Frugal, thrifty, make do, mend! Let this debt come to an end!

Elisheba

missymoo81 said:

Hey Elisheba. It depends how big the shorts are. Fashion is to have paper bag shorts, (might want to google it) so they are sort of pleated at the top with a belt and turn ups....

Thanks @missymoo81.  I could make them look like that maybe I think.  I'm not sure how flattering they will be though  .  I'll wait till next summer again, and see what I can do with them then. 

Elisheba

I thought I would come back on here and post to try and motivate myself a bit again.  Debt has been slowly reducing, but not as fast as I would have hoped or liked and that is purely due to me frittering away bits here and there.  I need to tighten my purse strings, and think about all the little ways I can stop myself spending, and save as well.  

Financial things to be glad about for September...
1) I remembered to cancel the Disney Plus subscription at last.  Paying for it just to see Loki, well after Loki had finished was not a good use of funds!
2) I am all up to date with my budgeting.  Annoyingly I have also remembered a couple of birthdays and a friend's visit I hadn't budgeted for, so I may have to reduce my debt repayment slightly but at least I am aware of it.
3) I have paid off my library find for late books and the book my dog chewed, so I can now get books out again which should tempt me less with Kindle books.
4)  I have stopped smoking again, so I just need to stick to it.
5)  I have made a food plan and have bought in most of the stuff for it.  Just need to get a few fresh things as the month progresses and avoid going out and buying sweet things.

Financial Aims for this month
1. To pay back as much as I can afford to an account whose overdraft I used when lockdown ended
2. To stick to budget
3. To think of inventive ways to save money when my friend visits
4. To stick to my food plan
5. To review everything again to see where money could be saved.

WinterWarrior

Welcome back. People have told me you can take out kindle books from the library too, but I haven’t investigated! I do often cruise all the kindle books on Am*zn in price order, lowest to highest and have had a few good finds for free (and a few lemons).  Generally the free good ones are first in a series, to tempt you! 

Good luck with the food plan…I love sweet things so have to plan for those too! 

Elisheba

Thanks @WinterWarrior Yes, I am all signed up for digital books from my library.  There is still a much better selection for paper books though so I am glad I have paid off my massive fine. I also have absolutely hundreds on Kindle that I've not read yet, so I'm not short of things to read - its just having things to read that you fancy at that particular point in time that is the issue.

Elisheba

Oh, I forgot to mention!  Moneysaving over the weekend - my Fire Stick hasn't been working and I thought I would have to buy a new one, but an hour on the phone to customer services last Friday or Saturday and it is working again!  Woo hoo.  Thats about £30 - 50 saved.

I also have a massive pile of mending that I'm going to go through this month, and anything fixable is a few pounds saved :-)

My medium term plan is to get to Christmas - pay off the extra I have used on my overdraft, pay for my car service and MOT, pay for Xmas.  Then come the New Year all the excess will go towards an emergency fund (which I have decided I need to have), and when I have that I'll have to think carefully about where I want to target my money.

Next year is going to be quite exciting debt wise as one of the big loans me and my ex have is coming to an end, so that will free up about £250 a month to go towards more debt.  At that point as long as I stay on track I will have about £500 extra a month toward debt, over and above what I am already paying, so I hope to see it go down pretty fast then! 

Elisheba

I'm very excited that just being back on here has already saved me £4.

I had to buy pet food for the month and did a bit of shopping around and got my cat food £3 cheaper at The R*nge than I would have paid on special offer at P3ts at Home.

Then at P3ts at Home, the dog food I was buying was obviously being put up in price but the price tags had only changed in some of places it was being displayed, so I got it for the  £1 cheaper price.

So £4 saved that I honestly wouldn't have saved otherwise, because shopping around can be exhausting so I normally just go to P3ts at Home because it's easy. And no way would I have made a fuss about £1 if I wasn't paying attention.

Anyway, that means my pet food has come in £8.50 under budget for September, so that a nice little tweak for my spreadsheet 😊

ziggy2407

Elisheba said:

I'm very excited that just being back on here has already saved me £4.

I had to buy pet food for the month and did a bit of shopping around and got my cat food £3 cheaper at The R*nge than I would have paid on special offer at P3ts at Home.

Then at P3ts at Home, the dog food I was buying was obviously being put up in price but the price tags had only changed in some of places it was being displayed, so I got it for the  £1 cheaper price.

