Put away your purse & become debt-averse

joeyjimbles

I don't like electronic reading either to be honest. But having gone cold turkey on buying any magazines for two years, I quite enjoyed it. And it was free - oh and if I didn't like it, I could just give up on it and choose another or not. I mention it also as it's quite a nice little distraction that's easily to hand should the need occur.
I do however have to have proper books to read hence why I'm a library member. Always in three's too.

foxgloves

Well, I had the task of sorting out Mum's clothes the other day, which I expected to be a sad thing to have to do, & it was, but I also found it quite interesting. I took my time & was listening to my audiobook as I went along, & it wasn't long before I started noticing evidence of some very similar clothes-buying traits to my own habits during the Spendy Years. I found quite a lot of items unworn, still with tags. Most of these were from expensive little mail order catalogues or from the sale rail. I have said before that some of my least worn (& therefore wasteful) garments have been those purchased from sale rails. It's that thing of being carried away by the thought of a bargain, isn't it, rather than buying an item that you really, really like. And posh little catalogues which turn up in the post.....I can remember buying a linen maxi skirt from one of those - £86 - I bought my usual size, it didn't do up & it wasn't maxi length even on my vast height of 5'3" & a bit!. And back then, I couldn't be bothered to send it back for a refund or swap! I never buy clothes mail order or online these days. It's too important to me to be able to try things on.
Another little trait I recognised from Mum's wardrobe was sheer amount of clothes. Lots of lovely things, but as I was laying everything out on the bed for sorting, I found 3 or 4 categories where there were an awful lot of very similar things. i.e 14 white tops....all slightly different, in that search for the perfect one. I used to have a real habit of that......black dresses, black tops, never waiting until I'd found the best one that I really liked, but buying anyway. My wardrobe back then was full of barely worn stuff that I only 'quite' liked.
Another little similarity that made me smile was finding garments in styles I know Mum would have absolutely loved, but not in 'her' colours. I used to be terrible for that, pre-LBM (I mean the proper LBM, not the quick flicker when I'd eat lentils for a couple of days before rocking up at the Clinique counter again!) I don't know what I was expecting to happen......I wasn't suddenly going to start looking great in pastel lilac or navy blue in the time it took me to get my purchases home, so these unloved items used to end up in the charity bag.
I would have said prior to this that Mum's attitude to money was fundamentally different to me pre-LBM. Back then, she used to think I was profligate with money, but I think the difference, really, is that she & Dad had paid off the mortgage, had savings & never took out credit, whereas I used to be dipping straight into the bank's funds barely a week after pay-day, & very obviously out-spent my means on a constant basis.
I suppose there's a truth there, that once you have the degree of financial security that's right for you, you are free to spend your surplus cash on whatever you want & in whatever quantity. If you haven't got that security & are making free with money belonging to financial institutions, then pay-back time will eventually catch up with you.
Anyway, it was interesting to spot so many of my old clothes-buying traits. When everything eventually goes off to the charity shop, there will be some lovely things for somebody. I love to find a charity shop treasure, so I am hoping that amongst what I've packed up, there will be a couple of absolutely perfect little finds that bring their new owner joy. Mum liked to support the local charity shops when she was having a clear out, so we are carrying on what she would have done & helping a good cause.
I can't believe I used to be such a silly girl with money - my budget system was pretty much pick bank statement up off doormat, open it (at least i did that, eh?), read it with my eyes closed, then put it in a drawer. What a plum! In complete contrast, I've spent this morning (I'm back home for a few days) updating budgets, doing a meal plan & writing a shopping list and generally being Mrs Sensible.
Hope you are all seeing some of this lovely sunshine,
F x

crazy_cat_lady

Hope it's going as well as it can be Foxgloves.
I had a little smile at you seeing shades of yourself in your mother's shopping habits, and the clothes will be lovely treats and treasures for lots of people.
Thinking of you.

