A miracle has occurred.

I am attending a hen party that is not costing an arm and a leg. A hen party that I should get out of for under £200. Alert the Prime Minister! A miracle, I tell you!

A couple of years ago, hen parties were really getting out of hand. Some brides were demanding their girlfriends cough up the money to spend entire weekends on the continent – some entire WEEKS in faraway sunny destinations! Madness! I worked with a girl a few years ago whose group of girlfriends were going through the early-thirties sprint to the alter, about 6 of them in one year, and all my friend’s vacation time and money was spent on the hen weekends and weddings. She added it up one particularly boring afternoon in the office and was gobsmacked to realise she was spending almost £5000 on these weddings, when she included hen parties, weddings and gifts, as well as bridesmaid costs if she was in the wedding party. FIVE THOUSAND QUID. She was also a nail technician and would get roped into doing the nails for the wedding party FOR FREE, to ‘help out’ brides on tight budgets. Madness.

I only had dinner and cocktails with a couple of close girlfriends for my hen night (there may also have been some awesome moves busted at some point); mainly because most of my best friends and bridesmaids live in Sydney and I had High Tea with them when we arrived in Oz. But I would never expect people to take their holiday time and spend their hard-earned cash to help me see off my last days as a singleton. But some brides really do go over the top, going a bit crazy with other peoples’ money, as if they are the first and last person to ever get married – EVER.

The hen party I have recently been invited to is actually shaping up like quite a civilised doo, thank goodness. At first, when it was being planned by the Maid of Honour it sounded like it was going to be a bit over the top (around the £400 mark), but I think the bride took over the plans when she got wind of them (awkward much?) and has really tried to organise a fun day/night that isn’t going to break the bank; because I think she realised that most people just don’t have heaps of cash to splash round at the moment. *Sighs of relief*

Have you noticed brides being a little bit more sensible with their celebrations since the recession?

I haven’t had an actual budget written down for a long time; about a year or so. That’s not to say I don’t ‘have’ a budget, it’s just all in my head. I know how much I have to spend on each area of my life, and there’s nothing very complicated involved, as all bills and savings go out of my account at the start of the month so I don’t have to worry about them (or forget them).

So I was kind of surprised the other day, when I was doing some banking and looked through my transaction list to see that my actual spending really doesn’t mirror the budget I have in my head, at all.

I was spending a lot more than I thought on some things, and a lot less on others. So this week I am going to pull all my bank statements out and go through and re-write myself a new budget. There are also a few money housekeeping things I have been putting off for a while now, that I should really get out of the way. I also realised when looking through my statements that I have never received a refund I was due.

It’s always a good idea to tweak your budget every now and then; to account for changes in your finances such as increased income, one-off expenses, or rising outgoings. It’s also important to reassess your spending every now and then, so you can see where your money is going. So I guess I better take some of my own advice! Joy of joys.

This blows. Krystal over at Give me Back my Five Bucks has been publically outed, and as a result is shutting down her blog.

She’s going to start a new one, which is great, but it’s sad that the PF blogosphere is losing one of its most honest and frank personal money stories. I think everyone who writes or reads PF blogs drops by Krystal’s blog every now and then; and even if you don’t always agree with what she writes or the decisions she makes, it is great to see such an honest representation of a journey out of debt.

Krystal has had quite a big problem with people leaving nasty comments on her blog, and has always chosen to let people have their say, rather than deleting them or instigating comment moderation. While she says that every now and then it gets her down that strangers can be so rude when leaving horrible comments, for the readers, it presents an amazing opportunity to see the whole spectrum of responses to one person’s financial decisions – I think it reveals fascinating things about the world of blogging.  Those things are lost when comment moderation is turned on, and I admire Krystal’s decision to let people have their say – even when they are belittling her own right to have her say.

Krystal making the decision to close her blog throws up interesting questions about how much personal information you should reveal about yourself when writing a blog. PF blogs either fall into two categories: people like Krystal who reveal every aspect of their finances, but retain their anonymity in order to do so; or bloggers who make no secret of who they are, and as a result probably keep a lot of things back. It’s very rare to see someone who is revealing every little detail about their finances, while blogging under their own identity.

It’s a shame that there are people out there who will go to such lengths to destroy someone’s anonymity as someone has to Krystal – and for what? What has been achieved? Other than a lot of people who are supported and encouraged on their own personal money journeys losing an inspiring resource.

I have been a long time reader of Krystal’s blog and while I’m not a big commenter, have enjoyed watching her progress and success, and the way she deals with setbacks, and I think the PF blogosphere will be worse off for the loss of Give me Back my Five Bucks. I’m wishing Krystal all the best with her new blog, and hope I stumble upon it one day!

We make financial decisions every single day. Even the lack of making decisions is really making a decision; like putting off switching to a cheaper energy supplier, or delaying sorting out dealing with your credit card debt.

And it only really takes a few small bad decisions to put you on the road to financial difficulties. Usually there is no big event that pushes people into the danger zone, and nothing to start the alarm bells until the situation is really bad; just little things, one after another, until suddenly, things are in a mess.

