Staring At Rocks

It's like a waterfall, I swear. First I got aluminium foil, plastic wrap, eggs, oven chips, peanut butter, a bread roll and cinnamon bagels. Then work #2 got me bread, milk, fruit, yogurt, desserts, croissants, crisps, blueberries, fruit snack things and ready meals. Freezer tetris time.

This is Amphibolite.

Kid #2 has managed to get some hours at my work which is good news. I'm not so sure about his enthusiasm for working with his mother.

Free kitchening (lots), yellow stickers (£1.00 off)

I have reached my February goal on day 24 and I haven't even counted in the overtime earnings yet.

I am currently in the middle of an excruciating 45 minute study which so far seems to consist entirely of "looking at pictures of rocks".  The things we do in the name of science. (And cash.) And I think this is a good reflection of my current mood. "Staring at rocks."

I miss having enthusiasm and waking up happy. Most days I am on autopilot, going through the dreary motions, thinking that eventually this mood will pass. I missed something incredibly important this week and I'm just so disappointed in myself. Even the view of the sea isn't making me happy and I'm wishing I could just crawl into a hole where nobody can see me.

This blog has been so boring lately, only posting about mundane groceries, but that's my life. Filled with nothing but blah and "I don't want to". Don't ask me anything, because I don't want to. Do anything, see anything, talk about anything. Whatever it is. Don't read this. Oh, too late.

I'm not feeling worse, but I definitely wish this fog would hurry up and leave.

Ho Hum

Well, yet again there were only three of us meeting for coffee, so I'm a bit bummed and wondering whether to even bother arranging a next time. There were four "yes" and one "maybe" who did not show up... I guess it was the weather, but still, a bit frustrating for those that came along and didn't have a lot to talk about!

I survived my extra day at work ok. I say that now but ask me again on the third day running when I've got to get up to do it all again. A good-bad thing did happen at work today though:

This. Waste. Is. Criminal. And it only shows you the stuff I brought home - there was a fair amount of half-eaten and opened food that I didn't retrieve.

It's good because SCORE. Also because I had about 2 teaspoons left of coffee and had completely forgotten it was running out, and after coming home exhausted, having to go out and buy coffee tonight would have completely pissed me off. So, I guess it's a thank you to the universe for the haul.

Enfoodenation: Like the picture (£12.65)

What's Better Than Pizza?

...free pizza, of course.

I did an 11-hour shift yesterday to help out at job #2 so I was glad of the chance to sleep in this morning!

Son and I went to a board game meetup this evening, we were late so spent the first hour watching a game that hurt my brain (it's ok, even the guys playing it said it hurt their brains) followed by playing a fun word association game called Decrypto. I think we shall go again :)

Tomorrow: coffee meetup at the pub.

Free: Pizza, milk, bread, sausages, avocado (£5.23)
Yellow Stickers: Crumpets, English muffins, bagels (£1.24)

Help To Save

Victory is mine! I qualified this month by earning enough but also not earning enough. I had a bit of overtime but my UC wasn't completely cancelled, so I am now the proud owner of a Help to Save account.

For those who missed the memo, it's a government-arranged dealio, you stash up to £50 per month into the account and at the end of the term the government will give you 50p for every pound you put away. Tax-free. INSANE. That's free money so you can see why I was keen.

To qualify, you must be working but be on a low income and also receiving Universal Credit. More info at this link.

I ran out of butter this morning while making my lunch for work and I vaguely wished that I'd gotten some free during the week. And the universe responded today, with not one but two tubs of butter. I feel like she was giving me a smug look and saying, "Don't say I never give you nothin'."

