer for £100. This means she gets three defaults should she need it.

hmmmm, we shall see how this pans out.

crimson.addict

I have just set up a savings account which will take £250 a month from my bank. It works out at 2.25% pa which is apparently more than i'm getting with my ISA. From my calculations it's a little less, however, this way i am FORCED to save so it probably works out better off.

I'm at least taking steps forward

If it doesn't work out i can reduce the amount to £20 and will have to have the willpower to add to my ISA.

Needless to say, this break i've been having from saving is well and truly over! For good i hope!