No spend January?

[corinewmoon]

After he festive blowout and considering ive got some big bills in January, (MOT, car tax, insurance) I have decided to try a no frivlous spending month. There is nothing i really need to buy, (apart from new school jumper and coat for DS) .
So I will be taking my lunch to work every day,
I will avoid costas,
and i will limit my self to one bottle of wine per week
I will aim to spend £200.00 on food shop for the month
I will not go for leisurely stroll to the shops during my lunch break.

Any one else want to join in. ?

Bossybritches, those blue bags in IKEA are surely there for filling with desirable stuff and then dumping at the checkout, rather like the supermarkets that have little kids' trolleys you can return at the end for everything to be reshelved

I spent some money on DS's birthday party yesterday, but not much - £28.29 in fact, as I already had the pizzas and cake from before the New Year (£50, but we will rapidly gloss over that fact). We did a home cinema party with a borrowed data projector and a viewing of Tron, which DS1 had got for Christmas, and we reorganised the sitting room so we had two sofas in parallel (one behind the other) and a big white sheet pegged to the curtains over the French doors for a screen. We had six teens over and I fed them half a pizza each, birthday cake, a couple of scoops of Aldi ice cream each, two Pepsi fridge pack size cans each, plus brownies, two bags of Doritos and four bags of Tyrell's popcorn (should have made some and even bought the maize kernels, but I forgot about the resolution!) Then four of them slept over as well, I defrosted two tubs of the spaghetti bolognaise I made the other day, used a packet of pasta, and they are going to have 25p packs of reduced price crumpets and muffins for breakfast if they ever wake up! DS1 announced it was 'the best party ever'! Gosh, they are super lovely teens as well. One asked at supper 'Mrs BoffinMum, as we have all finished, please may we leave the table?' Not bad on the politeness front for age 14 .... Can't remember the last time a kid used my surname! If I do this again, I will make the popcorn and cake and brownies myself, and probably even the pizza - I make dough in the bread machine, then top with passata, cheese and random things, and bake in a big tray in the top oven. Delicious, and I bet I could do it all for £30.

My bills are lots, though I got a water meter fitted and held my breath - we are a family of 4 who use a lot - and it's still LOADS cheaper than the rates. We were on £70 and now pay £30 a month. It's worth trying one if you haven't, and you have a year to ask them to take it back if it works out more expensive.

Recently switched to Sky for calls and broadband, so £41 with telly as well.

Gas and electric - we won't dwell. Over £100 again.

I'm always running around making them switch things off .

I love Lidl. Did big shop for £50 and that included lots of nappies and packed lunch drinks (DD has cancer so is not allowed to drink tap or bottled water. She's back to school today, so I have to stock her up well with cheapy fruit shoots ).

I still have the compulsion to always fill the cupboards though. I'm rubbish at running anything down. My DMum always has a well-stocked kitchen and it's rubbed off on me. It's annoying. I was still picking up lots of extra bits. It's a shame Lidl doesn't do online shopping. I would be much better behaved.

Hi all - a bit late in the day, but count me in! I'm a SAHM although I wish I wasn't so money is always tight for me :(

Bossybritches, you mentioned upthread about a quorn bolognaise in the slow cooker - did you make the sauce in the slow cooker then add the mince at the end or did you cook it all together? I have always been cautious about doing quorn in the slow cooker for some reason

I almost forgot, I made bottom of the fridge surprise for tea. I got out the slow cooker (abandonned wedding gift from 5 years ago) and filled it with all the sorry looking veg from before Christmas, tin of haricot beans from cupboard, stock, chilli flakes and tin of tomatoes. Will shove nearly out of date marinated tofu and some black olives in before tea and serve with rice and crusty bread.

I'm sure the kids will complain. If I grate a load of cheese on it, it will be fine.

Second Coming - you've just made my day

I'd forgotton all about the free council tax months - ours are Feb and March so not too far away. You're right though, I ought to put the money away too.

I'll check out Utility Warehouse too. Ours aren't too bad - £83 /month for gas and electric for 3 bed house but our phone is about £27 per month and we pay about £35 per month to Sky, which includes broadband and Sky+. Not sure if that's any good or not these days.

Hoping for a spend free day today. I've got 5 kids at home today - my 4 plus a friend, and the weather is appalling so we're staying at home taking down Xmas Decs and writing thank you letters -wish me luck!

with Utility Warehouse the longer you stay with them as well the more you get off your bill, also if a few of you or friends sign up to them you can all "recommend a friend" and get a further reduction.

Boffinmum those blue bags are Very Useful 'tis true but you can overfill as they're so big and then give yourself a hernia lifting them into the car!! I always buy a few to take home.

Currently I have wood kindling in one (forraged last year whilst dog walking & now dried) and logs in another.
One advantage of these high winds is there are always fallen boughs along the track where I walk the dog and I'm often to be seen dragging them home for the fire, saves a fortune in logs. A chum comes over with his chainsaw & cuts them small as I only have a diddy fireplace & we stack them to dry for next year. The bonus is even sweeter when the boughs are from my ex's field!!

