NOT BUYING IT! 2015 - A consumer holiday

RicardaRacoon

Evening everyone

Merry Christmas! A bit late though...

After all the celebration and a very lazy day yesterday I went for a quick trip to the shopping centre today. I wanted to finish a hat for a friend yesterday but ran out of yarn near the end, so shopping centre it was.... The hat just got ready in time for celebrating christmas with two friends tonight and I think the hats were highly appreciated.

Tomorrow I will have to get out of the holidays-hanging-around mood and so some laundry and will probably go into town to stock up on some basics in the sales.

My resolutions for next year will be "live better with less" means I will try to buy less stuff, generate less waste, declutter more, cook more from scratch and things like that. Will see how that goes...

So, need to go to bed, superexhausted, don't know from what... Well, but that is what holidays are for...

GrannyKate

Well back from DDs last night. No money spent from when we left here on 24th. Car on DDs drive unused until we left. Avoided bringing anything back so no Christmas leftovers to use up but we had a nice hamper as a gift so some goodies in that.

Hope everyone had a good Christmas.

My spending/saving book a bit strange for December but will start again in earnest today. Weight loss has to start again and reducing spending on rubbish although following the OS threads in 2015 means I added £1000 to my holiday savings account.

DuranGirl

Can't believe I'm three days away from being 3 months into my "not buying clothes, shoes or accessories for 12 months" challenge! I honestly haven't even noticed. It's been hard when my favourite British-made, vintage style, very reasonably priced frock website has been sending me sale e-mails (should I unsubscribe?), but I have resisted. I've not even needed to buy smalls! I'm learning to live with the pain of occasional mismatched undies :eek:I still can't move for pairs of black opaque tights, so worries on that score, but I know I shall have to buy some flesh-coloured tights soon. If that's as much as I have to get in the coming months, that won't be bad. My parents absolutely insisted on giving me cash for Christmas instead of taking some off the balance of my car loan from them, so it's just occurred to me that I might make some of that my "smalls" fund for the year.

melweeks73

Hi, I'm all shiny and new here!

This is exactly the challenge that brought me to this website. I was thinking over the Christmas period about whether I could go a certain period of time without purchasing anything that I don't really need as we start 2016. The idea is to save money to put in a pot for my daughter who starts Uni in September so she doesn't have to panic about finding a job in a city she doesn't know straight away.

At the moment, I literally flit money away on anything that catches my eye, not huge purchases but little ones that all soon add up. That money in a pot would really help. So please can I join you if you too are doing this challenge?!

Many thanks and Happy New Year!!

pm2326

Welcome melweeks73.... I'm sure you'll find lots of ways to save those pennies for your daughter....it may seem daunting but I'd read through the whole thread if you have time and get as many ideas as possible on how to save money.

Ok have been shopping at aldi and spent just under £13, have bought lots of veg & salad stuff so that should last me through next 2 weeks (including New Year's Day dinner)...topped up the bread for the freezer and managed to snaffle some fish cakes at 50% off, will have one for tea with veg and others will go in freezer.

I'm going to try a different way of shopping next year. I recently bought from a cheese stall at a fair and the lady serving reminded me about a traditional indoor market an hour way on the bus.

This place has numerous green grocers, butchers, a cheese monger, several fish mongers and lots of old fashioned stalls that sell hardware, haberdashery etc.

So I thought I'd try alternating between aldi & the market every 2 weeks, so I've been to aldi today, in 2 weeks I'll go to the market, 2 weeks later I'll go to aldi etc

I think this may work as I'd be restocking my staples at aldi once a month and in theory the market trip will restock my fresh foods

RicardaRacoon

Evening everyone

Grannykate, will also have to go back to losing weight comes January... I don't know who said it on here, might have been GreyQueen who compared losing weight to decluttering :-) So will try to declutter my body...

Duran, well done on resisting the temptation with the sale. I think it would be a good idea if you put a certain amount of money aside as kind of an emergency fund in case you have to replace underwear or something really important.
I will try to not buy any clothes until April as I have everything for winter and spring. Then I will see how weight loss goes and decided from there on.

