Claire's OS house deposit quest!

retromother

Not seen the neighbours yet. Did see their daughters car parked outside all yesterday, really hoping all is ok.

We are taking the boys out for ds birthday today. His actual birthday is nxt wk, but he is in school then. I've funded this with my tax free wages this month. I started working late in the year so am on culmulative tax which kicks in nxt payday i reckon.

Miss_Purple_Hat

retromother wrote: »

I am writing a 'family book' that I can use myself and pass on to my children about saving and frugal living (just a handwritten notebook type thing)

Hi! That sounds really lovely and very useful.

Hope the neighbours are OK!


I've still been helping the parents with sorting their house, though today was a rest day and they took me out for a Chinese buffet lunch to thank me for helping.

Doing quite well with not spending money, guess it helps that my parents are feeding me! But I'm terrible for just spending my money on lots of little things I fancy and the occasional larger purchase so it's a challenge to not do that. I want to get into sewing, for example, but rather than buying a sewing machine I'm borrowing my mum's one that's been sat in the loft for years. I'm going to try it out on some old clothes that would otherwise have gone in the bin from being worn out.

I know it's a few hours early, but happy new year, everyone! :beer:

retromother

Sewing is great for cushion covers too - you can give a room a nice revamp for pennies using material from old clothes/pillowcases/charity shop bits.

I'm very tired this morning, some people across the road had a party. Their parties always end up turning into an outdoor drunken mess and this one went on until at least 4am. Having two young kids, this means little sleep for me. I need to be careful today, I often ended up overspending when I'm tired - junk food, energy drinks, bubble baths - basically anything to make me feel better. I think what I'll probably do is pick up some 17p cola and have a pamper afternoon/evening using old bits and stuff I got for Christmas. We have to drive stepson home today as well so I'll probably fill up the car, got a 10p per ltr saving on my clubcard, so I think we'll get it at £1 per ltr!!!

retromother

For anyone who is interested in doing a new year pamper/detox day here is my idea:

Breakfast - Oats, made 1/2 skimmed milk 1/2 water. Topped with frozen blueberries and warmed through the usual way.

Cup of peppermint tea (or normal tea/any herbal or fruit teas you've got in the back of the cupboard - we all do it!)

If you have a body brush, go to the bathroom and use it!

Shower, defuzz, use any leftover body scrub before. Wash hair and use any old hair masks you've got (or mayo works)

Normal skincare routine, teeth etc!

Moisturise body with any body creams in your stash (if you're anything like me you'll have about a billion)

Use foot and hand cream (or body cream in their place)

Dry hair/tie back if you prefer

Get into your favourite dressing gown! Read a good book/watch a film - any nice relaxing activity. Have another tea or a glass of water.

Lunch - you could make a nice soup out of any leftover veg/have a salad

Give yourself a manicure and paint your nails with a nice polish. Burn some nice scented candles and do another relaxing activity. Have some fruit for a snack.

Dinner - something easy to make! I think I'm going to have mexican chicken!!! Or maybe thai green curry...

If you have any wine leftover you could have a glass of wine

Get the pots done, tidy up and then run a nice hot bath. If you have any face masks use one. Put on some nice relaxing music and chill.

After your bath do you normal skincare routine, moisturise with body lotion etc and get into your cosiest jammies. Make a hot chocolate/cup of tea and cosy up in front of the fire!

Get an early night!!!

It's a lazy day, that costs nothing and can be adapted to suit what you have in the house! If you have kids you might just need to shorten it to an evening!

NewShadow

Phew, I'm back... no internet at nan's and came home to about 400 emails. All deleted now

First thing I want to do is apologise to nurse maggie, I just read back my post from before christmas (and how did this thread grow so fast) and realised how b!tchy it sounds. I was panicking about having to get on a train first thing and didn't spend the time reading it back before logging off. Any insult was not intended.

I meant to say something along the lines of - Isn't it weird how so much stuff can effect weightloss - water, sleep, stress, time of day, amount of food, type of food - and they all seem to effect people differently. for some, fat's the killer, for others sugar, or carbs, or some need everything in moderation.

I know a lady that lost 2 stone by stopping eating potatoes. She still ate pasta, bread, rice - just not potatoes. Weird.

I need to eat more dairy - milk and cheese, and not eat bread, if I want to lose. Sleeping properly helps, definitely more liquid, but as mentioned, feeling good about what I'm doing and about me.

It's taken me years to trust my body and work out what works for me and what doesn't - slim fast for example - VLC diets actually make me feel really ill and bloated. I think its the artificial sweeteners. I can kinda do my own detox (but not with peppermint tea *blegh*) by only eating fruit for a couple of days - 500g grapes, a bag of oranges, a tub of pears... I pick on them throughout the day as and when and I get hydrated, swamped in vitamin c, don't feel hungry all day (as I can constantly eat fruit), and eat a max of 1500 cals.

I would offer a word of warning to anyone trying a new 'diet' for the new year - you'll probably have great losses for the first week or two, but don't be torn up if you can't keep it up. slimfast/juice plus and so on are designed to trick your body into not realising that you're starving it. Please pay attention to your body and your moods if you're intending to do them for more than a couple of days. If you're planning on taking up a new exercise routine for the new year - please remember that a VLC diet can effect your bodies performance - you'll tire faster, feel worse and injure more easily if you're not feeding your body.

