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. ?

Tut, reckoner, tut . I have a weakness for cushions...

delilah totally justifiable if you haven't even paid yet .

I may have led you astray!

I have a free 2012 slimline diary sitting here if anyone wants it - I got sent it through one of my professional association subscriptions.

I am not amazing, I have been doing this for a long time and I am used to it. I also have a fourth child who is now 24 as well, so it's been my entire adult life. However I do think the childcare situation is a lot worse and a lot more expensive than it was in relative terms than in 1987. I blame things like childcare vouchers, the minimum wage and red tape - they have narrowed options, pushed up the cost and justified indirect increases in taxation that has more than wiped out the benefit of any increase in the hourly rate many people receive. I think for a while the situation was better, in the mid-2000s, but now it's falling apart.

I should probably set up a nursery myself rather than battle the system!

I think I will indeed try the option of informal childcare and putting adverts in shops. I am a bit sick of being held to ransom by agencies, the divorce lawyers of the childcare world, profiting from everyone's childcare woes!!!

I have only read some of the thread and it seems that we could all spend less on food/ groceries. What about utilites? have you all shopped around for the best deal? I am happy with my landline (bt) bill at present less than £20 per month. I have a deal which includes line rental and all local calls (not just evening and w/e). We have a LAW in our house - mobiles for mobile calls and LL for LL calls. Obvious I know, but still worth checking.

Boffinmum as an ex-nursery owner I would say don't even THINK about it!!!

Battling the system & red tape is what forced me out of it after 10 years

Informal searching may be the way to go, word of mouth etc. Maybe ask if you can put out an ad at the DC's schools/nursery to the parents asking for help? Someone might know someone.

Namegot agrree about the utiities. Have renegociated my landline/internet package and our mbiles are going on PAYG once he contracts end in the summer. That way the DD's can pay their own (they both do loads of babysitting) which hopefully will help them budget too.

We have that phone LAW too, it does help. I also use their phones sometimes for landline calls to use up their free quota if they haven't.

No spend day today. We're not going out .

Right, I have officially dedicated Saturday lunchtimes 'leftovers lunchtime' from now on, and today we had things in the fridge and freezer turned into proper food. The menu was as follows:

1. Starter - Leftover portion of toddler's tagliatelli from Friday (fridge) with remains of a jar of Lloyd Grossman's tomato and garlic sauce on (fridge), plus a year-old carton of home made butternut squash baby puree stirred in (freezer). Gave us 2 tbsp of starter each - perfect!

1. Main course - Roast pork slices with caramelized apple (freezer), green beans (freezer) pureed with a little double cream (fridge) and topped with the remains of a tube of toasted pine nuts (baking supplies cupboard).

1. Pudding - Flim flam. Leftover home made rice pudding (fridge) mixed with leftover mango fool, 2 strawberries and about 10 blueberries (all from fridge), layered on bottom of large wine glass. Topped with layer of crumbled stale stollen (store cupboard) and final layer of Greek yoghurt (fridge). Garnished with a few silver ball sprinkles. Eaten with long spoons. Jolly nice indeed.

Stuffed now! About to have a delicious espresso from my Freecycle coffee machine.

Forgot the rice, bacon and vegetable side dish, also discovered intact in the freezer.

Boffin- we've had "leftover lunch" Saturdays for ever! Great minds... Combination of overcatering all week, and too many things to do on a Sat morning mean that leftovers buffet style are fairly popular.

Did my fruit and veg shop from the stall this morning and spent £27 as opposed to at least £50 from supermarket. Got all the usual stuff plus 3 aubergines for £1, 2 mangoes for £1.50 (a bit extravagant I know).

Visited the butcher on the way home and spent £68 but got: chicken (roast, cold, bits left for risotto and then stock so at least 4 meals for 3 people); bacon (1 meal for 3 people); 4 chicken supremes (huge leg thingies 4 for £5.00) - another meal for 3 people plus 1 leftover for hungry DH and DS; sausages (2 meals), lamb (2 meals for 3 people) and steak (1 meal for 3 people). So, added to the frozen stuff in the fridge (salmon, tilapia, smoked salmon, mackerel, rack of ribs I should have enough for the month).

On checking said freezer I found frozen butter and 4 packs of pastry (4!!!!! so will need to use that - perhaps a beef and ale pie...or chicken and leek? Does anyone have a good recipe for chicken and leek pie??? I also seem to have half a ton of smoked salmon - courtesy of my DMIL - so will need to start bringing that out to eat as it goes 'pappy' if left too long in the freezer.

Spent £1.20 on parking at each place as the parking inspectors are like vultures around here .

Sadly our local libraries have been hit by the closures so have a fair way further to go to do the library run...have a few friends who like the same sort of books as me though so may suggest a book swap club?

On a huge plus ... I have taken on two new clients in my new personal training business so that's fantastic. And I have sold another item on Ebay .

