I have made it an aim, to try to make mine go as far as possible. I am frugal.
For instance, I wouldn't dream of buying new clothes, a new car, new furniture and the like.
I get great pleasure out of finding a bargain. For instance, my fridge freezer which was 99p on ebay.
Oh it's old, and it has a handle missing on the top door, but it works. It isn't exactly the size I would like, but for 99p I'll make do until a bigger one comes along at a price I'm happy with.
My car is 13 years old, not pretty, but it was cheap, it functions, it's safe. When my last car died (I was getting bored with it, but would not have sold it until it was no longer economical to maintain) I sold it for scrap and got £150 for it. It was a Citroen Xsara. A nice little car with plenty of space in the back and I'd recommend them to all 'normal' people and people with kids, but, for someone with a dog as large as my Grippa, it was just not big enough.I had only paid £350 for her, and had run her for 3 years and adding the scrap money in, I had had trouble free motoring for £200.
So I decided to go back to my old faithful Peugeot 4 series diesel estate. I looked online and phoned dealers to find what I wanted. I refuse to pay more than around £600 for a car.
I looked on ebay and preloved and gumtree. Because I was without a vehicle, any car I went to see, had to be fairly local as I was relying on a friend to drive me to it.
So on an online car classified site, I spotted just the car I was looking for. A Peugeot 406 turbo diesel estate with 12 months M.O.T.
It had some good spec' too, like air con and the rear windows can be operated from the front (perfect for dog people to open or close the back windows while driving instead of reaching around behind you.)
It was more money that I really wanted to pay, but, after 2 weeks with no car, I was getting desperate.
It was from a dealer and he was asking £895. I phoned and asked about the car and it sounded just what I was looking for. I haggled over the phone and eventually he agreed on a price of £750.
I told him I would be over that afternoon to buy the car. I called my friend and she picked me up and drove the 18 miles to Peterborough.
We found the dealer, I looked at the car, stared it up, it ran good with no smoke or knocks. Oil level was good, no oil in the radiator (head gasket), some service history. So the girl who worked there was writing the reciept and getting the papers together. I spied the old M.O.T, and asked about the new one. After all, the advert' had said "12 months M.O.T."
There was no new one. So she called her boss, the owner and asked him about it. His reply was that it wasn't M.O.T'd but if my friend and I wanted to wait, the driver would take it to the testing station and get it done.
That rang alarm bells. Nobody can guarantee that a vehicle will pass, unless it isn't genuine. So my fiend and I drove 2 miles up the road to a small shopping centre and had coffee and a wander around, then an hour later, went back to the dealer to collect and pay for the car.
The girl came out of the office, very embarrassed and said the car still had no M.O.T.
After we had driven off, he boss had called to tell her to get a deposit off me and not to get the car tested without the deposit.
At this, I'm afraid I lost my temper. Not with the girl, but her boss.
So I told her to ring him and give me the phone.
This she did.
When the boss came on the line, I told him I was angry. I was angry at being messed about, angry that he put a false advert' in the paper, angry that my friend had driven me all the way there, then pratted about for an hour, but most of all, I was angry that he was not a man of his word, and, because he'd wanted a deposit, despite my having shown him that I was a woman of my word, by saying that I'd buy the car and turning up to buy it, then despite being messed about, coming back after the hour, to buy it. So I had kept my word, but he had not kept his. I didn't shout and I didn't swear but I was raging angry, so I told him that he had 2 options. Either, I would go home with my friend, then take him to the small claims court for the cost of her diesel, and her time, plus my being messed about, he would then lose a sale.Or, I would buy the car, as is, with no MOT for £400 which was more than the scrap value.
He agree to sell me the car for £400.
When I eventually got it home, I took it straight to my local M.O.T. testing station Crowsons motors, who managed to fit the car in for testing the very next day and.........it passed with no work needed.
Bargains like that make me happy.
The reason I decided to write about money stuff today, was a post on facebook about people claiming PPI. A company was advertising that they would do it on your behalf.
