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. ?

Hi Ladies, can I join?

I know it's halfway through now, but I have been lurking and reading the thread since the beginning.
I'd like to thankyou all for some inspiring money-saving ideas, and for morale boosting (even tho in my case so far it has been silent!)
We currently live with M-i-L as we ran up large debts while I was on mat leave with DS1, and moved in with her to save money. DS2 came along in August, so I am on mat leave again until April. We are desperate to move into our own place, so every penny counts at the mo.

Oh spew, I hope your finger is still attached and you are not in pain.

fishy, I hope you had a reasonable day and tomorrow brings some good fortune your way .

Had a good day. Did spend on 3 bus fares (reduced as on oyster card) and a tube journey - however, it was spent by way of obtaining a new clients for whilst I spent £5 I earned £48!

Off to see another client tomorrow so that 3 clients in the last week . In this game though you can go months without new clients, so I have to make the most out of it.

Tip - if you pay for your gas and electricity on Direct Debit spread across the year then ask them to give you the overview of your account. We did and found that the gas side of things owed us £80 and the electricity side of things owed us a staggering £850!!!! Yes, they were holding nearly £1000 of our money, saying "oh, we will roll it over for you" whilst we continued to pay every month!!! They will not volunteer to tell you but they have to state whether you are in credit and they cannot hold your money. You can ask them to pay you back the money they 'owe' you.

Dinner was leftover lamb and roast potatoes and extra veggies so no spend there.

Ebay has gone well for me this time around. If everyone pays then I will have made £300 this month, so far. Sadly, this haul had some good stuff in and I haven't got that level of stuff to put on again. Ah well, lots of dvd's and cd's to sell ...

Rogue glad you are having a small windfall in clientele! What is it you do? Sorry for being nosy

Ended up having a good day. Did spend for the first time this month on something slightly non-essential (besides one cafe sandwich lapse) - $19.08 on maternity clothes and a pair of dress shoes from charity shop. Way cheaper than what I've seen on EBay, I bought 3 pairs of work trousers, 1 pair of jeans, and 4 smart work tops. So works out at over 95% off their original prices.

fishpond Glad you found some maternity clothes. Sounds like a good haul for what you spent too!

spew can you get the book in the library instead? eek I would have also fainted! Hope youre ok now

leilandri welcome! Sounds like a very good incentive. I could not live with my parents or ILs now so I can appreciate ou want your own place again.

rogue Good tip on the gas & elec. Its your money, ask for it back!

Bad day today:

Had to take new dog to the dog shampooer as she has been living in a stable for 8 months and was FILTHY! Shampooing her at home not an option but hope to change that in time. Came out looking gorgeous but cost £35 (she's a big dog).

Then bought new bowls and some bones at pet shop next door. £28

Excellent haul there, fishy. Really good. You are not being nosey at all...I am a personal trainer (amongst many other roles ). I used to train people some years ago but had a run of ill health and stopped. I've only just got back into it and have taken on 3 new clients.

spew "...DO NOT BUY THE SHORT & SWEET BOOK FROM AMAZON...STEP AWAY FROM THE COMPUTER...DO NOT GO TO CHECKOUT"...does that help . I don't know how much of a baker you are but if you already like to bake it is likely that you already have many of the same sort of recipes (if you are anything like me you will have at least 3 versions of the same recipe) ]. Also, I find that the internet now has many of the recipes I might look for so you could always look there for what you are searching for, especially if you know the author...just google recipes by

Ooh, Rogue, where are you based?

No spend day here, don't get paid until Friday so am trying to be cautious.

Plus DH is very ill with an icky throat thing so I have had to take the week off.

Must try for overtime to make up the money.

Hamster appears to have some sort of anal prolapse this morning, which may well involve a vet's visit. Even though I think this is going to be a poor investment and that the little thing will snuff it anyway soon, I just can't bring myself to bash it with a spade rather than spend the money, even if it is no-spend January. You can take these things too far. But I am really worried they will start talking about expensive surgery (they have opened a new animal hospital on site so they may be keen to refer 'patients').

