Put away your purse & become debt-averse

Chrystal

Onebrokelady wrote: »

Isn't it weird that before we came to our senses we would think nothing frittering away "our "money on all sorts of useless things,but now having seen the light we don't want to part with a penny even if it's from the fund we set up just for that reason,I've had to dip into my emergency fund a couple of times and I really begrudged it,I wasn't so bothered when I wasn't spending my own actual money

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

crazy_cat_lady

Morning Foxgloves - I really hope that it's been good news with the car.
I used to have an emergency fund and it went fairly quickly with my ex. Broke my heart every time I had to dip into it though, but it is what it's there for. Sounds like you're all very well planned with it.
Also hope you enjoyed a bit of an afternoon of relaxing.

foxgloves

Thanks CCL - car is being slowly fixed, but it is taking longer than even the mechanics thought & they honestly have no idea what caused the problem. We have a courtesy car now, so at least we can get to Mum's funeral without paying for car hire on top of everything else.
Am going to relax for the rest of the day with my book xx

foxgloves

Do you know? I've just watched a tiny bit of TV shopping channel....NOT something in which I usually indulge & I actually found myself saying out loud to the presenter..."You must think I came upstream on a water biscuit"!! I honestly cannot fathom who would fall for some of the CRACKERS prices on there......as well all that cheesy sales guff. One of the sales lots I saw was in fact cheese - a box of 4 speciality cheeses. They were small truckles not whole Stiltons, just in case you think I'm being unnecessarily leery. And the price was £20. Oh, & a further £6 postage. So poor old mr f, who'd just got in from a 1.5 mile sleety walk & 20 mile bus journey to fetch a courtesy car, arrived through the front door to my loud expostulations as to WHO would pay £26 for 4 bits of cheese....all be it nice ones..I've included cheese in the occasional little hamper I've put together with my home made chutneys & biscuits, but that would just be a local one, which I like to do to support local farmers & small producers. The way these presenters were going on, you'd think this was the only cheese on planet earth worth eating!!
Have I finished yet? Nope! Cos then they moved onto beer. Four bottles of it, to be precise. Now to be fair, it came in a very nice presentation box, which may have got as far as Boxing Day before landing in the recycling, & the beer looked perfectly nice..But again, the price for 4 bottles was £20 plus £6 p&p. If you take £26 to our local Co-op (not even Aldi & Lidl!) you can get a lot more for your money than that, including from some of the smaller more artisan breweries...plus a few dividend points.
TV shopping channels sound very informal & matey, don't they? But all the professional hard sell techniques are there, mixed up in the chumminess - items being impossible to source again before Christmas, discounts only on until midnight, stuff 'not being available on the high street', & that general drawing in of the viewer so that they feel privileged & 'part of the club' if they buy one. Have also noticed a presenter often says 'You only pay £30', when the item is actually 4 installments of £30, but saying £120 might be offputting.
Oh well....we're all responsible for our money & how we spend it & I bet there are plenty of people who just love tv shopping & are happy to use it, so each to their own. £26 for 4 small cheeses though.......£26 for 4 bottles of beer.....Oh my days!
F x

DawnW

I suppose there must be people daft enough to buy it Foxgloves, or they wouldn't bother trying to sell it! I must say I don't think I know of anyone who shops from the TV though?

crazy_cat_lady

My bestie is a BIG tv shopper. Some of the stuff she has bought :eek: She got a Christmas tree for £300, but sent it back because it was bigger than half of her sitting room when she tried to put it up. :rotfl:
She's a big lover of candles, makeup and skincare from there.

foxgloves

I think it must be very easy to get drawn into it, CCL. I'm glad it wasn't around in such a big way back when I was spendy. I didn't tend to spend much online either. My thing was shopping in actual shops - I like the 'day out' element of that, meeting friends, trying stuff on, eating out, etc. No wonder I never had any money! I still love a city centre trip but am now much more focussed on what I actually need & enjoy just looking too, instead of buying.

foxgloves

Well, I lifted up my sealed pot today to give it a bit of an anticipatory rattle & I must say it feels encouragingly heavy. I've never done the actual official sealed pot challenge, but borrowed the idea to give myself a little bit of 'treat money' around Christmas. Mr f decided to do it as well, so he saves £2 coins & I save 50ps. It worked well last year.....I'd been hanging my nose over a rather sassy dress & the contents of my sealed pot was exactly enough to treat myself to that plus enough leftover for a coffee. I haven't particularly got my eye on anything this year so when we open our pots on Dec 1st, I may well save it until there's something I really want. We have a few wintry days away in a few weeks to celebrate mr f having a big birthday, so it might even come in useful for that. I'll see. The 'old me' would have felt compelled to spend it immediately, but now I really like being able to keep a little wodge of cash back, for a guilt-free purchase when the time is right.
It's almost like I've become all sensible!
F x

Onebrokelady

I used to work with someone who shopped from the tv shopping channels,she ended up in loads of debt at the time and I remember her constantly working overtime to pay for it all,I used to think how silly she was being buying all this stuff but didn't equate it to my little habit of buying from the shops and my wasteful magazine habit
I actually am starting to feel quite excited at the challenge of not spending anything.
Instead of the excitement I used to feel at going shopping every time I come home having not spent anything I feel as excited as I did when I used to buy things I didn't need, and when I do actually buy something because I need it I enjoy it so much more,there's no guilt about using a credit card to buy something I really don't need and as the advert says " that's priceless"

joeyjimbles

I've only recently bought from the TV shopping thingy - twice in fact - to buy something that was a particularly special price and compared to the company's own website and even heavily discounted places was still the best value. One of them is big birthday present for a friend from a group of us costing just £5 each, and the other is to be divided up for three different people's presents and a must-have item for me which actually worked out that two presents were free - so I'm really pleased.

But whilst researching these purchases, I did see a whole load of expensive tat that I just couldn't imagine why anyone would buy - and as for the shipping costs, that just seemed ridiculous. A quick search however revealed a £5 off and free delivery code which all went through. I think I must have got lucky.
On a similar vein, when unable to sleep I sometimes trawl through the tv channels, how many people do we think actually buy the rotisseries/autofryer/pressure cookers/steam cleaners...and does the shouting and endless repeating make it more likely?