interesting thought

[ceeceeDee]

Last of the big spenders, eh Jean?😄

 

We'll probably have to let the moths out of the wallet on our next cruise as the OBC is less and the cruise is longer (10 days as opposed to 7) but we'll see.....

[Jean C]

6 minutes ago, ceeceeDee said:

Last of the big spenders, eh Jean?😄

 

We'll probably have to let the moths out of the wallet on our next cruise as the OBC is less and the cruise is longer (10 days as opposed to 7) but we'll see.....

Absolutely 😊 A friend used to snap his hands at the imaginary moths when I opened my wallet 🤣 My next cruise is 17 nights and I have $50 to spend - will go towards a shore tour if one appeals, or maybe a geeky branded tee shirt or sweatshirt, hehehe. Unbelievably I struggle to spend money, especially when I consider want, need and then value for money 🤷‍♂️

[ceeceeDee]

8 minutes ago, Jean C said:

Absolutely 😊 A friend used to snap his hands at the imaginary moths when I opened my wallet 🤣 My next cruise is 17 nights and I have $50 to spend - will go towards a shore tour if one appeals, or maybe a geeky branded tee shirt or sweatshirt, hehehe. Unbelievably I struggle to spend money, especially when I consider want, need and then value for money 🤷‍♂️

We tend to let our hair down a bit depending on the amount of OBC. Top of our 'must do' list is always dinner at a specialty restaurant. Other than that we play it by ear.

[cruiser3775]

In Victoria, you can buy a little token on a swivel keyring, which you can reuse indefinitely on your Aldi trolley. Yes, you have to buy it first, but it saves faffing around looking for a $2 coin.  It might be the right size to use on Coles or Woolies trolleys, too. I've never tried.

One thing I have bought on board cruise ships is wrist watches.  They have gone out of fashion, as people use their mobile phones to tell the time, but I still like wearing a watch. The ship shops often have sales of more expensive watches deeply discounted, but also some good bargains on budget watches.

[Jean C]

Oops, I almost forgot, to use up OBC I also bought the fancy Princess necklace medallion holder. Mixed thoughts about it, the clasp is one for younger, more dexterous fingers and those without ageing eyesight. I kept it on overnight but it was a bit clunky. Will probably keep it for best and just put it on for formal nights 🙂

[ozdevil]

6 hours ago, MicCanberra said:

Coles, Woolies, Big W, Target, Kmart, Aldi all have trolleys that require coins or tokens to unlock them in the ACT, but also in Vic, SA, WA QLD and NSW . I suppose it depends on the city.

coles where i live in vic dont have  trolleys that need tokens or coins  

but there major  suburbs do

[mr walker]

2 hours ago, arxcards said:

It is interesting logic. In order to save $2 for a cruise, an $8 schooner is taking $10 out of your wallet to put $2 in a jar. 

Yes, that was my thought too 🙂 I thought, how much cruise money would they have if they didn't just buy less beers? What we spend money on is always a personal choice & we are all different.

 

I had a mate years ago who was obsessed with not 'breaking' another big $ note, as in his view as soon as you broke it, the money would always end up spent. Of course, in those days a big note was a $20 🙂 I recall him missing on a good payout at the dogs in the last race when he refused to back our selection to save from breaking a $20 - his rule cost him $'s!!!

 

There was someone who used to post on here that had some sort of calculator set-up which monitised the value of every pack of cigarettes they didn't smoke and converted it into cruise money or days or their cruises or something. Of course, not smoking was a win/win for them.

 

When we were kids, Dad would empty his change nightly into a Milo tin (most of the money would have been the final change from his daily pub/club visit). This became the ice-cream money for us kids when we went on holidays. We had total control over the daily spend on our ice-cream treat on a majority rules basis - there ended up being 6 of us kids. We counted the money often, both ahead of, and during the holiday. We all learned that if we were frugal for a few days and had a paddle pop each, we could lash out on a drumstick or heart every now & then. Mum & Dad really knew how to teach each of us the value of money, singly & collectively. Of course we all knew the rules of when the money was all gone, there would be no more & hence no ice-creams for the rest of the holiday. As the eldest & custodian for the most part, at times I would find there was more money in the Milo tin then there was yesterday, & I knew Dad was adding on the quiet, but I knew to keep quiet & everyone would decide we must have counted wrong last time. Big brothers have a special role/place in this world. Maybe some of the young ones still don't realise today (50 years later) what was happening lol. 

[Mareblu]

2 hours ago, cruiser3775 said:

In Victoria, you can buy a little token on a swivel keyring, which you can reuse indefinitely on your Aldi trolley. Yes, you have to buy it first, but it saves faffing around looking for a $2 coin.  It might be the right size to use on Coles or Woolies trolleys, too. I've never tried.

One thing I have bought on board cruise ships is wrist watches.  They have gone out of fashion, as people use their mobile phones to tell the time, but I still like wearing a watch. The ship shops often have sales of more expensive watches deeply discounted, but also some good bargains on budget watches.

I have one I use in Canberra.  It's attached to my keyring.  

[Colin 2905]

1 hour ago, Mareblu said:

I have one I use in Canberra.  It's attached to my keyring.  

Likewise. I bought six or so from Fosko via eBay some time ago. Attached one to my set of keys and gave the rest away to family and friends. Whenever I see someone at the trolley bay fumbling through their possessions for a suitable I coin, I'll whip my Fosko out and unlock a trolley for them.

 

[Bubbeh]

18 hours ago, ozdevil said:

our 1st cruise is 5 days  and we have 2 days either side  all paid by my drinking habit lol

And they try to tell us that alcohol is bad for us.  Oh, piffle!

