a not-spending-money thread. anyone up for joining me

[tyaca]

c'mon. you know you want to

Hurrah for £140 refund! I am waiting for a tax refund... but money is earmarked already for Xmas/driving lessons... need to do a strict budget I think.

On the plus side I have lots of vouchers and things to spend on 'fun' things (or xmas pressies, of course).

Think dh is keen to get a Sainsburys takeaway today! But we shouldn't need to spend anything else really. Might take ds to library (free) and get some books for me to read in the bath (luxury).

Good luck all of you. Assuming you all know of the www.moneysavingexpert.com website?

Can I join? I'm on Maternity pay from next week and although we have a decent income (for now!) I am aware we spend more than we should.

September is an expensive month for us with birthdays & back to schools and baby is due next month so car seat etc has come out of it too.

All these have made a difference for us:
Online grocery shopping - better planning, less impulsive
Use mysupermarket.co.uk for above for price comparison (not Ocado!)
Use Aldi/Lidl for selected items (e.g. lunch-time sandwich fillers, loo roll)
Work out which basics lines you can tolerate
Cut down wine/beer buying
Get a cheap eats family recipe book

Affordable (council) gym membership - actually going uses money-spending/ free time, and encourages less indulgent eating

Cut down car use for short hops
Sell any unwanted books/CDs/dvds worth over £2.00 on Amazon, send rest to charity shop
Chase down better mobile phone deal
Make dresses for DDs, if you have set-up and basic skills (otherwise outlay is expensive). Boys clothes trickier to make look good.

Don't cut out treats completely, you need short-term incentives.

All these have made a difference for us:
Online grocery shopping - better planning, less impulsive
Use mysupermarket.co.uk for above for price comparison (not Ocado!)
Use Aldi/Lidl for selected items (e.g. lunch-time sandwich fillers, loo roll)
Work out which basics lines you can tolerate
Cut down wine/beer buying
Get a cheap eats family recipe book

Affordable (council) gym membership - actually going uses money-spending/ free time, and encourages less indulgent eating

Cut down car use for short hops
Sell any unwanted books/CDs/dvds worth over £2.00 on Amazon, send rest to charity shop
Chase down better mobile phone deal
Make dresses for DDs, if you have set-up and basic skills (otherwise outlay is expensive). Boys clothes trickier to make look good.

Don't cut out treats completely, you need short-term incentives.

Damn my double posting phone

Sign up to Freecycle! I have 2 sinks, a shower cubicle and curtain poles all free and waiting to go in my soon-to-be-refurbished bathrooms. Also got 'new' bike for kid.

I try not to have any cash on me when I am out...if it's major and I need to buy something, it goes on a debit card, but that makes me think twice about whether I REALLY need it. If I have cash then I spend it on junk food, coffees, bits of tat for a £1 each...and it all adds up.

If you have a lot of minutes of calls/texts with your phone contract, use it to call people! And dont use your landline except for incoming calls. We spend only the basic £9.99 a month now for landline just so we can answer calls from MIL/dinosaurs and have our broadband with it.

Today I bought a doughnut.

Saturday will be more difficult, will have to try and get DH to spend rather than me

Well, we managed to go to the shops this morning and had a great time without spending any money! Took a couple of snacks, went to library, got kids feet measured (didn#t buy any shoes yet though ), playground - hurrah.

And we are on second day of Not Having a Takeaway Even Though We Really Want One...

Weekends are hard though, dh wants to go to the beach tomorrow...

I got some toiletries (bodycare so cheap ish) for hospital and dh bought a takeaway. I can only eat half so at least its two days worth of curry ?

OOoh id love to join, i spend waaayyy to much on crap and things that i really dont need to!

I to have a few small debts catalogue, next diretoty etc would love to pay these off me and dh are trying for another baby and if sucessfull i wont go back to work and it will be a struggle.

God i dont know where to start food is the worst am forver popping to local co op and ten a tenner goes!

I spent a small fortune today

I bought:
New coat for DS
T shirt for DS
Necklace for my mum's birthday
Wool and knitting pattern
Lunch for 5
Knee high boots from Duo
Jumper and two t shirts for me from Fat Face

Sigh. That could have fed us for 2 months.

We did well yesterday. Did afternoon out at the beach but were quite restrained and managed to spend a tenner on dinner (fish and chips by the sea) and a bit on ice creams. Parking and petrol aside... not bad.

Going with dh to Sainsburys today (normally he takes kids) so will try and curb the impulse cookies//doughnuts buying . Nicolaplus1 - make a list! Or take (less) cash.

Marion... er... !

Just marking my place. I'd like to clear a £7000 credit card debt in the next year, sooner if possible.

I'd like to join not got any debts but need to cut down on spending as want to save for a deposit and not going well this year. :)

This is good - thanks!

I have been trying to do this for a while but it gets haaaaard .

I was trying to work in cash 99% of the time but it seems that occasionally the debit card gets whipped out .

this is a hard time of year as the dc need new clothes. esp ds who si 2 so is still growing lots. dd is 7 and a fair amount of last year@s stuff fits but obviously some doesnn@t.

we intended to have a nice cheap day yesterday. Picnic at a National trust place (bil and sil got us membership). but somehow we ended up going into central london (dh needed to pick up his ticket for the hyde park prayer vigil) and i bought 3 pairs of trousers and a 3 pack of tops for ds. and we had pizza express for lunch (though most of that was paid using the tesco vouchers). and we all ended up grumpy. Not a result.

re supermarket shopping: i think i cracked this (mostly) a few months ago and in most things i have dropped down a level (so most things we are actually on basics now bar a few things). Menu planing deffo helps. as does being on a diet so putting chocolate in the trolley is a no no .

must do the bank statement thing. great idea - thanks. will give myself a heart attack at some stage when i read through them .