Jamiedodgers 4 month simple life challenge

JAMIEDODGER

MissKJ wrote: »

That's it, I am inspired! We bought this house 15 months ago and the stuff in the loft (boxes of it) hasn't been touched. The book and CD shelves are creaking, and as we are renoating, I have to keep moving the damn stuff around! Whilst don't want a totally minimalist home, we don't need all this. How the heck did these italics get on????

glad this thread has inspired you!:)


today:

sold one book on amazon and paid dd nursery fees for the week £57.75


think im doing quite well so far!

Move_To_Portugal

Hi Jamie

Great thread. Have you read Your Money or Your Life by Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin. I think it's the best personal finance book out there. I read it about a year ago and it totally transformed my way of thinking about spending.

The relief in not wanting to buy loads of stuff and being able to live a clutter free life is amazing. The relief in not wanting to 'keep up with the Jones' is totally freeing.

We now live a frugal life, hardly buy anything thing and all our money saving is going to enable us to get the simple life we want, not the life a world of possessions gets you.

Sorry a bit new agey for the morning:o

JAMIEDODGER

Move_To_Portugal wrote: »

Hi Jamie

Great thread. Have you read Your Money or Your Life by Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin. I think it's the best personal finance book out there. I read it about a year ago and it totally transformed my way of thinking about spending.

The relief in not wanting to buy loads of stuff and being able to live a clutter free life is amazing. The relief in not wanting to 'keep up with the Jones' is totally freeing.

We now live a frugal life, hardly buy anything thing and all our money saving is going to enable us to get the simple life we want, not the life a world of possessions gets you.



Sorry a bit new agey for the morning:o

not at all!:)

no i havent read it, will see if i can get hold of a copy from the library maybe.

glad to see so many people have this attitude:)

Yorkielass

I've been following your thread with interest JD.

My parents have for years kept almost every book they bought/owned and really didn't have room. Then I mentioned I was selling things on amazon and now every time I see them (which is only 4/5 times a year) I get a big bag of books. They stopped off with us on the way back from their holiday I got given 4 books which they'd bought on offers to take away but wouldn't read again - sold one on amazon for £6.50 ish already. In the past these would have just piled up at home. :j so they're clearing nicely and I'm making money as they said I could keep whatever I make (I think I've convinced her to try the library again - at one point they'd read everything there that they wanted!

Keep up the good work

JAMIEDODGER

morning all. havent had a chance to update since friday as been a hectic time here!

here goes:

friday
went shopping with girls, car park fees, lunch out and a coke in the pub, cost £7.50, came out of my personal money so i still have £2.50 left of that:)

bought in H&M: a vneck brown jumper and green striped shirt got 20% voucher so bought the cost down to £17:)
also bought new trainers as handed down my last pair to ds1, cost £35

saturday
picked up stuff for weekend food at lidl cost £29.91, this should do me until next saturday with all the stuff i still have in, and i think am well under budget for groceries so far!

today
i am as usual having a NSD today

i will be ebaying 6 items this evening to make up for my purchases on friday:)

i have also sold another book on amazon:D

JAMIEDODGER

morning all:)

havent really had much time to update this week as been really busy. but not a worry as not much goes out of my account second week of the month anyway!

paid the usual rent, nursery fees this week.

have made some homemade cards to sell on ebay out of my scrapbooking stash too:)

sold another 6 books on amazon:D

so as you can see the stash is coming down and the cash is coming in!!!




i need to go to the library this week and stock up on some more books for the month as well as continuing my lovefilm sub.

aims for this week.....

copying all my cd's to the computer to transfer to ipod and then listing them all on ebay.

have about ten more books to list on amazon (i prefer amazon for selling books)

havent really managed to save any money this week as will be doing that at the end of the month!

PMS is looking quite healthy and just touching £100 now, usually i would save this but this month it will be paying for lino in DS2&3 bedroom. hoping to get a good deal on this as i would like to have some left to save!

