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Time to wake up and smell the free work provided coffee...

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  • John1993_2
    John1993_2 Posts: 1,090 Forumite
    Ianise wrote: »
    Takeaways will be cut down, if not out. As I was recently diagnosed with Gluten intolerance,/QUOTE]

    By a qualified nutritionist, after a full battery of blood and stool tests, carried out at hospital, or by a "dietician" at a health food shop or in an "alternative" practice?

    If the latter, please, please follow it up through the proper channels before you decide to start paying through the nose for unnecessary "health" foods.

    If you've celiac disease, then that's one thing, but there's a ridiculous fad nowadays for people without this actual disease to be convinced that they have "intolerances". It's extremely rare to have gluten intolerance, and certainly it does not exist in the 20-30% of subjects diagnosed with such by he morons in Holland and Barrett.
  • By a qualified nutritionist, after a full battery of blood and stool tests, carried out at hospital, or by a "dietician" at a health food shop or in an "alternative" practice?

    Good advice, but you have the terms the wrong way round. A Dietitian is a legally defined term, that requires specific qualifications.

    Anyone can call themselves a Nutritionist and give out quack advice in health food shops.
  • Ianise
    Ianise Posts: 85 Forumite
    edited 13 November 2013 at 10:11AM
    John1993 wrote: »
    Ianise wrote: »
    Takeaways will be cut down, if not out. As I was recently diagnosed with Gluten intolerance,/QUOTE]

    By a qualified nutritionist, after a full battery of blood and stool tests, carried out at hospital, or by a "dietician" at a health food shop or in an "alternative" practice?

    If the latter, please, please follow it up through the proper channels before you decide to start paying through the nose for unnecessary "health" foods.

    If you've celiac disease, then that's one thing, but there's a ridiculous fad nowadays for people without this actual disease to be convinced that they have "intolerances". It's extremely rare to have gluten intolerance, and certainly it does not exist in the 20-30% of subjects diagnosed with such by he morons in Holland and Barrett.

    Through the doctors surgery. I have had a lot of stomach pain, discomfort and bloating for 13 weeks. I finally persuaded my doctor to stop giving me pills that were doing nothing and do blood tests.

    This included a Celiacs test. The test came back negative, but he said that it can sometimes take up to 3 tests to actually diagnose. So he said that he felt that the most likely cause was Gluten intollerance and to cut out all forms for 2 weeks to see how it goes... 5 days in and I have literally no stomach pain or bloating.

    I won't be buying any gluten free, I have printed a list of whole foods that are gluten free and I will be making my meal plan around them.

    For example I made this the other day. http://www.fitsugar.com/Paleo-Pasta-Recipe-Carrot-Fettuccine-32291365

    I made my own sauce with chopped tomatoes, onions and garlic. all ingredients I had at home. Completely free form gluten and no nasties what so ever.

    I will be following the Paleo diet so Gluten free buys at Asda etc will not be made. It will be fruit, veg and meat basically.
  • paulineb_2
    paulineb_2 Posts: 6,489 Forumite
    Ianise wrote: »
    To be honest we aren't spending that every month. But if there is a special occasion when the kids need something nice to wear we would spend that... I haven't got myself anything new other than work shoes for 2-3 months and the wife is the same.

    I put it in there as a potential spend, kids socks, pants and vests aren't cheap these days, these tend to be the items we buy most often.

    Kids savings was an area I didn't want to touch if we could help it, but I suppose we could reduce it down to the bare minimum and then "pay it back" when we are out of debt.

    Sports direct sell kids socks and other items cheaply, if you dont have one near you, they deliver, its a 3.99 delivery charge.
  • foxgloves
    foxgloves Posts: 11,996 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper
    edited 13 November 2013 at 11:44AM
    Hi there,
    Well done for posting your SOA. The things that jump out at me are:
    Lottery: £960 a year? The likelihood of you winning a decent prize is miniscule. If you really want to do it, don't be suckered into blindly accepting the recent price rise. Spend the same, & only enter the Saturday draw. You don't have to look at the winning numbers for Wednesday (which won't be yours anyway.....)
    Mobiles: High. You can get a contract for £15 a month which also comes with a free smartphone.
    Groceries: There is a lot to be saved here. You need to plan much more. If you are meal planning on a weekly or monthly basis, cooking most meals from scratch & making good use of you freezer, then you wouldn't be spending £500+ a month. You can easily knock £150 a month off this, probably £200 once you get going. Plan, plan, plan if you want to bust those debts. Planning pays off big time.
    Holiday: You can't afford one until you've made an inroad into the debt. Going on holiday is brilliant, but it isn't an automatic annual right or even the 'norm' these days. My personal plan here would be to put that £1200 a year into a debt & tell yourself you'll have a fab holiday that you've saved for when the debt has gone.
    Your money/wife's money: We do a similar thing, although our personal spends for the month are £60 each. We buy basic toiletries such as shampoo, deodorant, showergel, etc, from grocery budget, but if we want anything more upmarket, then it would come from our personal spends which is also used for coffees/cakes when we're out & about, lunch out, magazine, newspaper, etc. You might think that doesn't sound like much money for all that sort of thing, but that's the idea. it concentrates our minds on what we actually want/need & has really curbed our vast pre-LBM frittering!
    Satellite TV: We went through every channel & jotted down those we actually watched. Really watched.....as in making an effort to see the programme regularly, not just having it on as background now & again while doing something else. Apart from the ones on freeview anyway, there was virtually nothing extra we watched, & certainly nothing of value. We switched to freeview & honestly haven't missed a thing.
    Children's savings: I do understand that you don't want to penalize them because of your debt, but I would still personally stop paying into their savings while you deal with your debts. Children aren't helped by parents being in serous amounts of debt & will benefit long term from seeing you budget & plan because they will learn the value of money.
    General things: Other useful things for us when we were debt-busting were 1)Learning the true difference between a want & a need 2) Realisation that if we don't put the effort & responsibility into planning & budgeting, then we can't expect our debts to go away 3)My anti-debt mantra (see signature below)
    Good luck with it all. We are proof that it's possible for anyone to change & to take responsibility, just wish we'd done it in our 20s & not our 40s........
    2025's challenges: 1) To fill our 10 Savings Pots to their healthiest level ever
    2) To read 100 books (4/100)

