10 ways to be a savvy saver and get out of debt

I'm going to do a little disclaimer on this one. In no way do I consider myself a financial expert but I just wanted to share my tips and tricks on keeping yourself out of debt and saving money. Whether you're saving from something in particular or just to have a little cushion in times of need. Now that's out of the way lets get into it.

Anyone find it hilarious I have more dollars than pounds?!

Ill give you a little back story. About 6 months ago I caved and applied for a credit card. I felt I was at the point in my life where I thought I had the self control to use it sensibly. Hell was I wrong. For years I said I was never going to get one, I went 23 years of my life without even an overdraft. I had a decent amount of savings and I was dealing without lending money.

Anyone that knows me, knows I have a taste for the finer things in life. When I got the credit card I said to myself I would only use around £100 a month to treat myself to these things. Well that went so far out the window, I can't even. I got to the point where I was living off my credit card and paying it off with my paycheck. Some months I couldn't even pay it off and that's when the interest started. Here we are 2 months later and even though I am still having to live off it to be able to pay it off, we are getting there. So now that you know my story here's some of the things I have changed to turn my financial life around.

1: Unsubscribe to those daily shopping emails. 
You name the shop, I was on their mailing list. Countless emails everyday tempting me to spend willy nilly on things I didn't need. I've cleared out my subscriptions, now I only get emails about freebies  and samples.

2: Use your savings to pay your debt. 
If your in debt but you have savings you are literally spending your savings anyway. In a nutshell, debt costs more than savings earn. I can guarantee that the interest rate on your savings account is less that half of the interest on the debt. Therefore, you are spending more money being in debt that you are earning on the savings. I used the remaining of my once beautiful savings account to pay as much of the credit card off as I could and it was the best decision I've  ever made. I was earning less that £5 a month on the savings but paying around £10 for the credit card. Its madness.

3: Don't buy it if you can't afford it. 
This was the main reason I got to where I was... I was spending like £30 a day on nothing, random shopping trips would leave me over £100 down. I just didn't seem to realise that I was spending more than I had. I don't know if anyone saw the viral Facebook post about the guy in York that spent £70 on a trip to the cinema with his kids but I read that article with my new money conscious head like wtf was he thinking. I'm not saying stop doing things and do enjoy yourself but if you go the cinema and spend £70 on yourself and 2 kids, when tickets are like £5-9 you must be doing something wrong. He literally must have spent over £40 on food, for Christ sake why not just take £1 sweets in?! Nobody wants to pay £5 for shit nachos.

4: Whittle down your basket when shopping online. 
Say you really need something and the best way is to buy online. If you're anything like me that one thing you need will turn into six more things your just have to have! Last week, I did my first Boots shop since I had decided to change my spending habits. I started off in old spending mode and went from a just a primer to a basket full of beauty products I already have too much of. I sat there looking at my basket of over £60 like, I just can't spend this.  In the end, I spent £20. I went through everything individually and asked myself 'do I actually need this?' the answer is usually no.

5: Prep your meals.
I would love to say that I've gone from food shopping every night to being able to do a weekly shop and that's it. I have not been able to get this one under control yet. I have started packing lunch for work instead of paying about £4 a day in the canteen, but at night I still have to shop. I have started buying food every other day and making sure I have things for the next couple of days. We are slowly stopping the £7 a day on tea.

6: Set savings goals.
Even if you're not saving for anything in particular, set a goal. I've got multiple trips to save up for (hint hint: there may be another New York blog/video later this year) but even on top of putting money away for these I've decide to satisfy my handbag addiction I am going to save for a high end purchase. I've set myself a limit and I have a few options for when I get there so I know I'll get one I want.

7: If you don't use it, sell it. 
I have had 2 iPhone 4's just chilling in my draws for 2 years... a year ago they were worth £100 now they are worth £20. In know it's hard because you never know you could need that 3rd phone in a couple of years... but you really don't. I have multiple things I don't use anymore just collecting dust. there are so many ways to re-sell your unused things. Gumtree, eBay, Envirophone! Just suck it up and part ways.

8: Use what you have.
If you are anything like me, you have back ups of back ups. I cannot even tell you how many back up cleansers and facial scrubs I have chilling in my back up draw. Hell, I even have a back up draw. I have about 8 tubes of toothpaste and god knows how many bottles of nail varnish remover! If you have it you most definitely do not need another one yet.

9: Shop around.
Ok, so you have a hankering for this beautiful something. I can almost guarantee you can find it or something very similar somewhere on the magical world of the Internet for less money. I was majorly lusting over the Chloé drew bag, God knows I don't have £1000 for it. After a little shop around I found one rather similar one in Accessorize for £35. I know its not that much cheaper but its a massive difference.

