Cat Lady Chronicles

Olliegami

About me.

- Mature student studying Law
- Cat Mum x 2
- Video games are life
- I spend too much money on coffee in cafes
- Managing (sort of) my borderline personality disorder via drugs & therapy.
- Collector of books
- Voted most frugal amongst friends
- Voted most likely to make a frivolous purchase amongst those same friends.

As of 19.12.19 your debt equals = £700

Olliegami

I've been in an on again, off again relationship with my MSE account for a long time now. The biggest struggle that I find I have is everytime I do something that I deem to be 'wrong' I abandon all hope and move on to something else, or quite simply forget about the Forums and the website almost entirely.

The purpose of this diary is to remain accountable. I'd like to move forward thinking about most of my day to day actions and considering their purpose, cost, and effectiveness.

Today's expenses

£2 - Community Cafe meal.
£23.99 - Cat food. (If I'd planned ahead, I could have bought this online.)
£24.48 - Take away food. (Shared with a friend.)

On the matter of the cat food, I have a bit of a moral dilemma. I know that using Quidco, and then a website like monster pet food, I can get this much cheaper. Should I? Does it make a big difference environmentally? Is it okay to undercut a big chain like Pets at Home? Is buying it from there just as bad as not getting it directly from the stockist??? I'm forever burdened by these types of questions - I see it as being a part of my desire for perfection (which I know is impossible).

Usually I just end up going for whatever is easier at the time - this time, I don't feel like I could risk waiting. The bag is almost empty.

The take away is obviously also a big spend. I'd be lying if I said it was a 'treat'. My quidco account will attest to how many different places I get food from like this. It has been a few days at least! (13 according to Monzo!)

On the plus side, I've got £41.05 waiting for me in a b!ngo account. They offered free sp!ns for opening an account and free b!ngo for 24 hours. (If you'd like a referal code for the b!ingo website, I'll gladly pass it on. I'd get 10 more free spins too.)

Tomorrow the community cafe is offering a Christmas 3-course meal for £5, but I'm not sure I fancy it. I've got several assignments that seriously need my attention!! It would also be one less spend - and the likelihood that I leave the house otherwise would be minimal. Unless of course I decide to venture to the University Library in an attempt to focus on this assignment?

Christmas is sorted, I just have to wrap two presents. No more purchasing should happen there!

Until tomorrow!

Blondetotty

Re: Cat food...yes! Quidco (or in my case topcashback) then straight to zooplus. I order about 8 boxes of 12 per order, plus cat litter and it saves me a massive amount of money per year. Add the savings card I buy from zooplus in and the cash back I get and it's even more. If you're still twitchy about it, you could do what I do and donate your loyalty points to charity (zooplus scheme, not sure about what other suppliers offer)
I re-order when I'm down to two boxes and seem to have finally developed a routine.
If you're really planning on money saving, this is probably the best way to do it. At the end of the day Pets at Home is the same, a massive retailer. They just have a larger mark up because of the actual store sites rather than running a solely online business.
I also buy a specialist bag of cat biscuits from a small local independent pet food shop once a month though so I'm kind of covering all bases!


I drop my rinsed out sachets into a recycling scheme nearby. I collect them all and pop them into one box and drop them all off when I go past as most cat food single use sachets can't be recycled except by specialist recycling. (Terracycle.com)

Olliegami

Hi BT. Thanks for your input. I think you're right! Just means planning ahead a bit better.

A friend of mine collects for TerraCycle so I do the same with the pouches and will continue to do that. It's such a great website. Hopefully it keeps gaining traction.

Olliegami

Yesterday was a NSD. It was awful an incredibly unproductive morning/afternoon.
In the evening I stopped looking at 'fail' videos on Youtube and looked at some Bullet Journal videos... organising videos, motivational videos and ended up rearranging my bookshelves.

I've not got a lot of books exactly (more non-fiction than fiction!), but there are other things I like to have on there. Got rid of a few things that I don't need, some ornaments that were just cluttering up the place. I won't be throwing them away, at some point I'd like to go through them all and get them moved on somewhere else.

Today has NOT been an NSD. I met up with some friends of mine for brunch at a local cafe. It was really nice to meet up and chat and just spend time together. We all threw in £10 to cover the bill and left the rest as a tip. We don't often do this - usually just go for coffee so it was nice to do something a little special.

This afternoon I'm back home - there's laundry on, and I'm watching more videos on Bullet Journalling. Thinking about whether it would be a good idea to go back to this. I don't have a 'clean' dotted notebook, but there is one I had in April 2018 that I could do something with. I do wonder if it's more beneficial to have these types of things on the wall... or whether I would just ignore those as well!!!

It's mostly about discipline, routine and sticking something out... things I am not great at.

Olliegami

WELL. I'm super annoyed with myself, 'cause I clearly didn't remember all my subscriptions. Got a notification today to say that my Playstation Plus subscription had been renewed, which meant a quick £49.99 from my account.

I've spent a bit of money here and there the last two days, too. I've just started bullet journalling again, and I saw some cute pens and stickers to use in that. On the plus side, it has motivated me to get more organised.

I've worked out that I have 13 lunches I could make from my stores, and 14 dinners. Essentially two weeks of no spending potential there. Just need to pluck up the motivation to stick to it!

Lots of studying in my future then.

beanielou

Happy shiny new diary
Love your diary tittle!

Olliegami

Hi Beanie! Glad you like the title. Can't tell you how long I spent deliberating over it!!

Checking in today with a bit of frustration. Ended up spending £13.30 in Paperchase today, and got caught up in an offer on Amazon. Put £80 on your account and get £6 sounded sooooo good.

Lately I've been working on my Bullet Journal, which has really inspired me to be more productive and proactive. I'm feeling really positive about the new year, and some of that has come from watching some youtube videos. Mostly on frugal living, low spending, organising stuff and things like that.

I know I can't place strict rules on myself, otherwise at the first sign of danger I'll probably give up altogether, but it is my intention to start slow and try not to buy things that I don't really NEED. i.e STATIONERY. (I have so much...) sweets/chocolate/fizzy drinks. It will be especially difficult to give up my horrendous coffee addiction, but the amount of money you can save is equally astronomical.

More planning to be done to try and make lunches at home etc etc etc.

Hope you're ready for the New Year!

Karonher

Good luck with the bullet journalling. When it comes to coffee could you not get nice coffee at home and a flask type cup and take it with you?

Olliegami

Karonher wrote: »

Good luck with the bullet journalling. When it comes to coffee could you not get nice coffee at home and a flask type cup and take it with you?

Thank you Karon,

I used to take a flask to university, and I have a cold drink bottle too so that should help me avoid the extra expenditure. Just need to stick to using it - it can be so easy for me just to decide that it doesn't matter - but I suppose that's more about reminding myself WHY I'm choosing to take a flask with me.

astrocytic_kitten

It’s never occurred to me to check if I could use Quidco for my regular bulk purchases of cat food, d’oh - thanks for introducing me to that idea!

I’m planning to start bullet journaling tomorrow, interesting to see it’s helped you so much.