How do you plan to deal with paycuts and dolecuts?

Bottle_of_Smoke

Just thinking about practical ways to deal with having less money. Pehaps a thread suggesting ideas would be helpful. Feel free to add your own

1. Vegetarianism/reduction in meat intake

Meat costs a lot more than the likes of kidney beans/chickpeas etc. Vegtable protein can actually be really nice in curries and other dishes. I've been doing this the last few weeks as I'm pretty broke anyway. Its also quite healthy. Irish people tend to eat meat everyday and usually every meal. Even having beans/eggs/milk instead of meat three days a weeks can save ou a lot.

2. Drinking in the pub less and drinking before you go out so spending less in pubs.

3. Smoking role ups instead of cigarettes.

4. Shopping in Lidl/Aldi or other cheap places.

seclachi

Bottle_of_Smoke wrote: »

Just thinking about practical ways to deal with having less money. Pehaps a thread suggesting ideas would be helpful. Feel free to add your own

1. Vegetarianism/reduction in meat intake

Meat costs a lot more than the likes of kidney beans/chickpeas etc. Vegtable protein can actually be really nice in curries and other dishes. I've been doing this the last few weeks as I'm pretty broke anyway. Its also quite healthy. Irish people tend to eat meat everyday and usually every meal. Even having beans/eggs/milk instead of meat three days a weeks can save ou a lot.

2. Drinking in the pub less and drinking before you go out so spending less in pubs.

3. Smoking role ups instead of cigarettes.

4. Shopping in Lidl/Aldi or other cheap places.

Why do I get the feeling that while the last thing people should cut is meat, and the first thing should be fags & drink, everybody will do the reverse ?

To keep in the spirit of the thread:

1. Try and reduce rent, either by having a chat with the landlord or moving around.

2. Ditching sky, the Tv (this one isnt so hot if you have kids I guess) and the tv licence, stop buying newspapers. Replace all of the above with an internet connection, you can get all the entertainment you`ll ever need off it.

3. Pay off credit card bills instead of saving / spending (alot of people actually miss this one apparently)

4. Packed lunches to work, this can be massive saving if your eating in obriens / subways etc every day.

5.

MI5

seclachi wrote: »

Why do I get the feeling that while the last thing people should cut is meat, and the first thing should be fags & drink, everybody will do the reverse ?

To keep in the spirit of the thread:

1. Try and reduce rent, either by having a chat with the landlord or moving around.

2. Ditching sky, the Tv (this one isnt so hot if you have kids I guess) and the tv licence, stop buying newspapers. Replace all of the above with an internet connection, you can get all the entertainment you`ll ever need off it.

3. Pay off credit card bills instead of saving / spending (alot of people actually miss this one apparently)

4. Packed lunches to work, this can be massive saving if your eating in obriens / subways etc every day.

5.

Packed lunches is a good one. I'm totally flabbergasted at the number of people who go to deli every morning to get ABSOLUTELY creamed !

Other thing I find amazing, is the number of people who roll into the car wash and pay silly money for a blast of water. Wash at home on Saturday morning. 30 mins max. Much easier on pocket and paintwork.

T-Square

Drop the booze
Drop the fags
Drop the takeaway food
Drop the NTL/Sky, get a freesat receiver
Drop papers/magazines/cinema
Ask landlord to drop rent, or move to a cheaper location.

P. Breathnach

Learn to cook. Almost any meal you prepare and cook for yourself is cheaper than its ready-made equivalent. And you can make interesting and tasty meals with inexpensive ingredients.

It's depressing to see people buy mashed potatoes.

murphaph

Ready meals are relatively uncommon here. Most people cook from scratch, the way we used to in Ireland before we all got so important and busy.

Buy sachets of meal maker stuff and get the ingredients to make proper dinners. Tastes great and avoids the risk of boredom, yet maintains some of the benefits of ready meals (ease of cooking etc.)

Wishbone Ash

Stop buying those stupid bottles of water. The rest of us manage to get through the day without the constant need to be irrigated. It's not as if we live in a desert climate. I've never bought a bottle of water in my life and am constantly amused that many people on relatively low incomes seem to be willing to buy it.

