Abstemious April ... the trials continue

[roguepixie]

Righty-ho, here's the April thread.

After a disastrous March I am more than ready to get to grips again with all things frugal.

If you don't mind secondhand clothes, I always get mine & DC's clothes from car boot/charity shops. At car boot you may be lucky & find one person clearing out a wardrobe in your DC's size & get the lot for £30 or so. There should be lots of car boot sales this weekend, as it is the 2 bank holidays. And last year, I got a pair of toddler-size mock crocs for DS1 from Tesco for about £3.

Thanks Alibaba for the tip about Sainsburys, I need a few spring clothes for DS1, so that is helpful to know!

Am pleased to report that I have stuck to my meal and shopping planner that I devised for this month, expecting a delivery from Tesco tonight which cost about £50, which with a few top ups from Aldi should see me through til next Friday. Tesco are also giving you a £5 voucher off your next spend over £40 which will come in handy. Just hope there aren't too many bizarre substitutions this time, and plenty of date left on my fresh items.

Ispywith I think £60 per week should be easily manageable if you plan carefully and cut back to the value brands, especially if you have plenty left in your freezer. Fruit and veg are really cheap in Aldi if there is one near you? Look for the Super 6, I got broccoli, 2.5kg of potatoes, bag of onions there for 39p each last week, which is amazing compared to other supermarkets.

£46 in morrisons today. Got loads of reduced chilled pies/pasties for the freezer for DH packed lunches. Stocked up on fruit, soft cheese and breadsticks as DS2 is moving onto finger food with his weaning. Got all the veg for Easter Sunday lunch, mostly basics range - won't notice when roasted. Packs of 4 bars of cadburys choc are down to £1 per pack, so stocked up there too. Not doing eggs for Easter this year, but going to tie nametags to the choc bars as place markers on Sunday, 25p a bar is much better than an egg

I have my mums staff discount card for morrisons, so got 10% off the shop (£4.60) re-invested that into £5 of savers stamps for Xmas. I'm managing to put away £15 a month in stamps, purely from the 10% saving, so Xmas food will be all paid for :)

Realised today why I was so skint. Poor planning with a regular bill saw £50 go instead of £10 and my bank account which my sister uses were being arsey about out being in the red so I put in £80 with the intention of drawing it out the week after and I forgot! will get that on tuesday so can now go to aldi tomorrow and get lindt bunnies and something for sunday tea.

I'm doing a nearly new sale in June so will have a look for sumner clothes for the dd's. Dd3 has all dd2s old clothes so she is ok but dd2 has nothing summery yet.

Am trying to save now sure the holiday so any ebay/sale money will go to that, if I hadn't bought dd1 her cello I could save £50 a month easy so will be trying even harder to save on shopping. I have already done an inventory of toiletries and we have enough to last us 3 months at least

Oh. My. God. £250 in Costco . It is my 6 week Costco run so it's not as if this happens every week ... .

Did get lots for my money though .

roguepixie. That's the very same reason I used for shopping on Tuesday, for next week, after getting this week's shopping on Monday.

Today I paid the gardener, either he's upped his rates or OH mis-informed me, £30 more than I expected. Roads were £4 and the last of the Easter eggs along with some fruit juice and salad took care of another £16.

I'm planning to spend most of the weekend at home so shouldn't send much doing that

Shouldn't spend much

Chile . I know ... I have done this for the past 2 weeks. So far I am shopping for Christmas 2013

Have a very abstemious day tomorrow. More planting up seeds and planting out my blackberry and gooseberry bushes. Had to buy more compost today after getting through 2 mahooooosive bags I bought on Tuesday . Got a huge bag of it from Costco for £6.00 + pennies.

DH's birthday today cooked lovely steak for dinner and made a cake for him. We've been together so long it's almost impossible to buy him anything he has already got now. So, after he mentioned he wanted to do some cooking and, as he likes Heston, I bought him Heston's new book. He now needs to get in the kitchen and cook ...

Total spend today: 60p on air to pump up my tyres And quarter of a tank of diesel to go and visit some friends, but that was already paid for.

I only have another £3 in road tolls to add to my

roguepixie

I always struggle to find a gift for the OH, hope your's enjoys his book.
Must get started on my shopping list for next week, 2014

Not a good day today:
40odd quids in Sainsbury's (Had to buy pull-ups) and got a leg of lamb for Sunday lunch (currently half price)
then 77 quids in waitrose incl a fair amount of bargainous meat. I really must stop buying meat now as the freezers are jam-packed

I signed DD3 up to a gymnastics session today so will get bill in post eventually.