The weather is abysmal. Storm Dennis has been drenching us and I finished my work day soaked, tired and sore. Plus, I am once again slightly annoyed at the fact that I will get no weekend, again, due to agreeing to extra hours of overtime. I was SO DETERMINED that it would not happen again this week and then I was completely unable to say no when both bosses were in need. Sigh. Am physically exhausted right now and walking like an old woman. I was comparing notes with a couple of workmates who've been there longer than I have, and unfortunately, both of them related to the "getting frozen into that shape" phenomenon whereby sitting still for thirty minutes after a work day leaves you unable to stand up. Even after years in the job. And here was I hoping that I'd get used to it...

Free stuff: Orange juice, bread rolls, herb and garlic flatbread thing, butter (£3.10).

More Sandwiches

I suppose they're versatile, but there are only so many free sandwiches one can eat! I shared them with my son, who also didn't have much interest in yet another sandwich, but still ate it.

Had some extra shifts at work so goodbye to having an actual weekend (third time running... so I'm a little bit tired). On the plus side it's more money into the February £4 Challenge. On the minus side, between the fuel cost, the UC deduction of 67% and my current tax code, I will go home with nothing for working the extra hours. Something that I forgot all about when I said yes to another overtime shift for tomorrow.

Good thing: Spending time with my son. Today we did the tourist thing and went to Kent's Caverns. Interesting tour but I was perhaps a little bit underwhelmed! It was about £20 for the two us so not the most frugal thing in the world. Still, I give it an overall thumbs up.

Free food: Sandwiches, mushrooms, spinach and cake (£6.15)

Major Oops

So I took my eye off the ball (I am still not quite sure how) and missed my due date for my credit card, and have incurred interest this month plus a late fee. It's incredibly frustrating because I have nobody else to blame! Lesson learned, direct debit is now set up to pay it in full automatically - so it will pay a bit earlier than before, but since I always have the money ready it won't matter too much.

My son came over for dinner - we watched comedy videos together and had a giggle 😀

I was also late posting my last entry here on my blog. That probably points to why I missed the CC date, I've been adjusting to this whole business of working two jobs and I only had one day off in almost two weeks - but this is temporary and it shall pass. Now that I have two jobs I will count my overtime - so I'm going to go back and calculate the extra earnings and update my challenge totals.

Storm Ciara is blowing an actual gale out there and it woke me at stupid o'clock this morning - I am not looking forward to going out in it later today. There are trees down all over the place and roads closed along the sea front.

Freebies: marmalade, chocolates, potatoes, green beans (about £1.90 worth)
Yellow stickers: hot cross buns (18p off)

I thought I was running behind in my February challenge of trying to achieve £4 per day, and I know it's because I am so busy, and then I remembered why I'm so busy. So I'm going to count overtime earnings in my challenge and I've updated posts to show that. As for the 2020 £2020 Challenge, the only way I'm likely to hit that is if I get fulltime work and somehow keep one of my other jobs... which isn't on the horizon right now. But still, we do what we can 😊

Irrational Guilt

Me, that is, in saying no to extra shifts that I can't do in the first place because I'll be at my other job. It makes about as much sense as feeling guilty when you see a police car when you haven't done anything wrong! (Which is still something that happens to me.)

I also shouldn't feel guilty at wanting two days off work each week, but it still happens. I think it was because I accepted everything last week and was exhausted, spent almost no time with my son, and then got annoyed at bringing it all on myself. In an effort to be more organised, I've volunteered to work a regular, recurring extra shift and I will attempt to remind myself that this is Enough (capital E).

For some reason I forgot to schedule this post to actually go live - which is why it's late. It's been a blur of a week!

Free from work: punnet of strawberries, 2x baby plum tomatoes, 2x sandwiches and a bunch of chrysanthemums (£3.00 worth).

The Price of a Sandwich

I think quite a lot about the lunchtime "meal deals" in every supermarket. You know the ones, where £3.00 gets you a sandwich, crisps, and a soft drink. Bargain.

At my work, we sell an absolute truckload of these deals (and you can switch it up, for pasta salad, a chocolate bar, and a smoothie). There's even the option of fruit, coffee or an energy drink. We get all kinds of people buying these, from harried mums shopping with toddlers, to tradesmen, high schoolers and older people. They save somewhere between one and three pounds off the price of the individual items, so it's great value. Or is it?

