Cheap treats

Posted by louisa on Thursday 13 January 2011 in frugal | 0 comments

Earlier this afternoon, I got an urgent missive from my dad over Yahoo messenger: according to my mum, my favourite, ridiculous, childish breakfast cereal – which is NEVER on offer – was on offer at the supermarket – half price!

John and I were supposed to be having an “us time” evening tonight as we’ve not seen each other much lately – buying huge amounts of breakfast cereal is a dream date activity for me ;)

We bought 12 boxes! They should keep me going for about six months (the expiry date is in 2012 so plenty of time).

We also bought some other cheap treats:

• John likes Innocent smoothies but they’re pretty expensive usually – they too were half price though.
• And so were Party Rings (not pictured) – another of his twisted little addictions ;)
• A reduced to clear trifle – from £2.70 to £1.15
• A reduced to clear chocolate cake – from £3.00 to £1.45
• A bag of hazelnuts (not pictured), discounted from £2 to 50p – not many but hopefully enough to make a small quantity of my own Nutella – or just to toast and nibble.

We bought some real food too – including a reduced to clear loaf (down to 15p from £1.20), which we’ll have with soup for lunch tomorrow – but that’s not as fun or exciting as cheap treats ;)

Will we regret our frugalness?

Posted by louisa on Tuesday 11 January 2011 in frugal, meta | 7 comments

At the weekend, I was catching up (online) with the Saturday papers from during my no spend period. We only buy the paper on Saturdays and not ever week – but I very much enjoy it when we do get it. I know I can read it all on the internet for free but every now and then it’s worth £1.90 to force me to get off my laptop for a few hours and it encourages me to read articles I wouldn’t seek out online.

So anyway, I was catching up with what I’d missed when I came across an article trying to be the opposite of every new year’s article: “How to be a better person in 2011: Abandon resolutions. Stop looking for a soulmate. Reject positive thinking“. The paragraph that caught my attention was, unsurprisingly, the one on frugality (about half way down the page):

I’m not sure I’d agree with the idea that “the most efficient way to save money, obviously, is to cut out big expenditures, not small ones” (because “an overpriced latte [and] breakfast croissant” each day is, say, £4, which is £20 a week, £80 a month, nearly £1000 a year — I don’t make any easily avoidable £1000 purchases a year) but I think the rest of the section is interesting. I think it’s especially interesting that the reason I came to it a week late was because I’d forfeited a small pleasure with a decent cost-to-happiness ratio for the sake of frugality ;)

What do you think? If your frugality requires present-time denial (and whose doesn’t?), do you think you might regret it in the long run?

A story: ten years ago, when we were students/young graduates, a then-friend of mine’s dad told her to never say no to a night out – not wild expensive nights out, just a trip to the pub or the cinema – with friends because she didn’t think she could afford it. Sure, he was encouraging her to get into debt but he knew that she’d regret it more in the long run if she didn’t enjoy her youth. I thought it was some of the best dad advice ever and that summer – my only six months of singledom as an adult – I was out doing something or other six nights a week, lots of “daily hedonistic expenditure”, and even though I lived extremely frugally at home, my bank account was in the red the whole time. I don’t regret that in the slightest: it was lots of fun.

I don’t think I’m denying myself too much now – we’re not extremely frugal and still have plenty of treats/fun – but there are ways, big and little, where we hold ourselves back. In ten years time, who knows how I’ll feel about that…?

The end of my no spend (three) weeks

Posted by louisa on Wednesday 5 January 2011 in anti-consumerism, frugal | 2 comments

Three weeks ago, I decided to consciously not spend any money until the end of the year. I called it a “no spend week” for neatness but it actually was a fortnight and a bit – which, due to illness over the weekend, easily extended to three weeks, finishing on Monday.

I ended up spending considerably amount of money each week for the first two weeks. Since both the dog and boiler have been a’ok, I spent less this week:

• £1.40 at the laundrette drying a load of bedding. I would have waited until better outside drying weather to wash the bedding (since we don’t have the hanging space for duvet covers in the house) but it got damp when the water pipe burst in the kitchen the other week so had to be washed or it would get mouldy. I washed it at home but dried it at the laundrette.
• John & Strowger “bullied” me into getting fish & chips for lunch again the other day. They’re such a bad influence. John paid since he was the one with ready cash in his wallet.

