NOT BUYING IT! 2015 - A consumer holiday

7_week_wonder

Droops wrote: »

Hello everyone,

I've lurked on this forum for years but never posted until now. This thread has really struck a chord with me. My house is overflowing with stuff that I've bought or been given over the years. I need to stop just buying and also decluttering and stop spending quite so much money. I'm on my own at home with two lovely male Herberts (10 & 8) in a teeny tiny two bed roomed home which we have outgrown. I have spent the last year battling depression and now I feel as tho I'm coming to a point where I'm feeling so much better and ready to start making changes which will have positive outcomes for us all. I'm really blessed with a lovely partner (who lives with his three Herberts) and a wonderful close family. I don't have internet at home so may find it hard to join in all the time but I'm hoping all you lovely people will let me join in and any tips or tricks as to where to start would be very gratefully received thank you x

Hello Droops, welcome aboard. One of the best things people recommend to stop spending and buying so much is to keep a spending diary. It could be a notebook (but not if you have to go out and buy new one ), a note on your phone, or even just a large piece of paper (so long as you can find it again). Use it to write down everything, yes *everything*, that you buy. It has two benefits: first, you will have a good idea of where your money goes and second, if you are anything like me, just the fact of having to write down "70p - M&Ms from Vending Machine" will make you thing twice about spending on small things.

Natnat, if you are thinking of starting a savings account, you could do a lot worse than open another current account especially for your savings. For instance Nationwide pays 5% interest on up to £2500, which is much better than any savings accounts. You do have to pay in £1000 per month, but supposing you wanted to save £20 a month, then all you do is transfer £1020 in at the beginning of the month, and then 10 minutes later transfer £1000 back to your main current account. That way you effectively have a savings account, but with a decent rate of interest. I hope that makes sense (can you tell it's a bit of a hobby horse of mine!)

This thread is continuing to be a good influence on me: I did our weekly shop this morning and it came in at under £40. There was no cat food or cleaning stuff in there, but it included packed lunches, so I'm pretty pleased. Also, I'm doing small things which add up, a silly example is that I lead a running group each weekend. I take a supply of sweets as a wee treat for everyone after the run. Normally there is at least half a packet left so OH and I just eat them during the day. But today I've put them safely in a Lock&Lock box ready for next week - whether they are still there by the end of the week is another matter :rotfl:

Have a good evening everyone and I hope Monday isn't too grim if it's your first day back at work.

toozie_2

Had a busy day today-as we're back to "normal" tomorrow.
I look after DGS who is 11 months and into everything on Mondays, Tuesday's I work in one place, and the other 3 days I have a different job in another place.

HM butternut squash soup for lunch (had already made a soup from 1/2 of it a few days ago) used the other 1/2 today with a stray parsnip & onion & black pepper!

Chicken curry with lots of bendy veg in the slow cooker-enough for tonight, for lunch (just me) tomorrow & portion to freeze I think.

Washing has dried outside-although it's freezing here again-need to iron stuff for work later.

De-cluttering continues. Bin bags are in the car to go to CS on Tuesday, 2 items on Freecycle, and next doors bin is full of our stuff-they are away and we are looking after house for a week.

Have photographed some stuff and hope to get them on ebay tonight-I think ending in 7 days on Sunday evening is a good time for people to be around bidding??? I Live in hope!!

So NSD today, and if it's not raining tomorrow will go for long walk with pram (away from shops!) to try and burn some calories, hopefully NSD again.

I'm feeling very positive reading everyone's posts -it's great motivation-thank you.

This ship seems to be silently gliding through calm waters with Slowdown at the helm, and all ship's crew scurrying around being very productive!:T

grunnie

One of the books I borrowed from the library yesterday was on colour analysis. I am a cool and soft w:Thatever that means but I have decluttered all the wrong colours from my wardrobe only to discover they were the items I never wear. 2 bags for the CS tomorrow. Walked to church this morning and my shoes hurt my feet so they are in the CS bag too. My iron went this afternoon but I think I have a spare in the loft which I won in a raffle a few years ago so will get it down tomorrow. Have decluttered a tin of condensed milk and some chocolate to make fudge ( my OH's favourite) in the slow cooker.
Someone on here mentioned their scarves- I have 4 boxes of them but usually only wear the same 1 or 2 as am too lazy to pull them down from the top of the cupboard. How do you display / keep them?

Butterfly_Brain

Cold and foggy here today so another NSD

I have just done next weeks menu plan and I only need to get some milk, butter, eggs and toilet rolls on Thursday

I bough enough Decaff coffee before Christmas to keep me going for 6 months while it was on offer at £4 for 200g which is a saving of £1.68 a jar so 12 jars cost £48 instead of £68 a saving of £20

maria3104

I_want_a_baby wrote: »

Jobs to do today include:

Sweeping the chimney with our drain rods and brush attachment.

