Tea's 'Where has it gone' diary

TurnaroundSue

Purpletea65 wrote: »

Other news is that DH gave me a £2 coin last night, so that has gone in the terramundi. Very pleased as that is now getting rather heavy and I will soon be able to break it open.

Nooooooooooo, don't break the terramundi pot - just get a pair of tweezers and a blunt knife and between the two you will be able to tease out the money, thereby enabling you to use it again..... and again...... and again!:D

[Deleted User]

TurnaroundSue wrote: »

Nooooooooooo, don't break the terramundi pot - just get a pair of tweezers and a blunt knife and between the two you will be able to tease out the money, thereby enabling you to use it again..... and again...... and again!:D

Very good idea but DS is sooo looking forward to breaking it open...bless him, ah to be three again and it is in PINK! not my sort of colour, I'm a purple person.

DH has offered to drill a hole in the bottom end so we can get the coins out, would just need to make something to bung the hole up again.

We'll see when it is finally full....could always get a tester pot and repaint it I guess.

[Deleted User]

bobbadog wrote: »

Good luck with the alcohol thing, Tea - that's one thing I find really quite difficult to cut down on, especially after a long day at work. I try and think of the 'real cost' of every glass I have, to talk myself out of it really! x

I know exactly what you mean, once DH is home and the cherubs are in bed it is hard not to go mad and I just love my wine after a beer or two. I currently have a box of wine open and might see if I can make that last me a while. When I was thinking about the alcohol thing, I decided that 7pm initially will be when I have a beer and 9pm is going to be my cut off and then I will have a cup of tea til bed.

[Deleted User]

Morning one and all,

What a dreary day it is today Lots and lots of rain and I bet that there's a drought this year too!

Anyway on to today...I bid on the necklace that I was going to get for my niece but alas got outbid in the end, which I guess isn't a bad thing, just need to look some more.

This morning DS has pre-school and I have playgroup with DD, £1 will get spent there but it does mean that I can have as many cups of tea as I want :j

Last night was my first attempt at cutting down on my alcohol consumption...I think that I did rather well, I had one beer and two glasses of wine, although that vine yards are likely to go out of business now :rotfl: I thought that I only had one box open, but it turns out that I had the remains of one box of wine open and one full unopnened box, as that will get opened tonight I am going to see how long I can make it last, my aim will be to still have some by next Friday. I did sleep rather better too

The only other money that will get spent today is for some milk for the kids.

Have a good day everyone and I will update later.

hypno06

you seem to be fairly focused, so I am sure you will be successful on your debt free journey! Did you ever look at spendingdiary.com - I dip into it from time to time but never manage to keep any spending diary, either paper or online for more than about 5 mins!

[Deleted User]

hypno06 wrote: »

you seem to be fairly focused, so I am sure you will be successful on your debt free journey!

Thanks, you are doing fantastic yourself.

hypno06 wrote: »

Did you ever look at spendingdiary.com - I dip into it from time to time but never manage to keep any spending diary, either paper or online for more than about 5 mins!

To be totally honest, I completely forgot to have a look my brain seems to be running either on very slow or at a hundred miles an hour some days. If I remember this afternoon, I will have a look.

hypno06

Ahh, the "all or nothing" brain activity - I know it well

[Deleted User]

hypno06 wrote: »

Ahh, the "all or nothing" brain activity - I know it well

:rotfl: :rotfl:

moanymoany

Purpeltea, it seems to me that you don't plan anything. It would be a good idea to go to moneysaving old style http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/forumdisplay.html?f=33

You can post a thread asking for meal planning and budgeting advice, or you can browse.

There are a lot of people on there who can feed their family for a week on the £25 you spent on a takeaway. With some planning you can have the possibility for a quick meal in your kitchen, as bobbadog said. The idea of having a takeaway every week is an expensive one. If you didn't have this kind of takeaway every week you could pay your £2000 overdraft off in 18 months.

It is very difficult to stop one way of spending and start another, but if you are living beyond your means, that is what you have to do. The first thing we did when we had out lbm was to give up the second car. That is a huge saving and we have now lived without it for five years. It can be inconvenient sometimes but we have saved thousands because of it.

The hardest step for me was realising that I thought so many luxuries were necessities - and cutting them out.

Alcohol - we use our Tesco vouchers to pay to go through the tunnel and go to Auchon. We buy the wine with the paper 'selection' collars and pay between £1 and £2 a bottle. We buy 12 dozen at a time. Including insurances we pay about £250 and it keeps us going for about 4 months. So far we haven't had a dud, when we used to buy special offers we always had stuff we didn't like. You can also buy cheap beer. This keeps our alcohol costs to £11 a week. I allocate £200 a month for food and £50 for booze.

[Deleted User]

moanymoany wrote: »

Purpeltea, it seems to me that you don't plan anything. It would be a good idea to go to moneysaving old style http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/forumdisplay.html?f=33

You can post a thread asking for meal planning and budgeting advice, or you can browse.

I have to admit that I do plan; it might not always be successful though. I constantly browse that board looking for ideas.

moanymoany wrote: »

There are a lot of people on there who can feed their family for a week on the £25 you spent on a takeaway. With some planning you can have the possibility for a quick meal in your kitchen, as bobbadog said. The idea of having a takeaway every week is an expensive one. If you didn't have this kind of takeaway every week you could pay your £2000 overdraft off in 18 months.

I agree but meal planning is something I do but on a Friday and at the weekend, it tends to get lost.

moanymoany wrote: »

It is very difficult to stop one way of spending and start another, but if you are living beyond your means, that is what you have to do. The first thing we did when we had out lbm was to give up the second car. That is a huge saving and we have now lived without it for five years. It can be inconvenient sometimes but we have saved thousands because of it.

Again I agree. This diary isn’t so much of a light bulb moment, as that happened a while ago, DH & I know we use the OD but I want to know why we go over it. My car was paid off a while ago and DH car has only a year to run, we each used our cars for work but now that I am at home, I try not to use mine that much.

moanymoany wrote: »

The hardest step for me was realising that I thought so many luxuries were necessities - and cutting them out.

Again I agree, but our problem isn’t that we have luxuries, we go to the pub once a week and get a takeaway once a week and buy beer and wine; it’s that we impulse buy – time and time again I find that I just buy something for the sake of it and am trying to find out what on and stop myself from doing it.

moanymoany wrote: »

Alcohol - we use our Tesco vouchers to pay to go through the tunnel and go to Auchon. We buy the wine with the paper 'selection' collars and pay between £1 and £2 a bottle. We buy 12 dozen at a time. Including insurances we pay about £250 and it keeps us going for about 4 months. So far we haven't had a dud, when we used to buy special offers we always had stuff we didn't like. You can also buy cheap beer. This keeps our alcohol costs to £11 a week. I allocate £200 a month for food and £50 for booze.

Good idea only problem is that neither of us has a passport and getting a babysitter is impossible – family not living near is the main problem, DH has one sister living 20 minutes away but does her best to have an excuse as to why she won’t babysit…long story there.