Monthly Archives: August 2009

Happy Monday Chicklets, how’re you feeling? I always find it useful to look at your finances, even if you’re not feeling particularly stretched, and see where you can reign in some of the spending without altering your life drastically (I’m talking quitting that takeout coffee completely – yeesh! What’s the point of existing after that?!). Lately I’ve been taking a look at my own spending habits and figuring ways I can save a bit of money on a daily/weekly/monthly basis, I figured some of the ‘tips’ I’ve uncovered may be helpful to some of you. Instead of bombarding your with a gigantic list of thrifty tips I’ll be doing a few posts instead, here’s your first one :)

1. Magazine Purchases
   Do you have a severe addiction to fashion magazines? Chances are you have a particular favourite that you’ll buy each month off the rack without fail. I was guilty of this until last week. Did you know that by subscribing to your favourite magazines that not only will it be delivered to your doorstep a day or so earlier than it hits the shops, but you also stand to save over the course of a year approximately 50% off the regular price? Last week I subscribed to Elle magazine, getting the first size issues for just £6 and the subsequent 6 for £16.80. That’s just £22.80 for the entire year, bringing each issue down to the cost of £1.90. Alongside this I also got a free gift of makeup that was offered with the subscription – ace! If you shop around you can find yearly subscriptions for as little as £19, too.
2. Bulk Buy
   I don’t mean buy things in ridiculous amounts, but there are certain times where you can take advantage of buying a few of the same item. Recently I’ve been buying 6-packs of bottled drinks instead of just one each day. I either keep them on my desk at work, or stick one in my bag in the morning. Instead of costing me £1+/bottle it costs me around 50p. A great saving over the course of a year! Infact, with the money you save from doing this, you could afford some new high-end makeup. Epic.
3. Medicine
   The price of certain branded medicines really annoys me, did you know that things like sudafed, zirtek and nurofen all have shops-own-brand equivalents which contain the same drug? have exactly the same effects? AND cost around 40% less. Next time your in the medicine aisle compare the ingredients of the branded items with the own brand equivalent, apart from silly things like caffeine (just have an instant coffee instead!) they’re the exact same thing.
4. Packed Lunches
   A few months ago I made a promise that I’d bring a packed lunch from home at least twice a week. It’d gotten to the stage where I’d spend around £5 each lunch time, because I wanted something tastey, and cheap food is gross. I’ve kept up with this and become a little more adventurous with my lunches. I still let myself have a cafe meal treat once a week, though. Doing this has saved me a tonne of money, and made my lunches healthier and tastier!
5. Walk More
   I invested in a jansport rucksack for the ultimate reason of walking to work, I carry a lot of shit (& a laptop) with me so my regular work bag wasn’t suitable for such an activity. I’ve since walked to work usually 4 times a week, sometimes the full 5 days. And at a saving of £6 a week in doing so I’ve already paid for the bag purchase tenfold! Even just walking to work a couple of days a week adds up to a great saving over the year. I know for some people this is something that isn’t really possible, but there are other ways to make this work – get off at the stop before the price increase to your usual fare, if your commute is in two legs try walking the second half, why not replace the bus with a bike? another firm investment that could be paid for within a year!

Hopefully some of these money-saving activities that I’ve adopted might help some of you, too. It’d be fun to see how much money you can actually save during a year! Have you got any thrifty tips to share?

As a kid of the 80s I had the honour of being brought up to some of the best films ever made. Films were a pretty major part of my childhood, in all honesty, I would watch my video tapes over and over until the betamax ate them. Birthdays involved a trip to the cinema (and there were always good films out at my birthday, all the Christmas releases), summer holidays were always punctuated with parental-stress-relieving cinema visits, and the Sunday family matinee on ITV was a weekend highlight.

There are films that really stick out in my memory, ones that I’ve gone on to buy on DVD in my 20s and that resonate my childhood like no others. The majority of these films, including Home Alone, Beethoven, Curly sue,  and Uncle Buck, were written by John Hughes. I missed the boat on Breakfast club and Sixteen candles by a few years, but saw them later on and still felt that childhood delight. John Hughes died yesterday from a heart attack, his films will always mean so much to me and they’re the films that I can watch over and over again without getting bored. I feel sorry for the kids of the 00s, they’ll never know how to fend off intruders with paint cans and old movies, be best friends with a giant, slobbery dog, or how to deal with teenage crushes and growing up.