How did I save money today?

[WVDragonlady]

I didn't save money today. I bought myself 2 pairs of shoes. One pair of flats and a pair of sneakers
And I still need to buy soil amendments yet. Hopefully that will be this week some time. Then I'll be finished and only need to spend money on groceries every week

 

[Sewingcreations15]

Day one of not spending any money apart from our allotted splurge money which is our rare luxury while paying off our mortgage.

 

[Sewingcreations15]

Starting again @LadyLocust so here is the items we won't include in our no spending days being bills, mortgage payments, fuel, splurge money and gardening/prepping items as we are building our garden beds and will have to buy pipes, fittings and taps. Our garden beds and auger were saved for in our budget and paid for with cash.

We are on day 3 of no spending on other items other than the above.

Our freezers are full until bulging so still waiting for our discount e-vouchers to come onto eBay so we can stock up on our staples, some tinned goods, dairy and bacon that we have used in April. We are $24.38 under budget for our grocery/pantry stocking for the month which we are happy about.

 

[Sewingcreations15]

Day 4 of not spending money today.

 

[Sewingcreations15]

Yesterday was day 5 of not spending any money @LadyLocust.

 

[LadyLocust]

Good job @Sewingcreations15 !!! It starts to feel funny (a good funny) when you get to a certain point where you realize that you haven’t spent $ for however long. I was actually 12 days this month so will attempt 2 weeks next month. Once the weather turns just a bit warmer, maybe I can grow enough where I can go longer than that. We’ll see, but I would sure love that. I think there are only 2 seed packets I will have to purchase this year so that’s nice. Keep up the good work. Two more days makes a week! Wahoo!

 

[MoBookworm1957]

Day 2 of not spending money, won't spend until next Wednesday.
When I pay rent, car payment, car insurance, electric, internet bill.
Hopefully won't have any more expected expenses this month.
Both sons have asked me not to fill the chest freezer back up till after I move.
So that will be a savings of $325 for meat for 6-9 months if not more.
Have enough meat in refrig,chest freezer to last till I move.

 

[LadyLocust]

@MoBookworm1957 That is awesome! Where we were, I was able to have most utilities charged to my credit card then payed it monthly. Where we are now, it seems like things can't be paid with cc so all kinds of checks to write- Grrrr. I'm rather envious that you have them lined up to pay all at once. Good job!

 

[MoBookworm1957]

@MoBookworm1957 That is awesome! Where we were, I was able to have most utilities charged to my credit card then payed it monthly. Where we are now, it seems like things can't be paid with cc so all kinds of checks to write- Grrrr. I'm rather envious that you have them lined up to pay all at once. Good job!

Money goes into savings, hopefully not to be touched.
Normally any extra money goes on extra car payment.
It's my goal to pay off car in 3 years instead of 5.
Which will save me a ton of interest.
But unfornately my neighbor hood has got to heck the last few months.
All the decent people are leaving in droves.
I will be one of them soon as I have deposit money saved for new place.
I have lived here 5-10 years, no way would I recommend this place now.
I live below my means, normally don't buy unless I got cash in hand.
But new to me car was to good deal to pass up.
2015 Fiat lounge 500 with 31 miles on it when I purchased it in April of 2017.
Leather interior, sunroof,heated mirrors, heated seats, trunk, Beats stereo
Even if I don't get it paid off in 3 years, it won't be much over that.

 

[Sewingcreations15]

Busted today @LadyLocust on the spending front but did find some really good deals to fill the freezer with more meat and some good deals on household items we needed on almost half price special.

We purchased on special -
- 2.5 kg of short cut bacon and 4.34 kg of rump steak on super special for $8 kg saving $87.60 on usual prices in the larger supermarkets. The meat freezer will be packed now and no more meat for some time.
- 3 hats for DH, 8 chair pads and 2 rolls of packaging tape from a country discount variety store saving $35.04 on usual prices in homewares and hardware stores.
- We also purchased 6 packets of potato chips on special saving $4 on usual prices.