ParkRunner

Start engaging in prostitution, drug dealing and people-trafficking Honesty is the road to poverty as they say.
On a more serious note, definitely will be doing the homemade lunches too. Already cancelled the health insurance and the gym so there isnt much else I can do. There must be a massive drop in the number of people with health insurance now!

Little Acorn

+1 for learning to cook,and packed lunches.
Huge trays of lasagne and shepherd's pie can be cooked and frozen into portions to last for weeks.-Same for most foods really.

Cut down on nights out-If having friends over for drinks at home,there are cheaper brands of alcohol available in most places,or everybody could bunce together for some alcohol.
If going on a night out-look for drinks promotion nights,or free entry to nightclubs before a certain time.

Try to quit smoking altogether.

Instead of buying new things,there are loads of websites where you can swap items or services in return for something you want.
.swapbunny.com, .barter.ie, .swap with me.ie etc.

.Buy previously owned games-pretty sure they're all checked to make sure they work perfectly.

.Wait for the dvd-or else most cinemas have a discount night.(Usually tuesday or wednesday)

.cut out and keep any vouchers that come in your local newpaper,or in your door etc.

seclachi

Little Acorn wrote: »

.Buy previously owned games-pretty sure they're all checked to make sure they work perfectly.

.Wait for the dvd-or else most cinemas have a discount night.(Usually tuesday or wednesday)

.cut out and keep any vouchers that come in your local newpaper,or in your door etc.

+1 for pre owned, definitely. The value of a game seems to plummet after a year too. Its worth your while trading them back in too, if its a new game it can bring a decent amount. If you really want cheap gaming, pick up a mmo, 15 quid a month and you`ll probably find your self spending less as friends, family, and everything else melts away... hmm maybe I should quit wow..

Befriend a student, most colleges have cinema clubs and nobody is going to complain about a tag alonger.

Another tip is to get a current account that offers interest, many banks do them. Just look out for exceeding limits, they`ll cut the rate of interest if you do in some cases. It can be a nice bit of extra money if you constantly have a fair bit sitting in your current account.

SkepticOne

Avoid "bargains". Do you really need that welding equipment?

alejandro1977

P. Breathnach wrote: »

Learn to cook. Almost any meal you prepare and cook for yourself is cheaper than its ready-made equivalent. And you can make interesting and tasty meals with inexpensive ingredients.

It's depressing to see people buy mashed potatoes.

even worse to see microwave rice packets

silverharp

overpay your mortgage if you can , I was tut tutting one of the girls at work, her mortgage dropped by about €500 a month since last year and she spent it all (nothing to show for it )and her other half doesnt know either way.

put your credit card on DD , if you cant pay it off you are living above your means.



on actually cutting back

-cycle to work if you can
-do you have to have 2 cars?
-Now that renting is easier move somewhere that cuts your commuting costs
-drop the gym membership
-dump the lattes if you have to pay for them
-do food shopping on a more regular basis , a lot of fuit and veg gets dumped if you only shop once a week (and write a list first)
-do you need a landline?
-only go on holidays if you have saved for them (see credit card rule)


ideally if you have any responsibilities you should have at least one years living expenses in savings

dny123456

Bottle_of_Smoke wrote: »

Just thinking about practical ways to deal with having less money. Pehaps a thread suggesting ideas would be helpful. Feel free to add your own

1. Vegetarianism/reduction in meat intake

Meat costs a lot more than the likes of kidney beans/chickpeas etc. Vegtable protein can actually be really nice in curries and other dishes. I've been doing this the last few weeks as I'm pretty broke anyway. Its also quite healthy. Irish people tend to eat meat everyday and usually every meal. Even having beans/eggs/milk instead of meat three days a weeks can save ou a lot.