From my exceptions list:

• £8.50 – cake & tea for two including a tip at a cafe. Part of the “birthday gift” exception I mentioned when I first started my no spend thing.
• Some more fresh food – just a few little bits, and some good steak for New Year’s Eve since we decided to celebrate the new year by both getting colds and couldn’t face going out for a meal as was the original plan.

My main temptation this week has been the same as last week: the endless emails about January sales and other offers. I’ve unsubscribed from as many as possible. Yes, it’s useful to hear about sales but sales are so ubiquitous these days that it seems less important to hear about each one; I’d rather seek out sales and offers when I’ve decided whether or not I need something.

(I did go online sales browsing for a new jumper one evening. I’ve been wanting a new warm woollie for a while and thought I’d check out the sales to see if I could find anything. I didn’t find anything even close to nice/suitable so I didn’t have to decide whether or not to break my no spend rule. I suspect having that rule though made me stricter with my criteria than it would have otherwise – for example, I also didn’t look at anything other than knitwear.)

So anyway, my “no spending until the end of the year” exercise is over. I found it surprisingly easy – it was nice to have a reason not to give into temptation when I was in shops for present-buying reasons – a “rule” to strengthen my will power. Consciously avoiding spending has also helped break my habit of including eBay in my “I’ve got a few minutes to kill online” list, to remove my credit card details from online shops to stop impulse buying and to unsubscribe from “buy our stuff” emails from shops I’ve used in the past. But the most useful thing for me has been recording all my spending in a weekly list so I can’t hide from my spending – and I’m going to continue doing this (probably offline) through 2011.

The boiler breaking and the dog getting sick were unavoidable “emergencies” and proved an earlier thought of mine right (that I mentioned yesterday about clothes): it’s hard to stick to total bans on spending or buying certain types of stuff because things have a habit of coming up just when you don’t want them to. That type of “emergency” spending isn’t the problem for me.

Broken boiler and sick dog aside, most of the money I spent was on food (at the supermarket or fish’n’chips thanks to the bad influence boys ;) ) or was related to socialising – a couple of drinks at a pub, a curry, a cake & tea outing — nothing excessive but stuff that’s a darnsight more frivolous than a broken boiler in the middle of winter. I could have been stricter with myself on these spends – I could have used the opportunity to suggest socialising activities that didn’t involve spending any money – but it wasn’t a lot of money so I’m not beating myself up about them too much.

I’d like to start doing no spend weeks/fortnights/months regularly over the next year – I’d like to see the difference of temptations at different times of year, when I’m not ill, when I’m leaving the house more etc. I’m also going to have some “eat from the pantry/garden” weeks over the spring and summer – that’s something that’s been missing from this no spend week since I had food on my exception list – we’ve not really cut back on food spending at all — it wasn’t the point of this no spend exercise for me but I think it should be for future iterations.

All in all, an interesting experience – if you’ve not tried it yourself, I’d heartily recommend giving it a go.

The insanity of the VAT on food regulations

Posted by louisa on Tuesday 4 January 2011 in frugal | 3 comments

This morning Sarah Pennells, The Savvy Woman, pointed me in the direction of a wonderful document: HMRC’s rules on whether food goods are zero- or standard rated for VAT.

Most food is zero-rated so not subject to VAT but some things are “standard rated” – some rather strange things.

Basically, you need your chocolate inside your biscuits (not on the outside), your shortbread topped with both caramel & chocolate, and your gingerbread men with just eyes, no buttons! No buttons, dammit!! (There is definitely a joke in there about millionaire’s shortbread getting a tax break compared to normal chocolate-covered shortbread – but my brain is too befuddled by these regulations to make it!)

I think it’s interesting that there is such a distinction between stuff used for home baking and stuff that’s just for snacking/treats – I always wondered why, say, dried fruit was in a few different places in the supermarket.

As we don’t spend that much money, I wasn’t too bothered about the VAT hike – but now I feel like we should avoid VAT-able food products on principle of the ridiculousness of these rules! Only biscuit-based marshmallow teacakes for us from now on ;)

My low-spend ’11: buy less than 12 items of clothing in 2011

Posted by louisa on Tuesday 4 January 2011 in anti-consumerism, frugal | 37 comments

In my goals for 2011 list, I’ve mentioned that I’m going to limit the amount of clothes I buy in 2011. I’m not going to buy any more than 12 items of clothing in total over the year.