10: DIY
So this is one money saver I have always tried to do but before, there were things I thought I couldn't do.  I started off by doing my own nails, and eyebrows. That's easily £40 a month in savings by doing it yourself. Last week some complete poopface decided to take out Dennis' wing mirror, garage wanted to charge me around £55 to sort it. Bought a replacement on eBay for £14 and found a YouTube video showing me how to replace it. Bam, brand spanking new wing mirror and saved about £40. Lesson learnt, if you can do it yourself why pay someone to do it for you?!

Until next time.

 R x

 ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

Save or splurge: Chelsea boots

So if you're anything like me with tree trunks for legs, you will know the struggle. Trying to find a pair of ankle boots that don't make our legs looks even bigger is virtually impossible. But good news ladies, I think I might have found them.

Let me start with a little back story. So as I'm sure your now aware I have been searching for the perfect pair of chelsea boots for well over 6 months. Whilst on my recent adventure in Dublin, we were out one day and my shoes decide to fall apart right in the middle of a rain storm. We were coming up on 6/7 pm and a lot of the shops were starting to shut. We wandered past a Penny's (Primark) and I caved, there was no way I was going to make it back to the hotel without buying some form of new foot covering. So me and T ran in and had a look round the shoes. I was originally looking for the shoes I had on... mainly because they are £3 and I was quickly running out of money. They literally had nothing I could see myself in, but then I saw them. Today's steal, these vaguely attractive grey ankle boots with a slit in the side. Once I had them on my feet I was sold. €17 later I had wonderfully toasty feet. My only regret is not buying the other colour! Apparently British and ROI Primark/Penny's do not carry the same stock :'( 

After a few weeks of loving these cheap ass shoes, I knew I needed another pair. Primark was a bust as they were specifically for Penny's, believe me I went as far as contacting primark to see if I could get them! So my hunt began. I searched the depths of the internet for hours and literally found nothing. Randomly out of no where I tried Jeffrey Campbell, low and behold they had a whole range of boots with the same alluring side slit. I caved and parted with £111 (after discount) 6 times more than I had paid for the first pair. When they arrived, guess what... they didn't fit! I was mortified. They went back in the box and back to the shop. My search began again. 

J was the one who found the next pair, on a casual late night scroll through ASOS. Now I was indecisive, I was too worried that they were going to come and not fit, again. But again I caved. This time they arrived and for the first 5 minutes I though they were going to have to go back. To my joy after warming up a little they were just as comfortable and the primarni ones. Only issue now is I want the black ones and ASOS are out of stock! (edit back they are back in stock but I'm too skint to justify more shoes)

Splurge: Jeffrey Campbell Savion cut out boots £131

Pros:

Full leather 

Waterproof

Cons: 

Price

not suitable for wide feet

Save: ASOS Rumble pointed ankle boots £38

Pros:

Price

gold accents

Cons: 

Synthetic

Water makes them crumple

Steal: Primark split side ankle boots €20/£15

Pros:

Price

Wide fit

Cons: 

Synthetic

Water makes them crumple

Adventures in: Dublin

So me and Josh have been talking about doing this birthday adventure since he was 18... Here we are 5 years later on his 23rd birthday chilling in the motherland with a Guinness in hand. Note to self if you going on a group trip, don't let J book things. We're on the 6.25 flight home on Monday morning.

Before we even left the hotel decided to cancel on us and we were without a roof. In the end we found one, out by the airport. Cost us more in taxi's but on it made out 3am wake up call on Monday much more bearable 

Much of the week was spent either in the pub or shopping. Hungover on Friday, we spent most of the day trying to find C a new phone.. Boy cannot live without tinder. Don't judge me but I had to stay in on Friday night, beer has not been agreeing with me lately. Hence a recent trip to the quack, but that's another story. We spend Saturday in the Guinness factory. If anyone goes to Dublin, it really is the one and only place you have to go! I cannot explain to you the difference between even Irish Guinness and the first pint in the storehouse. As it was J's birthday we found a cute little Italian to celebrate. If you want a beautiful cheesy lasagna hit up The Italian Corner. Somehow they managed to get 23 candles into a tiramisu.

Saturday night ended in Everleigh Garden, Both myself and Connor were on dating apps.. Ironic being in a room full of people and your phone is still more attractive than actually mingling with real people. Despite being sat on my phone half the night like a boring bitch, it was a great night. Trying to hail a cab at 3am was not, everyone and their mother wanted a god damn cab.

Sunday, was pretty much a write off. We managed to make it into town for the football, only to have them turn over to the rugby! Although, the Philly cheese steak in Quays bar was on point. To end the trip we had a drunken adventure in an arcade, met some crack heads in the Pool bar and managed to stay out of the drunken rugby bar fights. 