So £4 saved that I honestly wouldn't have saved otherwise, because shopping around can be exhausting so I normally just go to P3ts at Home because it's easy. And no way would I have made a fuss about £1 if I wasn't paying attention.

Anyway, that means my pet food has come in £8.50 under budget for September, so that a nice little tweak for my spreadsheet 😊

Do you have the P3ts at Home App/Card - as they often send vouchers give discounts 

Elisheba

Morning all, and happy September!

Thanks, @ziggy2407 I do have the card for P3ts at Home, but I've never seen much useful in the letters I get through in terms of vouchers, but I'll sign up to the app and check more frequently.

Today's aim is to be a no spend day.  In fact I'm hoping it will be a no spend few days, until Saturday when I am busy.  It shouldn't be hard - food and pet food and toiletries are all stocked up and I'm super busy tonight with a charity thing I am helping with.

I have been thinking about money saving and think I will cancel my milk delivery.  I think cartons of milk taste like plastic and have been justifying the cost of getting milk delivered because of that (and also it being more eco friendly).  However, financially its too much so it will have to go.  When I look at the start of this thread, I had got food shopping down to £40 a month!  I don't spend much less than that on milk at the moment!

I messaged the friend who is visiting me later in the month and suggested that as some of the places we are visiting are quite expensive that we have some picnics in the car rather than eat out at all the tea shops etc.  She hasn't responded to me and I hope she isn't disappointed.  She is very good with money herself and knows I have historically been hopeless, and want to get things sorted out, so hopefully it'll be okay.

Its very good to have carrots for things isn't it, so I am going to set up a UK wide house search on Rightm0ve with what I think my budget will be once I have the debts paid and the deposit saved, and then type in 'rural' and 'cottage' and check it when i want motivation.  A little country cottage with a wood burning stove, an upstairs loo and some land for dogs, chickens, vegetables and possibly alpacas.  Within fairly easy driving distance of a town so I can get shopping and library books and socialise.  As its still so far away in time I don't need to be particularly practical and worry just yet about what to do about getting to work (as I won't be 100% wfh then), how I will meet people, or what I will do if I want to do things like date.  At the moment its a happy castle in the sky

In good life news, I got to 13232 steps yesterday, and stuck to the meal plan.  I do need to keep to two dog walks a day and push myself a bit on them.  Some clothes are getting a little tight again, so I imagine all those pounds I lost at the beginning of the pandemic stomping everywhere with my dog have been offset a little by all the chocolate I ate last winter in lockdown 3 and my much shorter walks in the bad weather.  

In slightly worse life news I spoke to the Doc today and can't get some tests I need done for a few months because there is a shortage of glass vials.  Brexit again!  Honestly, what have we done?

Elisheba

Well, I managed a NSD today! It's was actually pretty hard in the end, and I think this is one of the areas I've been falling down.

First I remembered I needed to buy a present for a friend before his birthday next Wednesday, then I remembered I needed to buy my niece a birthday present within the next 3 weeks, and so on and so on. Later I thought a glass of wine would be nice after helping with the marquee... All of which I resisted buying, and last week would have bought straight away.

I can order my friend's present tomorrow, and I'll have a look round charity shops for my niece as she needs winter clothes and is 5 so won't care if they are second hand. And really, I do not need a glass of wine on a school night. I'll have some cocoa instead.

Other than that, I have cancelled my milk delivery so that's about £20 a month saved. I had to put a blanket over my lap when working today, and over my shoulders this evening. My weather app says it is 16 degrees here today, but it feels lower than that.

Thankfully my smart meter says I've only used about 75p today on gas and leccie, and I do like to keep it under £1 to give me a bit of a buffer for winter. Just being aware of it again means I am turning off more lights and sockets and saving some pennies 😁.

I am going to a charity dance I have helped organise this Saturday. I need to decide if I'll be drinking there or not. On the not drinking side is saving money, and being fresh for the clean up the next morning. On the drinking side, I'll have more fun! I probably shouldn't though or I might (will) be tempted to smoke.

Well, that's all the money saving from me today. I'm going to drink my spiced cocoa and curl up with my cat and dog as I read through everyone else's posts, and remind myself of all the MS tips and tricks. 

FootyFanDan

Well done on managing to resist the many temptations and keeping your NSD in tact. I think the last few weeks I have found NSD days very hard to stick to. I have a day feeling meh and think ooo I will have a treat tonight...despite having plenty of food in the house already! I really need to keep my head with these moving forward