I'm not going to get all negative about the original prices, since I do like my workplace and would quite like to stay employed. In any case, the prices are similar in other supermarkets too. But I can't help noticing the alternatives. Most days I make a jam sandwich and bring it to work for my lunch (cost, about 10p) plus I have a refilled water bottle. If I wanted to add a snack into the mix, it would be another 10p for a piece of fruit. Total cost: 20p.

If I really felt deprived, I could have ham salad on my sandwich (40p), bring a muesli bar or a bag of crisps from a multi-pack (20p), and add in a can of soft drink also from a multi-pack (40p). Total cost: £1.00. If you did this for a year, that's a difference of £520, or £728 for the first option.

There is nothing wrong with a business making a profit. It's what they do. They're not cheating anyone when you can clearly see the prices on the shelves. But I can choose exactly how much profit I give to supermarkets by voting for the option which is kinder to my wallet.

Free food: baking potatoes, 3 mangled sandwiches (£2.90 worth)
Yellow stickers: two chicken pies (54p off)

Round Up: January £3 Challenge

Here's the total list of my extra earnings for the month of January.

£15.00 LifePoints Panel
£14.16 Bank Interest
£2.00 Tesco voucher redeemed
£6.00 Tesco Clubcard Points
£10.00 e-Rewards (as Nectar points)
£8.00 Opinion Outpost
£11.09 Testable Minds
£29.89 Prolific Academic
£0.45 Book royalties
£56.20 Overtime on second job
£15.65 Free food and yellow sticker savings

Competition wins:
10p on TopCashBack

This last number looks a little bit sad but I dramatically changed my comping this month and spent far less time entering them. I've dropped it back to about five hours a week and almost all of that is in visit-daily sites (like free lotto sites) and on postcard entries for larger-value prizes with much better odds. This is part of my master plan to win myself a big-ticket item 😉

The surveys too have not been top of my priority list. I now work four days a week, so there's less of the sitting about at home now. I'm sure I missed out some of the free food I've brought home too, but never mind. I'll have to get better at always writing it down. I've also decided to count overtime on my second job.

All up, I'm pleased that I defeated the January Challenge of £3 per day, and for February I have decided to set the bar at £4. I think that the free food will become a bigger proportion of my "earnings" which suits me just fine, since I can't stand waste.

Jackpot

A different kind of yellow sticker.

New job is going ok. I still don't know what I'm doing, but the customers are being very patient with me on the till and my colleagues are being kind and helpful. It has the most exciting perk in the world, that of free food. As an Australian I think it is fitting that I graciously accept something that is going free, as is my duty.

The freebies this week... tomato and feta pasta salad, red grapes, 3x pots chopped mango, 3x dipping sauces, 6 eggs, 3x chocolate eclairs, ten bananas, 2x boxes of cupcakes, a tin of peaches, four BLT sandwiches, 5x fruit bagels, 3x pots cherry tomatoes, and a chicken korma meal. All either past their "best before" date or "use by" date, or have damaged packaging. So far I have still not died and there are no imminent plans for me to do so.

As not all of these are products/brands I would have bought, I'm not going to count the whole normal price as earnings in my challenge. But I will count an arbitrary amount that matches the food I would have bought (for example, I generally spend 10p per piece of fruit, so I'm counting the mango pots as 10p each). That means I've "earned" £13.00 from the freebies this week.

I also bought four reduced chicken kievs for £2.30, two custard tarts for 89p and six pints of milk for 38p this week.