It was such a good long weekend and anyone planning a trip to Dublin, the one tip I can give you is... to over budget! I took €300 to start with and had to top up about €200. It is most definitely not a cheap trip.

I did film parts of the trip but a lot of the time I was more focused on Guinness that I was handling the camera! So if you want to see part of what we got up to... here your go.

So this has been along time coming... it has taken a good few weeks for me to be bothered to edit the video. Enjoy!

Until next time.

 R x

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

No More D-word

I have finally come to my senses, I have seen the light. Dieting does not work. I have wasted so much of my life dabbling with every fad diet out there. Some of them are easy and work for a while, others are terrible and some just do nothing. No matter what I do no fad diet is never going to be a life long change, when you finally come to this conclusion you realised that you need to make changes that will work for you.

This epiphany came a couple of weeks ago, I realised that restricting things just makes me want them more. I found that cutting things down and choosing healthier options is the way forward. It  came after reading an article about the 'clear skin diet' - for the life of me I can't find the article now :( - but they kept going on about how the diet was so easy because it was all things that most people would be happy to eat anyway. It got me thinking how if you wouldn't eat it normally your not going to stick to a diet.

If anyone read my diet posts from last year, I was doing the military diet. I loved it. It was possibly the best diet I have ever done but it was just too restrictive. I probably stuck to it for a couple of months before my sandwich and chocolate addiction took control.

This time I have just been making healthier choices, instead of having a sandwich, ill have a salad. I'm having easy cook meals in smaller portions so I can still enjoy everything I love. My chocolate addiction is satisfied by a Freddo, which by the way are now 25p. 25 fucking p.  I know that if I want take-out it's not the end of the world. I just won't be having them multiple times a week anymore.

At the moment I'm feeling pretty positive and after two weeks I've lost 6 hopefully this one lasts. I might do a few healthy posts every now and then, it keeps me accountable.


Until next time.

 R x

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

Shaving for lazy girls

Have you got the theme yet?

This year I came to accept the fact that in a number of aspects in my life, I am one lazy bitch.

One common issue in every girls life is the removal of body hair. Some chose not to remove it, each to their own, but most of us would prefer if it just didn't exist! Except on the head :) I'm focusing on legs and arms today... what you do with other hairy body parts is you own business, but my legs especially are one thing I can never be arsed to do! I used to say to myself I would shave my legs whenever I washed my hair, but then I started going longer between hair washes... and then you have the odd time where you just can't be bothered.

So where am I going with this? I'm sure y'all don't want to know about my Chewbacca legs.

I decided I needed to find an alternative to shaving... there are a multitude of options, waxing, removal cream, tweezing and epilation.

I've tried waxing... not my thing! Removal cream... I have never been able to find one that didn't make eczema worse:( tweezing? who on earth would want to tweeze their legs?! but apparently it does happen. So here we are with epilation. I had head so many mixed reviews on using an epilator, but I thought about it and realise I spend more money on things that are far more pointless, I might as well give it a go.

Instead of spending a ridiculous amount of money, I got a pretty cheap one. What's the point in spending £200 when you can get one that works perfectly fine for £20? I ended up getting the Braun Silk épil 3, pretty much the cheapest in their range. I got mine from Argos for £29.99 and then walked into boots and realised I totally could have got points on my card if I had gone there first :( but Oh well.

So the part that anyone still reading has been waiting for... my experience.

I honestly cannot believe I have not tried epilators before!! The lady in Argos when I bought it said that she would compare the feeling to getting a tattoo. That didn't worry me too much as I barely felt either of mine, if anything I enjoy the pain of tattoos, but then I realised that most people consider tattoos to be rather painful. I'm not going to lie, the first run was painful but I got used to it pretty much instantly. I would actually go as far as to say it became relaxing!

Now that's the legs... I tried to do my underarms. It was the worse pain I have ever felt! They look beautiful now and the pain gets less and less after a few uses but you have to get through that initial torture. There is nothing I can compare the pain to, imagine a bunch of red hot needles stabbing you in the armpit for 5 minutes. it didn't get better like the legs did, but now that my hair grows back in patches its bearable.

There were some cons... and I think it may have something to do with me getting one of the cheapest ones. The silk épil 3 and 4 only have 20 tweezers but the next model up has 40. It took me multiple runs to get all of the hair. Both legs took me about 20 minutes in total, but honestly the time doesn't really matter to me.

Also, I didn't really think about where the hair went when it came out... EVERYWHERE. Half of it ended up all over my bed, some was just chilling in the epilator and then the rest stayed on my legs so I didn't really know where was clean.

