No-spend January/Frugal February - the no-spend challenge continues

[roguepixie]

OK - am attempting to start the second thread ... hope this works.

Hi all, just catching up with the past few days. Re ebay I've not listed anything in ages since our toddler bed plus mattress went for the grand total of £15! So I have ditched ebay and instead have decided to declutter and save up all the old toys, clothes, CD's, DVD's etc for a car boot sale in the spring! DH has LOADS of CD's to sell and we made loads of money from these at our last car boot a few years ago. We also need to declutter to make room for DS3 who is coming in June... :)

I've been doing OK here spending wise- NSD today! However, the gas /elec bill is due for the past quarter and it's £600!!!!!! does this seem massively high to you? We are also getting our bath panel tiled tomorrow and that will be £60. Hmmmm, maybe I'm not doing so well after all! DS1 has a party to go to on Sat with 2 pressies to buy but I am regifting 2 things the DS's got at Xmas that they already have :)

Redant glad the party was a success!

Reckoner really hope you get the job.

Had a lovely surprise today, was only expecting 2 days pay on my last check an got paid for 3 instead so that should take care of nice lunch.

Regarding beauty, I am still using up all my make up and moisturisers etc. I have bought tooth paste and other toiletries but kept an eye out for deals for those. I have a tiny house so buying in bulk is tricky for storage. I got a huge bottle of Neutrogena body lotion with my Boots points (just over £5). I buy Clinique stuff often and wait for Bonus Time to get a free gift set (they sell well on Ebay!).
Boots have of course got the Advantage Card but I found out today that Debenhams has a Beauty Club and you can part pay with the points. I suppose that's only handy if you buy premium beauty though.
I mentioned this before, but Waitrose make up remover is fab. Bottle is huge and it's cheap. I dye my hair at home and that costs around £4.
But yes, my advice is to take stock of what you have and use that up first.

Some great cheap/free beauty tips I have come across:

1. After you have had a bath and washed your hair, put conditioner on and wrap your hair on tinfoil while you watch telly for a bit, before washing it out and styling your hair nicely.

1. Decant some ordinary olive oil into a small bottle with pipette, and put a bit on your nails every night before going to sleep, and rub it in, for wonderful nails and cuticles.

1. Put moisturiser on your face while you are soaking in the bath so it acts as a kind of mask and plumps your complexion out a bit.

Fishpond - brilliant news - on job, baby and buggy! So pleased for you.

Jen - thanks; I may have to bug you with some annoying questions soon - just had a quick look at both Quidco and TopCashBack and confused already! Think it is too late to be up trying to read stuff. Will return to this later...

Boffin - I like that idea. Just had a lovely long soak in the bath with a book and was lovely and obvs completely free (well apart from the gas for the hw). I think health and beauty and pampering is one of the areas where it's easiest of falling into the trap of wanting to buy things to feel treated (because you don't have much time and you're walking past Boots and decide a new eyeliner will make all the difference etc...) when actually a lot of the time it's the free things like just carving out a bit more time to dry your hair properly or paint your nails or whatever that actually really make you feel better.

If anyone's into the more hippy side of frugal beauty btw, e.g. making your own cosmetics, I thought this book was really interesting and useful - www.amazon.co.uk/Skin-Deep-essential-toiletries-cosmetics/dp/1905744234/ref=wl_it_dp_o_npd?ie=UTF8&coliid=I1N8L6KB60M854&colid=2RVII6DBTLRRQ - with lots of recipes for homemade stuff and good explanations of what all the components of cosmetics actually do so you can distinguish what's worth paying for and what's not.

Morning all. NSD yesterday, but haircut today, so that's not going to happen. However, the nice lady is giving me a discount (can't remember why, exactly, but that'll make it a little cheaper).

Also, I may have a little bit of translation work. May. So, fingers crossed.

Will get my thinking cap for wellbeing tips.

Keeping everything crossed for you reckoner. Also glad the party was a success and well done DH for getting the disposable bargains.