    "Life can only be understood backwards but it must be lived forwards" (Soren Kirkegaard 1813-55)
  • Ianise
    Ianise Posts: 85 Forumite
    Thanks Foxgloves.

    Everything everyone has said makes perfect sense.

    The lottery is a bit of a superstitious trap isn't it really.... I will cut Wednesdays out, then try and eventually cut Saturdays as well....

    You can indeed get a smart phone for a lot less than I currently pay. I do use my phone for work and as such decided to go for an iPhone.

    The holiday is pre booked and, unfortunately, unless we want to lose £500 we can't cancel it. We do plan on taking food etc with us and not eating out every night as we have previously.

    Once the wifes overdraft is gone she will be having her spends reduced to £65 in line with mine. Mine are this low as I had a motorbike that I used to fuel out of the joint account , and insure from there.

    We are tied in to the TV for 12 months, though I did just manage to get a £15 reduction form Virgin due to all the new customer deals that dwarf my discount...

    And as addressed previously we will be reducing the savings for the kids until further notice.
  • Ianise wrote: »
    I know.... I looked at it last night. It used to be £40 a month but they obviously doubled the price recently....

    It is hard to cancel it as it would be just our luck for the blooming numbers to come up the following week!

    We are discussing that at the moment though as until we tallied up our work syndicates we had no idea we were spending so much. :(

    £80 a month on the lottery saved gives you a WIN every YEAR of just under £1000.

    Have you WON £960 a year since starting your lottery contributions. (Or half that if you were paying £40) ?

    Probably not. Here are the odds for winning £1500

    http://playlotto.org.uk/lottery/uklottery_odds.html

    It's One in 55,491

    (I think these figures are pre price rise)
  • MrsGSR
    MrsGSR Posts: 1,041 Forumite
    Debt-free and Proud!
    Agree that stopping the kids saving payments temporarily is a good thing. We have had to do the same and it's for the greater good! When we are in a better position we will start paying into them again at the moment it's not practical. So thats £150 a month. If you really are that reluctant maybe lower the payment.

    Stop doing the lottery, you have already haemoraged enough money on that thats an extra £80 a month.

    Shopping- we spend £200 a month, 2 adults and two kids. It's doable but it does take time and practise to get it right.

    As for kids pants, socks, vests where do you buy them? I tend to stock up at Sainsbos when they have their 25% off, Tesmicos also do decent stuff. Other clothes come from nearly new shops and ebay, I sell their clothes to buy them more clothes, same for me and DH.

    As someone else said here it is about changing your way of thinking, realising that you have to cut back than having will power and making it a change in your life.
    Squirrelling away in September No 33
    It's not about the money, it's about financial freedom, being in control of it and living in the natural world and not a material world
  • Ianise
    Ianise Posts: 85 Forumite
    So I had a long chat with the wife regarding the lottery. I think she is a little behind me in thinking, but she has not yet read everything on here, so maybe when she reads it as I have she will change her mind...

    Lottery has been reduced so we are now only in work syndicates so that is £64 a month saved.... I just need to persuade her to drop the work syndicate and we will have no lottery outgoings :)

    I had already changed supplier for my gas and electric saving us £34 per month, so in theory we have £98 a month that we can pay off something if we screw up and overspend.

    We shop at Asda MrsGSR. When do Sainsbo's have their 25% off, or is it permanent on kids stuff?

    Thanks :)
  • Hi Ianise

    Lots of good advice on here which should help you make some real inroads into your debt. Not sure if anyone has suggested keeping a spending diary. Tracking exactly where all those little spends are might be a good idea for a short time.

    I really struggle with my food budget but I am slowly getting into batch cooking and the savings really are eye opening. A month ago, I would have spent £3.50 on lean mince for one home made lasagne - that same amount of meat now makes three lasagne's, and the only difference is we aren't overeating or filling the bin with leftovers anymore. Batch cooking and meal planning also means we are less tempted to buy takeaways in the week.

    I would also sacrifice the children's savings until your debts are paid and you have your own emergency fund (I can't see any cash savings in your SOA).

    Good luck!
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