Occasions

Recently at work there has been one birthday after another, interspersed with Someones leaving collection, baby collection, been burgled collection etc. Litrally some collections have gone round just one day after the one before.

At first I didn't mind putting my hand in my purse to club together for a collective gift. But then it got a little bit much, and it seems I'm not the only one that feels this way. Afterall the management on the six figure salaries aren't coughing up a penny towards the cause. Embarrassingly these large envelopes filled with coins land on your desk for you to fill then write your name on the back so everyone knows if you havnt contributed anything. The last one went round yesterday, I had about 70p in my purse and felt like I had to put it in.

Over the last few months (just after Xmas too!) the amounts people have been contributing have been dwindling as everyone is complaining about a lack if cash. This might seem a bit mean, but if a colleague is a genuine friend surely we would vouranterily shlep to the shops in pursuit of a gift? No... Anyways, this brings me onto another similar topic- valentines day.

Those exclaiming that their bank accounts are grim are simultaneously online shopping for £60 flowers for their partners. Call me cynical, but they're just going to die right? I got bought a mini Rose plant, much cheaper and was meant to bloom and grow rather than wither and die which I appreciated much more. We're planning on cooking a nice meal together indoors this year and putting the 40 quid we save towards our holiday fund.

It's also a good job I didn't count my eggs before they hatched as I had a phone call from my mum this morning saying my dads job may be on the line due to his company performing poorly, so the financial help may not be as easily available as we'd briefly hoped. I think the best thing to do is to keep aiming for my 10k, then a 10% deposit and then see where we stand, after all a lot can happen within 18 months.

I think it's important to live in the now as well as plan for the future. So today I spent £2 on a hot chocolate at the in for a work colleagues birthday, and shared dinner with friends in their home. We all contributed towards the food so came to hardly anything each.

Done my bit for today. Until next time folks, happy frugal-ing x

Waiting for Spring...

Yesterday my old pub manager rang and offered me a shift Saturday daytime working at Twickenham with a couple of the nice girls from the pub. The rugby is on, so the clientele isn't too bad, some even tip so should make around £36 (not accounting for tips) for a six hour shift, plus a free meal. Not amazing, but as one famous supermarket chain says, 'every little helps'. I didn't account for this at the beginning of the month so its extra to throw at the fund.

Its also been arranged that we are dropping the Wii off tonight so that's another extra £100. In total this month (if I hadn't paid off the BF's credit card) I would have put away 500 (CC) + 60 (TMP wage)  +37 (Spoons holiday pay) + 100 (Wii money) + 36 (Twickers) = £733  + whatever the ebay bits gather (there's 31 people watching the dress!). A pretty good month on that front, well I think it's that my accounting skills still aren't quite up to scratch!

The BF told me the other day that he also has £2,000 worth of shares at work, which sounds nice but until they materialise into actual cash I won't account for. Plus, once he gets his payrise, which should be in March all being well he thinks he can save around £300 per month, plus pay off what he owes me for the credit card. Though I have to keep reminding myself to not count my eggs before they hatch and all that.

Last night I did a swift shop at Iceland to top up the supplies in the cupboard, I gave myself a budget of about £20 quid and it came in at £19 for the lot, including a dinner fajita kit at just £1.75, and a huge bottle of Lenor fabric softener for £2.00. I think the trick is that I had to physically carry the shopping so that stopped me trying to buy too much. I might even bear this in mind in the future, and Iceland is on the train route home from work so don't even need to use my car.

In other news I'm still trying to get my housemates to turn the heating down just a smidge, but they can't seem to comprehend that the bill will go up if they keep heating the entire house when the temperature really isn't that bad. We have flats either side of us and live on top of a cafe! I got up this morning with no heating on and it was fine...oh to have my own space to do what I please. I think it's that which is keeping me out of Sainsbury's this lunch tine. I've swapped the cans of coke for filtered water for the second day running, wahhoo progress and have also run out of tea bags.

For the rest of the week plans are as follows; dropping round the BF's family tonight after dinner (I pre-made potato wedges out of potatoes that were beginning to sprout, I used the oil which comes with sun dried tomatoes which I bought a few weeks ago and had kept in the fridge since- think I'm really getting the hang of this frugal living stuff!) they've been marinating in the fridge today, along with some garlic and onion. All BF needs to do is to pop them in the oven, along with the frozen chicken pieces which will be marinated in one of those shaky bag things. Frozen peas complete the meal. Tomorrow eve I'm going to a friends for dinner, with said cheap fajita kit in tow. Thursday eve is body attack, Fri eve some drinks in the local, Sat working, Sun hitting the cinema with some vouchers. Done! :)

Did anyone else catch Superscrimpers on Channel 4? As always it was packed with thrifty tips, my favourite was using an old sock, filling it with rice and sewing it up and microwaving it to make a snuggly heat pack. Might make the housemate said sock gift lol to stop him whining about the heating!

Hope you're all having a cheap and cheerful week so far! x

Oh and one more thing, if you want to save money on entertainment Netflix is well worth checking out https://signup.netflix.com/?mqso=80031973&locale=en-GB&mkwid=sGrGFf9EW&pcrid=9887743085 we started the free trial and within a week have watched lots of films. We also got a years worth of antivirus software which we were going to buy for signing up :)