-
3 Hidden Expenses That Are Ruining Your Budget
The first step toward good money management is always a budget. If you don’t have a clear budget, you can’t keep track of your spending and that’s when you’ll start wasting money on things. But writing a budget isn’t some kind of magical solution that will solve all of your money woes overnight, it takes a while to get used it and learn to stick to it properly. You’ll be able to eradicate a lot of the unnecessary spending quite quickly if you stop eating out all of the time or spending money on luxury items that you don’t really need, but those aren’t the only things that will ruin…
-
How to Survive a No Spend Month
The concept of a no spend month (particularly in January) has taken off in recent times. If you haven’t heard of it before, a no spend month entails only spending on the absolute essentials and forgoing any luxuries. It’s a good way to boost your bank account if funds are running low. I wanted to share some tips on how to survive a no spend month: Define what you mean by ‘no spend’ At the outset, it’s very important to clearly define what you classify as essential spending and non-essential spending, for it is the non-essential spending that you will be avoiding during the month, If you fail to distinguish…
-
Money Saving Monday: 3 Ways I Saved Money Last Week (21/01/19)
It’s Monday again, already? Doesn’t time fly… I must be having fun! Here’s three things I did last week to save money. Here are the previous posts in this series: 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 We bought a new mattress. OK, this part is not money saving but I’ll explain how I saved money in a moment. I try to be pretty frugal in most areas of life but when it comes to health, I don’t hold back. We had our old mattress for a number of years and when we bought it, we were broke so it really was the cheapest, creakiest mattress imaginable. My husband and I…
-
Money Saving Monday: 3 Ways I Saved Money Last Week (14/01/19)
Happy Monday everyone. Here’s three things I did last week to save money. First one of these I have done in a while, hopefully I will keep it up every Monday in 2019 as I find it a really good tool to help me focus on how to cut costs. Here are the previous posts in this series: 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 My daughter has a lot of her friends’ birthday parties coming up over the coming week. I have stocked up on various presents in the Argos 2 for £15 offer on toys – this will save me money as I usually buy something at the last…
-
Why I decided to get a Contract Phone
For many years, being money-conscious, I have avoided mobile phone contracts. Instead, I have opted to buy a cheap Android phone (often used or refurbished) outright for around £100-£150, and then I have used a pay monthly sim card and paid a set amount for calls, texts and data. Most recently, I have been paying £15 a month to Giffgaff. Recently however, I became extremely tempted by the Huawei P20 Pro phone, mainly due to the beautiful photos it could produce. As someone who takes at least a dozen photos a day, I had severe camera envy. However, at around £600 to buy outright, it was way out of my…
-
Money Saving Monday: 3 Ways I Saved Money Last Week (24/09/18)
Did everyone have a nice weekend? We had a lovely time visiting the zoo on Saturday and we spent a lovely sunny Sunday morning at one of our favourite local spots, Craigies. It is Monday once again – here’s 3 of the little things I did last week to save money. As we are flying off to sunny Spain at the end of this week, it’s a bit of a holiday special! Instead of picking up our Euros last minute at the airport, where you get a a terrible exchange rate, I pre-ordered and collected at the Post Office, saving about £10 (not much but it will pay for a…
-
Money Saving Monday: 3 Ways I Saved Money Last Week (17/09/18)
Monday is here once again – here’s 3 of the little things I did last week to save money: I didn’t do my usual big weekly shop last week, instead I have been running down the freezer. Turns out I have a lot of bags of frozen cauliflower stashed away so we have been enjoying warming cauliflower soup (spiced with nutmeg) – a perfect dinner now that the nights are setting in and the temperatures are dropping. The weather has turned really horrible up here… we were going to go to soft play on Wednesday but instead I spent the evening before setting up fun activities to do throughout the…
-
Money Saving Monday: 3 Ways I Saved Money Last Week (10/09/18)
It’s Monday once again… time to reflect on three of the ways I managed to save money last week: My steam mop died a few months ago (I think it’s because I had been adding a few drops of Zoflora directly into the tank, which I’ve since read is a big no-no… oops). I have been keen to buy the Shark Klik ‘n’ Flip mop as a replacement, but couldn’t quite justify the price, even though it is gradually coming down as the months go by. Now, a steam mop isn’t something I would usually buy second hand, but I decided to have a quick look on Gumtree just in case…
-
Money Saving Monday: 3 Ways I Saved Money Last Week (03/09/18)
I recently started a new series of posts (see past posts here and here) in which I outline three thrifty ways in which I saved money over the last week – here’s what I did last week: We were away at the weekend, and had lunch in a restaurant on one of the days. Lauren had a kids meal of macaroni cheese – the portion size was massive so instead of it going to waste, we asked for a doggy bag. The leftovers then did both kids for dinner that night. I cancelled my Tesco delivery saver pass (a monthly payment which gives me free grocery deliveries) – now that…
-
Money Saving Monday: 3 ways I saved money last week (27/08/18)
Following on from my first post in this series last week, here are three ways in which I saved money last week: We are going to the Craig Tara holiday resort again this weekend to celebrate my daughter’s actual 3rd birthday. Instead of being tempted to eat out lots whilst we are away, I have done an online click-and-collect grocery order which we will pick up en route. Speaking of my daughter’s birthday, I was so close to ordering an expensive, customised cake for her (unicorn-themed) birthday party, which we held on Sunday. It was going to cost £50. Then, it struck me that a) she and her friends are only…
