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. ?

I spent £410.60 on car repairs today. I feel sick. And poor!

£27 in Sainsbury's on more stuff for DS's sodding birthday party :(

£4 in Clarks for some Doodles for DS

Nightmare :(

More present cupboard specials - The Book People's website is looking good at the moment, lots of good books for £1-£2.

Here

I did just 'invest' in the book of Barack n Michelle cutout dolls for DD's birthday (she studied politics at uni). She will love that.

Thanks boffin - think I might do the potato gratin at some point during the week. I love your blog, btw.

No spend all day but went to Zumba (£5) and then nipped to BP garage for milk.

Lots of yellow stickers (fatal!) and I got yoghurt, parmesan, milk, mushrooms, cottage cheese for a total £7......

Boffin loved the cutout dolls.. may have to break the bank and order some.

Total spend so far:

$35 on Jan 5th for petrol to out of town specialist dr appt $5 on Jan 6th for a sandwich from deli during crazy night when I couldn't cook $4 on Jan 8th for 24 pk supermarket brand bottled water (am pregnant and won't drink water here unless bottled, not good sources in my town) $40 on Jan 9th for parking and petrol to out of town specialist dr appt

$84

Although $75 of that is unavoidable petrol, so only $9 of 'frivolous' spend and then it was only food / water. Think I'm doing extremely well as I normally buy little bits and bobs all the time, takeaway pizza is a downfall of mine, $15 a pop but not one little slice so far

Really, really need to get out and do a supermarket shop, but have just had a CVS done so have been told to take it easy for a couple of days. Will post what I buy in hopes that will keep me from buying stupid stuff so I don't feel embarrassed to post it here

Not quite the same, but activity village have free printables (including cut out dolls) I think they had royal wedding ones.

Still doing ok, went to town to get a photo album and with the intention of popping into M&S for some cake (friends coming over and no time to make anything) and to see if they had any wrapping paper in the sale. I bought one photo album, 2 rolls of wrapping paper (50p a roll) and some teacakes (96p) I didn't go into any clothes sale shops, or spend a fortune in greggs on cream buns :o

DH still wanted to buy a watch with his birthday/christmas money. A trip to the shops was worrying me as to potentially paying full price and the temptations in the shops. We found a lovely Seiko watch which is massively reduced online and it is everything he wanted. Plus he still has some money left to spend on other things he wants.

A good day yesterday. Paid termly fees for a couple of things, but got another spot of freelance work, which cancels that cost out. Only problem is I now have 14 pages of unintelligible medical text to proof and edit while wrangling with Hulk Baby. How long can I reasonably dump a child in front of cbeebies before social services intervene?!

I noticed a few people at the start of the thread had said about wanting to ditch Sky but didn't have an aerial. You can now get 'freesat' through your satellite dish if you buy a freesat box.

We did this last Autumn and so far so good. We still have Sky broadband and calls though as it works out cheapest even though we don't have TV with them.

Okay, no more magazines. I can't believe I slipped and bought one this morning on way to work.

Mumsnet is better than any magazine and it's free.

Such an idiot.

SUnday victory is that I actually USED the gym I've paid for. In trainers I realise I've had since 2000. So cost per wear very satisfactory on that front too...(seriously they're fine.)

Hey all, still here just been mad busy with work, plus it was DD's birthday yesterday. Decided that as she is only 3, I wouldn't go mad and just had some fairy cakes with candles after dinner rather than doing a special 'birthday tea' and spending ££ on biscuits and cakes and stuff.

She was delighted with that and some presents.

Her pressie from us was an animatronic (sp) dog reduced from £70 to £22

Still have a freezer full, shouldn't need to get anything this week except milk.

Plus went to FIL's this weekend so came home with a load of free eggs as he keeps chickens

I'm belatedly joining too. So far this month I've spent:

£62 Aldi shop (should provide lunch & dinner for 2 children & 2 adults for 8 days)
£6.94 Sainsburys top up
£9.95 Haircut for DS
£7 Coffee & lunch for DS

Martyrstewart kindly PM'd me the veggie meal planner which I'm going to follow once I've cleared out the freezer and cupboards. When my DH was made redundant 6 yrs ago we became fantastic money savers but we've fallen off the wagon in the past year. He was made redundant again in October but we didn't adjust like we should've done. Thankfully he's started a new job this week so we should be able to manage without borrowing anything.