Morning Laydeeeeeeeees. Hope we are al fine and dandy this morning

Thanks for the finger sympathy. Finger still attached, just a bit sore and weepy. Won't be going anywhere near the blender today...

Forgive me mothers, but I have sinned. I bought a buggy liner to go in the new, bargaintastic buggy last night. But I've decided to cancel the order as the buggy cost £10, but the liner cost £18. I'll just give the buggy a good scrub as the liner was to cover up some marks on it.

I'm going to allow myself one 'treat' per month, not an expensive one (£10 max), but just something small for myself. I think I deserve it .

I think rogue deserves some sort of award for her ebay sales. I thought I did quite well with £25 the other day!

Oh, and just joined my local FB for sale group to see if I can shift some stuff that won't go on ebay.

Hello all - please can I join. Turns out work cocked up PAYE and my tax codes and as a result I owe Mr Taxman £££s by 31 January. Need severe belt tightening throughout January and February to get through this. Have been reading the tips on thread so far and they are great.

I have a few birthdays coming up in February (including DS2's 3rd birthday) but am planning on gifting Groupon massages bought last year (valid till end of April or May) as gifts (and calling up to make provisional booking beforehand). Also in desperate need of a haircut and colour so am using a groupon voucher I got last year for a hairdresser near work (money already spent, 40% saving on the costs already achieved) later this month - so no money needing to be spent there either.

dinky welcome!

Mr Taxman is often quite amenable to negociation, ask if you can oay the full amount over 2/3 months (although if it was a works cock-up they should help too ) they'd rather have some payment than none.

Good idea re the Groupon gifts must pay more attention to the offers!

spew if that finger is weepy keep an eye in case you need a trip to the docs for ABS? If you have any tea-tree oil that is a fab antiseptic, just put a few drops straight on the wound.

Hellooo DinkyStinky!

Spew, that sounds awful. Hope your finger recovers soon. And the rest of you.

Child Benefit arrived in my account this morning, several days earlier than normal, which is good, but I have to rein myself in. Being paid early is a sure way of ending up in trouble - DH's salary came in a good week before the end of December last month, because of Christmas, and we managed to spend a fair bit of it on Christmas, rather than on, um, January.

Off to the family centre for play and cheap lunch (maximum spend will be about £5 on food) and I need Calpol (or generic equivalent), bananas, milk and tissues. That WILL be my shopping list when I stop off at Sainsboro on the way home. I will be stern and not veer sideways into Clothing.

Thanks for the lovely welcome (and hello again Reshape, nice to see you again). Have now been on the phone to Mr Taxman to see if can pay the full amount over 2/3 months - thanks Bossy - so can breathe again, but still going to have to cut back alot to pay the bill over 2/3 months anyway.

My top tip with Groupon Bossy is to do some research before buying- sometimes you get great offers (like the hairdresser one I've got - I know the salon as walk past and friends at work have been there and had god cuts, also check out the spas and prices online too for reviews- again, you sometimes get some really well known ones on there for really good values) but sometimes the places are real duds.

SPEW - weepy finger doesnt sound good. Tee tree oil is great - otherwise bathing in salt water mix (luke warm water) can help clean it up too.

I am trying to go through all our outgoings and trying to convince DH that we should drop down our phone and tv package. It should work out £20 cheaper. It was the massive £73 bill that spurred me on. I rang my parents in Belgium for 10 minutes on New Year's day and it cost over £5 :(
We also have a platinum bank account which charges at a ridiculous £25 a month. Getting rid of that. It was put in place as we had a huge overdraft a few years ago and it made the charges less (according to the bank manager anyway). We never use any of the perks that come with it, though it is nice to be able to read our credit reports and have phone insurance and card protection in place. Gah talk me out of keeping it!

Oh welcome Dinkystinky cool name :)

Been lurking here for a while, thought I'd pop my head up. Dh is self-employed and had a slow period for a while - thankfully picked up now, but with that and some unexpected big expenses we have a £12K credit card monster to slay. We're losing £170 a month on interest alone. We have some money coming in the middle of the year that will pay off most of it , but in the meantime I'm throwing as much as I can at it, and keeping the day to day expenses to the minimum. BUT our 10 yr old car keeps having problems - £500 spent on it so far since the beginning of the year.