I could have gone for a complete ban – “no clothes in 2011” – and I know a number of people have done that, and succeeded. But my unexpected “emergency” spending (broken boiler, sick dog) during my recent no spend weeks proved something I already suspected: complete bans on spending or buying certain items are unsustainable for me.

In terms of clothes, I have a lot of them but they’re nearly all extremely casual day wear – jeans, cotton tops & hoodies. Even my idea of smart is smart-very-casual – slightly neater jeans and a nicer top. If something more formal came up – a job interview, a funeral, a wedding I couldn’t duck out of (and I duck out of most of them) – then I’d be stuck. I also teach teenagers one evening a week so have to have appropriate clothes for that (doesn’t have to be smart but has to be, you know, non-boob-flashing decent). And I probably didn’t buy more than 20 things in 2010 and I’ve got a cardigan in semi-regular circulation that I bought when I was 16 (big then, snug now) – so some things may need replacing. Having a ration of 12 allows me some flexibility when things are needed, or hell, just really, really wanted.

(The original goal (which I may have posted about the place and was in my goal list until last night) was that I could buy 12 new items of clothing AND 12 second-hand but I deleted the second bit because that doesn’t really matter – and 12 in total is much more of a challenge.)

My goal with this limit isn’t necessarily to save money – it may do but equally, I might decide to spend more on quality items than I would have done in the past – but to only spend it consciously and on things that I’ve properly considered. I want to have to ask myself “do I really want this? do I really need this? Is it better to buy this wear-all-the-time t-shirt or that wear-once ballgown?”. It’s about reducing consumption and breaking habits.

A couple of years ago, I wrote a confession on Recycle This about my almost-addiction to buying clothes. I had a bit of a hoarding tendency towards cheap clothes – if I saw something that I liked and it was officially a bargain (in a sale, charity shop or super-cheap to start with), I’d buy it because who knew when something like that would come up as cheap again? But in these days of practically-disposable clothes, something always comes along that cheap again, and again, and again. For example, I used to wear an all-black self-imposed sort-of uniform to work every day and whenever I passed a sale rack, I’d check it for black tops to add to my collection. By the time I finished working at the uni, I had about 30 black work tops, including some I’d never or rarely worn because there was a reason why they were on that sale rack.

Already when I wrote that confessional, I had improved my ways a lot and I’ve cut back a whole lot more since then. But I still think it would be useful to consider it more consciously – as I said above, I probably didn’t buy more than 20 things in total in 2010, but that’s off the top of my head now, thinking about the purchases I can remember, stuff that’s now in regular circulation – who knows how many things I’ve forgotten because they were mistakes and got buried at the back of the wardrobe? I want to know exactly what I’ve bought in 2011. I want to break these habits once and for all.

As with my no spend week last month, I’m giving myself a few exceptions though:

• Essential footwear – to me, some footwear is less a fashion choice and more essential health & safety gear – eg wellies, supportive trainers/boots, work boots. I think I’m all set in this department but I won’t need to buy anything but I’d like it as an exception just in case. (However, if I buy non-essential footwear – like the leather boots I’ve been looking out for – then that’ll be counted in the 12).
• Essential underwear – ditto to large degree – with my gargantuan sweater cows, I need good bras for scaffolding purposes. As for knickers & socks, I tend to buy multi packs for value – that would wipe out half my allowance in one pack! Again, I think I’ve got enough to last out the year anyway and this exception only covers essentials – “because they’re pretty” pants don’t count.
• Presents and other freebies – people don’t tend to buy me clothes but I’ve had the odd geeky tshirt as a gift – seems unfair to have to include stuff in my limit if it’s “forced” upon me. (I *won’t* use this as a get-around – “Philip Green gave me this as a present in exchange my gift to his shop of £30” or even “John bought this for me because I wanted it” – just to cover genuine gifts.)
• Stuff I make myself – another of my 11 goals for 2011 is to make my own clothes – I’m hope not having a steady stream of shop-bought items pouring in will encourage me to take to my sewing machine. I’d love it if it got to the end of the year and my wardrobe was jam-packed with new items – I’d only bought 12 things but made 20. That would be ace.

So that’s it – no more than 12 items of clothing in 2011. Let’s see how it goes!

Have you tried a clothes ban/strict ration before? Any hints/tips?

Anyone want to join me in this one?