NOT BUYING IT! 2015 - A consumer holiday

Liliyanna

Morning Shipmates


Vulpix - I for one would love to see the before and after pictures


Well January went well all told.

A friend in work was selling her little run around for £300 and as the OH's car seems to cost us money everytime it's driven we decided to buy it. In the end it cost us £440 to swap cars (this includes two new tyres and a little bit more on the insurance), the OH managed to scrap theirs for £200 meaning I'm only £220 out of pocket. Hopefully I wont have to spend another penny on it in the next 12 months.

We're currently saving for a house deposit and have to save a set amount each month to hit our target next January. We've managed to swap cars without touching the savings which I am so pleased with. Most of the money is going to come from the food and entertainment budgets so it's going to be a pretty slim month. That said the freezer is full to bursting

I applied for a different department in work recently and have just been given a starting date of the first of March. This is great but it means I will be going from a job where I wore a uniform all the time to wearing my own clothes. After 10 years in the job I have no smart casual clothes will have to mooch round the charity shops I think!! A few nice tops and some cardies should do it.

All in all it's been a terrific start to the new year

Happy sailing shipmates


Lily x x

117pauline

Number 95 - February No Buying Snacks and Chocolate

Well, January was great for watching my total spending but I have noticed that the little extras have really crept into my shopping again so that is what I am focusing this month.

Meal plan done and little required for the rest of the month except fresh fruit, vegetables and milk.

117pauline

Hi Lily

Congratulations on the new job.

Just a quick thought, did you contact the tax man re washing your uniform? Can't remember the exact details but you can get a tax rebate if you clean your uniform at home - I know it is not much, but might be worth looking at

FrugalWorker

kittie wrote: »

has anyone got any ideas for using up bits and pieces of leftover liqueurs in cooking? I just took everything out of the drinks cupboard and am determined just to keep the few drinks that we use. I have amaretto, tia maria, pear vodka and so on. I am going to start today by putting a bit of vermouth in the scrag lamb casserole. If I don`t tackle that cupboard then they will all just sit there for another year and then another one after that

Ok, Im going to sound like an alcoholic, but I'm quite the opposite. With the exception of adding alcohol to a stew, the rest are all cooking for parties/friends in my case.

I love to cook with alcohol. A stew is always improved with a splash of wine or vermouth
Deserts - pears poached in red wine with spices (think mulled wine)
Plums pan fried in spoon full of brown sugar /rosemary /butter /brandy
Choc chip biscuit sherry cake (soak choc chip biscuits in sherry, and sandwich together with cream - tastes better being done a day in advance)
Someone else suggested adding to chocolate truffles - great idea, they're yummy.
I've added alcohol to sorbets also, I used vodka + raspberry. At it has a lower freezing temperature, it doesn't freeze as solid.
I've added alcohol to soups (more dinner party efforts here), fennel + pernod, just drizzled a little on top. Beetroot + vodka (russian theme going on here).
When I was younger up a standard desert was ice-cream with liquours poured over - just a desert spoon of it. I wasn't a huge fan, but others fell on it! Think tia maria over any biscuit/vanilla/toffee type of ice cream, or cassis over a berry ice cream.
Irish coffees (I'm not talking a typical tue night in!) but for a treat if you've some cream left over - whiskey/tia maria/brandy all are good in coffee with a bit of cream.

I just love some left over wine for cooking with (I know others are thinking, what's left over wine) Hope this has given you some inspiration.

Broomstick

Just done my first self-haircut of the year and it looks fine. DS2 has just checked the back and apparently it seems even so I think I must be improving. I've been cutting my own hair for a while on and off but have no plans to visit the hairdresser at all this year.

You can save quite a bit by finding a simple hairstyle that you can live with, cutting it yourself (or doing a swap with a friend that you trust!) and going grey naturally. I know it doesn't suit everyone but it is a money-saver.

I recommend getting a proper pair of hairdressing scissors though and only using them for that job. I use a couple of hair clips as well.

B x

candygirl

SLOWDOWN sorry to read about hour tummy probs, but have you gried acidophilius tablets?The are probiotics , that put a lining on your tum.I used to use them all the time, when travelling in India:D
Am feeling a bit worried today, as am taking my oap dog Candy to the vets tomoz, as she has a slow growing lump under her armpit:(She is 11, and is fit as a fiddle, still eating etc, so am hoping it's just a fatty lump:(

Turtle

Hello everyone

This is my first post on here but I started reading from the beginning just before Christmas - it's taken me this long to read it all

We've got an expensive year this year (for nice reasons though) so am trying to be more mindful and save some extra cash.

I'm already pretty frugal - we both take packed lunches to work, been meal planning for at least 10 years now, shop with a list at Ald! only buying what we need, so I don't stockpile but I do stock up on things we actually use if I see them at a good price (bought 6 boxes of K3llo*s All Bran at Ald! this morning, 750g for £1.19. I normally pay £1.25 for 500g at M*rris*ns. If anyone knows cheaper than this please let me know! This stock will last hubby quite a while though as he just has a bit on his W88tab!x rather than a bowl full).

