Join the Fantastic Frugaleers for a February full of frugality

[northender]

Shiny new thread ready for Sunday. Newbies very welcome. This is a wonderful thread full of encouragement and support

[CremeEggThief]

Ooh, shiny new thread .
Thanks Northender.

[Fluffycloudland77]

Thank you North

[Pointlessfan]

Thanks for the new thread, hoping Feb will be even thriftier than January!

[needastrongone]

I am in

Loving the title northender

[babsmam]

Hiya

Thanks for the new thread

[sportinguista]

Thank you for lovely shiny new thread!

Need to keep myself on track until I can get some work which it seems I could be on the right track as some freelance is coming up. Seems self employment is the way to go.

Should be LSD today as just a dehumidifier to pick up which is a planned spend and Dh is paying for, just milk and a couple of veg bits other than that. Might just visit another agency and call into Waitrose and blag my free coffee (do need something from there!)

[sportinguista]

Sorry just saw the Sunday bit, must be still asleep!

[northender]

sporting you're welcome to post whenever! don't have to wait until Sunday

[NK5BM3]

Hello north thanks for new thread!

[lilacclery]

I would encourage anyone that's lurking here to join in. I did last year and from May to Dec cleared €2540 of debt. With my projections for this year I hope to reduce by debt by €7289 to just €3044.00 and have that cleared as soon as I can then in 2016. Then I will continue the standing order for my loan to save for a car which I will buy for cash in 2020.

[confusedandemployed]

Marking place. Pay day today, need to get shopping. Just doing the mysupermarket.co.uk thing!

[lilacclery]

I've just paid 3 months car tax & have set up a standing order weekly to online savings account which ensures in 3 months time I've enough to pay 6 months car tax and will continue the standing order beyond that to have enough for 12 months in Oct. I have no payments for car insurance in nov dec or jan and will have 12 months car tax paid & the two of these amounts will be saved and when my car insurance is due next feb I will have the money to pay for it!

[INeedSomeHelp]

Hope you don't mind me joining in.
My monthly fuel d/d has just been hiked up so I need to make savings elsewhere.
Can someone explain how the mysupermarket app helps? I've downloaded it but it only seems to be useful for writing a shopping list and telling me Aldi is cheaper (which I already knew!)

[sportinguista]

Was not such an LSD! [embarassed]

£8 in Poundland but lots of snacks for DH lunches. £10 in Wilko for cleaning stuff and deodorants and other household bits. £18 for a baby present for friends (planned spend). Got the dehumidifier £39 but got £3 off so was £36 and hopefully will make a huge difference. £1.48 for milk.

lilacclery that is really impressive! I'm finding that posting your spends makes you think about what you're spending and it's wonderful when you have an NSD, I always feel really proud of myself for not spending money.

Nice surprise I have £10.50 worth of clubcard vouchers, which I'm going to save and collect more, then boost just before DS birthday so his present is covered yayy!!

[dippingmytoeinagain]

Hello, a newbie here, but joining in as I want to start saving towards a holiday for next year for the children. I ideally want to put away £100 each month, from either money saved as a result of being frugal or from money raised as a result of selling unwanted staff. I'm wondering whether to just put the £100 in the pot right at the start of the month, which will mean I have to be frugal, or leave it to the end by which time I will have no doubt spent it

[Ememem84]

LSD today. bought more lentils and some carrots to make apple and spiced lentil soup for dinner. appear to have made almost a bathtub full...

freezer beckons i think!

I'm back to work on Monday (it's been a LOOOOONG January being unemployed!) and I am looking forward to be earning again.

On the downside, I will have to be in town near the shops every day so loads of temptation to buy things.

have spent my last day at home sorting out my direct debits and standing orders so on payday (21 days...) money all automatically go into savings/mortgage. it'll leave me with a bit of spare cash for luxuries/treats, but hopefully this should be ok.

[Fluffycloudland77]

ineeed

My supermarkets not essential, it's meal planning & running down freezers etc that helps.

[Happyhetty]

Signing in! We need February to be super frugal as it's our first month without a rental income and dh and I are off on a weekend break for our 10th anniversary so would like some extra cash to spoil ourselves!

[lilacclery]

dipping put savings away first. All budgets sites recommend paying yourself first as they call it. Then if you sell stuff you can top up savings or it can be extra spends money.

sportinguista it's thanks to these threads I've done it and an excel spreadsheet detailing all my debt. I started a save & borrow fund too which means saving for 6 months & then you can borrow 4 times it & at the end of loan your savings are realeased to you. This will be ready to act on at start of March I will use it to clear one credit card. Although when I look at it the interest rate is much the same but at least it's not compounding interest. Some times I just considering splitting the savings between the two credit cards & working on paying them off myself. Hmmm?

[GirlsonFilm]

We did our budgets yesterday and based on that info February needs to be really frugal. We had an unexpected bill on Thursday which doesn't help matters so frugal February will only keep us in the black rather than payoff any debt ??

[Fluffycloudland77]

It's all about control INeed, running a house is like running a business. Costs have to be kept down or there's no profit.

So, meal planning, shopping at Lidl/Aldi, sticking to a shopping list, turning off all appliances not being used eg my ovens off at the wall & the tv isn't left on for background noise, there's no DD going out for things like old subscriptions etc.

It all adds up.

[trippatraptroo]

Hi everyone can I join? Want to try and save some money this month and have a lot of no spend days. I also want to try and meal plan as that's were my money seems to go!

[bantamgirl]

Hello all, and welcome to Tripp

I've started meal planning, I have a 6-weeker and it's working well. Internet shopping coming in between £48 - £58 a week. £300 was my budget for January (13th Jan to 12th Feb) and so far I've done £175 on three Fridays with one more big shop to do (which is already done, and was just under £59) so I'm well under budget for this month.

I suppose my meal plan wouldn't be considered 'healthy' but DH and the 2 bottomless pits of DS's aged 18 and nearly 12, want hearty stuff.

today - Chicken curry
tomorrow - Sunday roast
Monday - Sausage, chips, fried egg & beans
Tuesday - Lasagna
Wednesday Corned beef, onion & potato pie (ready made pastry)
Thursday - Omelettes & chips
Friday - Tuna Pasta Bake.

*all stuff that looks unhealthy tends to have frozen veg in it such as onion, mushroom or peppers, such as the omelette and the tuna bake

Lunches: packed lunches for the kids, DH takes soup & bread, and I take leftovers from the night before.

Breakfasts: Cereal or toast

I then have sub sections for
bathroom stuff (including smellies, hair etc)
kitchen stuff
laundry stuff
Cleaning stuff
drinks
Fruit / snacky stuff

I place my order on a Friday for delivery the following Friday and then if I run out of anything that can wait, I add it to my order throughout the week. I do cheat a bit and tend to get snacky stuff from Home Bargains where it is much cheaper but it is all included in the grocery budget.

Prior to my lightbulb moment just after Xmas I had looked at my internet banking and spent over £600 in the supermarket one month! So shopping online really helps stop the impulse buying.

Also, just counting what I have left each day doesn't take any time at all, makes me feel more in control and really makes me think twice about frittering, and making better decisions for essentials.

[williaminajetfighter]

Ooo am joining in. It's a short month so think I can be super frugal. Planning to walk to work rather than drive - weather pending - and have saved up nectar points of £60 for a 'free' weekly shop. Am trying to get enthused as I have a £8k debt that I need to sort!!

[Fluffycloudland77]

What kind of debt is it William? I'm not being nosy it's just that there's different ways of handling different types of debt. Welcome to the thread.