Not Buying It- A Consumer Holiday 2016

[Deleted User]

Spent £6.95 on going to the cinema today I saw Room which I enjoyed,especially as I am reading the book at the moment.But it came from my Happy cash Stash and not from my food purse.

Met a friend there who gave me a bag of chilli's I am hoping I can freeze some as I do have rather a lot

Good day all round really and no food shopping bought as yet this month,I think Friday will be a 'big' shop day

Shortypie

Hi everyone!

I was utterly shattered after work/cooking/homework/kids bath last night! Had a lovely Mother's Day in Faversham, fairly cheaply (mooching around vintage market, miniature railway and having a wander in a nature reserve - my 5 yo DD said it was her best day ever ) until you factor in cooked breakfast for 5 plus a meal on the way home as I couldn't remotely be bothered to cook, I was cold and tired and hey, it was Mother's Day! Picked up a lovely vintage teacup trio and teapot but vintage china is my "thing". And again, it WAS Mother's Day :rotfl:

Managed a NSD yesterday, but back to reality my car is in for MOT tomorrow then I need to tax it ASAP as I hadn't realised it had run out on 1st :eek: (log-book registered to old address still am sorting it) plus £12.50 "voluntary" contribution to DS2's school trip plus I need to buy a few bits and bobs for DS x2's residential (waterproof trousers, spare trainers :mad: couple of pairs of joggers each, and a clip-on book light thingy for DS1 who is staying overnight (DS2 has anxiety issues about being apart from me so I'm having to bring him and pick him up every day) and his ASD/ADHD prevents him from sleeping (in fact, he is still awake right now, chatting to OH who just got in from work) so he can read some books without disturbing the other boys.

Shortypie

JackieO wrote: »

an interesting article and I liked the phrase 'Recycle, Repair,Reuse' I think it probably sums up what a lot of us are doing now if we can.reading it about the 'coffee pods' that use 3gms of material (which are almost indestructible and non-biodegradable)to hold 6gms of coffee just shows how silly life has become, and what damage we are doing to the planet just for a cup of coffee .

I didn't know that about the coffee pods :eek: My dad bought me one as a new home present last year. TBH I don't tend to buy the pods as they are so expensive - I registered the product and got a decent deal through their website and I also asked for more pods from mum and dad for Xmas. The kids like helping me to make the drinks and I quite like the chai latte and hot chocolate, but I didn't know the pods were quite so environmentally horrific!

TBH I make a better latte than C0sta or St@rbucks with coffee, water, milk and a little handheld whizzy thing I've had for over a decade,

Lynplatinum

Evenin all

117pauline - sorry to hear of your worsening health issues - I rather suspect that I dont have to tell you that conditions such as yours are worsened by stress?? I know it sounds daft on one level but a few friends have found that both meditation and Reki have helped - dunno if you ve tried those? (just a suggestion?

I think learning to cook - not just from recipes but from really cooking where one looks at a pile of ingredients and can go - I know what I can do with that!!! Saves so much money and time (Planning/writing ingredients list/ going to several shops to get ingredients etc - can you see this was a phase I went through??? :rotfl: )

Did anyone ever see that cookery program where a top chef would make a meal in less time than it took for one to be delivered (or was it 'taken away'??) for the same or less cost?? When DS1 was at Uni the amount of 'take aways' that students lived on seemed never ending!!
It would appear that a lot of young people live like that and then claim to have no money!! One of my Friends daughter's and her partner only eat breakfast (cereal) at home - they buy sanis or lunch out at work and then claimed to me to not be extravagant and to be saving money by eating out every evening but only where there was a 241 offer or a S!oons!!! :eek: My friend said that my face was a picture when they said that - she knows me too well - but I did manage to be polite - just!! They claimed not to be able to save for a deposit on a house! And on salaries of £30K each have asked me to draw up a money saving plan for them!! I am gonna be kind and suggest ready meals + frozen veg during week (still cheaper and more nutritious than their sort of eating out) + having a fun time learning to cook together on a Sat as a hobby to share together (they both go to the gym so they do somethings together there!)

Am also gonna suggest they ditch one of their 2 cars as with a half hour detour one could drop the other off at work. In extreme circumstances a taxi occasionally would still cost less than running two cars!!! :eek:
Then am gonna put em onto Martin's energy swap etc and tell them to put their heating down 1 degree and on a timer! (yep, currently its on all day as they like a warm house when they come home from work!!!! :eek:)
They are not stupid people but both are only children who have been rather over indulged and my friend, now sadly an early widow, is determined to change things as her departed OH would slide em a few hundred behind her back! She worries about what will happen when she's gone!