Well done fishy, hope you have a lovely weekend and really enjoy some spending - those 30 types of cheesecake do sound good

Don't know how many of you live in London? However, our delightful Mayor has an initiative running (it runs out at the end of March) in some Boroughs in London (Brent and Camden are two) that enable you to find out about home energy efficiency. It is called RE:NEW and is run through a team called 'Green Doctor'. It does NOT cost anything. You call and if you are in the right area (ie an area they are operating in) they will come to your house and talk you through various cost cutting measures - they will also give you an energy metre, shower head (that saves litres of water), radiator panels (that help stop energy leaking out through walls), lightbulbs etc etc. I am not a green doctor so have nothing to sell here (although it does sound a bit like it )
Call 0300 365 3005 to find out whether your area/street is covered - if it is a rep will come out to you and talk you through it. As I said, there is nothing to sell, you don't sign up to anything...it is just an aid to help people save money through being efficient with energy. The offer is time limited (end of March) and area limited but give a call and see if you are covered.

A couple of tips for health and beauty:

1. Clarins have a loyalty card (in some department stores). It is linked to their spa's. Every time you spend on their products (minimum spend applies) you get points added until you eventually get enough for a treatment (for free). You do not have to use the points within a certain time frame so lots of time to build those points up! I know Clarins is not the cheapest make (but it certainly isn't the most expensive) and it is well regarded and their products are good.

1. Waitrose Baby Range. They have a product called 'Baby Bottom Butter' which is made from olive oil and essential oils. It is only £2.99 (or thereabouts) and is a lovely alternative to Vaseline. It is made for their baby range but has been noted in quite a few papers and magazines as a budget buy for adults that really works. It is a kind of cheap alternative to Arden's 8 Hour Cream!!!!!!! If you get stressed, dry, chapped skin then putting this on when you go to bed at night or if you are in all day really helps. Make sure it is the 'Bottom Butter' though.

Meh, didn't get the job, but at least I got to practice my interview techniques :)

I have read a really interesting book on economising which was written in the thirties and is still very current. Ok, the language is sometimes a little old fashioned, but the ideas and general style of it is great. It's called Orchids On Your Budget.

Sorry to hear about the job reckoner. It can only mean there's a better one around the corner

The only things I can think of to add to the health/beauty tips are 1) I always ask for shower gel, bubble bath etc for my birthday. That way, I don't have to pay & I get nicer stuff than I would buy myself. 2) To get moisturiser, suntan lotion & shampoo, in the past, I have joined up to various testing panels that send you things to try out & review - Tesco Home Panels is the best one of these.

Today's spend has been £1.50 on tea at the park with my friend & her DS, £1 on yoghurts for the kids, should last until next weekend now & £2.15 on chips for me & DH - a treat for losing 3lbs this week and only spending about £16 this week!

Spent a little at the grocery today doing a big shop for my grandmother. So hard to resist good bargains - particularly ones attached to the names Ben and Jerry

So spent about $8. Tomorrow will be the big spend - I know I'll gulp when I see the total but $300 going on a brand new still in box $700 pushchair so must remember I've actually saved about $400.

I have been making a real effort with meal planning and using up leftovers, and tonight I used up the spinach, lettuce, broccoli and courgette that were about to dissolve in the bottom of the fridge to make a ridiculously green soup that will go in the freezer, and made a healthy butternut squash pasta bake using only ingredients we had at home, apart from some rosemary that I foraged from the park! I even made and froze breadcrumbs from our stale home made bread as it seemed such a shame to waste it. It all feels a bit time consuming at the moment, but it is very satisfying knowing that we're not wasting food and saving money. I've also been watching Superscrimpers on 4OD!

Bad spend day:
£2.20 on post rowing coffee
£38.10 in The Range on absolute essentials (OK, so I slightly fell off the wagon there)
£27 in H&M on two pairs of trousers for DD2 (essential as she only had 1 pair of jeans and 1 pair of trousers that accidentally spent 3 months in a flower bed and were falling apart) and 1 cute little birdie skirt for DD3 that she absolutely did not need but looks really sweet.

Sorry you didn't get the job reckoner. Their loss and it frees you up for that brilliant job that is on it's way to you.

fishy, well done on such an amazing find. You need the item so it is a real saving to be buying a new one for $400 less - huge saving.

I always use my stale end of loaf homemade bread for breadcrumbs. I try to rip mine up into bits and stick them on a baking tray. I then put that in the oven when I am cooking something else - that way they dry out and don't go mouldy/off when you put them away after whizzing them up into crumbs. If you put them in the oven when you are cooking something else it doesn't cost you extra energy to heat the oven either . (Got that tip from Saint Hugh of Fearnly & Whittingstall...so can't claim it as my own)

Had a NSD here yesterday and looks set to be a NSD again today .

