Staying on track to be MF and ready to support my daughter at 18

Absolutely Cheery Daff


Thirty odd years ago (ahem), I was one of those students. Lucky enough to still be in a cohort who had a grant but it was no where near enough to live on, so you worked part time to live. Quite a juggling act.

Another NSD, on a roll of two days now...:T
Starting to think about how I can save another few hundred for an additional OP this month. The problem is that I worry when I don't have available cash, even though there are a couple of squirrel emergency stashes. It's a security thing that probably goes back to those student hardship days.:eek:

:rotfl:Darnit!! Was working in another building all day and had no time to get back to my own for soup. Ended up having to buy a baguette or lose out on lunch. At least they provided free coffee at the event.
Tomorrow is a free lunch too...
The disappointment I felt buying that baguette was beyond my usual level of disappointment for anything much - does this mean I now have the frugality bug??

Thanks Frayed Knot, that's a good way to help stay motivated too.
I did the maths so far. Embarrassingly, I spend between maybe £5 and £7 a day on food/drinks at work. Let's say £6 average. It was another super NSD with a free lunch and coffee (though I had to sit through a dull 2 hour meeting to get it, so not totally free). I spent £3 on the baguette yesterday. So £3 against a normal spend of £24 for 4 days so far. I can see how that would mount up a month to an extra £100+ O/P :j
Miracle of miracles today too - no charge at the dentist. Since the problem is from a filling that was done a short while ago, it counts as still fixing that same problem on the charges scale.

Thank you for the link Frayed.:)
While I was lurking, I found a thread that described how to set up a spreadsheet, step by step, so that even I was able to get one sorted out. I think it is on one the bigger threads, maybe CathT's? Every so often I change the amount of o/p to see the effect on the number of months left to pay, the daily interest rate etc. It's very motivational.

Was tired yesterday evening and didn't have a chance to post but it was good news in that I had another day of no spend on food/drinks at work. So last week was a £27 saving week in that area. Another 3 weeks of that and I could have £80 to £100 more for O/P. had to fill the car up with petrol though, so wasn't a NSD. My new(er) car only costs £45 to fill up compared with my old one which was closer to £55 for diesel. I was worried that I would get less mileage per litre but it doesn't seem to be the case, the engine is much smaller and the car is 10 years younger, so I imagine they cancel that out.


Did the energy change with MSE already, DH also gradually replaced bulbs for the energy savers. Actually he is a better MSer than me in many ways. We both had our own homes before we met and his salary was quite low, he struggled to make his mortgage payments/bills and had to live frugally. My circumstances were very different in that I had a bigger salary and had been previously married to someone who earned even more and money was wasted in an awful way looking back on it. I was still saving up what I call my 'war chest' though. That's a habit I had from childhood, working part time jobs and saving obsessively, knowing that I would need money if I wanted to leave home and do anything. The divorce was actually a relief and meeting new husband was great, our outlooks on finances are more similar. Quite a few people here seem to say the same about their OHs.



Did do a SOA a few years ago too. Had lots of helpful feedback that I acted on. Some comments were a bit judgey :eek: and it put me off a bit. probably a good idea to do a new one and see where other savings can be made. :T
I'm loving this MFW community and reading, it' soooo positive and helpful

No kidding Cheery Daff.
If you think back 30 years ago, it was really easy to not spend constantly on little things. There was no online shopping to tempt you. I can only remember one cafe in the small town where I grew up and it never even occurred to me to go in there for a coffee/tea, now we have a real cafe culture and some of my work meetings even happen there. On Monday I have one of those meetings and I will have to buy a drink and muck up my NSD ambitions


Not been up to much this weekend. Work weeks tend to drain my batteries and leave me in low mood which makes the sofa and telly seem like the best place to be. Will go to the gym with DH this afternoon though, we try to keep it up at least once a week. Really we should be going at least twice a week to get our monies worth. It's a chicken and egg situation though. You need the energy to get to the gym, which will charge your energy levels up, but you have no starting energy :eek:. Somehow in my 30s I did manage to break the cycle and get active, even doing short triathlons, but somewhere in the mid 40s (coinciding with the divorce and consequent upheaval) it all went to pot, where I've been stuck for several years since. That was a bit of personal rambling reflection, possibly off topic!!