Learning to think like a frugal person

StressedSteph

ForMyGirls wrote: »

Hello coaches,

The horribleness was a roller coaster ride today but there is a good chance tomorrow will be horribleness free.

I have not done so well today - nothing budget breaking but i have spent unplanned money on unplanned icecream, conciously knowing that i was spending and eating to avoid feeling. It is what it is and as I post I commit to being on track from right this minute.

Mizmir and Steph - thanks for the well wishes - it is remarkably reassuring to know that there are people out there in cyberspace who have got my back:-)

Mizmir - i am very impressed by your fully funded envelopes. That must provide a great sense of "in controlness". And what a great thing to be putting $ against a card. It mightnt be a huge amount but it is a huge attitude change and well with applauding yourself for.

So sorry to hear you have had another horrible day, so hope that you are right about tomorrow being a better one.
I wouldn't beat yourself up about the ice cream, sometimes through periods of great stress we need to cut ourselves some slack and be kind to ourselves. At least you are aware that you slightly fell off track but you are back on now. Draw a line underneath it and move on.:kisses3:.


Keep going, we are here for you, so if you need to unload somewhere, here is the place to do it. xxx

mizmir

I'm with Steph - icecream on a horrible day is almost a necessity - unless you have chocolate! We need to look after ourselves and that sometimes means treats. I confess that the other night we went out for dinner - unplanned - but OH was fed up (is having some really nasty stuff going on at work) and I needed to be out of the house.
Just the local Indian restaurant but it emptied our entertainment budget for the month on day 4! But worth it. And I will look at topping up the budget if finances allow later on.

Look after yourself. Hope today is horribleness-free and even relaxing!

chanie

Hi everyone,

Mizmar - sounds like you are doing really well. I don't use ynab, but I do sometimes use real envelopes when needed.
Fmg - I agree with the others, ice cream all the way.

I had a test today, seeing how my new frugal thinking worked in practice. My biggest spending weaknesses tends to be when I have, what I call a 'treat day', which is normally a child free day and a chance to wander around the shops. I normally do something like this on my birthday.

I was given a facial voucher for Xmas and decided to use the voucher and have a nice day out as the voucher had to be used in the big shopping centre. I purposely booked it for this week, as its after pay day. I normally drive, but planned to get the Tube, as it is a but cheaper and I'd even been saving a (free) magazine to read on the way. You can imagine how annoyed I was to hear about the tube strike. In the end, I drove to my mum's and got the bus from there, saving the parking fees.

I visited my favourite clothes shop and actually picked up an item and nearly bought it, even though I can't really afford it. I did want the item, but it was more of a habit spend of buying something for the sake of it. In the end, I put it down and even now, I don't regret it. That set the tone for the rest of the trip - I did see things I liked and wanted, but I didn't have that urge to spend. I wrote down the things I saw that I liked so that I can start to save up for them, but I'm not in any rush. This is a big big change for me.

I was going to treat myself to lunch, but can't really afford it after my childcare bill. I bought lunch from home and avoided the nice looking food hall, so I never got to see what I was missing. I did buy a burger from McDonald's as I was still hungry, but it was probably the cheapest thing in the whole shopping centre and I was otherwise good.

I went to lots of different shops and took advantage of the beauty testers like a spritz of perfume, hand cream etc, which was fun and frugal.

All in all, I'm pretty proud of myself in terms of what I spent as it was within budget and planned (except the McDonald's!!!).

StressedSteph

Hi Chanie

Sounds like you had a great day. Well done with the frugal mooch round the shops. Thats a toughie, amazing that you got out with just a burger purchased.

I would find that very hard, I don't think I am ready for such an explosion of temptations. I am currently dealing with just not hitting the Ebay, Amazon sites etc. Will have to build up to what you managed :T

Well done xxx

mizmir

Well done Chanie - you've done really well to avoid temptation! What a great idea to make a note of things so you can save up for them.

ForMyGirls

Hello coaches,

Sorry for being absent for a few days. It took me a few days to get back to being me after last week's stress but today i woke up with enthusiasm and energy again :-) although there has been some unplanned spending in the last week it has not been budget breaking so all is well.

Credits: staying on budget through a stressful week; this one is longer to explain - although my OH and I have separate finances there are some things (like alcohol) that we just split the costs of when we buy it - so today he was heading out to stock up and i realised it was likely to push me over budget - so I just said that I only had $11 to contribute so please to not buy too much. I am proud of me - it would have been easy to let that be an excuse to overspend.

My checklist (in brief)
ARC, NO CHOICE, IT'S NOT OKAY and GET BACK ON TRACK cards - yes 2. other response cards - yes 3. transactions in YNAB before spending and savoured purchases - no 4. Credits - all of the time 5. use my spend wisely plan - yes 6. spending plan - yes 7. Monitored my spending - n/a 8. compared my bank balance and YNAB to redefine "zero" - no 9. Spent only available money for discretionary spending - yes

I loved your story of the treat day Chanie - a significant difference in mindset i reckon. I always used to wonder how people could window shop as it seemed to me to be torturous to see but not have. But now i think i am getting a glimpse that it could actually be fun. Well done you for finding ways to enjoy your day in the shops without blowing your budget and for noticing what thoughts and feelings were going on while you were contemplating buying the desired item.

chanie

Hi fmg, welcome back after your stressful week. Am pleased to hear you are full of frugal energy.