[Bubbeh]

About 15 years ago I started a 'Car Jar' into which I put every spare coin (including $1/$2).  Also, if I bought something on special I'd put an IOU for the difference in my Car Jar eg, say I bought a $4 loaf of bread for $3.20 I'd put an IOU for 80 cents into the CJ.  It took almost 5 years but I eventually saved almost $22k doing this and that together with my Toyota Starlett (known in the family as Starlett O'Cara) as a trade, I bought a new Jeep Patriot which I just loved. Unfortunately, I only had it for 18 months when I retired from work and we moved to an apartment with only 1 parking bay. We already had two cars and a motorbike so we traded both cars on a new Ford Territory (best car ever, over 9 years we only put a new set of tyres on and replaced the battery) and kept the bike to make Grumpy happy.

 

These days the only time I have cash is when I'm washing the sheets/towels in the machines in a caravan park and I need $5, my RVs machine is not big enough for these items.  For everything else, I use my credit cards, I rarely pay a fee as I tend not to patronise places that charge that except for ALDI which, when you consider the overall savings, is well worth the minor percentage.  

Edited January 6 by Bubbeh

[Kristelle]

2 hours ago, Mareblu said:

In Victoria, you can buy a little token on a swivel keyring, which you can reuse indefinitely on your Aldi trolley. Yes, you have to buy it first, but it saves faffing around looking for a $2 coin. 

 

 

Yes that is the sort we have here (in SA) too, as I mentioned upthread.

[Kristelle]

5 hours ago, Jean C said:

I overspent by 99c, was able to pay $1 in small coins into my account, leaving Princess to profit by one unspent cent 😇

 

 

My river cruise we had $50 of OBC - I used it all for laundry bar 20c.

 

Scenic gained my unspent 20c  too. 😉

[LincolnLegend]

I did the $5 challenge a few years ago. If you ever have any $5 notes in your wallet/purse at the end of a day, take them out and put them away, it's amazing how quickly they add up and I really didn't miss them at the time. of course, this only works if you are using cash lol!

[lyndarra]

I had a thought (usually painful when that happens😁). With the rounding up of prices, e.g. ending .99c, people paying in cash are paying extra whereas if using a card one pays the exact amount. Surely that would add up over the years.

Edited January 6 by lyndarra
spelling

[MicCanberra]

I have had the same $5 in my wallet for around 6 months, $20s I go through, $5s not.

[ilikeanswers]

2 hours ago, lyndarra said:

I had a thought (usually painful when that happens😁). With the rounding up of prices, e.g. ending .99c, people paying in cash are paying extra whereas if using a card one pays the exact amount. Surely that would add up over the years.

 

But if it is 92c you save with cash since that rounds down. 

[ilikeanswers]

23 hours ago, arxcards said:

- Check around for any put aside/party used gift cards and use them up,

 

Gift cards should be treated like cash when you receive them put them straight in the wallet. Had a friend who was doing a house clean out found $600 worth of gift cards, more than half had already expired😭. 

[Jean C]

25 minutes ago, ilikeanswers said:

 

Gift cards should be treated like cash when you receive them put them straight in the wallet. Had a friend who was doing a house clean out found $600 worth of gift cards, more than half had already expired😭. 

Ouch!

[Jean C]

3 hours ago, lyndarra said:

With the rounding up of prices, e.g. ending .99c, people paying in cash are paying extra whereas if using a card one pays the exact amount. Surely that would add up over the years.

I suspect that's the reason the good ole USA still has pennies (one cents) in circulation - too much backlash from the public 🤔 

[Tigerlily75]

In Victoria, it's the local council that determines if supermarket trolleys have coins. That why some coles/woolies have them and some don't.

[mr walker]

4 hours ago, ilikeanswers said:

 

Gift cards should be treated like cash when you receive them put them straight in the wallet. Had a friend who was doing a house clean out found $600 worth of gift cards, more than half had already expired😭. 

Yes, a trap for the unwary. I received a thankyou card from a kids sporting team I coached one year. Several years later I was doing a cleanup and opened up the envelope again, read the card again, I then saw that there was a gift card in it. It had expired 5 years earlier - thanks guys 🙂 

[ceeceeDee]

7 hours ago, LincolnLegend said:

I did the $5 challenge a few years ago. If you ever have any $5 notes in your wallet/purse at the end of a day, take them out and put them away, it's amazing how quickly they add up and I really didn't miss them at the time. of course, this only works if you are using cash lol!

I put away my first $5 today🤗

[Jean C]

10 minutes ago, mr walker said:

Yes, a trap for the unwary. I received a thankyou card from a kids sporting team I coached one year. Several years later I was doing a cleanup and opened up the envelope again, read the card again, I then saw that there was a gift card in it. It had expired 5 years earlier - thanks guys 🙂 

Ouch again 😧

For Christmas one of my daughters once gave the other a $100 voucher for nails or some other beauty treatment. For safe keeping she put it in the tall slim box of some other cosmetic product and can only assume it was inadvertently overlooked and discarded when the box was thrown out. It was an actual voucher, not one from the internet, so that was $100 lost 😪

[mr walker]

I use very little cash. The only regular thing I use cash for is my haircut from the $15 hair cut man. As most places charge $35+, I am happy to drive 15mins to him and to pay him cash.

 

I occasionally check my wallet when a Pacific Island cruise is upcoming and put any $10 & $5 notes in an envelope for spending money on the islands. Most times I leave home with somewhere around $50-60 for the local island markets, donating anything left over at last port (not Noumea - they have more money than me 🙂 ).