Resourcefulness: The budgeter's friend

Crazycatlady2

We also have spending money. £50 each but we don't use it for any food out etc and tbh I'm not strict with it as I should be 😂

foxgloves

Not all our 'eating out' comes from our Personal Spends. For example, if it is a birthday, a planned Christmas meal out, a planned take-away or a range of similar occasions, I will have budgeted for it. However, we both had an expensive coffee shop habit back in the Spendy Era, so paying for those cappuccino/cheese scone/naughty cakeypoo from our Personal Spends focuses us how badly we want the experience & therefore which outings to prioritise. As it's Personal Spends, we can, of course spend our entire monthly allowance on frequenting coffee shops if that's what we want, but that would mean no money for anything else until next Big Budget Day. Mr F's recent birthday is a good example - we had planned 2 outings which would involve eating out, so I included an amount in December's budget. The difference runs along the line of whether it is a planned activity or am 'Oooh,I could really fancy a flapjack & a coffee while passing a cafe' moment.
F x

foxgloves

@Less_Talk_and_More_Action - Thank-you for your nice comments about my diary. Yes, in the pre-credit card days, us folk with a spendy past certainly knew all the legal wiggles for manipulating payment by cheque. I remember telling my Mum about a skirt I intended to buy. She said, 'But you have no money'. I can recall this moment so precisely that I know where we were. We were standing in Mum & Dad's front porch & Mum was just unlocking the front door when she said this. I remember that I looked at her as if she had just landed from a different planet & replying, "But I still have cheques left".
There are a few of us on here who have come to the debt-free lifestyle a little later in life, which proves that it is never too late to reform one's shoddy financial attitude. Do feel welcome to join in discussions. All contributions welcome.
F

foxgloves

Afternoon Campers!
Productive day so far. Small budget-helping positives as follows:
*Used up some stale bread & leftover blue-top from friday's fudge-making to make our Christmas bread sauce- now in freezer. Crumbed up rest of the loaf & froze ready for making stuffings.
*Made bread.
*Freezer clearance- still ongoing. Defrosted a single portion of bolognese sauce to use in a pasta bake tonight.
*Did 2 loads of laundry, including bed linen. Way too much on the heated airer but I shall keep popping in to jiggle it around & will start removing the smaller stuff as soon as it is dry. Extra spin for everything & dehumidyfier on to reduce heated airer time & condensation.
*Did my regular Monday morning budget updates - mostly grocery budget & Personal Spends. Grocery budget looking good & pretty much only fresh stuff left to buy. I am starting to think that unless Mr F gets the red mist & decides he needs another 460,000 pigs in blankets, that there will be sufficient money left to take into the next budget cycle for funding our traditional New Year's Eve takeaway curry. I think I will aim at that anyway.
*Transferred the car service money from our Car Maintenance savings pot & paid it off Mr F's credit card. Still very relieved it was £200 less than the quote. I am wondering if there were 2 quotes underway & we were sent the details for a bigger vehicle which required some work, idk.
*Sorted birthday wrappings & added reusable stuff to my wrappings stash.
*Entered a prize draw.
*Did a few surveys. 
Looking forward to knitting my cardi (Irish moss stitch border done, now on main stocking stitch so good for TV watching) & having an evening of leisure.
Be cosy, whether it's heating or blankets.....preferably both!
F x

Makingabobor2

How right you are FG about those of us that had our LBM late in life. When I think back to the stupid things we used to do, i can't believe how stupid we were.   How many of us actually withdrew money from the cashpoint with the credit card and then went into the bank to make the monthly payment? 

Less_Talk_and_More_Action

Thanks for all the info re personal spends - very useful.  I feel like I have had several fake lightbulb moments but the thought of retirement is focusing my mind like nothing else ever has!!!  I quoted you to Mr LTMA today,Foxgloves, so your fame has spread.  I can relate to every single one of the stories from your spendy years.  I am currently the one with the expensive coffee shop habit.  Unfortunately it is mainly service stations as I travel for work.  I could change this but it's easy to get stuck in the "I deserve this mentality" isn't it?  At nearly £5 for a coffee I am working on a new plan for the new year.  I really begrudge it to be honest (although apparently not enough to stop) as it's not like they pay their staff more, or milk costs more for them, or the coffee costs more so basically it is all just profit that I am happily handing over to them.  Anyhow, enough hijacking your diary - I have got so much out of all your musings and also from those others that contribute.  I'm not back at work until January so time to consider starting my own diary and various other strategies.  As you will gather from my user name, I am really good at reading stuff, writing stuff and talking about stuff - need to work on the doing of stuff otherwise not much is going to change!!!

Makingabobor2

@Less_Talk_and_More_Action, we used to be like thst with coffee, but always a cake as well. Last year DH bought us a really good thermos flask & now we take it on holiday or when travelling to visit relatives & saves a fortune. Still allow ourselves the odd ones but always from budgeted spends now. 

marionmgcars

Hi, just catching up after a week in the sun in Spain,  surprised my SIL as arranged with brother to be at same hotel.  Had a fabulous week together, and great laughs.  Done the laundry from hell today and ironed some things - begrudging this time when so near Christmas, so not sure if I would holiday this close again.  

However, I’m enjoying the thought of relaxing over Christmas and New year, and visiting family and friends.  We are making a shopping list this year for our festive shopping, as my partner thinks he is on “Supermarket Sweep” when he goes shopping.  

EssexHebridean

Oh my word Mrs F you've reminded me about bread sauce! MrEH would have been entirely affronted had I forgotten but I confess it had not passed across my radar in the least this year for some reason!  A note now made for him to make a loaf ready! 

Really interesting hearing how others manage their personal spends, but the one thing that definitely does strike a chord is how when you change coffee shop visits from something that happens all the time to a planned treat, it really enhances the value you get from them, I think. It used to be that we would call in to somewhere of that type regularly when we were out shopping or whatever - now it is far more thought about, planned in advance and we actively take the time to stop and appreciate the time out because it happens so much less.

foxgloves

Completely agree, @EssexHebridean, & the same applies to less frequent take-aways. Once we began debt-busting, we reduced these from weekly to about 4 per year, with the result that we put much more thought into choosing & really enjoy them as a treat rather than a cba to cook thing.
F