A daily money saving target

Every day, before I go to bed I like to try and think about how I have managed to save some money, that I would have, in a past life, spent without thinking.

Since finances became so tight with my illness and I had to give up work I have had to have a complete re-adjustment towards my attitude to life, money and the roll of advertisers.

Before I used to watch the adverts on TV, scour the flyer's that came through the door, read the ads in the magazines, just in case there may be something of interest to me.

Now that just doesn't happen, I have suddenly realised that advertisers are paid to part me from the few pennies I have.

For instance, do I really need that new anti-bacterial washing up liquid to keep my family healthy? My family has always been healthy before so what is different now that I have to change my spending habits and buy something that is a third again of the price of what I normally buy?

Nothing, that's what. They are using our fear of 'super bugs' to sell us something we do not need, and may in fact actually cause more damage in the long term.

Let me explain. Our bodies need to encounter both good and bad bacteria. The bad bacteria is just that, bad, but our bodies have an amazing thing called an immune system, that, if you are relatively healthy, will fight the bad bacteria in to a cocked hat. It only needs to do it once, and from there on in, you are protected forever from that particular bug!

So if you kill every single last germ in the house, wash your hands with anti bacterial hand wash, use anti bacterial hand wipes when you are out and about, how is your body supposed to encounter and build up an immunity to even the simplest bug? It can't, is the basic answer.

Admittedly, if your immune system is already compromised by illness, then it is a whole new ball game, but generally speaking, we don't need anti bacterial anything!

Now take that same basic idea and apply it to every single advert you see.

What is so different about that new car that makes it impossible to live without? Will that new shampoo do any more for your hair than your normal one, or will it just smell different and cost a few pence more? Does that new format newspaper have any more news in it than what you can get off the TV or the Internet? Sure if it has a DVD of a film you would like to see as a free gift, buy that edition, but why buy it every day? Do you see where I'm going here?

So what did I do today to save some money? I left the house without any money on me, and didn't even realise until I got home again. That would have been an impossible thing for me to do before, I would have HAD to of turned round and gone home to get my purse because there was always something else I had to buy.

It makes me shudder now, to think how much money I have, literally, wasted over the years, and I really wish I'd had this epiphany when my children were small.