What changes have you made on your quest to be DF?

WifeandMummy

Hello,

Just being nosey really and wondering what changes you have made to help with your DF journey. Hoping that there may be something I haven't thought of out there. Things we have done are:

- Gone down to one car
- Cancelled Sky
- We don't pay for childcare, we work opposite shifts so we can manage childcare between us.
- We don't pay for hair cuts, i'm lucky my friend trained as a hairdresser so cuts mine and DD's hair for us, hubs shaves his.
- We changed our supermarket (also this month we have tried a new tactic where we bought for the month instead of weekly shops)
- All clothes are bought either pre loved / in the sale
- No holidays abroad (but we have a cheap UK holiday a year)
- Have a loose change jar


I'm sure there is probably a couple more things but my mind seems to have gone blank now! xx

loveka

I stopped buying clothes, magazines, newspapers and books.

I stopped buying sandwiches and coffee whilst at work- I take my own now.

I starteded making my own wine! We use kits and it works out at £1.10 a bottle.

I now do an online shop at Waitrose. I buy a huge amount of Waitrose essentials stuff. It's good value and excellent quality. Online you can limit your spend to what you need and not get tempted. Waitrose is actually surprisingly cheap for loads of things. I set a limit of £60 a week, but I bulk buy if things are on offer and keep stuff in the shed. I sometimes pop into Lidl.

I have always cooked absolutely everything from scratch but if you don't then this is a money saver!

I grow my own fruit and vegetables- if you have the room even just doing salad iin a pot saves money.

We never go out. Hmmm...don't like that one so much!

HOK3Y

We always use vouchers to pay for part of our weekly shop.

I have halved my travel expenses by taking the train instead of the car and buying monthly travel cards.

The heating is NOT going on until mid November at the earliest.

We switch off all the multiple extension cords at night so as not to pay for electric to keep things on standby.

Always take lunches with us to work.

Cleared out an awful lot of junk from the spare room and Ebayed it.....more to come!

Visiting this forum daily to keep my motivation high.

Using charts and a whiteboard to keep a visual track of progress.

Basically, do whatever it takes to succeed and remain motivated!

hummingbird

Stopped buying books - used to buy loads at one time!
Stopped putting the heating straight on as soon as I feel a bit chilly!!
Sold my car - sob:o Very sad about that but am managing well on bus and get advance tickets for train and use ticket splitting tips from Martin!:money:
Stopped buying loads of unnecessary toiletries/perfumes/shower gels/body butter/etc etc etc!!!! Still got enough to last the next decade!
:rotfl:

Hardly ever buy any new clothes except absolutely essential items
Sold lots of stuff on ebay
Lots more changes still to make though - most of these have been forced on me by circumstances!!

pennies_from_Heaven

Great thread!
For us:-
Water saving - you really don't need to bathe/shower twice or even once a day, unless you have a dirty/sweaty job or its a hot day. Having water saving devices fitted - hippo bags in the loos and a timer in the shower etc. Water butt in garden. Using the 'if its yellow......' mantra. This has saved us £70 a quarter on our water bill.

Hunting out freebies like blackberry picking and getting neighbours free windfall apples for pies & jam.

Paying close attention to food budget which can so easily run away with us!

Putting decent tyres on my car instead of the budget ones - yes it saves money on fuel strangely, and they last longer!

We have also started making wine again!

Buying a table top oven as the aga is a monster for oil usage - last winter we used £300 of oil in a month :eek: the heating is also on low and we have hardly used any oil since it was filled up in August

Off to go and look at a Waitrose delivery now .....:D

spudsofa

This is exactly the kind of thread people should read if they want to be DF.

Food budget....use BOGOF, coupons and also FOOD BANKS, you're in debt...don't be too proud.

Newspaper ? BBC News Online is free.

Mobile phones....go PAYG.

If you use the train.....try buying advance single tickets as sometimes 2 single are cheaper than return.

Xmas, birthdays and holidays....3 biggest expenditures in the year. Forget it if you want to be DF. Once you're debt free only then can you restart these luxuries.

Drinks and cigarettes.....100% NO NO

Going out.....again 100% NO NO. Go to friends or family house and enjoy quality time with them instead.

Turn off heating when no one is at home or just heat 1 room when at home.

Cook food from scratch....plenty of free online recipes or videos on youtube showing you how.

These are things everyone can do, being DF is a state of mind.