Facebook is finally beginning to be a bit useful, in that the ads it serves me are now peppered with raffles. This is a Good Thing™ as it's helping me find more competitions to enter (I can't believe I'm actually pleased about seeing ads). I have cracked the "100 raffles" mark for January and it's only a matter of time before I drive away in something fancy 😆

It's Oh So Quiet

For a house with 23 bedrooms, it's very peaceful here :)

My building manager, bless her, is worth her weight in gold. These 23 bedrooms are mostly tiny, and I suspect mostly only have a toaster oven. When I told her I wouldn't need the large cooker in my flat, she took it down to the laundry area and had the handyman install a kitchen bench, and then she brought in a large fridge/freezer, so that other residents could use that area to cook a proper meal if they needed to.

A building manager who cares about people... who'd have thunk it?

Free from a kind soul moving out: half a bag of pasta, three frozen chicken thighs, breakfast cereal, rice, tabasco sauce, chilli flakes, fresh chillies, cajun seasoning and some salt.

My housemates are not flush (we pay very low rent, and there are only 7 cars between us). So I was minded to make a "help yourself" area down in the parlour area with things I don't need, as I am struck by how many freebies I say yes to which I just don't use and which perhaps other people might be able to use. I've put two cooking magazines there from work. Today I saw that people have added some books and some spices labelled in Polish.

Not the one in my house...
but it's all in this kind of style.

Yes, I said in the parlour. It's the front room of the house. It has beautiful old chaise lounges, velvet settees, gilt-framed artwork and polished wooden tables and cabinets. The staircase winds around to split in two, half going up to the landing where my room is, and the other leading to the second wing. The front entrance of the house now has a conservatory added - more like an orangery to be honest, and it has bougainvillea growing on the inside walls, with a gorgeous old tiled mosaic floor.

It's fair to say the elegance has long-since faded, but it's clean, quiet, safe, and affordable. That'll do me.

So I Got My First Testable Minds Payment

And I was very excited and pleased with the amount. Although it doesn't have many studies to do just yet, they all seem to pay very well :) So a tenative thumbs-up for Testable Minds.

But trying to cash it out today in PayPal highlighted the horrific fees PayPal charges... 7% for getting hold of my own money! Outrageous. Testable's support team recommended I look into Revolut since it's fee-free at present, so I've had a bit of a learning experience today getting to know it a bit.

I have created my account, and literally had it up and running in less than five minutes. It has quite a few interesting features so I thought I'd give it a go. Its main setup is that it works as a reloadable card which can be used anywhere in the world with no currency conversion fees.

This part I found quite interesting, because while my son is here, he will be earning money in pounds, but eventually will want to use his money in Euros once he leaves England - and this card should allow him to spend that money without losing a big chunk in exchange rates. Not only that, it operates as a pseudo bank account (he should be able to get paid wages into it) and it interfaces with Google Pay, meaning we can use our phones to pay for our grocery shopping, bus tickets, pub lunches.

Revolut normally charges £5 for the physical card but if you use this link to join, the card is free.

I have started my new job - the people are very helpful but it's all very confusing and there is so much to take in! Hopefully it gets easier as I learn :)

Walking Through Wet Cement

Inaccurate because not enough days.

That's a bit how January feels. Thirty days hath September, April, June and November. All the rest have thirty-one excepting January alone which has ninety-three. Also, people get paid early in December and then January is a five-week month this year meaning one paycheque has to last seventeen weeks. (Yes, this is accurate maths.)

The survey sites have been a bit sleepy, it seems as if all the researchers are still snoozing from New Year :D But I'm still not putting in the effort that I could be. My 2020 Challenge is still looking really challenging right now... I will have to see if I can dig out some motivation to get my backside into gear!

I did a bit of decluttering of stuff - because goodness knows I haven't the space to keep excess stuff - and it is also nice to know what you do and don't have. Side effect is that I have located quite a bit that I can give to my son since he has arrived in town travelling light, and whatever we can avoid buying is a plus.

I'm currently slow-cooking a stew, because I've done far too much "cooking avoidance" of late. I also plan to make a cake during the week and use up some loitering ingredients. My grocery spending has been reasonably disciplined in January (lingering guilt from that Christmas spend) but if I don't make some kind of meal-making effort I will end up living on bread, and the weight will creep back up.

