I’m still in the process of juggling all of my finances. I don’t think there is going to be much/anything left over by my next pay day but at least everything that needs to be paid for has been paid for. Birthday presents have been bought, my Next sandals paid for (remember the ones I ordered over a month ago?), the electric window on my car has been fixed and I feel like I’ve just about got a clean slate!
I seem to be managing on my smaller budget okay so far. Husband has been doing some more fishing and has caught enough that we’ve had quite a few free dinners and have a small supply building up in the freezer. I’ve been contemplating doing another OU course (there’s one on children’s literature that I really, really, really want to do) but, at £700, I just can’t get it in the budget. Maybe next year. Or the year after come to that! I get paid again in two and a half weeks and I have precisely £15.31 in cash in my wallet to last me until then. I’ve got a bit in my account put aside for a couple of father’s day gifts and my LoveFilm payment and that is it!
Speaking of LoveFilm, I’m thinking about cancelling it. I joined over 5 years ago and I’ve really loved it but it seems that, at the moment, we just don’t have time to watch any of the discs. We’re working our way (very slowly) through the first series of ‘Lie To Me’ but I think I might cancel it once we’ve watched all of the episodes. By the time we’ve got Baby settled for the night, had something to eat and got our lunch and work stuff ready for the next day there just isn’t time to watch a film before bed. We’ve sometimes got time for one or two ‘episodes’ of something but there aren’t any boxsets of our favourite TV series (Burn Notice, The Unit, Grey’s Anatomy etc) out for ages. It seems to make sense to cancel it at least for a few months until there is something we really want to watch.
And that’s about all that is going on for now. Husband is just serving up some mackerel and salad so I’d best be off!
Shoestring Alley 
if you close the Love Film account for a while, I am sure you will be able to take advantage of the incentives offered for opening accounts like this in the future! Enjoy the fish …
The fish were good! We’ve decided to change our LoveFilm package for a cheaper option so we’ll see how it works out.
I’ve been reading your blog for quite a while now and never commented but what you said about your Love Film Subscription got me thinking. My partner and I don’t bother with it because we have cineworld cards and like you we tend to just have time to watch box sets instead of films so what we do is buy the box set when it is released from Amazon, watch it and then resell it on Amazon marketplace and you usually only lose a few pounds – works for us!
Hi Julie – thanks for stopping to leave a comment. What is a cineworld card?! Glad to hear we aren’t the only ones who can power our way through a boxset but can’t find time for a film!
A cineworld card costs £14.99 a month and you can go to any cineworld cinema (apart from a few in London) as many times as you want. It keeps us up to date with new films and stops us wanting to rent a new release every other week. I guess this might not be an option for you at the moment with your littlle one but I have to say it costs us less to pay that every month than buy/rent dvds all the time!
Great minds think alike with Love Film. We were spending out £10 on a month and keeping the discs for weeks and weeks.
Just be warned that the make it difficult to cancel – I did this last week. They won’t process it online and force you to call them. They then hardsell you to stay, and when you insist on leaving tell you they can only process cancellations 5 days before your direct debit etc. If you are persistent they will go ahead and cancel but you need to be firm! (or maybe it was just my bad luck with the agent I got through too……).
Ooh, sounds scary! I’ve actually reduced our package for now so we’re already saving £5 a month. If we still can’t get around to watching one disc a week then I’m going to cancel the lot. Sounds like I’m going to have to be strict with them!