Meagre May ... watching our bank balances go up instead of down

[roguepixie]

New thread for all of us .

Spew, there is no way I would've taken my double buggy on a bus! Far too much hassle (and I loved my double buggy too!). I second the sling and single buggy idea!

Last few days.... £15 on paddling pool for DCs, £75 on Tesco shop, £5 on a McDonalds for lunch , and £5 on lunch at work today!!! Not so good, but been so busy I didnt manage to take my own lunch into work, I have made my lunch for tomorrow now, determined to get back into that habit!!!

Another supermarket spend, stocking up on German biccies for OH and sweets for DDs. They are allergic to tartrazine, so a lot of local foods and treats are a problem. Also bought a gift for a party on Sat and fruit, which is still in the car-must get in in before I go to bed- washing powder and bits for the dogs, £40 in total, plus 2.40 on the roads.

I have to be here tomorrow, so I'm going to go through the food in the garage and make a list, must get myself back on track.

Aldi shop was just under £30. I swear even stuff there is getting more expensive (or I'm kidding myself and buying more).

Cheapo paddling pool from Argos (£3.99 and seems good enough).

Also £6 on sun hat for the boy Spew as I forgot to put it in the bag and we were going to be out a long time so couldn't really do without one.

Morning! Well with the NSD in mind I brought some leftover pasta to work. I am terrible for spending money at lunchtime. May have to get a couple of bits for tea later though - does it still count as a NSD if I get DH to buy them! Oh and I need petrol . Well, at least I have saved money on lunch !

Spew, I think aldi is creeping up in price too.

You cannot get that toro loco wine that won an award the other day in my local aldi now.

Prices keep going up here too. Today I anticipate spending about a tenner, excluding road tolls. Haven't ventured out, past the dustbin anyway, yet. DD1 needs yet more underwear, I swear I'm going to stop feeding her if she doesn't stop growing.

Hello Greedygirl, taking my lunch to work was the only 'meagre' thing I managed today too! I spent £40 in Sainsburys on a few bits and then 2 bottles of wine (£12) and a playsuit for my hols (£16) which fell into my basket!! And then I spent another £12 at Aldi on some ice lollies, and ingredients for some biscuits I'm going to bake tomorrow.

Still think Aldi is extremely cheap Fluffy, even if prices are going up! I am not usually brave enough to try the wine though, have you any other Aldi wine recommendations apart from the Toro?

I like this one. I have a wset certificate so I'm not un-educated about wine.

I didnt like the cava though, or the Macon Villages.

They do Wolf Blass presidents selection sometimes and some german spatlese and eiswein. I hate german wines though. We get the crap and they keep all the best for themselves.

The rossini beer is quite good too, it's their version of Peroni.

If I want wine I quite often go to Sainsbos and see what they have on offer, I had a lovely sauv blanc in there on hol for about £4-5 .

I'll try that one, thanks Fluffy and the Aldi Peroni sounds good too, I do like the occasional cold beer on a hot summers night!

I spent £25.30 today, on shopping, bus fares, and a takeaway I had to get. Stupidly, I left the oven on while I went up for a shower, completely forgetting last night's leftovers (which we were meant to have tonight). Worse than that, I'd left the plastic lid of the Pyrex dish on! It was in half an hour before I realised :(. So I was panicking, wondering how to get it out, and not start a fire! Luckily, it was all okay and I managed to not set the fire alarm off, getting it out. We'll just have to invest in a new Pyrex and clean the oven, but it could have been much worse. So, thought it best to give the cooker a night off, and got a pizza takeaway. Yum:)! Oh, DS and I also had ice lollies, so another £2.70, to total of £28.

creme egg

I once put a pizza in the oven on thevplastic pizza board, sat down to read with DDs, thought " what's that awful smell..OMG the plastic boooooaaaarrrrd!"

It was dripping off the shelf into a pool on the bottom tray, took weeks to get rid of the smell

Well, I still have my tenner, CBA to go to the shop in the rain, even in the car. I shall keep it for next week

Another who thinks Aldi and Lidl still good value. Not sure about the wine - I also went to sainsburys and got a lovely Sauvignon blanc (NZ) on offer.
Spent £60 on weekly food shop yesterday but that was it. I'm hoping for a NSD today, friends are over for a BBQ and I've made burgers from mince in the freezer and got some chicken drumsticks yesterday.
Have a lovely sunny day everyone!