Now, it's a really simple thing to do, but it seems many people got someone else to do it for them and paid them 30% of anything they got back. One person even commented that they were happy with the £2000 they got and didn't begrudge the company the £1000 they charged because it was money they never had to start with. Um, sorry love, you did have the money, all you had to do was ask for it. But instead, you paid someone £1000 to make a phone call and fill out a form for and you seem happy to have handed over the £1000.The company which had posted the advert' even lied and said that he knew someone who asked the bank about PPI and the bank found he never had it but gave him £1000 just in case he had had it and they couldn't find it. And people on the page believed him. No bank will throw away money 'just in case'. Why are folks so gullible?
When did people get so lazy about their money? When did people become so spendthrift?
For a start, how come people don't know what is being taken out of their bank account and how were they being charged for something without them knowing it?
Check bank statements regularly (at least once a month) and question anything you don't recognise. If you take out a bank loan, read the small print and ask about anything you don't understand. Then ask to take the form away so that you can study it again and ask advice from someone impartial.
Would you leave your purse open for anyone to dip into? I suspect the answer is "no"! So don't let just anyone take money from your account.
The other bit of advice is to haggle. Whenever you buy anything, haggle. Ask for a discount for cash. The worst that can happen is that they say "no". If you are buying anything check it out online first. See who is offering deals and discounts, check prices, who is offering free delivery. Then look at reviews for the item. It's all there online, you just have to look for it. That way, you'll get the best deal .
Take my washing machine for example. My last one had eventually died. It was an industrial whirlpool one. I bought it secondhand off ebay for £160. It was heavy duty, and it needed to be as I am death to washing machines. For all that I live alone, I do a load of laundry every other day and, it'll be hairy dog blankets, gritty cotton rugs, my muddy clothes with bits of sawdust and shavings in.
Most modern machines just cannot cope with that, so I got the Whirlpool and paid for a maintenance contract which offered free parts and labour warranty, plus, when the machine became uneconomical to repair, they would buy a new equivalent machine for me.I think I paid £9 a month for this. I got my money's worth too.I had the machine for 3 years and in that time the belt broke, the pump broke (all that hair and grit and sawdust), the door lock got stuck and it needed a new drum. Then one day the mechanic came out again and said it really wasn't worth fixing. So the company emailed me with a selection of machines to choose from.
I emailed back saying that none of them was the equivalent. Either the load was too small (4kg load as opposed to the 10KG load my Whirlpool too) or the spin speeds were too slow. I had to argue as they said that those were the ones I was being offered. I dug my heels in and told them that it was like telling me to choose from a Ford escort, a Vauxhall astra and a mini, when I had been driving a Jaguar XJS. I had to get quite shirty with them and threaten court action as they were not abiding by the contract we had agreed on, to replace with an equivalent machine. Anything with a smaller drum and slower spin speed was not 'equivalent' after all. So, I did a couple of hours online, researching machines, reading reviews, and came across the Samsung eco bubble. It was perfect. So I emailed the warranty company and showed them the machine I wanted. They told me that it was not on their list of suppliers. I replied that this was not my problem. The machine was equivalent to the one that had died. It took a couple of weeks, but I refused to budge. In the end, they sent me a cheque for the cost of the machine I had decided upon, accompanied by a letter telling me never to darken their website again lol. Companies don't like people standing up to them.
So I banked the cheque and went online to find a supplier. In the time between my first deciding on the machine, and then actually having the money to buy it, I found a company selling one with a scratch on the side. It was brand new and in the box, but only £365, so I ordered it. Then I discovered that Samsung offer a free 5 year parts and labour warranty. I just had to go to the website and register it.
I've had the machine for 3 years now. Just like the last machine, the pump stopped working and then later the mother board stopped working. That last one would have cost around £200 to replace, but I had my free 5 years warranty so it cost me nothing. It performs well, I can get loads in, it's quiet and when I eventually kill it, I shall buy another if the warranty is still available. That's another bargain. Unlike the BEKO machine I bought from Currys a few years ago which stopped working only 4 days after I had bought it. Currys refused to let me return the machine which had stopped working and told me they would send someone to fix it. Highly illegal of course,and when I pointed it out, I was told it was an engineer or nothing. Citizens advice told me that Currys knows they are above the law and people individually are defenceless against them. So the engineer came out (it took 2 weeks, by which time I had a pile of smelly dirty laundry to do). Within 6 months, the BEKO washing machine was dead. So avoid Currys and avoid BEKO!