This thread has definitely kept me on the straight and narrow, I have started keeping a spending diary again and have vowed to be more organised for birthdays etc to give me chance to find things at good prices or cards from a particular inexpensive card shop, rather than being 'caught short' and having to get something more expensive because there isn't time to plan properly. This has started well and at the end of December I bought all the birthday cards needed until the end of Feb (12 of them :eek:) and all but two presents. Both of these will (hopefully) be online purchases to save me being seduced by other shops...

The first expensive thing we've got coming up is a trip to NYC for my 40th in the summer :T which I'm very excited about and would love to have some extra spending money for. Flights are booked and paid for along with some theatre tickets for my favourite show but otherwise we still need to book hotel, ariport parking etc. Hoping to wait until the month before for the hotel and try and find a good deal .

All spends in Jan have been planned for, other than perhaps a tenners worth so that's quite good. I also had 15 NSD out of the 31, happy with that too .

Primrose

I think I need to pass my OH over to the instruction of all you folks for trainng. He takes his self imposed duties as household grocery shopper very seriously snd ensures we never run out anything.
But here's the rub. Every cupboard in the kitchen is absolutely BULGING with staples , with all the big (Think sweet shop jars!) for storage of rice, pasta, lentils etc crammed full and every shelf full of anythng we are ever likely to need.

I really want to run things down so I get to see the back of the cupboards so I can see the wood for the trees and use stuff up before it goes too stale..

So help help please with some tips on how to stop this "siege" compulsion to have every cupboard in the house loaded with consumables. You should see our "over the counter" medication cupboards in the bathroom. They're in the same state as the kitchen. It is my ambition before I die, to see an empty cuboard somewhere in this house :rotfl: i've tried the "no supermarket shopping and live off the store-cupboard for a month " entreaty but it doesn't work. At the sight of only two tomatoes left in the dish, a kind of panic seems to set in !

GreyQueen

Hi Primrose, with an inventory like that, I think you have more than a month's supplies in. Not that I can talk, I have far more food than that, being as I am the custodian of Mt Penne, part of the Great Pasta Mountain Range. But I will nosh down on that once I finished up the HG spuds, I promise *places hand on heart*.

Could you accidentally introduce him to the concepts of pantry pests? Flour beetles are so small and so sneaky that they can walk around the screw-threads of glass jars to get into products. And weevils, weevils come pre-installed in some products.

Perhaps also stress that you need to get through the current hoard before bringing more stuff in, so that you don't accidentally end up feeding him things which are sub-par, nutritionally. Or, in terms of OTC meds (which have pretty tight BB dates if you look for them) have ineffectual or even possibly harmful medicines.

PenguinOfDeath

Howdy y'all!


Was going to post on Friday afternoon but BT infinity let me down again :mad:. Had a deliberately spendy but enjoyable weekend with lots of good food, drink and company. We've not eaten out for a while, I prefer to save it up for a proper treat rather than it becoming the norm. We bought some not exactly needs but nice to have replacements and additions, including some sports clothing in the sale , so called RRP over £65 bought for £30, a good brand of bag that OH needed down from £45 to £15 and a lovely citrus juicer for £1. We were out and about anyway so it saves one or two potential extra shopping tips to get them at another time.


Back home now and the house is looking a lot less cluttered than usual, apart from the pile of books I want rid of that keep growing by the week but am seemingly unable to get rid of! Even OH is sick of the sight of them now! Amazon don't want most of them, I've tried zapper but they only want around £2s worth. CS is looking favourite but there's not really much parking close by and books are heavyyyy


Going back to the Eat Well for Less programme, I thought the title was a bit misleading, thinking was going to be about eating healthier for less money, hey ho. I don't think it would have taught OSers much but if it opens some people's eyes it's worth it.
It did make me glad that I am less susceptible to special offers now (thankyou aldi!) and the stockpile is less of a pile, more of a small bump


I found it surprising how much was on the boys' plate when they had their meal of sausages, potatoes, broccoli and mushy peas (?!) I would struggle to eat that amount now never mind when I was 5! It did make me think back to portion sizes when I was a small, neither of my parents were (are!) slim and most foods originated in the freezer. It was always the case that when item came in boxes of two, that would feed one person so I as a child/early teen I would regularly eat a meal such as two Birds Eye crispy chicken breasts with one packet of micro rice. If I were to eat such a thing now, that would feed two adults and there would be some veg involved somewhere! That is how I was taught, however and I only came to realise what normal portions were when I started to visit friends houses for tea and realise that was maybe where my puppy fat came from! But, what happens in your own home is 'normal' and Mother knows best, doesn't she?