In my early twenties I racked up some credit card debts. The total amount wasn’t huge, about £3,000, but I was a new graduate earning only a small salary. It started innocently enough: a purchase here, a store card there. The monthly payments were not a problem, but for about a year I was only really paying off the interest when I made my payment, and only eating into the capital amount by £10 or so.

When I got a job as a personal finance writer, the things I was writing about on a daily basis gave me a big wake up call. I was writing about people who started out with a few small bad decisions, who – 10, 20 years later – were losing everything when things finally got out of hand. Their homes, their cars, everything.

I realised that although I was nowhere near that stage, unless I sorted myself out, I could very easily end up like those people. Anyone could.

Over the course of the next couple of years, I paid off all my debt and have developed a healthy respect for my finances. I was lucky that I got the wake-up call when I did. I could easily have carried on, thinking that as long as I could manage the monthly repayments, I would be fine.

If you’re reading this, you obviously have some interest in personal finance. What was your wake up call?

(photo: nathalielaure)

This week I decided to try something a little different, and ordered an organic vegetable box from Riverford Wash Farm.

I was getting a little bit tired of the pale, sad, over-priced vegetables in the supermarket, and hadn’t gotten around to trekking down to the farmers’ market in weeks, so I decided to try out a vegetable box scheme.

I paid £12.45 (with free delivery) for a small seasonal organic vegetable box. The veg that comes in the box changes from week to week with the seasons, so it also makes a nice change in the kitchen – rather than planning what to cook and shopping for the ingredients, the ingredients arrive and I plan what to cook around that.

The box I chose says that it can easily feed 2-3 people a week who eat a moderate amount of vegetables. I also liked the idea of eating seasonally, which I try to do already, but is hard when you have to rely on supermarkets that stock the same things virtually all year round.

How does it work?

There are loads of vegetable delivery schemes, just find one on google. The one I chose has thousands of products available, including fruit, salad, meat, cheese and deli goods, all sourced from organic producers. You can set up a weekly order, where you get a new box every week, or you can order a one off, which is what I did to try it out. Even if you do a regular weekly delivery, there’s no commitment, as long as you call to cancel within a set time before you usual delivery is due.

What was in the box?

In my box was a huge bag of curly kale, 3 leeks, a large box of mushrooms, 2 cabbages, 3 broccoli, 5 carrots, 8 onions, and a large swede. It was a little bit different from what the website said I was going to get (they basically make the boxes up with what they have, so predicting it is not an exact science); which was fine with me.

Quality

First of all, when the box arrived, all the veg were covered in some kind of brown gritty substance. After a quick google search confirmed this to be ‘soil’, which apparently comes from the ‘countryside’, I set about inspecting my swag. What was obvious was that this veg looked very different to what you find in the supermarket. The onions were quite small and odd shaped, and the carrots also strange shapes. This is because supermarkets have all these crazy rules about the how vegetables have to look in order to be sold. Which means a lot get thrown away and wasted, which is INSANE. I can confirm that they taste the same, no matter how they look!

Value

I went onto the Tesco website and filled my basket with the same vegetables that arrived in my box and the total was £20.18. I don’t usually buy organic vegetables in the supermarket, so if I was to buy these things in my normal shop it wouldn’t cost quite as much as that, but I still think the value for money is good, especially considering it is much tastier than supermarket stuff, and they deliver for free.

Will I do it again?

I think I will. It’s very handy seeing as I work from home and am around to take the Tuesday morning delivery, when is the day deliveries take place in my area.

Have you ever thought about doing a vegetable delivery scheme? Were you pleased with the produce? Got any good recommendations for readers in your area?

* As always, this post is 100% not sponsored!

(photo: AndyRob)

As any regular London theatre goer will tell you, it can be a very expensive pastime.

We try to get to the theatre as much as possible. I just booked tickets to The Misanthrope (cannot wait to see this), and at £40 a ticket, it’s not exactly cheap; seeing a show or two a month can definitely add up pretty quickly, but it’s the way these things go, I suppose.

So I was very excited to receive my Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre guide in the post on the weekend. They have a cracker of a line up of performances this summer, and ticket selling opened on Sunday. If you’ve never been before, you absolutely have to get yourself some tickets this year. It’s a culture-loving frugalite’s dream!

While you can buy seated tickets for around £30, standing tickets in the yard are only £5 each, and you get the best view, and really feel like part of the action. There is no better way to spend a balmy summer evening than watching Shakespeare in the round under the stars. We went last summer and it was ACE.

You can buy tickets here; but be quick because they sell out pretty fast, especially the seated tickets.

(photo: zoer)

Valentine’s Day is the great divider; some people love it, some hate it. I personally think it’s harmless and fun. The haters usually carry on about how it’s just another consumer-driven marketing ploy… which may be true, but what’s the harm in it if you do something from the heart?