The biggest issue I had with this device was that it only came with a 2 pin plug, you know those stupid bathroom ones that are apparently only for men's shavers. We don't have one of these plugs in either of the bathrooms so I had to run back to Argos to get an adaptor!

Overall, I would recommend epilators in general to any lazy girl. If I were to buy again I would definitely spend a little more money but this baby is now my best friend! Smooth legs and white armpits for life ♥

Until next time.

 R x

 ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

Seven deadly sins: beauty edition

Image taken from Caitlin's blog, who credits the author Chris Hill (for the life of me I couldn't find him)

Apologies bitches. I'm having a lazy week... it's tag time!

1. GREED: What is your most inexpensive beauty item? What is your most expensive?

I think my least expensive item that I actually use is Collection lasting perfection concealer you can usually get it for less than £4.

The most expensive is probably Estée Lauder advanced night repair, I couldn't even tell you if it's really worth the money but I love it all the same.

2. WRATH: What beauty products do you have a love/hate relationship with? 

Eyeliner! It's the bane of my life. I don't have the steadiest hand so it usually ends up all over my face and I have to do it all over again. I just love what it does for my face so I endure the pain.

3. GLUTTONY: What are your most delicious beauty products?

I hope this means smells haha but borjouis deluce... It's smells like actually chocolate, it's heaven for your face.

4. SLOTH: What beauty product do you neglect, due to laziness?

Lip liner.. I tend to use either liner of lipstick, I only really use both on 'special' occasions.

5. PRIDE: What beauty product gives you the most self confidence?
A good red lip all the way! Either a red or a plum. At the moment I'll loving Marc Jacobs kiss pop lipstick in pop.

6. LUST: What attributes do you find most attractive in the opposite sex?

That elusive V ;) and shoulders, I love a good shoulder hahaha.

7. ENVY: What items would you most like to receive as a gift? 

Perfume, I can honestly never bring myself to spend the money. I always appreciate perfume as a gift.

Bonus Sin:

8. WHORE: What is the beauty product your have an ridiculous amount of?
Nail varnish, every time I go shopping I buy a new one. I have 131!!! The worst part is I only use about 5.

Until next time.

R x

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

P.s I honestly couldn't tell you where I found this tag it has been sat here for soon long. If you are the author or know who created this tag... let me know and I'll credit them :)

Exercise tips for lazy people

There are two kinds of people in this world. Those who enjoy exercising and don't find it a chore in their routine. Then there's us, (I'm going to assume if your reading this we are both as lazy as each other). The ones who can't even fathom that two minute walk to the corner shop or to the kitchen. The ones who don't feel any guilt by skipping that work out for a cozy date with netflix.

Over the years I've learnt that when I'm dieting, I don't really need to go to the gym. Don't get me wrong I'm completely aware that my results would be much better if I actually did a proper workout every now and then! But these simple little life changes mean that I can't still enjoy binge watching netflix and loose weight all in one go.

Before we get into this, I need you all to promise me you won't waste your money on home/gym equipment. You may think you'll use it every day but you won't. I've had an exercise bike for almost 5 years now. I've used it less than ten times. Just don't do it!

So my fellow lazy humans... give these few small changes a chance! You probably some of them already anyway.


Walk everywhere.
Living in a city really helps with this, but there are so many ways you can add extra walks into your routine. If you use the bus... just get up a couple of stops before you usually would. If you have a car, use it to your advantage drive to the middle or nowhere or a big ass park and go for an adventure.

Fidget.
It burns calories, end of.

Learn to be cold.
The colder you are the harder your body has to work to keep you warm. Easiest but not the most comfy way to burn extra calories.

Take the stairs, every time.
It may be a myth that stairs are the secret to a perfect bum but when your at the bottom of of a staircase, imagine that amazing bum you're going to have!

Workout Dvds are a gift from god!
I know that technically this counts as a proper work out but only if you do the whole dvd! Most of them have sections you can pick and choose from. Just make sure you do the warm up and cool down sections or, you know, just those two. If you're feeling really lazy.

Don't let that skipping rope go to waste!
It was fun when we were nine! Why can't it be fun now!

Remember the gym is all around you.
cliché, but you can turn anything into a exercise tool and anywhere can be your gym. You've got the widely known cans as weights but you really can exercise anywhere. I have a friend who used to do 5 squats every time she  went to the toilet and had the bum everyone wants. Or you know, you could just go to the club and do extra slut drops.


Before y'all start shouting at me, if you already do all these and your a lazy bum, I'm sorry but you my friend are gonna have to suck it up and part with your laptop.

Until next time.

R x

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