 

[WVDragonlady]

Since the last time I checked in here hubby has cut the cable from the satellite!! Thats $150 a month. I did up our wildblue package to 50gigs so we can watch programs online if we want. We have a free period of data usage from 3-6am ( which is when we get up).
I haven't been watching any tv for at least a month now and I can say I don't miss it one bit. There really wasn't anything on there that I was truly invested in watching. And I like listening to the radio
We have dvds to watch and if I can get the darn VCR ( it does dvds too) hooked up to my tv I can watch all my videos I have.

I also went to walmart this past wednesday and picked up some bonemeal, a granular fertilizer and some onion sets.
I still have to go to the hardware store and buy more manure,soil and potting mix. And I think I may have to buy some play sand at walmart to use in the garden to help loosen up the soil for my carrots and onions. I have some but I don't think it will be enough.

Tomorrow I'll pick up my usual saturday groceries

 

[The Lazy L]

I paid off one of the wife's credit cards that she's been carrying a balance on and ran the card through the shredder. I'm keeping the account on my Mint.com account to monitored any future (her) activity on it which she has promised me there wouldn't be any.

 

[The Lazy L]

Since the last time I checked in here hubby has cut the cable from the satellite!! Thats $150 a month....

 

[backlash]

I wish my wife would agree to cutting the satellite dish. The crap she watches just dulls the mind. Nothing realistic and nothing of value.

 

[Sewingcreations15]

Good on your DH @WVDragonlady that is a lot to spend on cable TV per month and money best spent or saved preferably elsewhere in your budget .

Great to hear @The Lazy L that your wife has started to see light of day with all the credit card debt and I didn't realise until @LadyLocust pointed it out that many states in the US hold the other half to ransom over the partner's debts, which I still think is horrendous as it doesn't happen here in Australia if your name is not on the debt concerned. Although that doesn't stop the companies who have the debt trying to recover it off the other partner as I had previous experience with this in a divorce situation.

Yes going on past experiences I would be keeping an eye on her too with her expenditure.

 

[Sewingcreations15]

Today we are back on day 1 of not spending any money .

 

[WVDragonlady]

I wish my wife would agree to cutting the satellite dish. The crap she watches just dulls the mind. Nothing realistic and nothing of value.

It took me years of mentioning it and how theres really nothing on the tv but what really put him off was he wanted to change the package we have to a lower one and they wouldn't work with him to do it. AT ALL! He even went to the supervisor and she didn't want to help him. So he told them to turn it off. They were charging us for a sports package that we didn't even use or want but they said it "came" with our package, but then why charge extra for it if it came with the package?
So directv is persona non grata here now lol

 

[timmie]

we are going to eat out of freezers and pantry so as to save money for a new to us vehicle AND also going to quit smokeing

 

[GrannyG]

Love this idea.....

 

[MoBookworm1957]

don't know what day it is for not spending.
But won't spend anything till date night on Tuesday.
I pay my own way on date night maybe spend $30.
This includes full round of Bingo 6 pm-9 pm, and dinner.
That's cheap entertainment around here.
Then Wednesday pay monthly bills, everything goes into savings.

 

[LadyLocust]

@Sewingcreations15 I bet your count of NS days for the month is looking good!

 

[Sewingcreations15]

@LadyLocust not too bad but we did buy a lot of gardening equipment and food for the freezers so I could improve . With all the specials on meat at unheard of prices it paid us to buy it and fill the meat freezer and vegetable/berry freezer back up again. Usually we don't do grocery shopping this much I have to say but then and again saving $200 + on meat and frozen goods here is just unheard of so we are both glad we did it and are now restocked for far less expenditure.

We are on day 2 of no spending at the moment.

Still waiting on our discount grocery e-vouchers to come through with our larger supermarket middle of next month or perhaps later this month to restock on staples we have used but apart from that our food supplies are looking really good. We also still have heaps of staples in the storage room but I like to replace them as we use them so I have a variety of best before and use by dates in the storage room.

 

[Sewingcreations15]

@Tank-Girl hope you are travelling ok with the cyclones and rainfall up there .

Plain flour rose in price by .15c per kg in the shops just recently and I did a bit of investigation and apparently with a combination of drought and flooding rains in other areas the overall grain production in Australia is down around 33% over figures on previous years from late December to early this year. Now might be the time to stock up on any grain products before the prices rise further @Tank-Girl if it is in your budget.

