How much to live on

Organgrinder

louby40 said:

We shop in Alidi and Tesco. My partners daughter works in Tesco so we have a colleague club card which gives us 20% off our shopping.

Im not a supermarket snob though, I'll shop anywhere that gives me the best value. We will often search for the cheapest leg of lamb or gin, Bacardi or vodka - I go where the deals are.

Yes my other shop is Aldi too.

I just looked up cheapest supermarkets on Which. Interesting.

https://www.which.co.uk/reviews/supermarkets/article/supermarket-price-comparison-aPpYp9j1MFin

helensbiggestfan said:

  I am well served for shops. Aldi, Sainsburys, Tesco, a decent Co op, there's a local Lidl who sell grass fed beef and who have a fabulous in house bakery. They do a brilliant sour dough  loaf for £1.99. I do make a mean loaf of bread even if I do say so myself but at that price it's not really worth the effort, especially when you factor in heating an electric oven.   

As for bread. Tesco do some great sourdough loaves too.

helensbiggestfan

Meant to add, my new neighbours are fantastic.  Went shopping,  came home to find the lady and her son, mainly the boy, cutting back an overgrown hedge which was beginning to encroach on my driveway. 

 We live on a private cul de sac, not adopted  by the council, with a footpath and small wood directly opposite, so it's up to residents to keep up the maintenance of our bit.  Not an issue because the bonus of the private road is absolute peace and quiet, so cutting back the hedges now and again is a small price to pay for privacy.  

I really love my new home, it took me a while to find it but well worth the wait.  

Ordinary_Yet_Unique

louby40 said:

We shop in Alidi and Tesco. My partners daughter works in Tesco so we have a colleague club card which gives us 20% off our shopping.

Im not a supermarket snob though, I'll shop anywhere that gives me the best value. We will often search for the cheapest leg of lamb or gin, Bacardi or vodka - I go where the deals are.

I am not a supermarket snob. It is a matter of personal preference.

I am not always interested in the best value, but rather what maximises my pleasure.

Whereas some continually want to maximise income, I am more about getting the most enjoyment from the guaranteed income I confidently know I will receive.

kempiejon

Ordinary_Yet_Unique said:
I am not a supermarket snob. It is a matter of personal preference.

I am not always interested in the best value, but rather what maximises my pleasure.

Whereas some continually want to maximise income, I am more about getting the most enjoyment from the guaranteed income I confidently know I will receive.

If only we all had a comfortable guaranteed income well played.
I feel the idea of maximum pleasure got me where I am and is this is the key to the best shopping too, not just supermarkets but everything.

That's enough about tomatoes; maximising pleasure at an acceptable cost is a lifestyle choice needed to balance the financial choice. You can have more money buying cheaper products but it might make you sad. Why not spend money sometime for some pleasure and never be sad. 

Organgrinder

I'm not a supermarket snob either probably cos I'm very much like @louby40 in my spending/saving habits.

Must be because we're teachers! 

But yes some of us try to maximise income. In the case of many I converse with from this site, it's so that we maximise our lifestyle too.

We don't complain that we can't afford multiple foreign holidays for example. What we do is we go out and get the means to do so. 

helensbiggestfan

Organgrinder.   Quite so......I learned at an early age that if I really wanted  something then I had to find the means.  I never say "I can't afford it". Instead I ask myself "how can I afford it".   I taught my children that good things don't just fall out of the sky and land in your lap.  You have to reach for them.  I now hear my eldest son say the same thing to his sons, it makes me smile.  

I am rereading Richard Templars "The Rules of Wealth". I originally bought my youngest, at the time spendthrift son, a copy because this little book explains it all better than I could. It's an easy read and one I throughly recommend.  

My son devoured it from cover to cover in one sitting and it changed his outlook forever.  He did a complete 180 degree turn in a day.  He went from being a hopeless spendthrift living from paycheque to paycheque  and getting nowhere to now being financially stable and effortlessly managing the tightrope of both enjoying the present (lovely home, nice holidays) whilst safeguarding his future, (two pension plans and a growing portfolio of investments). 

I can throughly recommend the book, it's simple, written in plain English that anyone can understand and the author is both compassionate and humorous in the way he gets his message across.  

The most important rule, his number 1 rule is that anyone can improve their financial situation because money is completely neutral - it doesn't care about your gender, your class, your lack of academic qualifications, your skin tone, your religion. 

If you live in a reasonably stable economy such as those found in The West, if you enjoy reasonable health and have access to learning materials, even if it's just a public library, then you can learn to build wealth, or at least make enough to furnish a reasonably comfortable lifestyle.  

He explains that what holds most people back is what he calls "money myths", often the myths that we grew up with, myths taught us by our parents, families, or our educational system. Myths that can be summed up by sayings such as "money is the root of all evil" or "rich people are all crooks" and so on.    These lessons which we just assimilated as we grew up can often lead to a victim mentality, where people think they are stuck in poverty and so look for someone else to blame - society, the government, the "fat cats" - anyone or anything to stop them assuming responsibility for their own actions.  You see this all the time, negativity, learned hopelessness and an unwillingness to even try.  

I make no secret of the fact that I was born into a very modest working class household and that, unfortunately, despite being reasonably intelligent and winning a scholarship to a prestigious grammar school,  for me education was not my leg up.  (I did eventually go to university but not until I was 40). University or further education was not on the table. I had to leave school at 15 without a single academic qualification and make my own way.  

I hated being poor, always being told "we can't afford it".  I resolved at a very early age that I would not accept a life of poverty. I would move heaven and earth to build a better life.  I got my first job at 13 - a Saturday shampoo girl in a hairdressing salon and never looked back.  

 I am already retired but I am always open to new ideas, to creating sideline businesses, multiple income streams. I'm always happy to find ways to maximise my income to maximise my lifestyle.  I like comfort, a nice home, good food, life's little luxuries and indulgences.  I like to travel in comfort and style, stay in nice hotels.  I haven't travelled in a while.  Instead I have recently moved house and I also invested in some very expensive dental work.   £15k worth.  😱. 

I don't mind, I love my new home and I am very pleased with my new Hollywood smile. 😁.   I shall travel again when I am good and ready.  

I may be 74 but I still have dreams and plans........my mantra now is "not done yet".