Vegan, Bipolar and in Debt.

evkizzy

Life modelling was great but I have £90 in my hand and the urge to treat myself is unbearable. Help!

doingitanyway

I always make sure to give myself a small treat. You are self employed and you have found yourself work. I think a small treat is in order. Well done

AspiringButAnxious

Just wanted to say I'm enjoying reading your diary

Congrats on the life modelling gig!

WantToBeSE

Well done on the job

I would have spent £10 on a small treat for myself.

evkizzy

doingitanyway wrote: »

I always make sure to give myself a small treat. You are self employed and you have found yourself work. I think a small treat is in order. Well done

Well that makes me feel much better about having a treat.
I’m so used to not having money that it’s too exciting not to treat myself when I get (what I consider a large sum). Poor people’s mentality.

Soooo... with that in mind. My partner and I went out for pizza. As vegans we just swap the cheese for extra toppings (it is so delicious and great if you’re on a diet). So for the cost of a margarita (£7) we had a pizza each and some tap water. It felt great to get dressed up and go out for a proper date night. And it didn’t cost that much really.

I’ve banked the rest of the money (less my taxi fare there as I didn’t know where exactly I was going) and have put it on my credit cards like a good little debt-buster!

Listen up Vegans!!
I’m planning a special trip to Waitrose as I’ve just ran out of almond milk from my stockpile and a few of MyPicks are cheaper here than elsewhere, including:
Alpro Soya UHT £3 for 3 (Plus 20% off with MyPicks) and there’s 55p cashback on Shopitize for them. Bargain!!! So I’ll probably buy 6 for the SP. they have an offer on the Alpro Go On Yoghurts at 50p each (usually 89p)

And after 20% (MyPicks) discount they have:
Swedish Glace Dairy Free Ice Cream at £1.76
Al’ Fez Falafel Mix is 95p
UHT Alpro Soya Cream is 68p

Hope that helps!

evkizzy

Mixed post alert: bargains, spending guilt, rational behind holiday and potential money making.

cte1111 wrote: »

https://anthem.subscribeonline.co.uk/subscriptions/vegan-food-living?personalSubscription=true&offerCode=SSEM16

Ordered 3 issues of Vegan Food & Living magazine for £3 (in a trial offer) after finding this helpful link on the Magazine Offers thread. Hoping it will be an investment and that I can get a few company contact details to write to in the hope of receiving info on new product offers/ coupons.

For £1 per month, it's not an expensive trial.

I had a lovely Sunday walk around Humber Bridge County Park with my SO today for a few hours and ended up having an involuntary snog with an excitable husky. Surreal moment?!

After my Waitrose shop on Friday evening, I have decided that we'll have to resort back to only eating food from the (now massive) stockpile and freezer for most of the rest of the month.

I very rarely shop at Waitrose, but when I do, I only buy special offers and "MyPicks" (20% off 10 different products) often at the same time to maximise discounts.

I bought 6 Alpro UHT Almond milks for 75p each (usually £1.70).
*Currently on offer at 3 for £3 on all Alpro UHT milks*
10 soya single cream cartons for 68p each (usually 85p).
2 tubs of Vanilla Swedish Glace ice cream for £1.76 each (usually £ 2.20).
2 x Tabasco sauce for £1.89 *bogof offer in store*.
1 Al' F!z Falafel mix for 95p (£1.19).
Sacla Free From Pesto for £1.72 (£2.50) *in store offer*
3 Alpro Go On yoghurts for 50p each (usually 85p) * in store offer*
Plus a pack of avocados for £1.59 (£1.99).

Should have come to £34.33
Paid £22.46
Saved £12.76! Boom!

...But my food budget is pretty much gone so now I'm feeling pretty guilty even though I know it will absolutely save me lots of money over the next few months.

I also paid a whopping £60 for my SO's birthday present (we don't usually spend much on each other but I went a bit mad) which I'm also classing half of it as an anniversary present (a few weeks after his Bd). It's a collectors edition Radiohead pack for the new album with a vinyl, download of new album, signed art works and some exclusive merch.

