No more random spending for 3 months...........any takers?

[Collision]

Starting from 1 September DH and I have decided that the only things on the cc bill will be

food

petrol

car insurance (due 7 Sept)

We are no longer randomly spending on ANY clothes at all. The boys have their uniform and I have new NEXT-sale boots and a warm waterproof coat and we do not need ANY MORE CLOTHES.

Proper meal planning and shopping at ALDI and Sainsburys.

No more Costa lotta coffees.

No more takeaways or cheapy McDonalds/KFC for the kids.

We will use the library for books so no need to buy any.

Packed lunches

Coffee in a flask if I take the children out along with snacks and drinks bought from supermarket and not random cafes.

The boys are pretty much ECO anyway and brilliant at turning off lights and water etc and they only have showers and not baths.

We want to cut down on spending to see how much we can save over time. DH has a great job and I work at school FT so it will be interesting to see what we can do.

GULP!

Anyone want to help join me??

Football-Top-up-shops are my downfall; I try assiduously to avoid them now.
Franca-Love your name!

Failing on the curry front tonight so Dh going out to get it later!

Only spent £1.80 in the cafe this morning so quite a good day :)

Okaaaaay....the only random thing was a pack of chewing gum.

£5 on black trackie bottoms for DS1

£77 on Horrible History tickets for next April.... claps-excitedly

and we are getting an indian takeaway because BIL and his wife are here from Italy and they are very excited about eating indian food! am-hoping-they-will-pay-as-they-have-eaten-me-out-of-house-and-home-this-week

weak

Not got time to update proper - but I didnt spend a single penny today! First time in a long time and felt quite good :)
Back to work on Sunday and prepared for lunches so long may it continue :)

Absolutely no spend for me either today.

Collision - I bought some Buddy Holly musical tickets on a special promotion (75pence = booking fee, you just can't refuse that), this sorted out DD2's birthday present. She's turning 4 and has no idea who BH is, but I hope they'll enjoy the show. £11 for 5 of us. Enjoy Horrible Histories, my DCs have been asking about it too.

Oh no! I fell off the wagon and bought a takeaway pizza. I have also bought cinema tickets and paid for a babysitter. I did have a great evening though

FootballFiend - we have seen 2 of the HH already which were fab! and the next one is about victorians and tudors. DH loved the shows too and couldnt believe how much he learned!

Where you seeing BH? And where is the promotion? Might need to look at that too.

Wimbledon Theatre, code is BIRTHDAY75, although limited numbers at 75p, the next are slightly more, then more again etc. Mine like HH on TV and would really like to see the show live as well. Maybe for a birthday treat (in the next 2 months we have birthdays for DD2, DH, DS and the nanny).

I made a schoolboy error this afternoon and took dh shopping with me. He managed to add a shampoo, shower gel, magazine, energy bar, vitamin drink, desserts, nuts, dried fruit... that wasn't on the list, coming to a grand £29 more than necessary.

I have pointed this out to him

We also had to buy ds new school uniform, underwear, pyjamas etc as nothing seems to fit all of a sudden which came to a whopping £90. Yikes!

I will have to get his old school trousers on ebay pronto!

I'm doing ok....using cash is definitely working :)

Only the down side I got a parking ticket.................grrrrr. Not happy about that as it was due to rubbish signs so I though I was ok, when I obviously wasn't!! Never mind. Will be more careful in future.

Carrots - schoolboy error indeed!

Well we went to London Zoo yesterday - discounted tickets for SN kids day, so that was £25, then bought ice-creams (took packed lunch & lots of snacks and drinks) approx £6, and a ride on the carousel when it started raining approx £4 (not sure as Dh paid), and parking was free with the blue badge, yey.
So £35 for a day out which is pretty good :)

And persuaded DH to raid the freezer the other night so have put him off takeaway twice this week lol!

Boys out for a charity bike ride this morning, I need a few top up bits and must get a cheapish booster seat as starting a car share next week for DS1. Thinking Argos but the one i wanted is out of stock, will keep looking. maybe Tesco as then i get points?

I think takeaway's are a bit of a waste of money too - so expensive
Especially now that you can buy very convenient and equally tasty take away style food and pizza from the supermarkets. Anyone join me in trying to ban take-aways to help family budget. I'd only get a takeaway pizza these days if I'd just moved house and the gas/elec wasn't on yet ! - as happened with one house I moved into.

