How to fall in love with saving money

WantToBeSE

Hi Cathy


I cant believe that 5 months has already flow by since Christmas! Madness!
I am feeling my focus wandering too, which is where MSE and savings diaries come in handy.


Off to work now, catch you later!

cathybird

hi WantToBeSE - have fun at work This month and next month are quite expensive for me - lots of insurance due. Which is a bit disheartening. I wonder if I can work out a way to really remotivate myself.

atush

I saw that you had been away for a bit.

I have to say, that my former low spending illness was not a chronic condition. I am sorry to say my Tesco spend was well over 100 this past friday.

I am sure it was exacerbated by the fact I was away for over 3 weeks. During this time, no one replaced anything just bought what they needed. Used up stuff I stock up on w/o telling me (such as dog food, condiments, paper products, canned goods- I only buy these at discount on special offer- I never pay full price.)

Then also bought new things I HAD stocked up on but were blinded (by football?) when they opened the cupboard and 'couldn't see' them.

Also some of my 'stock' incl a bottle of wine or 2 went missing- I presume to my son's new flat lol.

So consequently I had to restock some stuff.

This week will be expensive for me- my BFF B'day and I am taking her to lunch (instead of my normal friday spend of an M&S sarnie lol). had left overs of an exotic type last night to make up for it (Katsudon).

cathybird

hi all! It has been a few days - I hadn't realised it had been so long. I had friends over for lunch on Friday, which went really well but took up a lot of mental space in the three or so days beforehand because of the preparations, then I was knackered yesterday. I'd like to do it more often though - I like cooking and it was really nice to see them.

I finally sat down and worked out my savings figure for April (! it's only nearly June already), it was £607.57, it could be worse but I have a little catching up to do if I am to make my goal of £12,000 by the end of the year.

I hope everyone else has been well the past few days It's good to be back.

hex2

Wot no book spend update? (Showing my age there!)

organic_wanabe

Hi Cathy. I find that entertaining friends is lovely but leaves me worn out. All the cleaning beforehand and then the actual cooking and fretting about whether the food will be a success. Are you going to share with us what you served up? I had 6 for a meal recently and served a Prawn, Smoked Salmon & Smoked Trout starter with salad followed by Chicken Marbella, Dauphinoise Potatoes & Veg, with a dessert of Eton Mess Ice Cream Cake.

We have a couple of friends who, like me, enjoy good value. We have, in the past, joked about having a frugal dinner party to see who can spend the least but still provide an enjoyable tasty meal. I might re-visit the idea, setting a budget of around £2.50 per head for a 3-course meal (not including the wine, of course!).

Well done on boosting savings further. By the way - did you get around to joining your work's Share Save Scheme?

cathybird

hi hex2!! I've tried the "stay off books" pledge but in all honesty think even after a short amount of time it's not going to work for me, so I suppose the next step is to set some kind of budget, or work out if there are some books I can actually get rid of to justify the spend. Something to think about The other thing though, do you not find you have loads of books on your shelves that you bought that you haven't read? ... That was why I joined the pledge in the first place. I do think I ought to put in some kind of system - read two books I already own before I'm allowed to buy any, for instance. What do you think? ...

cathybird

hi organic wanabe It's good to be back. I did in fact take pics of the food, must see if I can post them somehow - I know pics can be posted on MSE. I served up nibblies (nuts, olives etc, with some peppers stuffed with a mix of cream cheese and pesto) followed by the main spread, which consisted of asparagus and gruyere tart, aubergine tian and salad, then dessert, which was little chocolate pots - two flavours, espresso chocolate or plain, my guests had a choice. I'll dig out the pics. I didn't count up the cost but it was a vegetarian meal (coincidentally) so will not have been as expensive as it could have been.

What would you serve for £2.50 a head? ... I'm curious

cathybird

cathybird