Aspirations of Frugality and Fun on the Road to Mortgage Freedom

DedicatedDFW

Hello all

It is friday :j and i am shattered and i have an assignment to do :eek: I've been reading whilst having tea and will try and post on threads soon Thank you all for popping in

Quick update before i hit the books again :cool:

I've done the food shop and am way, way, way over budget :eek: What with my bargainous items the other day too.

I have analyzed my receipt to see what differed from my list

£14.50 - this was sort of on my list - new cutlery and a new ceramic roasting dish - both were reduced and i have been waiting the reductions for a year before buying.

Items not on shopping list and not 'needed'

£3 - on meat for 6 meals

£1.65 - favourite pasta on offer - i usually buy the own brand cheap pasta which i like too but the price has crept up on this so this was only pence dearer than that

£1.59 - bacon wasn;t 100% if we had any in, it will do for next week

£4.00 - favourite reduced cereal on multi-buy offer - not been on offer for months

£3 - fish for 4 lunches - multibuy offer

£2 - some lovely huge bags of crisps - they will be eaten but :eek:

£1 - crumpets on offer and delicious

£3 - beer - a gift for my Mr for being a sweetheart :smileyhea - it was still on offer though :rotfl:

£0.80 bread - treat for my Mr again - its one from the bakery and was also on offer

So £20 ish later tells me where i went wrong

Anyone got any tips on not buying food offers please ?

DedicatedDFW

I m going to shuffle some money around and then get on - money from bay of e sale now paid and also used points to pick up an item for someone - they re-paid me cash :T and got £3 back i wasn't expecting to see

DedicatedDFW

Morning all

The washing machine is on :T and the slow cooker is on :T - the recipe i chose for my huge joint of brisket of beef was one where i only needed to buy 1 ingredient as i already had the rest in

Yesterdays MS stuff was taking packed lunch, tea was a reduced item for 29p Purchased another birthday gift for £1.50 in the sale Walked to and from the station Used mobi to make calls / messages within monthly package Completed a survey :T Cooked the super cheap gammon joint that i picked up which saved me having to buy ham from shopping and which would have been dearer too

Today i've had the 3 of the 9 crumpets that were £1 :cool:

I have sorted out lunch of reduced price gourmet pies

Brisket for tea as noted

A hard and busy day ahead so i am just going to finish my cuppa and then get on - my challenge will be to write 200 words for my assignment before popping back in here :cool: **positive vibes** please

Whilst having breakfast i've checked banking - no money to overpay today

I weighed myself before brekkie and lost 1lb this week :T New scales are on the shopping list for next week if they are still on offer - it is impossible to get these ones thoroughly clean without taking the whole thing apart as it is designed to show the mechanism beneath the glass but this isn't sealed in any way and there are bits built up around it so it is just impossible to get to and annoys me every time i see it :mad: :rotfl:

I've looked for a new job - nothing to apply for

Thinking about my credit card bill i may have to squeeze some funds to clear it in full - the problem is on the bill i had several items which i then returned - this would then reduce the balance so i was thinking i'll pay the remaining balance. But of course i've continued to spend on my card for the usual purchases - travel costs, food etc. So then i was thinking if maybe the refunds just come off the overall new balance so i'd still need to clear the full balance on the last statement - IYSWIM ? Its not too bad as i have whittled it down to a shortfall of £55... but that is £55 that i need to find from somewhere.

I am also over on the food budget for the month with 2 weeks of shopping still to do :eek: I am not worried about this actually as i know this is down to buying the wine making stuff, household items, stocking up on coffee and meals so in the coming months this overspend will be recouped

Rightio 200 fantabulous words here i come!

Hope everyone has a nice weekend planned - it is raining here x

in_need_of_direction

Just reading all that you've done makes me tired

Karmacat

Hiya!
I love that you analysed the shopping receipt to see where the overspend was - sounds fine to me, really, when offers are on, of things that you'd buy anyway, like cereal and pasta, its insane not to snap it up. Thats the problem with budgetting tho, isn't it and I just don't agree with not buying it because you'd go over budget, thats letting the tail wag the dog, so to speak The treats total what, £6.80, and a good half are on offer - but surely this isn't about total deprivation of all thats yummy! MFW is for the long haul.

I have one extremely serious question, and you may need to sit down for this: when your lovely Mr DDFW is drinking the beer, what are you drinking? :cool:

DedicatedDFW

Thanks in need of direction - although i don't feel like i've actually done much.

Am a bit further forward in my assignment - in that realised the reason i am struggling so much is that pretty much all the study leading up to this isn't really relevant to the question i am answering *yikes* But realised its better to stck to answering the question rather than shoe horning in stuff just to demonstrate what i've learned / covered.

I have jotted down outline and some words - not 200 :eek:

Next aim on this is 500 words on 2nd text - dryer is bleeping off to empty that then 2nd load of washing on - will be back after achieving much

DedicatedDFW

2nd load of washing doing its thing, 1st load dried and moved Slow Cooker still looking after tea - it smells good - hope it is must do some tatties to go with it - not just now though.

Lost a couple of hours :eek: due to urgent job being done. it is done now that is good

Need to make a complaint, have shelved that til next week now :cool:

I need to sort out letters, again can wait until Monday now

I've listed a couple of bits on the bay of e whilst having a quick break on here.

Going to have a look at secondary reading on secondary text now - will be back after getting much work done on this

jwil

Well done on the weight loss!

Good buys on the bargains too.

DedicatedDFW

Morning all and thanks jwil,

If everyone could send **positive vibes** for my assignment please it would be appreciated. I have struggled so much with this piece of work and got no where with it - i have lost the drive for it now too having faffed and struggled for ages. I need to complete this today and then i can move on.

I am popping in here now before getting the first 200 words into print and aim to work strictly like this all day.

Got up to a message from someone on bay of e - they ordered an item off me a couple of weeks ago and needed it urgently so i sent it same day and first class - even though it had been paid for 2nd class :mad: and today they have been it touch to ask where it is ? I suspect a case will be opened and i'll need to put in a claim at the post office which is really frustrating - i had used my own stamps to post it too so not sure how i'd claim the postage back

So i have my cuppa and will get on now - back later for a quick break

DedicatedDFW

Whoosh 1st 200 words done, coffee finished. Next 200 words then i'm back x