According to Excel I have spent £27.48 since I started logging my spending this month.

As there was one day when I spent £55.88, this seems very unlikely indeed. 6 years ago

Needs must when the devil shits in your face. 6 years ago

I still need to look at the results though. However, bearing in mind how much my circumstances have changed, I’m not sure how useful they’ll be. Except maybe expose how much of a spendthrift I used to be. 6 years ago

At some point over the weekend I hope to take a good hard look at the results. It’s been a bit of an unusual month for me. I’ve done a lot of socialising, a lot of meals out, travelled a bit, bought more pretty dresses and shoes than normal and I’ve been off work for a fortnight now so the lunch/coffee expenditure is different from a tyical month. I’m not making excuses, it just… is. We’ll see, anyway. 6 years ago

I’ve got a bit slack on this over the past week, including actually losing the notes for one of the days, but I’m back on track now. In fact I even had one spend-free day last week, which is quite something for me. Two things have become clear – I need to stop smoking. What a drain on my expenses that is. The other thing is that I need to never, ever leave the house. Buses have cost me almost as much as smoking, and I haven’t even added in taxis and my train fare to Glasgow. Maybe I should invest in some comfortable shoes. The bike goal isn’t doing it for me any more, but I still have the use of my legs. Just about. 6 years ago

it was all going so well… i managed through the whole of last week with twenty squid!
thats not to shabby :D and that included going out, buying a few arty supplies, lunches and travel?
amazing?

but this is going to be an expensive week :S
we have two nights out, a girly night in (suprisingly expensive!) a few days about town, a birthday and a hairdressers apointment

did you hear that noise???
that was the sound of my budget being shot to hell :-/ 6 years ago

I went into Oasis. I was drawn in. I’m not normally big on shopping but I thought I might find something shruglike to wear with my summer-coping dress. I didn’t. But I did find a beeeyoootiful bright red embroidered dress at £35 reduced from £65. It’s kind of corseted, boned and ‘50s, with a sweetheart neckline, long straight backslit skirt and spaghetti straps, and it’s proper vavavoom curvalicious film starlet-stylee. I could probably wear it without a bra cos of the boning, and the colour is lush on me. I tried it on, agonised so hard I felt all twisted in my tummy, and decided not to buy it cos I couldn’t think of an occasion in which I’d wear it.

Then tripped along to Intermezzo for a coffee… where my brother’s girlfriend Janine, upon hearing of the dress, reminded me I have two weddings to go to this summer, confiscated my sensible veg and cheap toiletries shopping to behind the bar, and enlisted the rest of the bar staff to chant at me to go back and buy the damn thing until I did. Damn her.

It’s gorgeous though. I keep looking at it. And now I’m gonna have to buy shoes and accessories to go with it. Curses.

On the plus side, I have taken lunch in every day this week. Which doesn’t really make up for it. 6 years ago

Smoking is expensive. 6 years ago

its not going so well… ive already lost count!
but i will sort that out and count up all my spendings after dinner :)
plus i had to throw caution/pennies (actually more like pounds) to the wind this morning and jump in a black cab :S
it was purley my own fault i was running so late
damn that extra cup of tea! 6 years ago

All I can say is ouch. But we did go to Tesco yesterday and buy enough food for like three months. And one of my purchases is designed to save me money in the long term. Kind of. 6 years ago

I wrote down everything I spent down to the last penny. Granted, I wrote it on a Post-it block that I stole from work but I can put that down to mental distress caused by lack of pay. Then when I got home, even though it was really late, I put it all in a spreadsheet.

Ouch. My wallet hurts. And with a rather long and varied day out ahead of me planned, it’s gonna be begging for succour before the day’s out. 6 years ago

and ok so there is a dent… a big dent… more like a crater?

but its mostley been necessities!

and even that black jacket i may not have needed it but i did need it?

it was on sale?

_shoite6 years ago

This month, I have been skint as a bastard, and I have no idea why. Where the hell did all my money go? The only things I can think of are that I bought a dress and some fit-inducingly expensive moisturiser. And a birthday present for my mummy – all essentials, I’m sure you agree. Snort. I’ve been out quite a bit too, I suppose.

But last week I wound up raiding what I laughingly call my savings just so I could eat and get to and from my job. It’s lucky I’ve been a bit off my food these last few days. I’ve been off my job for a good year or so now but there’s not a lot I can do about that, I still have to go there for now.

I need to identify areas in which I can make savings. So tomorrow I am going to go and buy myself a little book, and a pen, carry it with me and start writing down everything I spend. I probably won’t post it all on here, cos that’s just TMI, but I’m pretty sure if I can shock myself with the amount I spend on lunches and coffees, which I estimate is about £20 a week, not to mention disgust myself with the amount it costs me to maintain my filthy smoking habit (oh, but I love to smoke), I’ll want to make some lifestyle changes that will allow me to stop frittering on fripperies and buy sensible grown-up items like furniture, white goods and pensions. Or shoes.

So, just to start me off, so far today I’ve bought:

1) a pair of jeans off ebay (my faves are wearing through) for £7.94 including P+P – bargainacious, but may not fit and require reselling on ebay

2) a train ticket for £49 to go and visit a lovely friend of mine.

So, 35 minutes into the new fiscal month and I’m £57 down. Not bad going. 6 years ago