I've also done the plastic thing! Easily done .

All you Aldi experts!!!....

Having a joint party for ds1 and dh on 9th (cakes ordered so no issues there)

Does Aldi do bucks fizz - or something similar? If they do lager and cider - is it ok? (I dont really drink so really have no clue here)

I also want some "party" food - was going to go to asda but any tips on aldi stuff appreciated!

oh! and do they do cheese boards?...

No to cheeseboards, but you cheese there is cheap but really good. Ditto the crackers.

They do bellini in a champagne bottle, there version of pimms is only £6 though so some of that and the premium lemonade (33p) might be suitable too, it would be lovely in this sunny weather.

badvoc we have tried lots of wines, beers, spirits from Aldi and they have all been ok. The do a cheap "pimms" called Austins, which is just lovely with lemonade and fruit.
Check out the freezer sections, as they do good prices on chicken nuggets, little pizzas, sausage rolls, mini corn-on-the-cobs. They do a good range of crisps and nice salsa dips, breadsticks, oatcakes etc. Lots of different cakes and cookies.
Don't do cheeseboards as such, but they do a good selection of cheeses, blue, brie, cheddar, smoked etc.
Hope that helps - as you can tell I'm an aldi fan!!

I like the cooked meats and smoke salmon, the ciabatta, the chilled pizzas, the coleslaw etc.

It depends what you mean by party food. People in my family think pork pie with egg in the middle is the pinnacle of culinary luxury.

Still got that tenner in my pocket but I can't actually claim a NSD as OH made me pay for lunch it came out of the joint account, just I signed the debit slip. That was £60. We'd been car shopping, finance is up in two weeks and we need a cheaper alternative, and we were in the wrong part of town to get a cheap lunch, and way to late to get to the cheaper places.

Add to that road tolls at £3 and we bought the DDs roller skates for £70 - for both DCs.

fluffy my ILs don't even need to have egg in their pork pie to scaling the dizzy heights. By comparison I'm a snob

Unfortunately it's my side with the pork pies. Sigh.

If you want beer for the party badvoc I know the Rossini beer aldi do is nice, it's £1.49 for a 660ml bottle. I didnt like the cider in the glass bottle that was I think their version of Magners, it was just too weak.

Can't comment on the alcohol at Aldi as we don't drink the stuff.

But, another vote for their cheeses, and they also do some decent frozen pizzas that you could pimp up and cut into slices. Decent enough houmous and salsa.

Good cheese straws, bread sticks, tortilla chips etc. Decent juices. Grapes, strawberries & blueberries at decent prices for a fruit salad (and really good frozen fruits if you fancy making an eton mess or similar). And, big packs of free range eggs to jazz up salads (hard boil them!).

Finally managed a NSD on Saturday!!!

Today has been more expensive though with £12 at Sainsburys on tat treats for the kids (and me) and something extra for lunch that we didn't really need.

Then I took ds1 shopping for summer shoes and clothes and spent £20 at M&S on 3 pairs of shorts and 2 vests, which I thought was good value. And then £18 on some sandals from Clarks and a pair of trainers reduced to £15. So £65 in total today from me!! Not bad for the entire weekend though, and considering I got quite a lot of clothes and shoes for my cash.

Took the DDs ice-skating today, don't how much as I wasn't paying attention, OH paid. Lunch was £35, roads £2 and £40 in the supermarket. I use a Brita water filter jug, a 3 pack of filters is about £18. Without them the water is undrinkable, clean but with so much chlorine the kettle furs up within a fortnight.

No plans to spend money tomorrow, but I do plan to go out so I anticipate a coffee at least.

Aw, glad to hear I'm not the only one who has done the plastic in the oven thing :).

I have spent about £37 pounds all weekend, mostly on travel and extra food. We had two days out, to Beamish and a National Trust property, but they were both free entry, as we had an annual pass to the former (squeezed in one last visit just before it ran out) and are members of the latter.

Hope everyone has been enjoying the lovely weather :).