Yes but Debs if you hadn't bought her cello you'd have to rent one so that wouldn't really be a saving. At least this way she has her own cello!

ds1 has just informed me he wants to go to horse riding lessons

Just got an email from Ebay: No insertion fees for Friday 6th through to Monday 9th April ... so 4 days of free listings on Ebay. Valid on 100 listings of £1.00 or more.

chile, my DH is an absolute horror to buy for (just like his DMum) - it must be a family trait. They just don't see the point!!!! . I do kind of see their point - they believe in rewarding throughout the year (not the right words but I can't seem to explain what I mean ...) DMIL will buy gifts for us throughout the year because she sees the need or likes what she has found rather than stick to a particular day ... DH is the same. I've finally decided to work with that and get them a small'ish gift for the day and then do what I can throughout the year. Although, I find men in general hard to buy for ... it's all power tools and wood in my house and I've no idea .

Oh Bec I feel your pain, dd1 loves riding and at £17 an hour it is pretty expensive, although that is pretty cheap to many other places. DD2 likes it as well so every couple of months that is an extra £9 for her half an hour. Do you have a few places to choose from? It is vital IMO to find a family friendly place which will go at his speed and letting them be around the horses to groom them helps them learn so much more then just being on top.

Duchesse unfortunately our music service does free hire, although they have had a huge budget cut so I can see a hire charge coming in soon.

Duchesse - you should now set yourself a target to eat what is in the freezer and not buy anything else for at least 5 days!

My freezer has 4 duck legs, fillet steak, smoked mackeral, lots of innocent pots for lunches, baguettes and tuna steaks.

We now have to eat that before I re stock!

debs £17 an hour???

Oh dear.

He has been asking for a while and when we went to center parcs a couple of years ago I booked him a lesson as a b day treat which he really enjoyed.

Oh dear.

Sorry bec my advice would be to research a few schools in your area and ask other mums at his school if they take their dc's anywhere good and how they rate schools. Then ring them explain about ds1 and ask for a show around the yard to meet the horses and a half hour private taster lesson. You are looking for happy horses, good hats for hire and good knowledge from someone when fitting a hat. Don't worry too much on facilities, dd1's stable is falling apart but the horses and instructors are wonderful, and really good with little ones. Trek outs are usually cheaper but he will have to have a couple of people leading him so might want to wait abit for that.

If he really likes going that when it gets expensive, he meeds a good hat fitted well so at least £30 upwards, stout heeled shoes/boots although tesco do them pretty cheap, dimpled gloves from the pound shop and if he starts getting goood and they do shows, well I will wait until you get to that stage, you may well faint and never get up.
But the therapy side of horseriding is brilliant and loads of people benefit so try him out.

thanks debs

Hi, hope everyone is enjoying the Easter weekend so far.
I spent £30 or so on a day out for DS and me yesterday and some eggs, soup and wine from the Co - op.
DH is home for the weekend, so I had an afternoon out on my own at an art gallery. I spent £16 on travel, lunch and coffee and cake. I saved money on the bus fare home, as I would have had a long wait for one, so I walked the 3.5 miles home. It only took about 50 minutes, so pleasantly surprised.

Didn't manage a NSD yesterday, spent £30 on clothes for DS1 and Easter eggs at Sainsbury's (25% off though so a bit of a saving!), £27 at Pets at Home on a scratching post for the cat (who has literally been tearing the stairs carpet up) and another £16 at Asda on some wine and veg.

Still thinking about whether or not to keep our cleaner. To be honest, we could really do with keeping the £150 each month but I'm afraid that our house would descend into a dusty mess as it takes me all my time to keep on top of the tidying, never mind adding dusting, cleaning floors/windows etc in to the mix! Decisions, decisions...

Another thing I have been doing as recommended on another thread, is to use half of a dishwasher tablet instead of full ones! Have been doing this for a couple of weeks and no difference noticed as yet, so have halved the cost of cleaning my dishes!

Happy Easter everyone! [busmile]

Also, just checked my clubcard on the tesco website and I have £38.50 in unspent vouchers that I didn't know about! Have been meaning to do it for ages since someone else mentioned it but really didn't think I would find any, as I normally redeem them all at Christmas!

Would definitely recommend doing this, to anyone who has a clubcard! Now just need to decide what the best rewards on offer are. Does anyone know if they are likely to do the 'doubling up' offer again soon?

Dh told mil aldi digestive biscuits are nicer than her mcvitie digestives, ooh the looks I got after that! I'm allergic to milk so I can't eat them.

I got national trust membership from quidco with 30% cashback and free binoculars! Now I'm looking at wicker picnic hampers on eBay.

I think April is going ok, but not really sure. I seem to be spending most of my time baking for a fundraising sale I'm organising at the weekend. I consider the amount of money I've spent on flour, sugar, eggs etc as my donation. Didn't get easter eggs, so I guess that's some money saved.

Is the sainsbos 25% off on clothes still on today?