Finally Debt Free After 34 Years, But Still Need to Live Frugally

HairyHandofDartmoor

beanielou wrote: »

Dreich cold & very miserable here.
Had to change my socks & shoes when I got home

Yuk :eek:.

beanielou wrote: »

Oh & hope you survived Tesco :eek:

Thanks Beanie . It was quite busy at it's half term :eek:.

Sun_Addict

The sandals sound like a real bargain, so no need to feel guilty

Hope you start to feel better soon. You forget how many bugs you pick up when you mix with young children.

HairyHandofDartmoor

Thank you SA .

Willowtree222

Sandals sound like a bargain, which is great. If they get their wear and use then they are always worth the money. x

HairyHandofDartmoor

Thank you Nicnak . If they look okay and feel as comfortable as I'm hoping then they'll definitely get worn.

HairyHandofDartmoor

I still feel a bit rough today, but don't want to waste my entire half term, so I put a wash on and then decided to do a small amount of de-cluttering in my bedroom. I thought if it tires me I can always rest afterwards.

So I looked in one of the small voids and found a micro scooter from when the DC were younger, a bin liner full of buckets and spades (I thought I'd got rid of those years ago!), and the hose for the air conditioner we got rid of last year. So the hose can go to the tip and the scooter and beach stuff to the charity shop.

There's more stuff in that void, but I didn't want to overdo it. I also moved my mum's clothes from a 48 litre box into a smaller 32 litre box, as I gave away a few more recently. Originally I had my mum's clothes in two boxes, a 64 litre box and a 48 litre box, so I have let a lot of them go.

I'm pleased with my de-cluttering efforts and although I feel a bit rough now, I'm hoping I can do a bit more later on today .

PA is thin on the ground, and YG is always very few and far between, but I've had a trickle of OP surveys that I've been doing. I'm nearly on £18 and need £25 to cash out with OP so I've still got a little way to do, but I must persevere.

I hope everyone is having a good Thursday .

elizabethhull

HairyHandofDartmoor wrote: »

They were a bargain as they were £60 before they were in the sale and I was hoping to pay no more than £30 but thought I might have to pay more than that for a comfortable pair. It's just my reluctance to spend money, but if they're comfortable then they'll get worn a lot. I'll wear my smarter ones in the classroom but these will be perfect for walking and for my lunch time job .

Sometimes spending is actually good sense - I'm sure this purchase is one of those times.

Regarding your ever-increasing Tesco bill, certainly investigate a delivery pass. With Asda, you have to spend £40 or pay the delivery charge. I use them every week so it's worth it for me, but if I used several different supermarkets it wouldn't be. If you are so minded, you can list the cost of all those things you buy all the time, then the regular but infrequent items, and then the rare purchases, and see where your extra spending is coming from. It could be a time-consuming job, so only you can assess if you think it's worthwhile.
I've done that for a lot of Xmasses, to see exactly what I was spending on and how much it varied from year to year. Some of us can find it a fun thing to do !!

Than you for sharing your cold with me, HH, it obviously wafted its way through the aether to give me a sore throat & headache this am. Fortunately I take so many pain-killers that I was not inconvenienced for long !!

HairyHandofDartmoor

Oh dear, sorry you've got a cold Elizabeth, although I'm not sure I can take responsibility :rotfl:. I find that pain killers make me feel headachey and nauseous if I take them for more than a day or two (ibuprofen and paracetamol do anyway) so I just take them at night to help me sleep, but this is partly why I feel so rotten when I have a cold. I know that you have to take them all the time for your chronic pain. Do the pain killers ever make you feel nauseous and light headed? They just don't seem to agree with me. I hope your cold gets better soon.

I will definitely look to see if Mr T do a delivery pass as we normally do an online shop in the term time. In the holidays I enjoy actually going there for a change.

The extra spend is partly DS1 and DH wanting extra things, which is annoying. When I'm feeling less rough I must try and analyse why the spend is going up.

foxgloves

HHoD - I think supermarket prices are just going up. I don't think we've taken our eye off the ball with what we're buying on our weekly grocery shopping list. I think that our shopping has been creeping up largely because I haven't increased our target £50 per week grocery spend for a long time & all those little 5p, 10p, 30p+ increases on grocery items have reached a point where its noticeable at the check-out.
Re anti-histamines. I don't have hay fever but can react badly to insect bites, so I always make sure I have these in. I used to get them from A*di for about 99p, but couldn't seem to find them in our local branch last year, so my current ones came from W*lko's. They were massively cheaper than branded ones, so I wouldn't go back to those.
Your sandals sound like a great bargain. I'd quite like a new pair, but my current ones are holding up better than I thought (it's their third summer) so I might get away with it till next year unless I see some bargainaceous ones. I don't find it comfortable to walk in completely flat footwear, but don't want anything with too much of a heel or too strappy, as I like walking, so I'll see how I get one with making these last. They still look quite nice.
F x

milann

Maybe the spends are going up because the prices in the shops are. Have you considered the buying big bags of rice and pasta - the initial cost is slightly more but they last me ages (I know there are more of you than here) I wouldn’t go back to buying the smaller bags anymore.