Rotivate veg plot - apparently there are carrots and parsnips still in the ground, so will get some of these for the fridge as we have no veg in the fridge. We do still have the end of a sack of potatoes and some green beans and peas in the freezer.

Tea is leftover turkey in gravy, Yorkshire puds & stuffing from the freezer, leftover mash from the fridge, some frozen beans, the last three bendy parnsips from the fridge and some carrots from the garden.

Tonight I want to rework our financial plans for 2015 after reading Dave Ramseys baby steps!

Today will be a NSD. I might in fact try and make some bread rolls for hubby's lunch box - no time like the present!

IWAB x

I love Dave Ramsey, makes you tube have value. Whenever I wobble I tune in for a refresher.

7_week_wonder

grunnie wrote: »

Have decluttered a tin of condensed milk and some chocolate to make fudge ( my OH's favourite) in the slow cooker.

Oooh - fudge made in a slow cooker sounds interesting and hopefully idiot-proof! Any chance of a recipe?

dND

I'll hopefully have time to catch up on everyone's posts tomorrow but just a quick check in to say 2 NSD over the weekend. Tomorrow is local market and cafe morning so it will definitely be a spend day but shouldn't be too much (fingers crossed)
I hope everyone's had a good weekend and keeping on the straight and narrow

RicardaRacoon

Nice to read that everyone here is so busy.

But it kind of makes me feel even more lazy. I've done zero today... Well, did folded some laundry and ran the dishwasher, but that's all.... Weather is grey and dim and I'm not feeling too well.

Will now have to get into the mindset of having to go to work tomorrow morning. These two weeks off felt like eternity but for my taste could go on for even longer.

Oceandreamer, I hope the books will turn up again! Well, if not, your daughter will at least have a brilliant excuse tomorrow.

Jackie, your Sunday mornings with your DD sound lovely!

vulpix, no, you're not negative, you're just realistic.

katkin, I hope your kettle didn't made such a show blowing up as ours in the office. It suddenly made a hell of a noise, there was a light blinking inside the kettle and then started smelling very strange. It was working just fine before, no sign of any problems and it was only about 3, 4 years old.

grunnie, if you have a spare drawer you could roll your scarfs up and keep them in there. Or fold them and stack them somewhere you can see the pile from the front and consequently easily find what you're looking for.

purpleshoes_2

Today wasn't a no spend day, bought some onions from farmfoods, 79p. Then saw that own brand hair colour was 2 for 1 in superdrug, its either two for 6 quid or two for 7 quid just now, usually just over 4 and 5 quid a box, so bought two boxes which should see me through to the year end unless I decide to change colour again.

But no impulse spending. Have a pot of broccoli/apple/parsnip soup on the go and am going to make dinner with whatever is in my freezer/YS veg and make a veg and fruit smoothie later on.

Got up and did a class this morning and according to my garmin I covered around 2 and a half miles in the 45 min class, he makes us do a lot of running.

Am now on a mission to use up toiletries, skin care stuff I have lying around. I also bought some foot treat stuff from poundworld ages ago and used it, like throwaway socks with moisturiser in, only a quid, but I figured vaseline and a pair of old socks would do the same job, my feet get a bit battered and tattered with all the exercise I do.

Still decluttering, not throwing myself into it, but the night is still young so by the end of the evening I'll have a couple of bin bags of rubbish and a donation bag ready to go.

Liliyanna

Ahoy everyone,

Permission to clamber aboard? I would have been here sooner but it took me a while to catch up with the thread, it's moving at a rate of knots!!

For the last two years my OH and I have worked very hard to become debt free and finally managed it on Christmas Eve, it was a fantastic present :j

Now that we are debt free we aim to save for a house deposit but already I fear we're taking our collective feet off the gas as it were. We haven't been sales shopping but little extras have been turning up in the food cupboard at an alarming rate and I'm finding I'm having to juggle budgets quite regularly to cover this.

I'm determined we don't forget our hard earned lesson so I'm boarding the ship hoping for some like minded shipmates to keep me on the straight and narrow.

I'm going to start decluttering on my next days off, thankfully it's only clothes we seem to hoard so this should be quite straight forward.

I don't think I can stay out of supermarkets unfortunately, for the last two years I've had full control over the family finances and have spent a lot of hours researching, making sure I got value for money for every penny. This included poring over the 'mysupermarket' website and comparing everything on my list. I'm very lucky that I live within a mile of every supermarket and freezer store except Mr S and Asd@ and these two are right next to my place of work.

One of the main things I need to focus on this year is being more sociable. I'm a reasonably outgoing, sociable lass but I find when I have my days off I tend to stay in the house pottering round. I always use the excuse that none of my friends live in my town but now finances are not so tight I should be able to visit more and not be so lazy!!

Any how, sorry for the ramble

Hopefully I'll see you all on deck at some point or other :T


Lily x x