Grocery challenge is also going well (need to do a tot up of receipts but i know i am in budget so far!) I will be doing a store cupboard challenge for the last week of the month to keep it as low as possible!

i have various other things to list on ebay this coming week and will be making some more cards to sell. (which is also keeping me busy and away from the shops!:D) I am hoping to make lots of cards because my scrapbook stash takes up a lot of space and it would be nice to see some money back from all that i have spent over the years!! I am making all my own xmas cards too, (made 2 so far lol) so i really need to get a move on with that!)

anyways, thats the update for this week. im still keeping track of every little expenditure on spendingdiary.com, so that should give me an exact list of exactly where my money goes!

i am also getting better a finding free car spaces when i go into town as the paking fees are ridiculous!

oreo7504

MissKJ wrote: »

Welcome Jamiedodger, and you make some very valid and excellent points about stuff. But have you thought, that if you buy your CD's from amazon or somewhere, down load them onto itunes account via PC, you could then sell back the CD at a later date. I have noticed that paying for downloads on itunes is just as expensive as buying the actual CD's, unless you know different?

If you sell the CD's you don't have a right to keep them on our computer, as from what I can understand you can make a copy for your own use, which you do when you copy from the cd to your computer but as soon as sell the cd you have an illegal copy.

JAMIEDODGER

with the various threads on winter and price increases popping up lately, i thought id better take a look on how i can prepare for these...while trying to keep to my clutter free plan.

ok so the increases on food are worrying me slightly...it will mean that i will have to either find roughly an extra £60 per month for food or slash the budget elsewhere. the only reasonable places i can take this from are xmas/birthday savings or lifeplan savings. either that or make my food money stretch further.

trying to stay warm this winter is also important to me (and my kids) i want to do this without incurring the huge winter fuel bill costs as last year was hard enough. this year i want to be more prepared..

winter weather (and the usual october flooding here) mean that i wont be able to dry many clothes on the line, i have a TD but am reluctant to use it because of the cost, which means that airer drying is the way to go, unfortunately clothes take a lot longer to dry this way, which will mean i need to stock up on more undies for the kids as this will be what i run out of!

its gonna take a huge amount time, thinking and effort to achieve all the aims that are important to me.

i have been reading the clothes challenge on the OS board and want to try and keep in with this too.

i only have two things on my must buy list this year now, and that is a pair of long winter boots and some tights! i think i can manage on all the clothes i have in my wardrobe without buying anything else.

the kids are a different matter though! i am currently looking on ebay for cheapish trousers for dd who is 3. ok so i could go buy cheap pair from primark or similar but they will wear out quickly and i wont be able to sell them on ebay afterwards! so am looking for some decent label ones instead!

i was thinking of getting hot water bottles too. will look around for cheapish ones of those, having said that, i have plenty of boots points to spend so i could use those as i wont be buying any xmas pressies from there (also have a £10 boots voucher coming from pigsback!)

bringing more stuff into the house compromises my clutter free life so i will have to think about what can be ebay/amazon/charity shopped to compensate.

hmmm. more thinking to do.....

Jacks_xxx

:wave: Hey babe,

It's really sunny here today but there's a definite nip in the air. Luckily I love chunky jumpers and boots and scarves so I'm happy.:dance:

I can't wait for the leaves to fall off the tree so that I can go to the park and kick them about a bit!

We don't have any central heating, or a tumble dryer, so drying laundry is a bit of trial for us too if the weather's bad. (Why is it always pants that you run out of??? )

We haven't had to worry about flooding here so far though, and I quite like snuggling under my massive fake fur blankie on the sofa when it's freezing so I'm not too worried.

I'm trying not to panic about the price increases, and deal with it calmly, making cuts wherever we can, but I do have a little butterfly doing a tap dance in my tummy whenever I think of it.

But what I really want is one of those giant furry boots that you can fit both your feet in. Heaven! :grinheart

Love Jacks xxx

monkeymonkey_3

JAMIEDODGER wrote: »

i was thinking of getting hot water bottles too. will look around for cheapish ones of those

What about making wheat bags instead? I think you can use bulgar wheat,and you'd need some material to make the bag from, but I think they're much more cosy than a hot water bottle, and you can make whatever size or shape you want. You just put them in the microwave for a few minutes, and they stay warm for ages. Just a thought?