NST: September: the Turtles go Wombling

Calling14

Aww thanks Bob we will let you off getting names muddled in your condition hehe.

Lucky Starr baby steps you will get there. Can be overwhelming remember when I hit lightbulb moment sat in floods if tears wondering how I got owing 13k and how on earth get it paid off on my measly wages. We are here to support and shout at you.

Got home from work, picked loads of blackberries met up with some dog walker mates and had a walk with them. Made a crumble, froze rest. Had smoked mackerel for tea using up all new potatoes and veg in the fridge.

Avoided shops today, run out of babywipes, really struggle to get all eye make up off without them. May have to spend tomorrow ;-(

Fmess

Ah thank you luckystarr

Good luck on your TA course

The_Only_Girl

Hi all, I had interesting conversations with three of my colleagues today. One (a youngman in his early thirty's) told me he can see the value of my method of using cash when shopping and would definitely try it next month. He said he notices that little amounts added on to his shopping total which is absent-mindedly paid for by a card (debit or credit) all add up, upsetting his budget.

Another one (a young lady in her 20's) said she wants to try my method of looking after the pennies and monitoring spending as little nothings here and there all add up and create a dent in her income with nothing to show for it. For example she said she will probably stop buying coffee (and cake) from the gift shop and bring her own. We did a little de-motivation technique by calculating her coffee and cake expenses. Taking for example a daily expenditure of £4 a day is £20 a week which seems like nothing, but when we calculated the yearly total (not including weekends) is a staggering £1040 per year (on coffee!!!!). She earns £21000 per year gross and if you take out £1000+ worth of coffee, it is a bit much. That shocked her to the core. She also said she started decluttering her wardrobe, was about to take her unwanted stuff to the charity shop, but decided to try to sell some of her stuff on eBay and was amazed at how much she managed to sell them for. One skirt sold for £54!

Another lady colleague (late thirties) said she is trying to wean herself off crisps. She started yesterday. When I asked her how many packets of crisps she eat a day, she said it varies from one to 6. We used a packet from the hospital gift shop as an example (75p a packet) multiplied by 5 days is £3.75 per week (not quite shocking yet) but over 52 weeks (not including weekends) is £195 per year. But if we take the average of consumption, ie 3 per weekday, that's £585 per year. That's a lot when you are earning £12000 pa. she said she also has no savings whatsoever so I said she could try putting away £1 a day, she could have £365 in a year, add to that her savings from her crisps, is equivalent to £950 in a year. It could be more if she tries harder. (We haven't even touched the alcohol consumption and other non-essential spends.)

I was amazed when these three colleagues discussed these issues with me (these are three separate conversations.) It just made me realise that although some people think what we do is utterly strange and too much self-denial and sacrifice, it does make them think. I am hoping to convert them to more MSE ways.

Fmess

the only girl that's fantastic that you've helped those three people, and in one day! Go you! The other day my boss mentioned that she had added up all her grocery receipts from the previous month and was surprised by how much it came to. When I told her I spent £80 a month, she seemed impressed and I told her how SFDs helped me reduce unnecessary spending and she liked the idea

apple_muncher

tog - what wonderful conversations! They'll be signed in to mse and joining challenges before you know it! I did the budget sheets with my neighbour and then gave her a notebook to write down her spends (as a lot of what we wrote was rather guesswork than true knowledge), and she has been so excited to be doing something positive.

Bobarella

Well done to both you TOG and Apple for making a positive difference in your colleagues/neighbours lives.

dolly84

misstara wrote: »

Fmess such sad news about your neighbour.

Calling sounds like you've had a lovely few days off work

Bob hope trade picked up at lunchtime.

Thifty glad to hear you had a fantastic holiday and well done on the triathlon.

dolly did you manage to get out for a cycle?

apple fingers crossed that the situation is sorted sooner rather than later.

academia hope you had a fun time at the hen do

Yesterday was a NSD, 8/20. Today I bought a card for my friends son and a few food supplies. Tea tonight is sweet chilli sausages, wedges and veg. We've still not done a proper food shop so still continuing to mostly make do with what we've got.

I decided to go for a run instead, it was so dark and dreary here and I haven't put the lights back on my bike yet so running seemed safer.

luckystarr wrote: »

Hello Everyone, :wave:


We want to have £4000 saved for house deposit and to have our debt paid off £6000.

How am I going to do this ? lock myself away ? have my debit card taken off me ?.:wall:
In all seriousness I really need to knuckle down and get focussed. This is turning out to be an expensive month. Plus I have my first visit back home since moving and Christmas is coming, the thought of it all is making me feel sick.:eek:

On a positive note I have lost half a stone on Slimming World
I am due to start my Teaching Assistant and Maths course next week so that should keep me away from shops!

Apologies for the really long post.

Hope everyone has a nice evening and a good day tomorrow.

Night all

Some months are just awful but don't let it get you down you seem to have a ton of positive things going on - and remember 'all good things come to he who waits'. Well done on your weight loss.

dolly84

TOG/apple/Fmess - great news about you helping other people get on track. TOG that gift shop at work is gonna love you:rotfl:. It still seems like a taboo subject to discuss money and people want to keep up the appearance of having loads of it, that's why I love this thread.

I was chatting with a friend yesterday (I know her through our sons being in the same class and we are friendly but not best mates or anything), she always seems to have loads of money to throw around, they go on foreign holidays more than once a year (they have 2 kids) , lots of other family/couple/singles trips away, 2 cars, lots of stuff - you get the idea. Anyway during this conversation it came out that her dad had paid for the massive car she drives and she is paying him back monthly with no interest and can miss a month if she needs to, and he is also footing the bill for the extension they are having on their house.

When I told DH about all this it really cheered him up - this is how the Joneses do it.

Plans for the day are working, ironing, cleaning, dog walking, school run. DS is swimming tonight and I will go for a run.

Have a good day guys.

academiablues

Morning all. Everyone's doing brilliantly at the moment, both in regards to money and also helping those around them - it's fab to read
Should be a NSD today (had to buy a drink in the pub last night as I was seeing a friend, but went with a cheap option). As the weather gets colder my motivation to exercise is going out the window, I think I might write down the reasons I want to keep going with it to remind me that it's worthwhile. Hoping for a quiet day at work today - still shattered from the weekend! Hope everyone else has a quiet day too (except you Bob, I know you need it to be busy ) x

Bobarella

AB- thank you sweetie that is very nice of you.