My mobile phone is another example. I had a little phone on contract. It's only a tenner a month and of course, the phone does lots of other things too with various apps. It has the satnav on it, a torch,video and camera ect. I get 500 free minutes worth of calls a month too, plus unlimited texts.So I don't use the house phone for making calls because I have to pay for each call. I use my free minutes. However I hated the phone. It was too small. So I looked about for a different phone. Did the usual research and eventually found a phone I liked. It's called a Doogee C5 pro.I got it from China for less than £50.Inserted my SIM card in and I have to say, I love it.I got it from Deal Extreme which is a company my son told me about, some 10 or more years ago. Over the years I've bought various bits from them and they always deliver and you get a tracking number too. Of course, pay with paypal or your credit card so that you can get your money back if anything goes missing, but that is advice that I'd give for buying form any website.My phone contract will be up in April and I'm currently with o2 (Tesco net), and, because of Tesco's bad practices, underpaying or not paying their suppliers, and their lies, I refuse to deal with them. After doing some research, I shall probably have a SIM only contract with gifgaf since my son is with them and the reviews online speak highly of them.
I have had contact phones for several years now and never had an upgrade.I don't need or want the very latest phone if I'm happy with how the current one performs.Sadly, I wasn't happy at all with the Samsung galaxy I had on contract, hence my buying the Doogee.
So I now use the horrible Samsung in the car as an in car CCTV. I set the video app to record at the beginning of the journey. It would only be worth £18 if I sold it, and a new in car CCTV would cost me around £25.
I like saving money so much, that my home is called 'Pinchpenny Farm'.
I'm not a miser. Not by a long chalk. But I like saving money on the things I need, in order to indulge myself occasionally on the things that I want.
So I always haggle. I never spend a tenner when a fiver will get me the same thing, and I don't spend the fiver if I decide I don't really need or want it after all.
I don't know anyone wealthy, but I know plenty of people who tell me how broke they are, while they have several tellies in the house, subscribe to Netflix and Sky, where each family member has a computer so they could watch all they wanted online for free. Where they smoke and drink and buy several takeaway meals a week.
Then there is the friend who told me she needed a new fridge freezer as hers had stopped working. She was going out that afternoon to get one. I told her to hold fast and I'd come over to see if I could fix it, or at least find out what was the problem and see if a repair was possible. I got there and discovered that someone had taken the plug out of the socket!
This friend was thousands in debt and had no common sense at all where money was concerned. She had a new smart TV, but used it only as a TV and didn't realise she could go online and watch catch up TV and films for free. She had a broadband contract with one of the most expensive companies, didn't know when her contract was up and didn't know what it was costing her each month. She wasn't aware that she could go with a cheaper company and get free phone calls as a package too.
Her home had old storage heaters which cost her over £200 a month to run, but when she was looking at replacing the heating because the house was always cold, instead of looking for the most efficient cost effective heating, she was going to get more electric heating in because the sales rep' had told her how nice they looked and that they would be cheaper than her old ones.
And this was not an old lady who was confused by modern methods with no internet access to check things out, this was a young woman in her 40's!
So, I am utterly baffled why people don't look after their hard earned money and why they prefer to not make any effort and spend more than they need to because it's easier. I call it the "press a button and pay" society.
Being frugal doesn't mean buying poor quality. I save on the things I must have, (heating, laundry drying and cooking, by using free scrap wood in the range) in order to buy good quality shoes. I will only wear Romika and Josef Seibel shoes because they are comfortable, hard wearing and all leather. And I only ever buy in their sale. I will buy a shoe which was originally £75, and reduced down to £25. They last for years because I make sure to dubbin them weekly.I bought a pair of clogs some years ago. They were on clearance at £15. I wore them day in, day out, for 3 years. I mucked out the goats, dug the garden, went through mud, drove and walked in them. I only ever took them off to go to bed.They are worth every penny.
As the old saying goes, "look after the pennies, and the pounds will look after themselves".
Be frugal, don't be cheap, and don't pay more than you have to. Always haggle and always take time to research and get a bargain.
A great site for getting deals and bargain, comparing prices and claiming money back is Money saving expert. There's a forum where you can get advice, templates for various forms, and loads of great advice if you get in a pickle.
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