Btw - perhaps not exactly the right thread by Ebay have a free listings weekend this weekend so now is the time to get going .

will do food shop at aldis instead of sainsburys.

and have quit smoking.

that ought to even out the bank balance within a month or two surely?

roguepixie Sounds like a good stash!

Thanks for the ebay tip -I was thinking about listing some stuff so will get the items out & photographed & list tomorrow. Sunday is supposed to be the best day to start & finish apparently as more folk around.

Right off to do ASDA shop need stuff we can't get at our Aldi's & can't be arsed to do both so will do fresh bits at ASDA and then top up th store cupb oard bits next week from Aldi. Have run the freezer /fridge/store cupboard right down so need to re-stock. damn this spending thing!

mrsm you should see the difference quite soon I'd say!

Well,I have spent some money today. Some items were a little impulsive,but a good investment I feel! I bought-

3 children's breakfast sets (mug bowl plate egg cup) was £16, now £8 each) for family birthdays this year
3 chrismas make your own brownie mix sets with spoon was £8 reduced to £3 (bbe July 2013!) Great for dcs friends this Christmas)
All from Whittard sale

New school shoes for ds.(£28!!)

Haircuts for both dc (£7 each)

£2.50 on a Slice of foccaccia topped with goats cheese and red onion for us all to share from posh bakers for a snack as it was getting near lunch and didn't want to go to a cafe and spend money we didn't need to.

Had a picnic late lunch (brought from home so free)in park where we spent the afternoon.

Veg box arrived yesterday so I planned our meals around that for next 7days. Need to buy tanned tomatoes,veg stock cubes,fresh coffee,apples,bananas,grapes,cucumber and a whole chicken. Have pulses and other bits already so should be a cheap week and will be making our own bread this week aswell.

I have spent very little since Dec 23 and I didn't do the sales, basically because I was knackered after the rush up to Christmas.

I have a weakness for Costas though and eating out.

Going to cut down to one Costa a week and one meal out a week.

*tinned not tanned!

Bossybritches - the two companies were looking at for the conservatory ceiling insulation are:

Roof Revive and

Sun-room

The first have quoted £2700, the second £1400 but their products are different. Someone in the village has the more expensive one and we've just been to see it. It looks fab and they're raving about how great it is, so we'll see.

Good day today, had to mooch around town while DH and boys were swimming, but my only spend was in Poundland!

Those roof things look brilliant. I am getting a quote for our playroom!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

morecoffee - I quite like the idea of tanned tomatoes

Went to the bank today to deposit my meager paycheck and resisted going to the deli to get another sandwich. Also haven't gotten motivated today to go to the grocery shop, babysitting niece and nephew this afternoon/evening so will scoff more food over there and avoid having to eat supper here again.

$117 in the bank.

Will need to spend $35 on petrol and parking on Monday for out-of-town dr appt again.

Technically both my car insurance and my phone bills are due, but I am on a family plan for both of those and my aunt & grandma will cut me some slack since they know I'm struggling right now not working as much with all the baby appointments.

Will try to spend $20-30 maximum on food for the week although milk+bread itself (just one of each) is nearly $8 so feeling a bit hopeless.

Going to be putting a few bits on ebay tomorrow, too. Total spend today was £1.50 on a paper. It's actually a really good feeling, saving money .

Have been reading and have not yet joined, as for the next 6 weeks its birthday hll. (Plus 4 babies are due...!)

But I wanted to say re curtains, have you tried the charity shop? When I moved I had an overlarge pattio door. Although I have since had curtains made (please do not ask how much they were. Lets just say I was loaded then!), my mum found me some really heavy ones from a charity shop for !0. Laura Ashley 1980's, but I loved them. A friend of mine's family own a dry cleaners so in all I think they were a real bargin.

The curtains are now stored in my mums loft. I am sure they will re-appear for my brother who is moving out soon.

I would further suggest that you look in charity shops in the more afluent areas. I think another post mentioned, how good the pickings are there. What my mum finds you would never believe!

Comment earlier about utilities was a good one. I've been meaning for ages to see if we could get a better deal. Will be looking at uswitch when I've managed to find all the relevant readings. Have stuck to the meal plan for two weeks now and we're spending a lot less on random bits and bobs from the shop.

MoreCoffee do you find your veg box to be good value? We used to have one with Abel and Cole, but to be honest, there wasn't enough in there! We had the medium one, which said was enough for three people, but at that point it was just the two of us and we still had to supplement it with shop fruit and veg. If money were no object/I were still working, then I'd def have one again as I know the farmers get a much better deal from them than many supermarkets, and it's as locally grown as possible. But, on just the one wage, it doesn't really seem an option anymore. Really need to get my ass in gear when it comes to doing freelance work. That was the plan, and now mat pay has run out, it seems like I really need to pull my finger out...

Boffinmum The Roof Revive one we saw today looked fantastic. We're still umm-ing and ahh-ing about which one to go for. The Sun Room insulation is thinner and the ceiling is plastic not plastered but it is quite a bit cheaper.

Leaning toward Roof Revive atm.