I'm technically jumping a bit ahead of myself here - but I'm already thinking ahead to my second monthly challenge of the year - it's going to see the return of Frugal February! The eagle-eyed and sound of memory will recall that I said in my list of goals for the year that we were aiming to re-focus on some of the frugal stuff again - just try to get our eyes back on the ball a bit if that makes sense.
It's odd - one of the things that just about everyone I know who's had a period of time where they have been voluntarily frugal to pay off debt, or a mortgage, says once they've achieved their aim is that it's quite difficult to get out of the mindset where you feel guilty, or uncomfortable, about spending money. The good side of this is of course that you're never likely to massively overspend again - the habit of saving up, of seeing what else you have that will do the job instead, is too deeply ingrained for that. What does happen a bit over time I think though is that small things start to creep in, little frittering habits sneak back up on you. Never much - just a pound here or there, but the result is that you end up with "stuff" that you hadn't planned, and don't really need. The Credit card bill can still perfectly easily get paid when due, but there's just that little bit more on it than really, you would have liked...and THAT is the side of things we want to address a bit.
There are things that we won't be doing - we have some trips out and about planned, and those will still be happening. MrEH's car needs a service & MoT. We will still be heating the house, and still be eating well. Stuff that we NEED will still be purchased, but stuff that we just WANT may well get put on hold, thought about, and only bought after a short review, if at all.
Some of this will continue through the year as well, and some of it is starting sooner than February - for example:
- I have plenty of assorted toiletries stashed, and will be aiming not to buy more until I actually need to.
- We currently once again have an absolutely jam-packed freezer and one thing I intend to do this weekend is to do a full audit of that freezer and then meal plan ahead using the contents.
- Similarly we have a well stocked store cupboard - once the freezer gains a little more wiggle-room I want to batch-cook some pulses ready for incorporating into meals
- Books - I got a number for Christmas and also bought myself a handful of charity shop paperbacks just before the festive season so I have plenty to read going forwards. No more to be purchased until I've read those I have!
Clothes - now this is a trickier one. There IS still things I need, I'm still wearing a number of tops that are far too big for me, for example. Some things can be purchased from charity shops - it's amazing quite how often I find a pretty much unworn fitted M&S scoop-neck top hanging there just waiting for me, for example. I will also keep my eyes on trousers and skirts that will do as work-wear. Other things do need purchasing new either for hygiene reasons (underwear, nightwear, shoes - do not get me STARTED on charity shop shoes - and Exercise kit - I refuse to wear an item that somebody else's crotch has sweated into before mine), or because generally by the time they hit the charity shop they look more "past it" than I'm comfortable with - pretty much anything light-coloured falls into this heading, as does anything with a fleecey finish. I freely admit I'm a terribly fussy charity-shop shopper - but I do like the idea of it, so will persevere for those items where it works for me to do so. I'll be reviewing my list though, and also doing some more decluttering of cupboards and the wardrobe.
One thing I DO want to really look at is how easy the whole "contactless revolution" has made things. I used Apple Pay a lot, and I think there is no question that it does make you think less about spending than handing over a crisp fiver would. I want to focus back on using cash a lot more for the first part of this year - it will also make my monthly credit-card statement reconciliation far easier too of course! I keep saying the same thing about it - that the ease of just tapping a phone on a reader to pay for something is going to get a lot of folk in a lot of trouble - and I honestly think that's dangerously true. I don't think I'm likely to be one of them, but even I have to admit that it genuinely doesn't feel like "spending money" in the same way.
There might be other things that will occur to me ahead of really starting the challenge on 1st February, if so I'll note those and incorporate them - both otherwise I'll be back on the first Friday in Feb with my framework and intentions for the month!
Robyn
3 comments:
Gosh, this post really resonates with me. It was the relaxing of our spending control over the last few months and our realisation that we had slipped into this that made us sit down and discuss doing a year long challenge to get us back on track and pay off our small mortgage.
I'll be following your posts eagerly.
I did a frugalish sort of post recently and a couple of people commented that they never used cash and found spending on a card made them spend less. I couldn't understand that as to me a card doesn't seem like money at all.
We need to cut back due to moving and spending too much and limited income due to illness.
Sue - it's amazing how things slip in a tiny way sometimes isn't it, and I reckoned that just clawing back those small things might make a real impact, so it will be interesting to see!
Sue in Suffolk - I guess things work differently for different people - just using the card to make payments for things as such is less of an issue for me I think than how easy contactless makes to decide to put really small amounts on the card rather than just getting my purse out. The cashback payments on our credit card have dropped down to a really tiny amount now so it's less relevant for us to spend routinely on it too.
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