Welcome here Mel. I'm sure you will find loads of ideas on this tread! What a good idea with the fund for your daughter, I'm sure it will be much easier for you to resist temptation when you know that the money you save is for a good cause!

pm, sounds good with the market! I wish we had one where I live... Wouldn't have to be a fullsize farmes market, just a stall or two with fruit and veg would do, but no...

Went into town today, but wasn't in shopping mood... So all I did was a short stop at Lvsh for one of their solid deodorants and their toothtabs. Actually wanted the toothpowder but the only one they had in had a very strange smell and I suspect the taste is not better, so I got the toothtabs instead. I plan to reduce plastic waste next year, so want to switch to a less wasteful product if possible. I also use their shampoo bars and first thought the price was insane, but then one lasts me almost 3 months compared to a bottle of shampoo that used to last 4-6 weeks. So it costs me about the same as the "normal" shampoo I used before switching to the solid one.

Besides I quickly went into H+M but was out in no time without buying anything and so, via a stop at the groceries store, was back home within 1 1/2 hours and without spending much money.

Just discussed New Years Eve with my parents, we will keep it simple (actual plan was going out with friends, but since that didn't worked out in the end I'm more than happy to spend a nice, relaxed evening with my family) with a light dinner and then board games. So I will bake a filled bread and my father will make loads and loads of tiramisu and we will deal with the left over Christmas sweets. That saves so much money compared to a fancy party in a crowded club....

Have a nice evening everyone! I will now unravel my knitting from this afternoon as I found a massive mistake...

katkin

This thread is nearly a year old. I'd like to thank Slowdown for creating and posting it :A

Just imagine, if over that year we'd added up all our non-non-necessary spending, how much it would be?

I started on my "non-consumerism / not buying it" journey here a year ago too and I've been overwhelmed and grateful for all your advice, tips and experiences. So much so I stopped posting and kept reading! I was putting all that info to good use and I may have had a few disasters but I've had plenty of successes and found life a lot better being minimalist, old style, waste reducing and homemade.

Just wanted to say thank you to Slowdown and everyone else here who posts :money:

May 2016 be even better!

Buffythedebtslayer

I have been lurking here for a while and wondered - will there be new thread for 2016? or should I post here?

I am such a consumer. And whilst I am not in debt I know I am wasting money. Has been such an interesting read here!

GrannyKate

Well back to normal shopping yesterday at Mr m. Looked at post Christmas 'bargains' but only bought three rolls of wrapping paper at half price (down to half a roll in my Christmas stash) and 2 new flannels for 50p each (right colour for my bathrooms and I have some that need to go). I still plan to buy a few Christmas cards if I see nice ones reduced but not many.

[Deleted User]

Cinema this afternoon with DGS Ben then hopefully I will be back in my own bed tonight for a few days at least.Had lots of lovely gifts and everything I have been given is really nice and useful My eldest DD bought me a DAB radio so my old one will get relegated to the conservatory I think or maybe even the chazzer. Its one of those big ghetto blaster ones and it works OK and had a CD and tape bit on it but its just taking up too much space in my kitchen.
I have lots of left over to use up.DD gave me a whole bag of sprouts as she had bought too many

Any ideas what I can make and freeze ??

The cheesecake will find a good home though .I'm out again in a few days for New Year so I am only home for around three days.
Nice as all the festivities are I shall be just as happy when life gets back to normal again.
at least I have no food shopping to buy for awhile as I also had a big hamper given to me full of teas,coffee,biscuits and goodness knows what else So my January shopping bill will be low.I have just over £30 odd in my food purse and its going into my holiday fund on Thursday as it will be the end of the month and the start of a new one so another new months cash will go in there.

I hope everyone has a very Happy New Year and the thread will carry forwards into 2016

Cheers everyone and thank you all for keeping us focussed on not spending during 2015

JackieO xxx