Meant to say that the breadcrumb essay was in response to ouroboros and not some random, lack of caffeine induced statement .

I think I might need two cups of coffee before posting next time ............

Hi everyone ....been making my way through this thread as I too need to cut back

Some great ideas . Have just done an order from approved foods and was amazed at how much I got for my money!

Have cut back on washing powder now only use half the amount and can't say I really notice any difference.

My food bills had really got out of control and this week has made me realise that I need to be working smarter to reduce them.

Purchase of the week was my 4.99 aldi free range chicken which was gorgeous. Did a roast dinner for 4 , followed by chicken curry for 4 then made a stock using the carcass. I am going to use that stock for risotto tonight. Great value. Hadn't been to aldi before but thought their products were great.

Thanks for everyone's tips.........

An alternative way to use stale (or past it's best) bread, is to make bread pudding (quite different to bread and butter pudding). It's a favourite of DD1 and mine, and I do a half qty of this recipe in a shallow tin 19cm x 19cm. A friend tells me that bread pudding freezes well, but I haven't had it stick around long enough to test that. Also a great use for all the crusts if nobody eats them - stick them in the freezer and defrost when you have enough to make one of these...

Hi, I have just bought a new house and need to economize. So I thought it might be good to have a poster along the lines of KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON in a prominent place except saying something like DON'T SPEND ANY MONEY.
Except in possibly a funnier or more attractive way. I have googled proverbs but things like waste not want not aren't quite what I had envisioned.
The best one I have found is ' by sowing frugality we reap liberty, a golden harvest'
Can anyone suggest something catchy that might work?

Have a look at the Imperial War Museum online shop...very inspirational.

www.iwmprints.org.uk/?utm_source=patronmail&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=PrintsNewsJan2012

I saw HFW making breadcrumbs, and now have lots of frozen ends of loaves which have never made it into the oven... BUT Parttime has just reminded me how much I love bread pudding so they might finally get used up! Am off to hit the charity shops and do some crockery shopping with my sister. Hope you all have frugal weekends.

I wish I could freeze all those end of loaves ouroboros. Sadly my freezer is just not big enough .

Am definitely having a frugal weekend ... nothing spent so far.

Good luck with the charity shops and crockery shopping.

ooh I saved about £300 today!

The dining chairs we have have seen better days and I told DH we needed new ones as they were a bit embarrassing and-filthy

He had a look at them and said if we had a go we could re-upholster them.

I borrowed the staple gun from a friend and we went to the market and bought some plain red material for £8! We have just done them and they look fab!!

Am so happy!

Hi all! Should be back on track now dad has gone home!

We have had a lovely week with him here, but spent far too much money! Lunch out, a chinese takeaway, oh and new roof bars for the new car! Need to sell the old set, but no luck locally, so can see me needing to package them for the dreaded ebay!

Really do need to reign in the spending, and stick to a budget. This week has been fab in a carefree spend way, but we really couldnt afford it!!!

Hope you are all having a good weekend! Roll on monday and kids back to school!

Hooray Gossip! The essence of making do and mending. And it is relatively easy to do as well.

Hi all not been on for a while as DH has this annoying habit of switching the computer on when he has finished with it. And DD3 has been poorly and is only happy on my knee.

Had the 'big' shop on Fri and spent £160 which is about normal, we did buy dd1 some new school trousers,£10 and me a new top for going to the theatre,£9 and DH got some Batman LEGO,£11. then I paid my bills and sorted out my savings and ended up down by about £350. Today I managed £6 at the bakery and then £22 at McDonalds for tea.
Also had to look at more prom dresses as the lovely elegant one off Ebay is too small due to DD's huge boobs. She is a 14 and from her midriff down it fitted fine but the zip was abut 2" off closing. I think if we buy one off Ebay it will have to be a 16 and I hope I can get it taken in. She has now changed her mind and likes the more princess puffy ones, she did look gorgeous in one, so we are looking at £200+ again. We do have a couple of discount stores to look in so my fingers are still crossed on getting a bargain.

Half term next week so a bit of extra spend on dinners but we have no big days out planned which should help keep costs low.

Will get on with listing small stuff on Ebay again now I know under 99p is free to list. I also have stuff on Netmums, Gumtree, Cloth nappy tree and Greenmetropolis. Something should sell and what doesn't is coming to a car boot sale wioth me when the weather warms up