purplerabbits

Money saving tips by popular demand (well, two people asked)

• Give up smoking. If you can't do that start rolling your own.
  
• Find out what demographic you're in and look for ways that people are trying to sell you things. Then resist them. For instance, I could be said to be an Urban Sophisticate (pdf, sorry) but having read the marketeers description, I feel less than ever inclined to spend much on lattes, and I am seriously rethinking how my self-image fits in with how much I'm spending on my phone.
  
• Bring lunch to work. Seriously. If you can't stand sandwiches, make soup or bring leftover cooking to heat up or even buy a tub of hummous and a pepper to dip in it at the supermarket. Seriously I reckon this is saving me £50 a month
  
• Cut right back on fizzy drinks, sweets, chocolates and crisps - they all work out incredibly expensive
  
• Look out for items that cost about £3-5 (ymmv according to income, work out where your danger area is) Things like lattes and taxis, magazines and lipsticks. Do you actually want them, and why does the price seem reasonable?
  
• Try going a day or two without any cash - then try a day or two a week (this works best if you have a travel card, otherwise allow yourself the bus fare)
  
• Do something active to make cheap social events happen - like inviting people to your house to watch DVDs.
  
• Sort out clothes that you like that need mending, dying etc and do them before buying more
  
• Use loyalty cards, and when the points add up treat them as real money, not as a gift
  
• Look at what you buy and don't use - gym fees, food that's wasted, higher phone charges than you need - especially if it also feeds into your self image (healthy food doesn't work unless you eat it)
  

Does anyone have any more?

Sassan frassan bastard A&A (who do my domain name and mail forwarding) have noticed that they haven't charged me my £4 a month for the last two years and will be taking it all, plus this months, from me this month. So that's soup for the duration, then.

Feck. Arse. Feck. Feck.

For sale, cheap or for beer:

VHS tapes £2 each
Existenz
Brazil
Naked Lunch
No Skin off my Ass

DVDs £5 or offer:
Lost in Translation
The Acid House
Revengers Tragedy
Kiki's delivery service
Th13teen Ghosts

The Bourne Identity and The Bourne Supremacy - £10 for the two

What sorts of food are really cheap? And are any of them healthy? I'm not a fan of baked beans, though I'd be interested in any way of making them edible, nor cabbage, but I'm trying to be open minded. I can't get to Asda unless I get offered a lift, but Tescos is perfectly possible. Recipes for using cheap ingredients would also be great...

www.ukpower.co.uk tells me that I can save up to £133 a year by doing joint gas and electric in an online account. What I would like to know is how hard is the online account bit, and does in work with Firefox (essential)? The top suppliers they recommend are London Energy Online and Seeboard Energy Online, neither of which I'm familiar with. would I be better going for a slightly smaller saving and chosing Scottish GAs, who already supply our gas and who do the boiler insurance (we don't have boiler insurance yet but I'm quite tempted by it.)

I want to cancel my Barclaycard since I never use it and I want to streamline my finances. But since I last contacted them the barclaycard phoneline has gone all automated and demands a security number which I do not have before it lets you in. Does anyone know how I can contact a human being and cancell my card for ever? I don't owe any money on it so they never write to me, and I tried emailing them from their web pages but didn't get any kind of reply...

Update: Success! Thank you Giles!

*opens purse, moth flies out*

I am rather sick and tired of having no money, even though I know that a) this is mostly All My Own Fault and b)I am not actually hard up compared to many people I know. I am, however you look at it, not quite living within my income, so I should like to throw the question as wide as I can and ask - what should I or anyone do to live within my income. Obvious ideas are welcome: even though I am usually the one giving this advice to other people, I seem not to be very good at it myself...

I did a number of brave things today. I had an appointment with a dietician, which meant filling out a more-or-less accurate food diary, which was more stressful than I would have thought. Then I saw my GP and persuaded her to give me a longer term prescription so I don't have to pay as often.

This is good as this morning I looked at my finances, worked out what the flatmates owe for bills etc and realised that I have almost nothing to survive on this month, so I hastened to cancel my latest Amazon order and am now trying to think of ways to stay fed watered and entertained this month on a handful of thin air. My resources include: ( Read more... )

I did some sums yesterday. They scared me. Spending too much buying new clothes costs more than spending too much on nail varnish in Boots. This must stop. This month all my disposable income will go on clubbing and drugs instead...