Will be following this thread with great interest!

I need to buy some bread, leeks and cereal but I'm sending back some sale buys so feel better about that!

Oh can I have the veggie meal planner please?

Oh me too, please?

Right, so far I spent £80 in Tesco on Friday. Since then, I have bought some cheddar (a family can't function without cheese, surely?) two small bottles of Coke for my ailing husband (bad back) and a paper each day.

I spent Saturday morning in the kitchen making sausage rolls and chocolate fairy cakes for luchboxes, plus a chicken pie out of the leftover meat from the day before. Oh, and marmalade with seville oranges. I hope that saves us some money - although I had to freeze the cakes before the gannets descended on them.

I am detemined to get to Friday again before I do a food shop instead of my usual 3 times a week visits. We have started to run out of things though which is where I get a bit nervous. The ketchup and jam have gone but, unless it is something really urgent (like bread or squash) I am expecting my family to plough on without them.

I was doing well until I went to Tesco to collect DD's new school jumper. All yellow sticker stuff though total was £14.66 - 2 x cream doughnuts, packet of iced buns, Beef mince(will do 3 meals), Liver, Fresh Thyme, Pork Sausages, 2 x Chicken Tikka Samosas, Sausagemeat(will make fresh stuffing), 2 x Bags of salad(lunches and rabbit food), Bag of Baby Spinach(rabbit food), Macaroni Cheese, Baby corn, fresh mango and fresh fruit salad. I also got Phili Chilli Cheese using a 50p off voucher. The majority of this has gone in the freezer and the other stuff will be used for meals the next couple of days.
I love a good whoopsie session lol

Have PM'd, but Boffin's blog is probably more help long term

I think you've made a good point Laura about your family ploughing on in the face of running out of bits- I had a wobble yesterday when dd2 s favourite cereal was down to the last but held firm from a Tesco visit by realising it's in fact good for her to try something different that I already have in. I fully expect to run out of cheese and ham on Thursday but we will adapt and survive!

Moomoo1967 - we stopped buying squash. Kid now have water. The expected revolt never happened and it is better for them. Must have saved a small fortune!

I managed not to spend anything yesterday and this morning had to buy milk and mushrooms, so spent £2.79.

I have made the biggest pan of chilli in the world which is for supper tonight, probably my lunch tomorrow and will perhaps top a jacket potato tomorrow night. The rest will be frozen for another meal.

I did a 12 week meal planner yesterday, trying to ensure that I'm not cooking the same things every week and planning ahead to use up leftovers.
I have got the spreadsheet on my mobile too so I can see whether I can use up multibuys etc whilst out and about.

I've added some never before made recipes to it, so it will be interesting to see how they go down and whether I can make it a 12 week rolling meal plan.

wow mrspnut - 12 week mealplanner is impressive; I like the idea of planning more longterm but only do one week at a time as we have a vegbox so have to see what's in it to work around.

I have started archiving my old plans to help with inspiration and remember any new meals I have tried (also recorded whether new ones were a success or not - 40/60 in favour of not! not great!)

did weekly online shop today and ended up spending what seems LOADS despite trying to just stick to what we need. expensive stuff was nappies (pretty essential and on offer so not bad value), cleaning products (we have a cleaner, which uses up a LOT more product than if I did it myself and I insist on buying Ecover to make myself feel better about the oodles of chemicals being sprayed around our house...) and a few store cupboard items like jam and so on which add up.

otherwise doing okay with not buying random stuff and bringing in lunches. resisted magazine the other day - ladyharriet are you in London? I am limiting myself to the weekly free Stylist, which makes for decent enough wallowing in the bath reading, which is all I ever want a magazine for tbh

cashback on house insurance thesecondcoming? - we just realised we need to buy insurance (just moved; not had any before); hadn't thought about looking for cashback sites...