Too much effort on reducing and not enough on growing?

smudgemanc26

ZD - Just a thought but do you think that you wanted to spend all that money on food for entertaining so others dont realise what situation you are in financially and that you dont want people to think you are on a budget or being abit cheaper buying less expensive food and drinks?

Im sure if you wanted to cut down on your food bill you could and you wouldnt necessarily have to eat less and not enjoy it as much. As they say every little helps.

rayday2

Thing is you yourselves know whether it is possible to boost income but for some people you can't this board teaches you if you listen to cut a few expenses out and boast the income you have.

So yes big heads up to that!

immoral_angeluk

silkglade wrote: »

I have lost OVER 3 stone in weight too :T

That's fantastic!!
:T :T :T :T :T :T

rayday2

ssssh stop mentioning weight - that should be me lol!

Well done I wish I could join you trouble is with all this excellent MSE advice I can afford all the nice things again

Zulu_Dawn

Wow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That is unquestionably the biggest response I've had to a posting. Thank you all so much. I just popped out to have a brie sandwich (bread 75p per loaf - deal from sainsburys, cheese left over from BBQ;)) and came back to this

There is some brilliant stuff in this thread and I'm not going to be able to respons to all of it. However a couple of comments if I might;

Please accept my total and humble apologies if I have offended anyone. I love this site and wanted to start a debate, nothing more.

I have had fantastic advice from this site and it has saved me many hundreds of pounds personally. Just this morning I re-negotiated my annual travel insurance saving £40. Last year I would just have paid it.

There has been a lot of posts about supermarket budgets. My family currently spend around £500 per month for a family of four. I'm going to try and dig out the bills, do some analysis and see what I am doing that is obviously so different to a lot of you. For example I never buy duck as it is too expensive and yet some of you can afford it on a budget 50% less than mine! perhaps I'll even stick it on here for you all to pull apart.;)

I think this site is fantastic and teaching people not to waste money and I will always be incredibly supportive of that part of the advice.

One thing that is absolutely key is budgeting. By understanding what we get and where it goes, we are able to interpret our spending and look to find ways to improve the mix. From the analysis of my SOA, it has become clear to me that I will not achieve my goals just by cutting spending. I need to repay less debt each month and convince my creditors that that is fair.

Perhaps my position does come about from the size of my debt. £75 on a dinner party represents one two thousandth of my debt. I'm not going to repay this by cutting that out. (and to defend myself the leftovers provided me with dinner on Sunday and Monday and two packed lunches:T


Anyway thanks again for such an enlightening thread.


ZD

Zulu_Dawn

smudgemanc26 wrote: »

ZD - Just a thought but do you think that you wanted to spend all that money on food for entertaining so others dont realise what situation you are in financially and that you dont want people to think you are on a budget or being abit cheaper buying less expensive food and drinks?

Im sure if you wanted to cut down on your food bill you could and you wouldnt necessarily have to eat less and not enjoy it as much. As they say every little helps.

Very perceptive and I have no doubt that what you say is true.

If you read my SOA, you will probably understand why.

Thanks

ZD

Tashja

ZD

Do you think your friends would have been offended if you had asked them to bring a bottle or bring a pudding to the BBQ ???

We do this if we have a BBQ and people love it (saves us money too)

We always end up with whay too much food and drink and everyone has a great time.

With your debt I don't think it is fair on you that you are feeding/boozing up 12 of your friends for free !!!

Though if you are in the Stockport area I assume an invite will be heading my way soon . . .

T xx

Snaggles

Zulu_Dawn wrote: »

Please accept my total and humble apologies if I have offended anyone. I love this site and wanted to start a debate, nothing more.

Apology accepted and I also apologise for being snippy. :cool:

Sea78

Hi

I wasn't offended - but I do think that with planning you could reduce your food shopping/expenditure massively. We also love food in our house

I think that things like that grow on you over time sometimes and before you know it, in six months you'll be posting on someone's SOA - £300 for the family?? You can cut that down!

It took me nearly a year to get to this point myself.

Sea xxx

Burlesque_Babe

it does take time, it took me a good 9 months to gradually reduce my supermarket spending. The sentence that jumped out and screamed MSE type bells was you re-negotiating your annual travel insurance.

Do you already have plans for a holiday - I know it's too late now but you might be spending money unnecessarily still on something that could have been bought for an individual trip?