After feeling a little financially overwhelmed for the first couple of months of this year, I've finally come to the conclusion that nothing but a back to basics approach to my finances is going to help me get on the right track this year.
As a consequence, I've decided to go 'cold turkey' on any spending other than for truly essential things, i.e. food and household purchases. This means no justifying purchases that aren't necessary and no 'little treats' that add up to too much expenditure.
In addition, whilst in this mind set, I'm going to start posting about any frugal measures I'm taking to minimise spending and save money.
I thought I'd start by listing this week's frugal measures.
1) I used my Clubcard points to order a year's free subscription to MoneyWise magazine. I've never actually read the magazine before, but I'm hoping that it will be interesting and will help me to save money or at least adopt a more sustainable approach to my finances.
2) I used a voucher at Tesco's on Monday to get £1.20 off my normal brand of toothpaste, which was quite a saving as it normally costs £4. (I know this is an expensive toothpaste (Corsodyl), but it is recommended by my dentist and I do find it very effective and worth paying a bit extra for. And it doesn't contain too many nasty ingredients, which is an added bonus!)
3) I purchased quite a few yellow stickered fresh meat products on my food shop this week. They've all gone into the freezer and will be pulled out and used the same day, according to my weekly menu planning. This should hopefully enable a few savings to be made this month.
4) I listed some brand new novels on my personal eBay account, that I bought in a set, but don't want to keep, and I am hoping to recoup the cost of the whole set by selling just a few of them as a job lot. The remaining ones from the set I intend to read myself. (They were bought on offer last year as a gift, but I didn't realise that the recipient (OH) had either read them, didn't want to read them or already owned them.) As there was a free listing offer, I took the opportunity to list a few other unwanted items too, so hopefully these might bring in a little cash.
5) I've unsubscribed to more websites that regularly send me promotional emails about their products and sales. I know who and where they are if I need to buy anything from their sites. I just don't need the visual temptations anymore.
Nothing too dramatic, but hopefully some of the measures will help.
Good start! i shocked some people this weekend (city dwellers with easy access to shops) by stating if we run out of something between fortnightly shops we go without! Certainly don't wander off to get odd things and get tempted to spend more.
ReplyDeleteIt's so easy in the city to spend more than you need to as there is always a shop open somewhere nearby.
DeleteI like your efforts to cut down spending every little helps - Moneywise send out email newsletters weekly with some very informative articles.
ReplyDeleteToothpaste - did you know there are often two sizes of the same toothpaste and sometimes the ones on offer in one place will cost less than another shop because they are the smaller size tube. Wilkos can be good for some toiletries at lower prices.
Good idea to remove the temptations from your email box.