W

Candy0107

Hi,

There are a couple of tricks I used on my debt free journey....these were:

• Read papers and mags online
• Sign up to quidco
• Do daily clicks
• Have a budget beauty day - this is where everything (shower gel, shampoo, deodorant etc) is from the economy brand of your supermarket
• Sign up to the sealed pot challenge, I used 1/2 the money towards a debt and the other half as a treat
• I highly recommend no spend days
• Stay in at the weekends rather than going out - have friends over instead of going to the pub
• Avoid town at the weekend - even though I am DF, I still don't like town as it gets too busy, and encourages me to spend money on coffee, and clothes I don't really need

Hope this helps

Candy

[Deleted User]

Brilliant thread!

So far we have:

• Cancelled SKY and now just have a freesat recorder with no monthly subscription, saves us at least £30/month.
• Sold my car but needs must, and we don't need a second car anymore. Factor in petrol prices, mot and tax costs, as well as insurance and we are saving best part of £150/month and the sale price of the car helps towards the debts.
• Walking everywhere a lot more. Saves on petrol and we get more exercise - win win!
• Convinced family to use up our stash of toiletries before we buy any more, we have enough to last us til xmas!
• Cut our weekly food shopping budget for a family of 5 from £80-100/week, down to £60/week max.
• Went to a SIM-only contract and saved about £25/month. Same amount of calls/text allowance, but a third of the price.
• Sold lots of bits and pieces around the house and made about £250 towards becoming DF.

Nagme

Good thread
I think we will not buy budget tyres next time, they don't last half as long! We're both petrol heads and have 4 vehicles between us. I'd rather manage our debt than let it get out of control and have to sell my beloved classic mini, which I keep garaged to slow down the rust growth. He's SORN'd at the moment to save money. Unfortunately I'm sentimentally attached to him as my father has done work on the engine and is not very well so selling him will be a sad last resort.

We have:

• Reduced water usage by me not showering every day, wash in the sink old-style on non shower days! Use our water butts in summer. Teaching 6yr old to help save water.
• Bought DH more economical car for his 100mile a day commute.
• Use online shop - I probably save a good £30 a week this way.
• Batch cooking and downshifting, some of the value range is excellent!
• Fixed the energy bills
• DH takes packed lunches. I get free lunch at my 3 days a week job.
• Moved to a cheaper phone tarrif
• Don't have Sky, just a basic Lovefilm subscription, and we don't buy DVDs
• Downloaded an excellent app for sorting our debt, only found it this morning, and love it already. They have a "snowflake" system where you enter each little overpayments and it shows you the longterm benefit of reducing the debt. Very motivating,
• Just about to sell my car and downgrade to a cheaper one.
• Stopped eating out except for very rare occasions - used to eat out every week.
• Buy some stuff like washing powder and dishwashing tablets, and cat litter from Aldis
• Washing the cars ourselves instead of using carwash.
• Cut dishwasher tablets in half - still cleans fine
• Bulk buying non perishable when price is lower - I am very aware of prices of stuff and know a good price when I see one.
• Selling and buying pre-loved.
• Turn the lights off, shut doors to unused rooms, have a door curtain, thermal lounge curtains, power save function rather than standby!
• Borrow books from library and friends. No impulse purchases of magazines
• Grown hair long, annual haircut!
• Having NSDs - staying at home on my days off, something I never could do!

Southernman

Reduced my phone contract to a sim only £10 a month
Never spend money at work. Don't even carry change in my purse so i don't get tempted.
Cancelled the gym and went road running instead.
Involved in my company's sharesave reducing the amount of student loan that comes out (i'll never pay it all off anyway) and saving £75 a month at the same time.
Take advantage of the free Waitrose coffee- every single working day.
When i do go out, i take a hip flask of alcohol so i don't have to pay extortionate prices for a vodka and coke.
Give myself a monthly budget for everything (food, travel, essentials etc) and never go above it. If it means i'd have to go over budget, that luxury item waits until next month.
Save £2 coins in a pot and do the sealed pot challenge
Anything like mortgage overpayment/savings pot goes in straight away at the beginning of the month so i don't see it, forget about it as though once it's gone it's gone. Credit card debt can be done in the same approach.

WifeandMummy

Thanks for all the replies it's great to see what everyone else has done. I also don't buy "smellies" - I recently went through all the gift sets I'd received for birthdays and Christmas, don't ask why but I had always just put these away?! Anyway they are now all out the boxes and in my toiletries box and I will always check in there before buying shower gel / bubble bath / moisturiser etc also I cut the bottom of my shampoo and conditioner and got a couple more washers out of it xxx