About 18 months ago I made a post in which I confessed the ways I fail. Every now and then I read back through my blog, and luckily for you, today I'm revisiting some of my human failures and where I'm at with them. (After all, Frugality is an ongoing process, not a one-off.)
#1 - Meal Preparations. I used to say that I rarely prepare anything from scratch. This is now hit-and-miss. I often eat at work for free, and when I'm home, I do prepare a lot more salad from scratch and eat more fruit - I'm definitely healthier, and I feel it. But I now live alone, and I must admit, after cooking all day at work, I often lack the motivation to cook for one person once I'm home. So I'm eating ready meals about twice a week, but they're generally the frugal versions of ready meals.
#2 - Eating Takeaway. Zero takeaway meals purchased in the past three months. I have bought a couple of "gourmet" ready meals as a treat but it's quite rare.
#3 - My Coffee Addiction. Snapped, broken, gone. This was bad and I was drinking coffee all day before, but it's now no longer something I do on autopilot. I generally sit down with a vanilla latté when I first arrive at work - it's free, and it's my chill-out, calming preparation for tackling my work day. When I'm at home, I drink one coffee a day in the mornings.
#4 - Soft Drinks. I no longer drink them at all. I haven't bought any in the past three months. In the beginning I drank the odd one at work (free), but now all I have is water or fruit juice at work (still free).
#5 - Electricity and Water use. This has changed to become a fixed cost as it's included in my rent now, but good habits have stuck and I am conscious of saving as much energy and water as I can.
#6 - My Toys. I've just bought a new laptop and I'm getting rid of the desktop computer. It was an expensive swap, but I got it half-price by using a buyback deal and choosing a model that's just been discontinued (thanks, husband-detective!). On the plus side, laptops do use less power. I have also just bought a fitness gadget, not strictly necessary but something I wanted so that I could track my fitness a little. It's a very inexpensive one.
#7 - Movies and Games. I no longer pay for Netflix and I'm taking advantage of local tv programmes, since my tv licence is paid for and I can view them on my laptop. I haven't bought any games recently and I'm revisiting my old favourites one by one. I do still play the one that burns a hole in my pocket but I'm trying to be more conscious of what I spend there.
#8 - Bottled Water. Ugh. This one is new, and I hate it. The tap water in my new city is, quite frankly, foul-tasting. In the beginning I was downing lime cordial just to mask the taste, but all that sugar and acid would have killed my teeth. I now buy bottled water. It bothers me that I'm adding to waste, so I have found a very inexpensive one in a huge bottle, to limit the overall amount of plastic.
#9 - Driving. Well, not yet. But I've been evaluating the time I spend on public transport, and as much as I love its frugality and reliability, it is eating into my time more than I'm comfortable with on weekends and bank holidays - I'm simply not being fair to myself commuting for three hours a day, and I work every weekend and most holidays. Getting home at midnight can also be a concern in terms of safety, since I'm a solo female and walking well away from the main street. So I'll shortly be thinking more seriously about car ownership. It will be delayed until I move house to a place which has free parking available.
#10 - Clothing. In my new city I did check out the charity shops - and there are a lot of them! Unfortunately, I'm a Lady Of Size™ and there's very little in my sort of dimensions. There are a couple of good places to shop for new clothes though, and I'm making the most of sales items. I am losing weight, slowly but steadily, and as I do so I expect to have more options when it comes to buying used clothing. On the flip side I'm already having to buy new clothes as the old ones are too big. But I'm ok with this, since my health is more important than my money.
#11 - My Rent. I got a great deal on my apartment, or so I thought, as the landlord knocked the price down right as I signed the lease. Unfortunately, I've just received notice that the rent will go up by almost 10%, and when I check out what else is vacant around here, there are now way too many similar places vacant for him to justify charging me that much. I have about a month to figure out my next move, as locking myself into another fixed term lease didn't fit into my medium-term plans (ie possibly needing to move cities if I see an interesting job with a sister store of my workplace). I may need to move into another apartment locally and delay my Career Progression™ hopes, which will cost me a bit. We shall see.
So that's where I'm at in terms of major spending. If I think of any more, I'll update.
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