Put away your purse & become debt-averse

Bluegreen143 - I've always enjoyed cooking, baking & gardening, even back when I was very spendy. I make most of our bread - I usually bake a batch of half white/half wholemeal rolls each week (good for packed lunches, burgers, picnics, etc) plus a wholemeal loaf & a white sourdough loaf, depending on how much bread we're getting through.
Re Ziffit - Yes, I was surprised at how their offers change. For example, I've just tried a whole load of CDs which have been tried on 3 previous occasions (no interest), & found about 8 of them were now wanted & one of them had moved from being a 'No' to an offer of £1.01. I think their system must run on some kind of algorithm in that if they 'see' a barcode being offered a lot, then that's going to be a very common item, worth very little. I also sold them 2 books.....one had been refused before & the other had moved from me being offered 12p (hahahaha) to an amount I was prepared to sell at. But generally, we've found that the more popular something is, the less chance there is of them buying it. mr f has been decluttering his vast DVD collection & gave me a pile of those to try. No interest in any of them, even though some were 'limited edition' or classic films. I think from a business point of view, the scarcer stuff is going to be what sells. There must be 100s of 1000s upon 1000s of the big blockbuster movies & fiction paperbacks around, which makes them pretty much worthless. My best offers have been almost £6 for an art book and also a good price on a couple of music scores - I used to sing, & had been decluttering some of my music - mr f also got a decent price for an X-box game - can't comment further on that as it's not my thing & all the games look the same to me!
Anyway, I've traded several boxes with them over the past year....not a huge amount at a time, between £8.50 & £24 per box, but when it comes to this loan-paying-off mullarkey, we all know that every little helps!
So if you decide to have another go, I hope you have some successful sales!
F

Hi Redrose,
Yes, when I set our budget each month, I allow for the mortgage & all our regular bills which go out of the account by direct debit.
Then I sort out all the different 'pots'. The first ones are groceries, travel & personal spends. I leave our grocery budget in the account (about £200 per month) & keep a tracker sheet in my bullet diary to log our grocery spending. Travel is for my partner's work. He gets it back with his expenses but needs money for parking, etc, so I give him that as £30 cash. Personal Spends pot is sort of our 'pocket money'. It's usually £60 cash each to spend on whatever we like, but once it's gone, tough!
Then I operate 6 different 'Savings Piggies'. These are just envelopes. I withdraw the cash & pay it in each month on budget day. Our 6 Savings Piggies are Car Maintenance, Clothes, Leisure/Entertainment, Presents, Holiday & Household Maintenance. The amount I pay in each month depends on plans, how much is in there already, how much surplus money in the budget, etc. My target is £200 split between the 6 categories, but this does vary.
I also run temporary 'pots' occasionally for specific items - i.e my partner has a big birthday coming up & so I am saving for his present because I don't want to put it on a credit card or use money from our emergency fund to pay for it.
Hope this helps to answer your question.
Hopefully those 'lightbulb flickers" will turn into a great big beam & you will get to embrace budgeting too! I honestly wouldn't go back to being that naughty spender even if I suddenly had a big increase in income.
Best of luck with it,
F

Ok, CCL. We're going to kick some serious bottom with our good moneysaving ways this week. I think it's inevitable that you'll need a bit of a period of adjustment with your solo budget, but you'll get there. I'm convinced most of it comes down to planning. I looked at my admin basket earlier & it's all spilling out & there's a ball of yarn, a some pants & a stray cat biscuit on top of it, but tomorrow it will be pristene, everything dealt with & filed away. I am feeling like Mrs Motivated. I think I'm actually going to get ready for bed now, so tomorrow will cone quicker & I can crack on with my massive list.
Have a good week, CCL & 1LL. We can do this! Us three - 10. Wimpy lists - nil !
F xx