Things have been a bit tough for me over here at Lean Times HQ. I have been hit with some quite large bills that come with some rather unpleasant badgering, if you are a regular reader you might remember that I was made redundant from my best paying freelance gig due to my employer losing his biggest client. [...]
A few weeks ago, in the post I wrote about emergency funds, I ask how much does a person without a car and full insured by the State need. I concluded that in my life not that much could really go wrong besides my cats getting ill so I put aside £100. Not the best [...]
I have been thinking about the wrong financial turns I have made and if it would have been different if I had had more knowledge. I have a friend who when her student loan came through, she bought drinks for all her friends for at least a weekend, not thinking that she was spending borrowed [...]
After all the holiday excess, most of us decide to lose some weight or to start exercising more, but this year the most popular resolution seems to be to get out of debt. For many of us, last year was not the best financially, actually for some it might have been the worst financial year [...]
Things have been a bit tough at Lean Times HQ recently, I have not had much actual paying work.I have been working, possibly more than when I have a regular job but it is laying the ground work type of work so I won’t see a return for a while. In the meantime, the cupboards [...]
Is frugal behavior being kept a secret? Do you tell your colleagues that you are bringing your lunch to help with your Debt Snowball or Debt Tsunami or do you just say you are on a diet? I think how much one talks about money is a cultural thing. I originally come from NY and [...]
Dave Ramsey says (yes I am mentioning him again) that the first of his Baby Steps is to have an emergency fund of $1,000 before you start to pay off your debts. I was thinking that since I live in the UK, I should just convert it to £1,000 then I got thinking. How [...]
My long time readers might remember this image from the post Do you have a secret?, where I wrote about keeping your frugal/financial situation to yourself. I am pretty open about telling my friends and some family that I am working toward the goal to be debt free. I was not always the smartest and [...]
I must tell you my lovely readers, that this post has been difficult for me to write as I am not sure we are going to have a great 2011. In the UK, we have had a rise in the VAT, which is a tax that is on just about everything we buy excluding most [...]
Times have not been easy and once in a while you may come up short when it comes time to pay a bill, what do you do? You get on the phone., that’s what. Most creditors appreciate it if you keep them in the loop if you are having problems. I find that it is [...]
I think the summer is the best time to start a plan to get your finances in order. Why summer and not in January when most people make resolutions? In the summer with all the sunshine things seem a bit better, more hopeful even, so what better time to sit down and take a long [...]
The regular readers of this blog know I am hyper actively working on reducing my debt and in doing that I some times get over zealous. Whenever I have a bit of money that has not been allocated to a specific expenditure, I throw it at one of my debts. The problem is, I have [...]