Our house insurance also came up for renewal and I've renewed for much less by shopping around - £200 less than the ridiculous quote our existing supplier (Tesco) were giving us, and £100 less than it was last year.

We've given up alcohol for January, and I may keep it up longer.

Am already a very frugal cook (grew up with v. little and learnt it from my mother) and we live in a rural area so I've always kept loads of non-perishable supplies in case we get snowed/frozen/flooded into the house. Have decided to use them all up and restock when times are better.

Great idea on finding gift toiletries, etc. before buying more - I've got loads . Also found a big stash of cleaning stuff.

We've changed our contract phones to GiffGaff (had to pay to get them unlocked from Orange but worth it on the savings). Dh sometimes gets free handsets in his line of work, so the plan is not to have to shell out too much on those when they need to be replaced.

Also selling stuff on Ebay - mostly bits and pieces on at 99p but dh got £96 for an old laptop last week. We're OK for clothes, etc., and books (my particular vice) will now come from the library.

reckoner If you need to make international calls often it's worth getting an add on to your phone package. I pay 5.20 per month for 'International Freedom' with BT which gives 600 free minutes to landlines abroad. You're not tied in for 12 months either. They also do an international friends and family which is 1.05 per month and gives discounted call rates. I think talktalk do something similar so I imagine most providers have something like this.

O2 are good if you need to call mobiles abroad, if you get the yourcountry pay and go sim and top up 15.00 you get 100 free minutes to international mobiles.

Of course VOIP such as SKYPE is the best way to call, as it's free

I call abroad A LOT, as you can probably tell.

Thanks for the welcome Reckoner! I agree with MustControl - Skype is brilliant for calls abroad - we use it alot to speak to friends and family abroad on their landlines as well as on their computers.

Thanks for the tea tree tip, Bossy and dinkystinky. Sounds painful, but less painful than almost chopping your finger off... I have a bottle of the stuff that we chuck in the nappy bucket.

Husband is a first aider and he almost marched me off to the minor injuries unit. Think it's trying up now, but will keep an eye on it.

Anyway, I digress. Have cancelled my Kiddicare order and now waiting for my PayPal refund to show in my account - how long does it take normally? Got refunded this morning, but still not showing in PayPal.

I'm a Groupon fan, but buy less of them now. I used to buy things I didn't need just because they were cheap. But stuff like the LoveFilm offers they do (can I get one in my cat's name? She is technically older than 16) are good for gifts. As are the experiences - we got a balloon ride for father in law's 60th by clubbing together. I've had several cheap haircuts too

Just signing in, No spending yesterday but I will have to buy bread and milk today.

Rather strange day today so far money wise.
I popped to Asda earlier, and managed to spend £36, but came away with no food This does include 18 pks of pampers wipes tho, as baby event is on, and cashier didn't realise that you're supposed to only accept 1 coupon per product so I used up all the coupons that I've collected and got all the wipes for £7! Also a book for DH's Bday (June) and several stocking fillers for my 2 boys, as once we move out our outgoings will triple, so trying to do Xmas early.
I rooted through the fridge earlier too, and found several pots of varying puree's made for DS2 who is starting to wean and is being a fussy git! So mixed together carrot, sweet potato, parsnip and swede with a bit of apple puree. Added some veg stock and voila! Soup! Stirred in a bit of philly and it was rather nice for my lunch!!!
Had to take cat to the vet yesterday with an infection so that was £53 waved goodbye too but have managed to transfer £100 to our "moving out fund" so feeling rather pleased about that.
All in all a rather mixed bag!!

mustcontrol and dinkystinky my parents can ring me for free so that's what we normally do. Or I let it ring a couple of times, hang up and they ring me back. They are very scared of technology and haven't got a computer so Skype is not an option. I only ever ring my parents or my gran. The other family member I email or talk to on FB. I would get rid of the home phone completely if it wasn't for my parents and the rubbish mobile signal where we live.

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