2. Drinking in the pub less and drinking before you go out so spending less in pubs.

3. Smoking role ups instead of cigarettes.

4. Shopping in Lidl/Aldi or other cheap places.

People are not hard up if they can afford to smoke/drink. Time to cut some more I think.

gcgirl

Wishbone Ash wrote: »

Stop buying those stupid bottles of water. The rest of us manage to get through the day without the constant need to be irrigated. It's not as if we live in a desert climate. I've never bought a bottle of water in my life and am constantly amused that many people on relatively low incomes seem to be willing to buy it.

the water out of the tap is grand!!:D

To The North

the OH and i are both public servants & are trying to save for a wedding next year, so we're dealing with cuts & trying to save as much as possibleright now (we're both low grades so our pay isn't exactly fantastic but we get on ok because we're fortunate enough to not have bought a house when everyone was telling us to! we also don't have any dependants).

• neither of us have ever smoked or drank much, a glass of wine or a beer every couple of months and that's about all we spend on alcohol.
• make our lunches at home, saves a lot.
• make our evening meals (although this does get really difficult as our weeks can be quite busy, so we sometimes try to cook a meal that will last us two evenings).
• stopped buying things we don't really need in the supermarket.
• don't have a car.
• have stopped visiting my parents as much (the cost of the train journey is crazy!)
• turn off all lights & electrical equipment we're not using.
• don't eat much meat, maybe once or twice a week.
• stopped doing stuff like going to the cinema (which we used to do a lot) and going for a saturday wander around town so that we're not tempted to spend money.
• cut off our NTL connection to the TV (although we still have an internet connection).
• started selling everything possible on ebay.
• stopped eating out with friends, instead we make dinner for each other in our own houses.
• not buying christmas presents for everyone but only in family kris kinder type things.
• i stopped going into clothes shops and only buy something new if the old version of it is worn out i.e. getting new shoes because there's a massive hole in one of the old pair that's letting water in!
• no luxuries like new christmas decorations

with these new cuts coming in janurary we'll be making more of an effort since the wedding is only 4 months away and we're getting worried. so we'll be talking to the landlord to see if he'll lower the rent, cutting out take away food altogether, being even more careful with electricity, selling even more stuff on ebay, and little personal things will have to go like picking up wedding magazines or renting dvds. we're trying to cut as much as possible, it's good to get more ideas here.

To The North

silverharp wrote: »

-cycle to work if you can

i'm too terrified of the roads in dublin to cycle!

it's not like the nice cycles i used to take along country lanes when i was younger.

instead i ride the luas and walk.

worded

These are great for cooking/storing/eating out of. The lid can be used as a place mat!

I dont like eating from plastic containers, but these are really excellent.

If micro wave reheating, add a little water and leave one corner up.
The food steams really well this way.

http://www.pyrexware.com/index.asp?pageId=14&CatID=380&SubCatID=398&upc=71160173965

Blowfish

To The North wrote: »

the OH and i are both public servants & are trying to save for a wedding next year, so we're dealing with cuts & trying to save as much as possibleright now (we're both low grades so our pay isn't exactly fantastic but we get on ok because we're fortunate enough to not have bought a house when everyone was telling us to! we also don't have any dependants).

• neither of us have ever smoked or drank much, a glass of wine or a beer every couple of months and that's about all we spend on alcohol.
• make our lunches at home, saves a lot.
• make our evening meals (although this does get really difficult as our weeks can be quite busy, so we sometimes try to cook a meal that will last us two evenings).
• stopped buying things we don't really need in the supermarket.
• don't have a car.
• have stopped visiting my parents as much (the cost of the train journey is crazy!)
• turn off all lights & electrical equipment we're not using.
• don't eat much meat, maybe once or twice a week.
• stopped doing stuff like going to the cinema (which we used to do a lot) and going for a saturday wander around town so that we're not tempted to spend money.
• cut off our NTL connection to the TV (although we still have an internet connection).
• started selling everything possible on ebay.
• stopped eating out with friends, instead we make dinner for each other in our own houses.
• not buying christmas presents for everyone but only in family kris kinder type things.
• i stopped going into clothes shops and only buy something new if the old version of it is worn out i.e. getting new shoes because there's a massive hole in one of the old pair that's letting water in!
• no luxuries like new christmas decorations

with these new cuts coming in janurary we'll be making more of an effort since the wedding is only 4 months away and we're getting worried. so we'll be talking to the landlord to see if he'll lower the rent, cutting out take away food altogether, being even more careful with electricity, selling even more stuff on ebay, and little personal things will have to go like picking up wedding magazines or renting dvds. we're trying to cut as much as possible, it's good to get more ideas here.