Although my shopping trip was quite successful, I still think I have a way to go before I can shop frugally. It was a bit like white-knuckling, as I had to make a conscious effort to keep myself on track. I did see things I liked, but nothing particularly exciting, so I guess my success was in part down to luck.

Although I have managed so far, my play money doesn't seem to be going very far, as there is always something that is needed and the list of things to buy seems to be growing quicker than I can cross things off. I may have to rethink my play money strategy.

ForMyGirls

Hello coaches,

Such a fun day today. I am involved in this fabulous fun project at work where we are making some films for training purposes. Today we auditioned our actors and they were fantastic! It was so exciting to see our characters come to life and just plan fun to get to spend a day living in the world of creative folk. We have another round of auditions tomorrow so it should be a fun day tomorrow too.

I did make a budgeting boo-boo in the midst of it when I offered to get coffees during our break. Not planned for and took me into the red in my “play money” budget. Only a tiny bit (less than $2). It is good how much having red in the column is not OK with me. How to I prevent this in the future? Do a better job of anticipating what spends are ahead in a fortnight. So I have started in my fortnightly planning to identify where there are spends in the fortnight that will need to come out of play money so that I don’t run out, or go into the red.

Credits: - thinking through how to avoid today’s error being repeated; was tempted to have bought lunch today on the basis that “it was an exciting day” but just packed my lunch as normal; did some creative thinking (actually this was a couple of days ago) about an inexpensive gift for a friend’s wedding I am going to in a couple of weeks.

Another cool thing today - today was kind of the first day I had to try out the daily schedule I came up with many weeks ago in the “finding time to live frugally” step. Last week I was back at work but there was so much else going on I wasn’t able to see how it worked. Anyway today it worked really well. I printed out a copy and checked in on it at various points to check where I was up to. It included dealing with email and other administrative stuff in the early afternoon (that blergh bit when I can’t think clearly anyway) and it worked really well - didn’t have that “run out of time to read my emails” feeling at the end of the day. And I left work at the time I had planned so I got home when I was meant to - which meant the evening went to plan. The shorter version of this - it worked!

Been meaning to say I have decided that now that I am back at work I will read and translate a day of the Beck book each weekend - and during the week I will just do these credit, chit chat, checklist posts.

My checklist (in brief)
ARC, NO CHOICE, IT'S NOT OKAY and GET BACK ON TRACK cards - yes 2. other response cards - yes 3. transactions in YNAB before spending and savoured purchases - sort of 4. Credits - all of the time 5. use my spend wisely plan - n/a 6. spending plan - yes 7. Monitored my spending - all of the time 8. compared my bank balance and YNAB to redefine "zero" - no 9. Spent only available money for discretionary spending - no

Chanie - ouch for the play money not being able to stretch far enough and credit to you for noticing and deciding to see if there are ways to adapt your plan

StressedSteph

Morning all,


Hi FMG - Your work sounds like lots of fun, so glad you are having a better week. Its very hard to totally pre-empt future small spends, we can only try our best.


Hi Chanie. Talking about your Play money not going far enough. Does the category need splitting up? Is the Play money just spent entirely on you, or does some family spends come out of that as well. Just a thought because I have a FUN money pot, and its amazing how many times the children need abit of Tuck shop money or there's a small household expense and I have nearly taken it out of my FUN money, but then realised I was selling myself short as hubby doesn't do that with his FUN money. So I created a new category to cover those extra spends. Just a thought xx


Been a hectic weekend here, can't believe it is Monday already. Hate it when we have no down time on the weekend, but we did get our freezers jam packed with home reared lamb & pork so a good frugal money savings weekend. Also we were so busy working, they were NSD's as well :T.

Had a little bit of a naughty spend this morning. Late last year, way before I had my LBM, I offered to plant a small Orchard at my children's school. Yes I know!! I must be crazy!.

Anyway, I then had my LBM, so kind of let the offer slide and didn't really mention it again. Well....Friday I opened my childrens school bag to see a lovely letter written by one of the children in the school ECO Committee, thanking me for the offer of supplying and planting a school Mini Orchard. Aaarghh .

So...Wanting to be true to my word, I went on line and after a lot of searching I managed to get 11 trees ordered for £65. Quite a bargain really, I do hope they grow.
I searched through YNAB and noticed that there was quite abit of residue money left in various pots that hadn't been spent, I also skimmed a little from my vehicles savings pot and I have found the money without too much hardship.

This was a tricky spend, because it was promised before I started all of this, so I don't see it as a failure as such, it is just me standing by my offer. It will also be amazing to be the one who creates an orchard in my children's school.


Made a mental note to make sure that I do not make any more overly generous offers from now on. But very glad that I have been able to help the school and should see me in credit for a good few years now .


Hope you all have a good day xx

mizmir

Just a quick note to say how fab it is to see these examples of reworking budgets and dealing with the unexpected or unplanned. Life doesn't always stick to a budget but what we are proving here is that by having a grip on things we are able to be flexible enough to manage it. :T:T:T