It’s only a few days away now, and the Valentine’s Day inspiration is flowing in thick and fast. Here are some simple and sweet ways to say I love you that require more thought than cash..

A sweet Valentine light bulb DIY project

Some Fab’n’Frugal ways to say ‘I love you’

DIY Valentine’s Day goodie bags to fill with little treasures

Make your own Valentine’s jewellery

A pretty DIY card tutorial for your loved one

DIY Valentine’s Day brownie bags (make some sweets for the sweetest day)

Bake a beautiful heart cake with this tutorial (has to be seen to be believed!)

Make your valentine a cup of tea, with love

Wrap up a bottle of wine for you to share with this cute DIY project

Write a handwritten love letter

… or if you want to splurge just a little…

The Guardian has put together a list of last minute getaway deals if you want to spoil your loved one

Wallet Pop UK has put together a great resource for finding dining out deals for you and your Valentine.

And here’s a guide to buying jewellery without getting fleeced or looking cheap

(photo: moriza)

On Sunday we woke up to very dull skies, and so headed over to the Columbia Road flower market in the East End. What an easy and cheap way to lift the spirits, wandering around admiring all the beautiful bright flowers! And is there an easier or more frugal way to cheer yourself up and rid yourself of the winter blues than taking home a bunch of lovely flowers for your mantlepiece? I think not.

What’s your favourite way to cheer yourself up on the cheap?

(photo: Hoxtonboy)

Please excuse the lack of posts this week; my sister and cousin are in London visiting me from Sydney at the moment, before heading off to France next week, so I have been a sightseeing fool for the last few days.

They have both spent a lot of time here before, so we’ve not been doing the huge tourist things. Instead I’ve been giving them the insider’s look at London; taking them to all my favourite places, restaurants and bars, and it has reminded me how much there is to do in this city that costs absolutely nothing.

Both sister and cousin are university students, so their budget isn’t huge, but we’ve still done a lot this week. I always think you see the most of the city you live in when you have people come to visit and you have to show them around; while you’re showing it off to its best advantage, you see the beauty in it that you start to take for granted without realising it.

A lot of people expect London to be a hugely expensive place to visit, but once you’ve got yourself an Oyster card, you can spend whole days wondering through museums, art galleries, markets, park, etc, without spending anything, if you really want.

So next time you are hanging for a holiday but can’t spare the cash, just be a tourist in your own city and see everything through new eyes. All you need is some comfy shoes.

My personal favourite free London spots:

• Victoria and Albert museum
• Spitalfields Markets, Spitalfields
• Borough Market
• Columbia Road Flower market
• Portabello road
• Greenwich
• South Bank

What’s yours?

If you have received your January credit card statement already, you may have been in for a nasty shock. I certainly was.

Capital One was kind enough to send me notice that the interest rate on my card was being hiked from 16.9% to 24.9%. An 8% jump! Wowsers.

Luckily I never carry a balance on my credit cards, so I was able to simply vote with my feet and close the account.

Turns out that credit card interest rates in the UK have jumped to a nearly five year high average of 16.2% this month.  Of course the banks are in a bit of a pickle at the moment, trying to squeeze as much money out of their customers as possible, and credit cards are an easy way to do this. As the interest rates on credit cards are variable, they can easily raise them and get a bit of extra cash. And raising the interest rates for people like me who don’t carry a balance is an easy way to get rid of non-profitable customers.

And there are many people out there being stung with interest rate rises this month not be in the position to just close their account. If you carry a balance on your card you might wrongly believe you are trapped there until you clear the debt. But you’re not!

The best way around the problem is to transfer the balance of your card to a new provider, on a zero interest introductory offer. These cards allow you to pay down your balance for a certain number of months without charging you any interest – meaning you pay off your debts as cheaply as possible.

Most PF blog readers will be a dab hand at this practice, but for those that aren’t, here are my 5 top tips for getting the best deal:

Shop around – there are so many zero interest offers available it pays off to shop around to get the best possible deal. Simply type ‘zero interest balance transfer cards’ into Google and get searching.

The best deals won’t be available to everyone – some are exclusive to existing customers, and some are only for borrowers with a good credit rating, so make sure you apply carefully so as not to leave a rash of declined applications on your credit report.

Check the real lender – although there are hundreds of different credit card brands in the UK, there are only 12 actual card issuers, and they won’t allow you to transfer a balance between two of their credit cards, so make sure you apply for a card that is issued by a different lender.

Don’t take no for an answer (at first) – If you are declined when applying for a new card, ring up customer services and ask to speak to someone about your application. Speaking to a real person can help overcome the reason you were declined, such as incorrect information on your application; or if you were only just refused, you could end up being accepted just by taking the time to give a call – the person on the other end of the line wants to make a sale, after all.

Consider lifetime balance transfer cards – If you aren’t able to repay your balance in full by the end of the zero interest period, rather than switching again (which can be time consuming and not great for your credit rating), consider a lifetime balance transfer card, which offers a low ongoing interest rate so you can clear your debt cheaply.