Mylife re the quorn. I fry a chopped onion and some peppers if you have them (or any veg going soft!), herbs,garlic add the quorn and stir in, add about half a pint of veg stock leave to simmer gently for about half an hour. When it's thickened add a packet of Aldi passata (dead cheap but tasty)

It's Ok to eat then but I cool it and cook it the next day long & slow in the slow-cooker and it's delish!! I can pad it out with loads of veggies and split the pot after the inital cook,so half goes in the freezer for another day.

The thing that saves me the most is my husband going out the door and back to work

Awww, porridge made from shredded newspaper was my top tip...

Down branding saves loads, but I'm guessing many of you do this already. As does going to Lidl/Aldi as opposed to Tesco. Veg is half the price, 4pts milk is £1, cheese and other dairy is much cheaper as are branded things they stock. It's all nice quality too - I couldn't be doing with buying stuff that goes off straight away. It lasts the same as other supermarkets.

Not eating takeaways . I must keep reminding myself of this...

The thing that saves me the most is my husband going out the door and back to work

Ok, so I am not exactly spending nothing but, I am only going into the shops I need and I am using cash, then anything left in my purse goes into the change jar, so I always have change for milk/playgroup etc, without either having to spend £5 min or getting a tenner out just to pay £1 etc.

Today, I spent £9.20 at the market,
-carrier bag of small bananas
-7lbs potatoes
-huge bag of grapes
-cucumber
-lettuce
-cherry tomatoes
-dozen free range eggs

I also went into the cheap plastic box shop (they do other things as well!) to get a box for DD's barbies and some dishcloths. Spent £5.98

Avoided Greggs and came straight home to make bread.

Tomorrow I am going to make some bolognese with all rubbery veg in the fridge in my slow cooker.

I'm going to slip up a bit today as I need to go to the supermarket. Just finished a course of anti-B's and am feeling rough so will have to make a few impulse buys to tempt my appetite. But I'll make a list for the important stuff.

im in...i start a new job on monday... have no idea about pay days and am used to being paid fornightly! i do have things stocked a bit, but will go back to doing an online shop and cooking in advance.
do however need to buy a diary and flat shoes for work, i have searched my exsisting collection but have none suitable. to add to it im shitting myself and excited at the same time and i need to get the house in order. how did i do this and go to uni? im sure it wil all come flooding back to me.

I've just rung up Tesco mobile and got my bill reduced! £35.00 a month to £12.50 But my car has to have new break pads today too . Ah well, you win some, you lose some.

I'm definitely going to save the Council Tax money, great idea!

And plan meals, I think that's a really good way to save money.

well, it seems that i will definelty not be spending anything except for essentials this month. Just looked at my bank account and some card payments have come out , leaving me with a lot less than expected. Will be doing some serious meal planning tonight when i work out how much ive go left for the month.

Well, day 3 and I have spent some money. £56 in Morrisons took a list for my meal planner. Would have cost a lot less, but have discovered by ds has headlice so had to stock up on nit spray and was totally at how much this stuff costs (never had to buy the stuff before now!) Not impressed as it has taken me over budget. I need to get ds new school shoes and had factored this in to this months spends, but will have to cut back on food spends for the rest of the month as I dont want to buy cheap shoes that need replacing again next month.

Will take a look at Utility Warehouse later, thanks for the tip victoriasmith . We borrowed one of our council tax free months and used it in December to help with the christmas spends, so only one council tax free month coming up for us .

Nearly forgot, stopped off in tesco on way home for 2 things I needed that Morrisons did not have and ended up in the christmas clearance isle.... bought 4 boxes of cards and 2 rolls of wrapping paper. All in the name of spending less next christmas of course!

I think it will have to be No Spend February for me. DS2's birthday and car tax this month.

Saying that though I haven't spent any money today........

Sounds like you're all doing well.

itshappenedagain good luck with the new job!

I had my Ocado order delivered. £92.91. There was lots of food in it and all meals planned for a week for 4 people. Also loads of tins and frozen food so should be able to last longer with it.

Today we're having jacket potatoes. DS will moan. But hey ho.

I am going to have a chat with the kids about free school dinners. They can get them and it would help a lot.

I am keeping a list of all my spending and another of 'lessons learned'.

What's on 'lessons learned' reckoner?

reckoner Liking the idea of keeping a list of spending and lessons learned for the month, will do that also!

This week is officially "pie week" at our house. Using up all the meat and fish in the freezer. Tonight is shephards pie with a pack of lamb mince that I bought reduced just before xmas. Hopefully that will make enough to have tommorow night also. Then it's fish pie on thursday night with all the odd bits of fish that have been kicking around in the freezer for a while. Think we will be fed up of mashed potato by the end of the week!

Think we will be having a nospendfebruary as well Sparlklingbrook, maybe even a nospend2012!...........

Lessons learned is just a list of mistakes I will avoid making in future eg chocolate mousse is not a necessity.

Ah sorry I thought you meant 'What is it?'

chocolate mousse and hobnobs are not a necessity
VAT free food
edit the online order the night before it is delivered

gnomie if you get your brake pads from halfords then you get free brake pads for life.