Speaking of which, my local council offers a discount scheme for those on UC, which includes a bunch of fitness and health stuff - I have asked UC to send me a letter proving I'm on their books. Then son and I plan to join a gym together. He can play with all the weird weight and resistance contraptions, I'll leave him to it and just walk on a treadmill for an hour.

61 free competition entries so far this year - phew. I know the odds are that I'll need to enter a thousand before I win, or maybe even two thousand, but I still can't help feeling, where's my car already 😁

Also - I found the smileys!

Lunacy In Action

Cool thing: I got the second job :) Yay income!

Cool thing #2: My son is in town :) Yay son! I spent all day in the car fetching him, then he had to move into his temporary digs, so he's absolutely shattered and a bit shell-shocked by the change. Tomorrow we'll do a walk around town and an essential first shop - plus dinner at the pub.

In my travels this week I discovered a thing called Help To Save. Essentially it's a government savings account for low-income earners and it rewards you with a tidy bonus after two years. A 50% bonus, in fact. Colour me intrigued. So I go investigating... and the dealio is, you've got to be receiving Universal Credit and also earning more than £566 per month.

I'm not eligible (at least right now) because I always have either too much income to get UC or not enough income to get HtS. It never rains, it pours.

(Can I just take a moment to note what a silly system that is? They want to help low-income earners, but not the really-low-income earners. What the.)

Deflated much? Yes I am. Maybe if lightning strikes next month and I earn more than £566 AND I don't earn enough to quite cancel Universal Credit in February, maybe I can join. Once you're in, you're in. Fingers crossed.

Spent: £23.04 on stamps, £5.34 at the supermarket including two yellow sticker items. I also spent a pound on a cheap microwave soup cup after discovering the rather expensive one I've had for years developed a crack across the bottom. Ironically, I rarely heat soup in these things, but they are perfect for nuking enough frozen veg for one person's dinner :)

I'm well on track to meet my January £3 a day challenge, but it seems as if the bigger challenge will be whether I can make £2020 in 2020. It's certainly doable but I'm struggling to enthuse myself for 10-20 minute surveys. I did, however, just do five quick surveys on my phone after snapping my receipts for rewards. So that counts, right? (Incidentally, those apps look even better than I expected, so, yay.)

In: £3.00 from Opinion Outpost
£5.52  from Prolific
10p from TopCashBack

The £10 Grocery Challenge - The Wrap Up

Scoring myself this high is generous.

So, seven days of spending only £10 in the supermarket - how did I do?

I didn't count the cheat lunch, as I extended the challenge. But there was a top-up of milk (£1.59 - convenience store) plus the hommous (£1.25) which means I blew the budget overall. If I simply didn't have money to overspend, I'd have been in trouble, because I become growly without milk in my coffee.

Even so, it has been an interesting experience and certainly valuable for me. I meal planned for 7 days out of 8 (that's more than ever before) and I did spend less than usual.

I didn't do great at using up what's in my cupboards. The bulk of what I have stashed is spices, sauces and so on. I think my best option here is just to stop buying them, especially if they'll only get used in one recipe.

What's left, protein-wise? I still have around 9-10 meals' worth:
most of the cheese
1 frozen pizza
8 eggs

2 portions of frozen stewing steak

3 portions of frozen mince & tomatoes

1 portion fish fingers

plus fruit and veg:

frozen veg

hash browns

plenty of potatoes, carrots and celery

2 pears

and what else:

2 frozen slices of bread

most of a pack of biscuits
a pack of muesli bars

more cereal than I know what to do with

pasta

tin of tomatoes

one quadrillion different spreads, spices and sauces
the forbidden pesto.

As hinted, my next shop involves things like a Christmas dinner and trifle - not the right time to do another challenge - but I am heading into next week with a much better idea of what I don't need to buy and hopefully I can keep the spend down a bit.