This may seem crazy, but would going for a cheaper wedding not make more sense than doing all that?

Rent out a community/school hall, ditch the caterers and ask everyone to bring a dish and just have a giant buffet.

To The North

Blowfish wrote: »

This may seem crazy, but would going for a cheaper wedding not make more sense than doing all that?

Rent out a community/school hall, ditch the caterers and ask everyone to bring a dish and just have a giant buffet.

to be honest i think we'd be doing this stuff anyway, i mean we're only trying to save for the wedding at the moment, but we'll want to save for other stuff anyway like eventually being able to buy a house and have a family. and the only way we'll be able to do that on our current wages is to take measures like these, especially if the government are planning more cuts in the future which seems to be likely.

bonkey

- Accept that you may only be able to afford one foreign holiday next year, or possibly not at all.

- Improve your food management skills. If you're throwing food out (cooked too much, bought too much) then you're doing it wrong. If you have a freezer, make sure you use it for something other than mostly freezing air.

Noelisgod

SKY are offering a 15-20% discount to all 'long-term' customers for a six month period at the moment - they are not advertising it so if you have been with them a while simply ring them up, tell them you know about the discount and you want it or else. Thats all I did and I got it - nice.

Another good deal going at the moment is with MBNA - their new platinum CC has 10 MONTHS interest free period on new balance transfers which is easily the best deal in the CC market. So if you have balances on a personal loan or your interest free period has expired on your current CC get onto MBNA and order this bad boy fast. Only catch is the 10 month interest free period only applies to balance transfers and not new purchases.

amjon

To The North wrote: »

i'm too terrified of the roads in dublin to cycle!

it's not like the nice cycles i used to take along country lanes when i was younger.

instead i ride the luas and walk.

You get used to it very quickly; I nearly shat myself when I started cycling around Dublin 6ish years ago. This year I spent 6 months in Manchester zipping in and out of traffic on a fixie with no toe straps! The amount of money and time cycling saves you is astonishing. While there is an inherent risk to your health involved in cycling around any city centre, I believe the health benefits far outweigh the potential risks.

alfa beta

When it comes to renewing car insurance and home insurance, shop around. I just moved from allianz to hibernian on car ins and saved a hundred quid - all it took was a phone call.

Also might be a good time to review those outgoings that you normally wouldn't be bothered with.

ESB v Bord Gais v Airtricity etc (Recently moved to airtricity - so far so good)
Eircom v other competitors
Broadband provider
Mobile provider
etc.

Also when you want to have a natter with someone on the mobile, call em and hang up before they answer - nine times out of ten they'll see the missed call and think 'hey wonder what he wants??' and they'll call you back......ok I'm only messin, but I'd say a lot of people could save a bit on their mobile bills without it impacting too much on their lifestyle.

To The North

alfa beta wrote: »

Also when you want to have a natter with someone on the mobile, call em and hang up before they answer - nine times out of ten they'll see the missed call and think 'hey wonder what he wants??' and they'll call you back......ok I'm only messin, but I'd say a lot of people could save a bit on their mobile bills without it impacting too much on their lifestyle.

lol i thought you were serious for a moment!!

it's not a bad idea to switch to a mobile phone provider that will give you a good deal, i moved to meteor (despite their annoying adds!) and saved a ton that way as the OH and most of my family are on it already and they're who i call the most. their free calls & texts to other meteor mobiles thing is great, of course it only works if the people you call the most are all on the one network though.

the no foreign holidays thing is a great one too if you really want to save money. the only trip we took this year was over to the west to stay in a friends house & it was fantastic! when i was young my parents took us on camping holiday in ireland every year and all of us loved it, it's a great way to spend time with your family

i work with someone who despite being in credit card debt, having a small baby, a partner gone back to college and pretty much no money has been on several foreign trips this year alone & can't give up the idea that it's a bad idea! says they were brought up with the idea of at least 3 holidays a year and if they need that to feel relaxed and happy, but i personally don't understand that kind of thinking.

