Getting FIREd up 😀

South_coast

Since I said I was warming to Norstatpanel, I've not received a single survey 🙄! I'm only 4 coins away from £10 as well 🤦‍♀️

Merlin's_Beard

The deliberate slowdown when you're near payout seems to be a Thing with certain sites....

South_coast

Well they did send me one this morning, but by the time I got to it it had been closed 🤦‍♀️

South_coast

Mince pies and squirty cream to distract me from alcohol this evening (the pull is definitely the greatest on a Friday). Probably more calories than the alcohol would have been 🙄

Oh, and THREE SPARE RECEIPTS ON THE LIDL SELF-CHECKOUT 😍😍😍!

LadyWithAPlan

South_coast said:

Oh, and THREE SPARE RECEIPTS ON THE LIDL SELF-CHECKOUT 😍😍😍!

be still my beating heart!!

South_coast

Interesting discussions underway on LaPlan's diary about the meaning of frugality. I do live very cheaply, but I don't think I identify as frugal, largely because it all happens automatically without any feeling of sacrifice, as it wouldn't occur to me to do anything else. Signing up to something like pay TV just wouldn't cross my mind, for example. Buying lots of clothes and shoes - well there's nothing wrong with the ones I've got. I just genuinely don't "want" very much. Exchanging gifts with people became a chore (I didn't want anything, they had already bought whatever they wanted!), so we just don't do it any more. And not eating meat and avoiding UPF substitutes naturally makes my grocery bills low. So am I frugal 🤔🤷‍♀️? I definitely don't have an issue spending money if there is something I do want (I certainly have something of a restaurant and holiday habit), I just don't care about a lot of the rest of it!

In other news, my new credit card has arrived this morning, so I now have: 
My beautiful Barclaycard 🥰: £1,728.27/£4,000, 0% until 02/25
Back-up stooze card #1: £0/£15,000, 0% until 04/25
Back-up stooze card #2 (refurb spending): £0/£15,000, 0% until 07/25

They should probably keep me going for a while 🤣!

LadyWithAPlan

Stoozing looks interesting but I think I need to wait til after I get a mortgage...
Travel is my habit too - though I do a lot of it through chosen work trips so that makes it more reasonable..
Restaurants  I am not that bothered about - the whole allergy thing always becomes an issue and I have turned into my father who often says 'I can cook better than this' and he can.. of course it is about the experience as well - I did a waitros* cookery class last year - where we cooked and ate whilst chefs taught us - you would probably love it..

I do like Asian takeouts though - even though I have done cookery courses in many Asian cuisines there is something about the way they do it..

killerpeaty

Honestly, my opinion on being frugal changes every 5 minutes. At the moment, it's to live the life you want as affordably as possible. So someone who earns £100k will probably live a completely different life to someone on £20k but still consider themselves frugal.

South_coast

I don't know about a cookery course, LaPlan - I've just had to ladle 750ml of water out of the slow cooker as I wasn't paying attention and added double what I needed 🤦‍♀️! I was following my own instructions as well, so not even a case of having issues with authority 🤣! 

That's an interesting thought about frugality, KP. I realised yesterday that my salary/package has tripled in the last 10 years (which is great, but my brain is taking a while to catch up 🤣!). Interestingly though, I think my expenses have actually gone down in that time (partly because £400 rent/month is definitely more than £0 mortgage, which offsets a lot of other cost increases). Sometimes I do find myself looking back to younger SC and wondering what on earth she was doing though - as an example, Uni-SC drank a LOT of vodka and coke (probably averaging a litre of vodka at home a week, on top of going out 3 times a week). All that home vodka was washed down with actual Coca-Cola - "What the h*ll was I thinking???" The crazy part is, once I tried own-brand I actually preferred it (Lidl Freeway is my pick of the bunch 👍 I wouldn't bother with the Tesco one though 🤢)! And the money I spent constantly re-heeling a favourite pair of shoes, as I kept losing the tips on nights out - replacing the shoes would have saved me a fortune 🤣!

South_coast

South_coast said:

I don't know about a cookery course, LaPlan - I've just had to ladle 750ml of water out of the slow cooker as I wasn't paying attention and added double what I needed 🤦‍♀️! I was following my own instructions as well, so not even a case of having issues with authority 🤣! 

As further evidence of my ineptitude in the kitchen, I have just done the classic "Put the pan on a different ring to the one you've turned on" 🙄 Fortunately, I was still in the kitchen, so realised fairly quickly this time - I have also been known to put food in a turned-off oven before 🤣!

Post-refurb hob will definitely be one with rings that go red to show they're turned on!!!