What should my next challenge be?

The £10 Grocery Challenge - The Home Stretch

Day 8

Technically I should have been finished by lunchtime yesterday, except for the fact that I cheated on my lunch earlier in the week. So this is penance day.

Breakfast: A bowl of unShreddies. At lunchtime.

Lunch: My dinner, being the leftover baked potato with beans, cheese and sour cream. I was reminded all over again that it was really, really good.

Dinner wasn't actually in today's plan - I'll probably have some toast. I've officially finished the challenge. It's almost Christmas here in the past (lol) so I'm contemplating whether I'm stupid enough to go and brave the supermarket. I'm not quite game to do another challenge over Christmas, because realism says I would cheat in order to buy the foods I want to eat on Christmas day.

Stay tuned for the wrap up.

So I'm Doing A Survey, Right

"Which of these supermarkets is a place you'd feel proud to shop at?"

I mean... think about it. Isn't this the entire problem with our world of over-consumption? People spending money not based on need but so that they can tell people about it? I mean, what?

Is this really a thing? Do people go around proudly telling people where they choose to put more money into a till? Is there elevated status involved if my milk and bread were more expensive than yours or had a different value brand label?

Don't get me wrong, my workmates and I do discuss our grocery shopping, mainly for practical tips like which one has the good specials and which one is a parking nightmare and which one's flowers always die within two days. And if certain products are genuinely better quality, fine. But as a status symbol, no. Perhaps I just don't mix with the right crowd buahaha!

In: 1000 Nectar points / £5.00 from e-Rewards

I have a job interview for a part-time job in a shop. I do hope I get it as it will fit around my existing job. I am not jinxing myself here because by the time this post goes live, I'll have already been to the interview.

Spent: on some chocolates and a card for a workmate's birthday. :)

I WAS REALLY PLEASED to see my name in the official tickets list for a car I was trying to win by sending in a postcard.

I was really displeased not to win it.

Never mind, I have another 40 entries yet! So far!

Task for the day: walking up to the place where my son will be staying, to check it out and book his stay. And of course it's blowing a gale and I'm going to get wet.

The £10 Grocery Challenge - Almost There

Day 6

Breakfast - I bet you can't guess?

Wrong! I was incredibly lazy and just didn't feel like eating before work. I ate two biscuits. And of course, this meant that by 12pm I was absolutely starving and really looking forward to the cheese and crackers lunch with workmates :)

Part of every balanced diet.

Obviously I ate far too many and also ate some hot chips. They even tried to make me eat cheesy bread and mince pies with it. I would have burst, not to mention the food coma that I dragged around with me for the rest of the afternoon as I tried to get my work done!

It was also my sun rotation day and also our Secret Santa, so I was given some lovely things, including Lindt chocolates, which I started demolishing as soon as I got home. Healthy diet today, not!!!

Afternoon snack: a carrot, as I felt guilty from eating so badly today.

I really felt like nothing more than toast for dinner - despite the lack of anything nutritious today - but I compromised, and made scrambled eggs for it. While eggs aren't that exciting to me, if I save some frozen beef, I will have some variety next week. (Next week is Christmas - yes, this was written in the past - meaning there will probably be quite a few meals featuring leftover ham.)

So how exactly does one do scrambled eggs without a frypan? Well, there are different ways, but I cheat. It's actually microwaved eggs with a dash of milk and stirred every 20s as they cook. It's not perfect, but on toast, it'll do.

Day 7

Look, it isn't mixed dregs anymore. Behold! Shreddies! (Or at least, value range supermarket-branded unShreddies.)

Work again today, so I packed my trusty sandwich with lemon curd. I had just finished shovelling it down when my workmates brought out the cheese and crackers again. And the shortbread, the mince pies, and chocolate cake! I ate far too much (it was delicious) and then contemplated the fact that I was going to have a grim time undoing all this overindulgence in January :D

Yes, there's a potato under that.

