Tales from the city

hiddenshadow

Wow, that's crazy that they told you all of those things that were wrong. I hope they at least acknowledge your concerns and apologise, if nothing else! Refunding the half of the fee would be good too.

ani*fan

I still haven't got round to making that call. I annoy myself with procrastination sometimes! I'll do it today and report back.

We're at the end of the month and I just started a thread over on the old style board to try and get our food budget down a bit. It's £250 which everyone says is fine but if there are savings to be made I want to know where and how I can do that.

I haven't updated my total for a while, I hoped to be under £10k by now but I don't think it's happened. I'll wait 'til the end of this month to calculate it all.

OH bought me a gift card this week. So sweet, so I treated myself to a new dress for the wedding tonight, reduced from £30 to £17. :T It looks amazing so I'm excited about our night out. We have also managed to get through this particularly tight month with cash left to go, which is amazing in itself. I'm hoping we have some funds leftover at the end of the night.

Everything is just plodding along, like it does.

Happy debt busting Saturday everyone.

Igamogam

Bargaineous dress :money: have a lovely night out

We are a family of 3 sometimes 4 meat eaters plus 2 cats and our food bill bounces around £240/250 a month and that is with a door step milk delivery and non grocery items. I tried with Ald! but cant do a whole weekly shop there but I do get fruit and veg,sometimes cheese and store cupboard staples. I batch cook when I can, use a slow cooker in the winter, use up leftovers for lunches ( we rarely have any food waste in our house, just the odd chicken carcass and similar) and am a demon soup maker with 'whatever is in the bottom of the fridge':eek: I am sure there are those on the OS threads which are scarily frugal and can turn out a 3 course meal for 6 at £1.38 per head all cooked over a tea light...................;) and they will be along to explain all of it to you. Having said that there are lots of great ideas too:D The biggest changes for us as to cutting the food bill was to set a budget, meal plan and write a shopping list and stick to it. So I stopped going shopping with the debit card and got £70 a week out of ATM and when that money was gone that was it.......anything left over went into the pot for the following week. A strange effect was that I suddenly had CASH in my purse and so I started change pots in earnest and the change built up - once a designated pot is full (20p 5p £2 and £1 with dragons on!) I use it to pay off extra on one of the CCs - win win. The whiskey bottle for coppers is taking some time to fill......but when it was last full we emptied it to be surprised that there was £55 in it:rotfl::T

Happy frugal shopping

ani*fan

It's the start of a new month and the savings accounts are being topped up accordingly and minimum debt payments all being made.

The debt repayments are taking a back seat this month as both me and OH need some new things. I'm running around in worn out work clothes that don't fit and socks with holes in so we're heading out for a shop this afternoon. I'm quite excited about it! What a very different feeling when you know you have a plan, and that this doen't mean everything is derailed, it just means I know how to get myself what I need. I never was very good at that before and prone to big tantrummy bursts of spending now and then.

We had a fab night out on Saturday. We took a hip flask, only spent around £20 and did a lot of very energetic dancing. :T Can't go wrong, and I felt fabulous in my dress.

Happy debt busting everyone.

misstara

Sounds like you had an ace night out on Saturday

I set myself a budget for clothes shopping last month and mostly just bought new undies and footwear as I could not see anything that I wanted to buy, hope you have better luck x

ani*fan

I did really well yesterday, there are still sales on and also, as I was going into Dotty P's, a woman handed me a 25% off voucher, said she had just been given it at the tills but wouldn't spend it before it expired. I found loads of stuff in there including a couple of pairs of new jeans, a jacket, some t-shirts, and a top. 25% off was a massive help and it turns out you can use it again. Yes! :j I think I can enjoy shopping when I know I can afford it, there's a budget and I just need to stick to it. I hunted high and low for work trousers and couldn't find any though, I'll need to go into one of the big department stores another day. I also couldn't find my favourite socks, need to keep looking.

Onwards to another debt busting day. Have a good one, everybody.

ani*fan

misstara wrote: »

I set myself a budget for clothes shopping last month and mostly just bought new undies and footwear as I could not see anything that I wanted to buy, hope you have better luck x

Isn't that often the way misstara? You only see thing you want when you have NO cash at all. How annoying. I'm amazed I did so well.

My thread over on the old style board is so good, what a lot of very helpful people there. I'm really focussed on getting the food budget down this month so we'll see how all of that pans out.

I'm going away next week for 4 days, it's a work thing, all paid for except the evening meals. This won't come out of the food budget as it'll be eating out but not great in a strange city where I'm not sure of my way about or where things are. I'm kind of dreading it but it needs to be done.

Happy debt busting everyone.

ani*fan

I seem to have abandoned my diary temporarily. Oops. Probably because I still haven't phoned up about that transfer charge. I will do it. TODAY!

I haven't totalled up the debt recently, I'm just chipping away at it. I'm scared to add it up in case it's not below £10k, and I really want it to be under that amount. I'll wait until the end of the month.

There is nothing on next month, no big expenses, not even a birthday. I'm hoping to get a big chunk of debt paid off. I would love to have my third credit card paid in full at some point during the month. It would be so good to have the debt simplified to one overdraft and 2 credit cards. But we'll see.

Happy debt busting everyone.

ani*fan

Igamogam, the food shop challenge has been a blast. You're right, those people really know what they're talking about. How lucky are we to have expert advice at our fingertips on here? :A We have spent so much less on food this month already and I'm really hoping to come in well under budget by the end of the month. I'm planning a summary post on my thread at the end of it all.

Igamogam

ani*fan wrote: »

Igamogam, the food shop challenge has been a blast. You're right, those people really know what they're talking about. How lucky are we to have expert advice at our fingertips on here? :A We have spent so much less on food this month already and I'm really hoping to come in well under budget by the end of the month. I'm planning a summary post on my thread at the end of it all.

I have been following your other thread