As most who know me well, they know I am a percentages person, so our flour we have in storage just earnt us 24% interest as we purchased it before the price rises and at a 16.66% discount on usual prices using our supermarket e-vouchers. Got to be happy with that and it is way better than bank interest too. Yes IMHO our food and other storage is another bank.

 

[Tank-Girl]

Thank SC for the heads up about the flour.
All the stores are out of 5 kg bags of rice.
The cheapest goes for 25 cents per 100grms which is a lot considering my buy price was 14 cents per 100grms.

On the Windy website it looks like you lot will be getting rain soon.
I hope so.
The high humidity and heat is making everything miserable.
The off the charts uv makes you
feel like you are being microwaved.
I was out in it for under 10 mins with short sleeves and even with my tan I got burnt.
Crazy times.

 

[Sewingcreations15]

Yep similar UV index here too @Tank-Girl and got to be in by or before 9 am or you get baked. We even wear 50+ UV long sleeve protective cotton shirts and you can feel the sun burning through your shirt. I agree it is miserable and our humidity levels are high here too. Why oh why was I born in Australia a redhead and I have to say even I for a lily white person who could guide you in a power blackout with my skin, I am getting a slight tan dare I say it between the many red freckles.

Thanks for the heads up on the rice I will have to check what price we can get it for if we need more. I think though we might be fine as we stocked up before Christmas when they had huge specials on the large bags of rice. Something else in our food storage no doubt that is earning us more than bank interest.

Woolworths essentials white rice is currently .14c per 100g, not sure if you are near one there.

 

[Amish Heart]

Bought rice last week at Sams….50 lbs for $19.
Prices are only going up, never down.
Was amazed at the 20 to 30 cents price increases at Sams on many items in just a few weeks.

 

[Terri9630]

The floods, early snow and droughts of the past year are affecting the crop yields. Not only were farmers planting late and rushing the harvest, everything that was stored in the flooded mid west is now ruined by the flood waters and the fields and equipment are going to take time to dry/repair before the planting can begin. The cattle loss hasn't even been counted yet. I expect many things to start going up.

 

[Tank-Girl]

Yep similar UV index here too @Tank-Girl and got to be in by or before 9 am or you get baked. We even wear 50+ UV long sleeve protective cotton shirts and you can feel the sun burning through your shirt. I agree it is miserable and our humidity levels are high here too. Why oh why was I born in Australia a redhead and I have to say even I for a lily white person who could guide you in a power blackout with my skin, I am getting a slight tan dare I say it between the many red freckles.

Thanks for the heads up on the rice I will have to check what price we can get it for if we need more. I think though we might be fine as we stocked up before Christmas when they had huge specials on the large bags of rice. Something else in our food storage no doubt that is earning us more than bank interest.

Woolworths essentials white rice is currently .14c per 100g, not sure if you are near one there.

All of the Woolworths in my district are completely out of essentials rice.
It's the one I normally buy.
I can't even get it in 1 kg bags.

 

[Sewingcreations15]

@Amish Heart you are so true about prices only going up and interesting to note you are seeing the same price rises over there too.

@Terri9630 yes you have been hit with the severe weather in many parts of the country too and if you and others aren't all stocked up then perhaps you all should as well before prices rise even more.

@Tank-Girl if you get hold of the manager of the store or the guy who purchases everything they will do a special order for you for items they are out of. We have done that here and they let us know when it is in stock. Worth a try.

For us it was cocoa powder as every time we went shopping the generic brand was either out of stock or they only had 1 or 2, the lovely manager said we could ring 2 - 3 days before we needed it and he would order it for us and it was always there when we picked up our other groceries.

 

[The Lazy L]

I wish my wife would agree to cutting the satellite dish. The crap she watches just dulls the mind. Nothing realistic and nothing of value.

We had satellite TV. Sunday afternoons I would turn on baseball or football game and sleep through most of it. Wife listened to the Hallmark channel. I asked the wife and she felt very strongly on keeping satellite TV.

Then I was given an idea, I tried it and it worked! When the next satellite bill came I handed it to the wife.

"What's this?" she asked.

"The bill for the satellite TV."

"Why are you giving it to me? You aren't expecting me to pay it!"

"No you don't have to pay it unless you want to keep it."

Two months later she decided it was too expensive and canceled it! Amazing how a person's attitude changes dependent on who is footing the bill.