Chrystal

I'm sure your Mum would be really pleased that the Charities will benefit from her things. :A

Thinking about you XX

foxgloves

Hello diary readers,
Hope you are all enjoying some of this lovely autumn sunshine. I awoke to the sound of neighbours scraping their windscreens this morning, so it's been a crisp, cold night, but a lovely day & mr f and I have been down the garden gathering pears, apples, courgettes & the last three beans (nothing wasted here, lol!)
I've just updated my signature as I received another £5 voucher from doing surveys. I like to keep a tally of my survey income over the year. I think this year will be my best total to date, as I am now at £358, but I cashed out on Onepoll yesterday, so that will be an additional £40 when it arrives and then I shall just need another little earning to get it over £400. I've got £40 of this summer's survey rewards in Amazon vouchers, so I'm saving those, as there's bound to be some geeky box-set on mr f's Christmas list.
Another thing I've been mulling over today - did the weekly grocery shopping at Morrisons - I'm not a very frequent visitor there - & was pleased to come on budget, but also to find some good prices in the world food section. Ages ago, Ziggy247 who posts on the DFW Small Things thread flagged up about tins of pulses & various other stuff often being cheaper in big supermarkets in the World Food aisle, than on the standard shelves. I went to investigate that & she was right. And today in Mozzers, all the tinned tomatoes & tinned pulses were on offer at 4 for £1. I was standing there choosing 8 tins to put in my trolley & thinking what I would make best use of. I chose 4 tins of tomatoes, because they are just so useful in so many dishes, aren't they? They freeze well too if a recipe just requires half a tin. Then I decided on 2 tins of butterbeans, 1 of red kidney beans & 1 of cannellini beans.We both like making a very simple veggie meal from Rose Elliot's 'Cheap & easy vegetarian cookbook' called something like 'Multi-coloured butter beans' but known in our house as 'Cheesy bean thing'. It's quick, easy, nutritious & real comfort food on a chilly night with a portion of lovely thick-cut home made jacket wedges. 1 tin of butter beans makes 2 good portions. From the same book, I also like to make butterbean quiche - that cuts into four, so does a main meal plus a lunch for each of us. The red kidney beans will do a chilli (usually get a spare portion from that) or 2 portions of rajma curry or could go into red bean pie (potato-topped, also from the Rose Elliot cheap veggie cookbook) Then I was torn between black-eyed beans, because I have a very nice filling Waitrose veggie chilli recipe using those, & a tin of the white kidney/cannellini beans. I went for cannellinis because I like those in my lunchtime salads & one tin easily forms the basis of two days of lunches. So that's pretty good for a £2 spend, I thought. Chickpeas were also included in the offer, so that would have added other possibilities - chickpea curry, a spicy chickpea stew I sometimes make (& would usefully use up some courgettes) or hummous. So if I kicked an extra £10 into our food budget, I could get 40 tins to stock up the pantry & form the basis of loads of meals. I'll think about that for next time I'm in town. I shan't get in again now, until I'm back home again, as I need to travel down for more house sorting with my sis later this weekend.
Well, mr f has made me a nice cup of tea so I shall sign out now & go & have a bit of leisure time.
Take care all, we only get one life,
F xx

Onebrokelady

foxgloves wrote: »

Oh yes, OBL. I agree about Christmas magazines. I really did used to get tempted by those. Much less so now, though. They look so lovely & festive, don't they? However, I don't think I bought a single one last year. I do look at them, but have come to the conclusion that they are pretty much all the same. I know how to cook a Christmas dinner, pud, cake, etc. I don't need pages of glittery party dresses & clutch bags because I'm not going to buy that kind of stuff & I have zero interest in how 'celebrities' (I even loathe the word!) spend Christmas. So I still love the idea of Christmas mags, but would have to choose very carefully on content to make the £5 (ish) spend worthwhile. The last one I bought was a craft title & I chose it for the little festive free knitting kit on the front. I did knit the item, but my intention to knit a few more for gifts didn't materialise. I still have the pattern though.
F x

It's the home decorating and craft ones that I'm tempted by,but I haven't bought any andim not going to :T:A

Onebrokelady

DawnW wrote: »

Totally with you re 'celebrities' - really don't understand the hype. The kind of magazines that tempt me, at Christmas as well as other times, are those that feature lovely houses and gardens, and decorating. Yes, I know it is all staged, and nobody' house looks that perfect, but still



I don't indulge very often though!