The reason behind this extravagant gift is that we've always wanted to see Radiohead together as it's one of the first things we both bonded over when we met. Anyway... they're doing a very limited tour and he bought us tickets to see them (on his birthday)... IN GERMANY!
Apparently, it works out much cheaper (including travel) to see them abroad than in London. We'd been thinking about visiting our friend who moved to Hamburg 3 years ago anyway and we'd not been away for years so we combined the gig with a visit and a mini 5 night holiday... so since the tickets were an amazing romantic gesture, I splashed out on an appropriately themed gift to give him in the morning.

I've already paid for my flights with the election counting money I made earlier in the year and our Air BnB was much cheaper than a hotel (with use of a kitchen- which will save us a lot on food), and is half paid for - just £60 each left to pay and we're ready to go in September.

We'll do a super cheap Christmas again, like last year, with a £10 max budget on gifts to each other and less for our family to make up for the holiday spend.

Hoping to make some money this week by finishing the pet portraits I've had deposits for... Plus, fingers crossed for another long life drawing session.

I was doing well then I went and spent lots of money.

I WILL BE THRIFTY AND NOT TOUCH MY CARDS! NO MATTER WHAT!!

evkizzy

£90 from life modelling -taxi and bus fare (£10) - £60 on gift for SO = £30. And then I went and spoiled it all buy buying a bottle of Bombay sphere Gin which was (incredibly) £18 for 1L in Sainsbury’s. I’m not drinking alcohol this month in an attempt to save money so I guess purchasing a big bottle is just as bad - even if I’m not drinking it. :mad:

My logic was that it’s never that cheap and It will be good to keep for the "party season" (my birthday on 26th Oct-NYE).

Last year I bought a huge bottle of vodka, and using spices and cinnamon sticks, I created gingerbread vodka as a homemade gift for friends and family. I’d like to create something similar again this year so in my rational brain: starting to buy booze for Christmas now, makes sense. Though I’m getting increasingly more angry at myself for going over my set budgets for the month!

I’m waaaaay under my usual spends but slightly over my planned spends which I have mixed feelings about as I’m very much an all or nothing kinda gal.

Hmmmph!

Just joined Swagbucks to see if I can make some monies and I got SBs for checking my credit rating.... I am horrified at how bad it is! It needs fixing ASAP so I’ve got to put a lot more effort into scrimping and maybe not buying in quite as large bulk amounts for my stockpile.

I absolutely NEED my dad to pay me back what he owes me. I’ve managed to make contact with him and it’s not going quite as he planned over in Spain but he is “planning" to pay me back soon. :mad: This is why I hate lending money to family. I cancelled my card to prevent him spending any more on it as it was intended to be used for emergencies and only spend unto £500 but he went considerably over then disappeared from all communication for a week.

Today has been a pyjama day as I’ve spent most of it reading ABA’s DFD and being on SB.
Hoping to save up some “money” that way to help "future me” out over Christmas.

Today is just uuggghhhh!

FacelessNumber

Spending less is a good first step! Also when you start stockpiling offers it will take a little while for budgets to balance out, keep going!

evkizzy

FacelessNumber wrote: »

Spending less is a good first step! Also when you start stockpiling offers it will take a little while for budgets to balance out, keep going!

I'm hoping so.
I've only been stockpiling for 2 months and trying with all my might not to spend more than £5 a week on non-stockpilable items (salad/fresh veg/bread). It's tricky but I believe it will eventually work itself out.
***
Today I am exhausted. My sleeping pattern is all over the place. I'm having nightmares more frequently and struggling to get comfortable in bed. I'm waiting until I'm so tired that I get into bed and, effectively, pass out. I know this is a warning sign of becoming Hyper-Manic and that I need to calm myself down to prevent going into Mania or crashing into a bout of depression.
I reaaaaallllyyyy don't want to go back on antipsychotic meds as they suck all the creativity and leaves me "zombified".

Welcome to my pity party.

FacelessNumber

Have you tried something herbal like Kalms? I found it quite helpful when I was struggling to sleep with stress. Don't know if it would be any good or not. It's around £5 for a pack that could last 6 weeks if you only use it for helping sleep.