So, its starting with the NBI mantra of 'Do I Need it and do I Really want to give these Big Firms Higher Profits??'
Sorry for the long post but I thought it an interesting story!
Nite all

Aril

Day 68/366 I have a bit of a spend today as I went down to an event in Brighton for International Women's Day. It was a series of brief talks by women who have started up ethical businesses following bad experiences in the corporate world. All came from hte textile/fashion industry originally and I was amazed to find it's the second biggest polluter after the oil industry. We enjoyed a three course veggie meal at a zero waste restaurant. I'm not veggie but I love veggie food. They did the most amazing thick slices of cauliflower cut like a steak and roasted. Cooking it that way the stem got eaten too. No glasses- we had jam jars and the plates are made from recycled plastic bags. It was quite an experience and worth every penny.
Arilx

Happytravelling

117Pauline- I’m a fellow IBS sufferer. Most of the time, I control it through diet, but as Lynplatinum mentioned, if I’m stressed, the perfect diet makes no difference. Luckily, I only have stressful bouts 3 or 4 times per year. Its really annoying that lots of cheap foodstuffs are on the bad list for me. I miss having baked beans in my life

Tends to be quite easy to NBI on mother’s day. My mum loves bars of soap and she loves chocolate. In the past, I have bought handmade soaps and luxury chocolates but what she loves is bars of 1mperial leather (or similar) and blocks of whole nut chocolate. Did soap at Christmas, so did chocolate for mother’s day and she was absolutely delighted. (My mum is naturally NBI. She’s like the queen of NBI and doesn’t even know it. When I was 18ish, we were looking at photos from when I was a baby, and she happened to be wearing the same cardigan that she was wearing in the photo taken 18 years previously!)

wildthing01

Hello All. Been under the weather a lot recently - nothing major, just lots of little virussy things - basically due to being just too busy (esp at work) and not enough time to rest properly - but have now started a new yoga class (I've done yoga on and off for years but hadn't done any for a while as my previous class was at an inconvenient time), and that's helping a lot.

The good side is am NBIng a lot as frankly am too busy and knackered to go to shops. Like HowMuch, I am now starting to let vouchers/deals etc go if getting them would mean going way out of my way (using up precious time or petrol), and/or if they involve spending money that I don't really need to. E.g. I used to look at the magazine 'freebies' on MSE and think nothing of buying a £3 mag to get a small sample of expensive moisturiser. There's one at the moment for a moisturiser that I love. But now I'm thinking, 1. I don't want the magazine (I used to read them all, but am bored of them all now and they're just an expensive way of filling up the recycling bin) and 2. I already have plenty of perfectly good moisturiser (in fact I used a body moisturiser which works out very cheap for a good quality product), which cost way less than the small 'free' sample. So Not Buying It.

Re charities, I have for some time been a bit annoyed at the large charities' tactics, almost as if they're so keen to make money that they've lost sight of WHY they're making money, and are making it just for the sake of it, as if they're a merchant bank or something. We've boycotted the 'age c' shops over their recent promotion of potentially more expensive energy tariffs to vulnerable older people, and if any charity person actively accosts me or my children while I'm going about my business (WWF did this once in a shopping centre, lured my kids in with large soft toys etc, had me signed up on a guilt trip before I realised what I was doing, although I cancelled it soon after) or, worse, knocks on my door (massive sin in my book!), then I deliberately refuse to sign up now.

After my elderly neighbour died, his relatives, who live far away, asked us to sort his post and send on any bank letters etc. Well, the post had last been checked 6 weeks previously and in that time his hallway had accumulated a foot high (literally) stack of charity begging letters, from charities that he was already regularly donating quite large sums to. There were other large stacks of charity letters around the house that had already been sorted. I was horrified. Now he was a single, childless man of some financial means, so he could afford to donate quite large amounts, but he was also quite lonely and vulnerable and his family were sure that he was being guilt tripped into donating. It made me think of the older lady who took her own life due to harassment from charities.

Anyway, I tend to contribute to very local groups etc, and more in time/effort e.g. baking cakes etc, supporting the school to buy books etc, or sponsoring friends who are supporting charities that are close to their hearts, like a local hospice that cared for a relative etc. I also try to be community-minded (e.g. we used to look after our lonely neighbour a bit, had him round on Xmas day etc), i.e. where I can directly see the impact of what I'm contributing. I'm Not Buying It just because it's for charity, the same rules apply!

Tink_04

Havibg a really skint week so NBI and goingbto use up the stores we have. Have allocated £15 for essential like fresh milk (2 kids on blue milk) and some fresh stuff that I need (we are down to 1 egg, some mushrooms & 3 suspect pears) but I REALLY dont want to buy anything I dont need and im sure I can be creative and run down the freezer a bit aswell as stretching what I buy to make the most of it.

wildthing01

Ps, Lyn, can I just say please from a professional perspective, coffee, milky or otherwise is very bad for your sore throat!! Caffeine dries it out and makes it worse, as does alcohol (including 'medicinal' brandy!!) and fizzy sugary drinks. Water or herbal/fruit teas are acceptable. Please look after your throat!

HOWMUCH

Well OH came to collect me last night from my friends, I'd made my own way there with my bus pass but it started to drizzle and he came so I made sure we got our monies worth out of the petrol cost. Called at MrM's then Sainsbobs and MrT's then little Asda collected £31.66 of food YS price £4.75 they are so close to each other on our way home just a small detour to Sainsbobs the others we pass on the way. NBI day today x