Nope I don't do celebs either,like you it's the home mags that tempt me too

Onebrokelady

foxgloves wrote: »

Hello diary readers,
Hope you are all enjoying some of this lovely autumn sunshine. I awoke to the sound of neighbours scraping their windscreens this morning, so it's been a crisp, cold night, but a lovely day & mr f and I have been down the garden gathering pears, apples, courgettes & the last three beans (nothing wasted here, lol!)
I've just updated my signature as I received another £5 voucher from doing surveys. I like to keep a tally of my survey income over the year. I think this year will be my best total to date, as I am now at £358, but I cashed out on Onepoll yesterday, so that will be an additional £40 when it arrives and then I shall just need another little earning to get it over £400. I've got £40 of this summer's survey rewards in Amazon vouchers, so I'm saving those, as there's bound to be some geeky box-set on mr f's Christmas list.
Another thing I've been mulling over today - did the weekly grocery shopping at Morrisons - I'm not a very frequent visitor there - & was pleased to come on budget, but also to find some good prices in the world food section. Ages ago, Ziggy247 who posts on the DFW Small Things thread flagged up about tins of pulses & various other stuff often being cheaper in big supermarkets in the World Food aisle, than on the standard shelves. I went to investigate that & she was right. And today in Mozzers, all the tinned tomatoes & tinned pulses were on offer at 4 for £1. I was standing there choosing 8 tins to put in my trolley & thinking what I would make best use of. I chose 4 tins of tomatoes, because they are just so useful in so many dishes, aren't they? They freeze well too if a recipe just requires half a tin. Then I decided on 2 tins of butterbeans, 1 of red kidney beans & 1 of cannellini beans.We both like making a very simple veggie meal from Rose Elliot's 'Cheap & easy vegetarian cookbook' called something like 'Multi-coloured butter beans' but known in our house as 'Cheesy bean thing'. It's quick, easy, nutritious & real comfort food on a chilly night with a portion of lovely thick-cut home made jacket wedges. 1 tin of butter beans makes 2 good portions. From the same book, I also like to make butterbean quiche - that cuts into four, so does a main meal plus a lunch for each of us. The red kidney beans will do a chilli (usually get a spare portion from that) or 2 portions of rajma curry or could go into red bean pie (potato-topped, also from the Rose Elliot cheap veggie cookbook) Then I was torn between black-eyed beans, because I have a very nice filling Waitrose veggie chilli recipe using those, & a tin of the white kidney/cannellini beans. I went for cannellinis because I like those in my lunchtime salads & one tin easily forms the basis of two days of lunches. So that's pretty good for a £2 spend, I thought. Chickpeas were also included in the offer, so that would have added other possibilities - chickpea curry, a spicy chickpea stew I sometimes make (& would usefully use up some courgettes) or hummous. So if I kicked an extra £10 into our food budget, I could get 40 tins to stock up the pantry & form the basis of loads of meals. I'll think about that for next time I'm in town. I shan't get in again now, until I'm back home again, as I need to travel down for more house sorting with my sis later this weekend.
Well, mr f has made me a nice cup of tea so I shall sign out now & go & have a bit of leisure time.
Take care all, we only get one life,
F xx

What bargains,I really wish I liked beans but I really don't apart from baked beans that is

Onebrokelady

foxgloves wrote: »