And on that note, How was everyone's christmas?

Miss_Purple_Hat

Hi all!

So, I'm back at my flat and ready to go! I was going to food shop today but never got chance as I spent the entire day moving the contents of my room at my parents' house to another bedroom, sorting a lot of it and putting it away. It has to look tidy for them selling the house and it turns out I've accumulated a lot of stuff! I have a bedroom of stuff and my little studio flat has a lot of stuff in it, plus I've managed to add more stuff because my parents were getting rid of it! And yet almost none of it is stuff I want to get rid of! Nightmare. If I had a house I'd be fine... My worst nightmare would be if I get given notice on my flat and have to move back home before my parents move house. There just isn't space.

I discovered that I actually need to lose 6 stone, so that's not good. I've added my goals to the first post (though my weight goal isn't specifically for only 2015) and added some names of people who said they'd be interested in joining in. I haven't caught up yet on the list. But I think it would be easier actually if you want your goals to be tracked to post with big red letters what your goals / updates are. Eg. I wish to save £6,000 in 2015 and to lose 84lb in total. (This is much the same way as other threads.)

I was going to meal plan for the week but I'm really tired and can't get in the right mind for it. For now, the plan for tomorrow is:

Breakfast: porridge.
Lunch: rice (white, 50g dry weight), frozen veg, salmon trimmings and soy sauce. (Cooked rice and veg this evening.)
Dinner: jacket potato with lamb mince, veg and gravy.
Dessert: sharon fruit
Snacks: cereal bar, maybe some almonds.

Hope you're all well, and good luck if you're also diving into the challenge tomorrow!

CyclingLondonSaver

Hello all, I'm a new poster but have browsed the forum for a long time! Claire, I'm also aiming to save for a deposit the Old Style way so I hope you don't mind if I tag along in here too.

I'm 25 years old and live in London. I'm fortunate to have a job that pay me a reasonable salary and no dependants to spend my money on (except a boyfriend, but he pays his own way :rotfl: ). This means I'm able to save a fair amount each month.

I've lived both at home and out in my own place since I started working full-time after university, at the end of 2011. Up until last month I was back living with my mum - however I really got fed up of being there and wanted my own space, so moved into a friend's house-share in East London at the start of December.

The rent is higher than I've ever had to pay - £735 pcm + bills! I made the decision to pay all the rent in advance so I wouldn't have to worry about it. However that took a hit out of my savings, meaning I paid out nearly £6500 in one go :eek:. I realised that I wanted to recoup my savings as quickly as possible and reviewed all my spending over the previous 4 months. I won't go into detail, but needless to say it wasn't pretty. I was spending waaaaaay too much on eating out, lunch at work, impulse purchases because I hadn't done any meal prep... the list goes on!

Having taken a long hard look at the state of my finances, I felt rubbish. If I had saved even half of the money I'd spent on eating out, I'd be in a much better financial position. From then on I resolved to make saving my number one financial priority - I've had my fun and my nice dinners out. From now they'll have to wait until I get my deposit!

From the start of December, I kept track of every purchase I made and cut down on the reckless spending. It seemed to have worked, as I cut my spending on meals out by three quarters, food bought at work by four fifths and "impulse food out" by 90%!! All while managing to lower the food shopping spend too. My aim now is to keep the momentum going - so I'm turning to Old Style for support!

I got a slow cooker for Christmas which is really helping. There isn't much freezer space in my house but I try and batch cook as best I can. I love cooking and baking and am trying to make it cost efficient by forgoing W@itrose in favour of L1dl and similar shops. I'm trying to adopt other Old Style habits too and am continually reviewing my spending to ensure I don't trip up!

My target of a deposit of £25000 by the end of the year may be ambitious but it's a real challenge and I'd like to see if I can reach it. I was at £21000 before I paid all my rent. I have a standing order which puts £800 into my savings a few days after pay day (recouping the rent money) but I'm trying to get in as much extra as I can on top of that.

Sorry for the ramble. Loads to say and I haven't even said it all! I'm turning to other OSers for motivation and tips!

NewShadow

Morning Claire and welcome to CLS.

First day back at work today after christmas. Its going to be a little odd as I'm only doing mon and tues this week,

Today and tomorrow will be much the same:

Breakfast: 2x Pears at home, followed by porridge made at work - 30g Oats, with cinnamon, sweetener, 1 banana, 80g blueberries, and 20g dried fruit.
Lunch: Small baked potato with half a tin of beans and about 150g of low fat cottage cheese
Snack: half a pack of red Grapes, 2-4 satsumas
Dinner: Roast beef (roasted overnight in the slow cooker), yorkshire pud, carrots, cabbage, roasties
Snacks: More fruit I guess, I also have sharon fruit

Muser1

Hi:wave:

Also have 5 stone more than I used to have! Too many takeaways and glasses of wine!

Also another Meadowhell hater!

Great thread. x

skintmum2012

Yep I have that 6 stone problem as well now hubby has said we need to save 4 however I am pretty sure it will be more then that won't know till they evaluate current house which we have 25% on and see a mortgage advisor so till then just saving like a crazy lady.