Oooooooooooh wait til you hear about my bargainous moment today.

DH took the photos to Tesco to be delivered and rang me to say it would cost £48!!!!! WTH???

I told him we were still on eco month and not to bother. Came on Mumsnet to ask for better ideas..........got lots of replies.

DH came home, did what I advised and it has just cost us £3.50 for over 70 photos. Bargain!

A saving of nearly £44!

That sounds great, £3.50 for 70+ photos.

Also the £35 day out. London Zoo none the less.

For us it's been day out for £7 tickets, picnic from home and nothing in the cafe, now going out to cinema with friend and I've used a 40% off tickets code (Film40 works online too) from moneysavingexpert. Feeling quite pleased overall. Topups kept to essentials today (bread, milk and wine).

Ooh photos sounds good. Could do with printing some myself so might try and find your thread.

September is being expensive with children having grown, DD about to have a birthday and me having a birthday (and so treating myself to a nice lunch) but haven't been doing too much random spending. And I keep mystery shopping :)

who are you with for mystery shopping Lawrie? PM me if you dont want to say here.

Will send you a PM :)

Pretty good weekend here. We spent a fair bit in the supermarket on Friday afternoon getting supplies in for the weekend, but I will only need a top up shop this week now because we're away for the weekend next weekend.
Wedding cost us nothing! Free bar and we walked back to my parents house where we were staying.
I was really tempted to get takeaway when we got back tonight, but we did fish fingers for DS1 and DH and I have had a bacon sarnie.

I'm hoping for a cheap-ish week. No plans, just preschool for DS1 and general pottering for me and DS2. I need to do a lot of housework and organising this week so there won't be much need or opportunity for shopping. DS1 needs a new winter coat at some point, that is the only spend on the horizon.

We have had a massive spend today, although not random so I am hoping I don't have to hang my head in shame.

We went to the kids' shoe shop. I probably need not say any more

Dd has an odd fitting so we had a limited choice. She got trainers, school shoes and winter boots and ds got winter boots for a whopping total of £170. I have to admit, even though I knew it would be bad, I was a tad

Worse still was the realisation that dd has outgrown about 90% of her winter wardrobe. I will get her to make the most of what she has but somewhere along the way she is going to need a slightly fancier outfit for birthday parties, family outings and Christmas parties etc.

We will hopefully be able to sell a lot of her outgrown clothes and that may fund a new outfit for her. Fingers crossed.

Oohh !
Looking through a random bag yesterday I found my library card. Might go and try out the library with it tomorrow - hopefully not too many lost books on it Actually quite hopeful I might have a clear conscience on that front after paying a fortune in fines last time - but if I'm careful it could be good

I use the library lots :)

Am impressed with myself today, went to Asda & Waitrose searching for a booster seat for DS1.

In Asda, no booster seat, and my list had 3 other things on it. I bought 3 things
In Waitrose, got booster seat...and left!!!!
Amazing!

So approx £5 in Asda & £15 in Waitrose.
Chicken from the freezer for roast, yum.

Not much planned for tomorrow, stuff to loft and tackle some jobs.

Did well over the weekend.

Got a freebie parking ticket from another customer in Windsor.

Was handed a free bottle of coke whilst window shopping.

Bought nothing.

No spend yesterday.

School all day and updated library books after school.

do need milk though.

Collision - result!

Zero spend today. Have cousin staying for the week and she is at Tesco having insisted on shopping. AFAIK only white wine is on the list but she is taking some time so who knows what she's buying, not on my spreadsheet so not my problem, lol

Well done Collision - how did you manage that?

I have had an expensive visit to the opticians with ds. He needed new glasses but managed to choose the Star Wars ones that cost £30. Bitter experience has told me it is worth it as they don't break as easily as the others but it is still another £30.

On top of that ds needed prescription goggles so that will be another £30 when they arrive.

I did manage to avoid the cafe that we usually visit as a treat after the opticians. I took them to subway instead so they still got a treat but a) it was cheaper than a cake and a milkshake and b) it counted as tea as well for a bargainous £4.98.

I will be reining it in for the rest of the week though because necessary or not, all this spending is still going to cause us a problem.

I didn't know you could get prescription goggles. How do you go about it? Thanks.