Well, I had the task of sorting out Mum's clothes the other day, which I expected to be a sad thing to have to do, & it was, but I also found it quite interesting. I took my time & was listening to my audiobook as I went along, & it wasn't long before I started noticing evidence of some very similar clothes-buying traits to my own habits during the Spendy Years. I found quite a lot of items unworn, still with tags. Most of these were from expensive little mail order catalogues or from the sale rail. I have said before that some of my least worn (& therefore wasteful) garments have been those purchased from sale rails. It's that thing of being carried away by the thought of a bargain, isn't it, rather than buying an item that you really, really like. And posh little catalogues which turn up in the post.....I can remember buying a linen maxi skirt from one of those - £86 - I bought my usual size, it didn't do up & it wasn't maxi length even on my vast height of 5'3" & a bit!. And back then, I couldn't be bothered to send it back for a refund or swap! I never buy clothes mail order or online these days. It's too important to me to be able to try things on.
Another little trait I recognised from Mum's wardrobe was sheer amount of clothes. Lots of lovely things, but as I was laying everything out on the bed for sorting, I found 3 or 4 categories where there were an awful lot of very similar things. i.e 14 white tops....all slightly different, in that search for the perfect one. I used to have a real habit of that......black dresses, black tops, never waiting until I'd found the best one that I really liked, but buying anyway. My wardrobe back then was full of barely worn stuff that I only 'quite' liked.
Another little similarity that made me smile was finding garments in styles I know Mum would have absolutely loved, but not in 'her' colours. I used to be terrible for that, pre-LBM (I mean the proper LBM, not the quick flicker when I'd eat lentils for a couple of days before rocking up at the Clinique counter again!) I don't know what I was expecting to happen......I wasn't suddenly going to start looking great in pastel lilac or navy blue in the time it took me to get my purchases home, so these unloved items used to end up in the charity bag.
I would have said prior to this that Mum's attitude to money was fundamentally different to me pre-LBM. Back then, she used to think I was profligate with money, but I think the difference, really, is that she & Dad had paid off the mortgage, had savings & never took out credit, whereas I used to be dipping straight into the bank's funds barely a week after pay-day, & very obviously out-spent my means on a constant basis.
I suppose there's a truth there, that once you have the degree of financial security that's right for you, you are free to spend your surplus cash on whatever you want & in whatever quantity. If you haven't got that security & are making free with money belonging to financial institutions, then pay-back time will eventually catch up with you.
Anyway, it was interesting to spot so many of my old clothes-buying traits. When everything eventually goes off to the charity shop, there will be some lovely things for somebody. I love to find a charity shop treasure, so I am hoping that amongst what I've packed up, there will be a couple of absolutely perfect little finds that bring their new owner joy. Mum liked to support the local charity shops when she was having a clear out, so we are carrying on what she would have done & helping a good cause.
I can't believe I used to be such a silly girl with money - my budget system was pretty much pick bank statement up off doormat, open it (at least i did that, eh?), read it with my eyes closed, then put it in a drawer. What a plum! In complete contrast, I've spent this morning (I'm back home for a few days) updating budgets, doing a meal plan & writing a shopping list and generally being Mrs Sensible.
Hope you are all seeing some of this lovely sunshine,
F x

My mum is the same,she loves buying clothes but often forgets what she has got and buys similar ,she has lots of things in her wardrobe with the tags still on,but she has the income to be able to afford it so it's up to her,she does like nice clothes
Hopefully a lovely frugal shopper will find the gems from your mums collection xx

foxgloves

I've just stopped for a lunch break so thought I'd pop today's post on while I wait for my very frozen yoghurt to thaw a bit!
A very useful day so far on the frugal front, & pleasant too. We've got as far as we can with funeral arrangements, etc, so I decided to have really normal day doing kitchen stuff while listening to my audiobook. I've got a loaf of granary bread on its 2nd proving & have baked a tin of garibaldi biscuits to take south with me tomorrow. I've also started sorting out the huge basket of fruit we gathered from the garden yesterday. Have baked a pear & walnut cake, which is just cooling as I type, & sorted the rest of the pears into less ripe ones which are fine for the fruit bowl & ones which need using today - these I've peeled & cored & have poached in a bit of sugar syrup with a squeeze of lemon. I'll freeze those & they'll be nice warmed up over ice-cream or just on porridge, etc, over the chilly months. I'm sorting out the apples next. They keep better than pears, so I always wrap the best ones individually in newspaper & pop them in a basket to eat instead of bought ones until they run out. The less good ones are going to be stewed & frozen and I am also going to chop some for a batch of mini-muffins, into which I also intend to chuck some orange & lemon zest I found in the fridge, leftover from something else. I shall finish off with a bit of 'fridge triage' as I have spotted 3 half-peppers in there which won't get used in the next week, so I'll slice & freeze those for next time we fancy fajhitas. Oh, & then I shall just need to bake the granary loaf, but after that, it's hot bubble bath time, then I shall put my feet up with my book. Mr f has had to work all day, but still wanted to cook tonight, so I shall vacate the kitchen & leave him to his geeky podcasts & culinary efforts. He's using some of our homegrown squash crop to make a lovely butternut mac & cheese recipe we found last year in the freebie Waitrose magazine.
Am taking pleasure in simple things today - the most fab skein of geese has just flown low over our garden in a perfect triangular formation & our robin has visited to see if there's ow't worth having on the bird table.
Best wishes to all,
F x