Dinner made for a tough decision: fish fingers, or pizza, or beans on a baked spud? Evidence:

Baked potato, beans, sour cream (which unexpectedly came home from work free) and cheese (because after eating cheese for two days straight, I needed more cheese). A simple dinner but the meal I've enjoyed most for the entire week. And to think I'd been putting it off, thinking I'd enjoy the stews more!

The £10 Grocery Challenge - Half Way Point

Day 4

Cereal... I am almost through the "mixed tub of leftovers", hallelujah.

I then had another stupid official appointment, but this time managed to behave until I got home, at which point I demolished three mini-packs of savoury nut snacks that I had gotten free as a promotion (they weren't fabulous and I won't be buying them in the supermarket). I ate them with a glass of coke, since the opened bottle has lingered since forever. I also drank coffee today (as always) and threw in some vanilla syrup, mainly because its main flavour is just "sugar" and so I might as well just use it up.

Snack #2: crackers with Vegemite. An actual lunch didn't really happen, on account of all the nuts and crackers.

I also cooked a stew in the oven, made up of 100g frozen beef cubes, a portion of frozen beef & bolognese sauce, a potato and some onions, celery and carrot, with half a stock cube thrown in. I really just thought it would make a flavour change from the previous stew. This leaves me 200g of beef, and plenty of veg, so I might make the next cooking project a curry.

As an aside, having to cook the beef for hours to keep it tender means the oven is going for half the day (ouch, power bills). Something to keep in mind!

My consumption of fruit and veg has been quite poor... I am currently eating a pear to remedy that a bit.

Day 5

I'm getting weary of cereal for breakfast, so today I ignored that idea and had toast instead. It was suitably drowned in butter (I really do love this bread, it is high in protein, and I think I should keep buying fancy bread!).

On account of the breakfasty toast, my lunch was a pot noodle from the cupboard. I buy these from the pound shop in multi-packs (without the "pot" since I've got a reusable soup cup at home). They are only 14p each this way and are nice for a change.

I'm trying to resist eating the last of the crackers. There are biscuits though, so I did shovel three of those with a cuppa. I also ate my last apple, so the only fruit from here will be pears.

Dinner tonight was leftover stew.

Wear The Tight Trousers

Today I was trawling through the archives of Mr Money Mustache (as I am wont to do) when I came across a concept that I think is incredibly valuable.

MMM says: You can't cure obesity with bigger trousers.

To explain what he means, the vast majority of people say they need a car to get to work. Instead of living nearer to work, or working nearer to home, we drive - and spend a lot of time in those cars, resenting the time taken up sitting in traffic.

As MMM says, if you didn't solve this with a car, the problem would solve itself. You'd either save enough money that you wouldn't mind, or you'd get so fed up that you'd move either house or workplace.

His prime example is the high-flying executive working too many hours to eat properly or take care of his health. He puts on weight. His trousers are too tight, so he buys bigger trousers. MMM says, stop! Wear the tight trousers. They'll pinch, and continually remind you to eat properly, to make time for the gym.

The takeaway: Don't take the easy road out when it's bad news for you, health-wise (or financial-wise).

Fruit, a better option.

I read today of a young man contemplating bankruptcy. He had a £20,000 job costing £6,000 in travel expenses each year. He spent so many hours commuting that he was forced to spend a fortune on ready meals. He paid for dry-cleaning to look smart for his job.

He was solving all his crises with bigger trousers. Nobody had told him there were other options.

Just for a start, the "choice" to travel for this better-paying job. He'd save £8,000 if he just gave up the car and walked to work in a supermarket for minimum wage. I realise it might not be everyone's dream career. But when you're contemplating bankruptcy... you make choices. And you're making those choices even if you don't realise you've made them.

Look your crises in the face. Don't spend them way, contemplate them. Question them. Solve them.