To The North

amjon wrote: »

You get used to it very quickly; I nearly shat myself when I started cycling around Dublin 6ish years ago. This year I spent 6 months in Manchester zipping in and out of traffic on a fixie with no toe straps! The amount of money and time cycling saves you is astonishing. While there is an inherent risk to your health involved in cycling around any city centre, I believe the health benefits far outweigh the potential risks.

it does look great, and any way of avoiding dublin bus is a bonus lol. i might take the plunge eventually, i know a lot of folks who cycle and always emphasise the benefits of it and saving the money spent on luas tickets each month might just be worth it as i have to travel on it every day to get to work.

recedite

Wash your ass with the shower head; saves a (small) fortune in toilet paper.

P. Breathnach

recedite wrote: »

Wash your ass with the shower head; saves a (small) fortune in toilet paper.

That option will be gone when water rates come in.

Cicero

Couple of things to make you aware of, especially if you are lucky enough to have a job..It's the day to day expenditure that mounts up and can look scary when all written down on paper

1. 1 cup of coffee @ EUR2 per day = EUR 460 per annum
2. Have a scone/muffin with that every day?= EUR 1035 per annum minimum, that your spending in your local cafe

How to save: Only buy every two days- Monday and Friday - you will save EUR500 per annum instantly, without denying yourself a few simple pleasures entirely.

Lunch:
1. Even in a staff subsidised canteen, you could easily spend EUR 6 per day on dinner/chocolate etc = EUR 1380 per annum....!!

House Insurance:
If you agreed to an incremental increase in your house insurance to keep in line with inflation, then more than likely, you're spending way too much on house insurance as your house is no longer worth the original estimation if purchased over the last 3/4 years. ...you'll save a few hundred on one phonecall to your broker or insurance company

Car Insurance:

again, push for a lower quote- ask what they have your car valued at- if you think this is too high, ask them to input a more realistic figure and see what the new quote will be- probably just saved 40-50 EUR alone on this

Shopping:

ask the following question at the checkout in a clothes boutique (larger shops like M&S etc may not give anything, but small shops definately will)

What are you going to take off this price for me?

that's it, just that question will save you minimum 10%- it's a no -brainer.

Jewellers, boutique clothes shops, specialist wine shops, gift shops- if they don't discount at checkout- walk- I recently saved eur50 on a crystal gift a few months ago in one shop- when I asked for a discount in a well known dublin dept store, they said no- I walked- I'm EUR50 better off!!- it's not hard to do.


Mobile phone bills:
you have probably never closely studied your bill and how it is set up- I know that if i phone one network, it's free- another will cost me...so I limit phoning that number using my mobile- even saving EUR 10 per month is 120 per annum-

seclachi

recedite wrote: »

Wash your ass with the shower head; saves a (small) fortune in toilet paper.

Somebody took this to an extreme by washing themselves in the fountain on the grand parade in cork at 2 in the morning:pac:


Heres some more
-Get free to air satellite instead of sky, you dont get as many sports channels or the like, but you still get bbc, itv and a fair few other ones. Nothings cooler than watching the chinese news either !

-Ditch your contract phone for pre-pay if your only making a few phone calls / texts every so often. It also stops you from hanging on the phone for 3 hours talking about the weather to somebody in the UK when it cuts out.

-Haggle, places like harvey norman will actually knock of a sizeable chunk, I saved 50 quid on a laptop just by saying it was cheaper in another store up the country.

Kered75

Commit a serious crime(shoot someone in the face) and get banged up.Save a fortune in rent,food and gym fees.
Although with our out of touch Judges you'll probably have to shoot more than one person in the face to get a sentence behind bars.