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

[roguepixie]

New thread for all of us .

Oh shit and $7 on a laptop charger as I dropped mine and broke it. Total spend $103.

Happy birthday to MiniSpew, hope he had a lovely time crawling around

pixie

Glad your back is less painfull, I get spasms if I'm too stressed, no idea if it's similar to your problem. The hyper flexibility doesn't sound good, unless you plan on doing yoga.

Kid's feet, Jeeez. One of mine has inhereted bunions, and they don't do different widths over here. And she's at an age were she wants to choose her footwear based on the style. That's all I'm saying on the subject. Otherwise I'd have to run for the hills!

Right, I really must put this iPad away, I have to prep pack lunches for the DDs, left over roast pork etc for DD1 and chicken soup with extra carrot for DD2.

Tomorrow I plan to scoff use up the left over chicken and pasta from yesterday for my lunch with added mushrooms. I can't think of anything I need to spend money on tomorrow. I still have loads of food stuffs stashed in the garage. Went a bit OTT on the BOGOF's a few weeks ago.

Ooh, almost forgot, dogs need de-worming this month.

ali, you have just reminded me that our beast of a car needs its MOT this month - that will be a few hundred there ... oh, dear lord. .

fishy, don't beat yourself up or feel down about your spends. I read your posts and don't see anything you have spent as unnecessary. You are pregnant and, as sure as God made little green apples (love that expression) you are going to need a fair amount of stuff. Sure you can be careful about what you buy - and as far as I can tell - you are being careful. You need certain items and have to buy them. Is there any way you can increase your income a bit? Is there any work you can do from home? Proof reading? Are you a good baker ... have you any friends who need cakes that you can sell to? Are there any local offices who need admin assistance that you can help with? Or perhaps you could do some babysittng yourself? With regard to the shorts you mention - could you cut off a worn pair of maternity trousers? Or perhaps Ebay might provide a cheaper pair ... if you really feel you need to return the ones you bought? I wish my DS was younger - I would package all his clothes up and send them to you.

chile, oh I am so happy. Some residual stiffness/discomfort in mny back but I am pretty much pain free for the first time in 10 days. So, as far as I am concerned that £80.00 was money really well spent. Hyper flexibility basically means that my joints move more than they should and the muscles in my body allow for greater range of movement. As you say, brilliant for yoga but not for much else. Have to be careful that I don't hyper extend which sometimes doesn't happen ...

Spent £50.00 on Amazon yesterday. Most of the spend is on books for DS and there are some books on pre-order. DS reads so much and so quickly that I think I could be single-handedly keeping Amazon in business . The one thing I do like about Amazon is that, if you have books on pre-order, they sell them to you at the lowest price that book achieves. So, hardback of the new Rick Riordan Kane's Chronicles book was £5.80 ... not bad for a hardback. I know it is a bit to buy hardbacks for children but he re-reads his favourites and we loan them out to his friends so we do get some value for money and also some credit in our 'God-bank' .

Am making two cheesecakes today. My DSis's work has a cake day a couple of times a year - the winning cake gets a prize but, more importantly, people buy slices of the cakes and all monies raised go to Help the Elderly. So, another deposit in my 'God-bank' ... hahahaha.

I spent £20 yesterday and felt like I had nothing. Bread , butter, cheese, fruit & some sausages from the butchers accounted for most of it. Bread & butter have got so expensive.

Oh fishpond, don't be hard on yourself You are having a tough time, and you need the things for the baby and for your DS.

Forgot to say happy birthday to mini-spew

All this talk of shoes has reminded me that both boys will need some sandals and/or garden shoes. I tried buying some for DS1 from the supermarket last summer and they rubbed his foot raw, so I shan't be trying to economise there again!

Oh, can I join? We need to save as much as possible for a house extension project.
Yesterday wasn't bad other than 4.80 on snacks for the car - totally unnecessary other than to feed my chocolate addiction.
However I will be able to bring some to a friend's house today instead of biscuits...

Hello everyone, wow this thread is busy already!

Had a hideously expensive end to April at the weekend! £55 on car tax (can't do much about that, need my car!); £40 on foundation and lipstick at the Clarins counter (should've gone somewhere cheaper, but it's good and will last me ages!); £30 on a steam mop ordered from Amazon (cancelling my cleaner has necessitated this purchase and will save me money in the long run!); £49 at Matalan on holiday clothes for ds1; and finally £15 on lunch at Tesco's cafe!! Expensive weekend in all! Listed a few bits on eBay this weekend though, so hopefully will make a bit of cash from those!

So far for May I've spent £60 filling my car with diesel and £20 on some new wellies for ds1 and presents for a few parties he is going to this month (used 20% voucher for ELC, this coupled with their 3 for 2 offer means I got decent presents for less than £5 each!).

I tried really hard to cut back in April and need to have a look over my bank statement/credit card bill to analyse how much I have saved! Hope it's good news as it's really hard watching every penny.

Took DD swimming this morning (first time ever!) and was annoyed to discover that although her swimming costume has a 'built in swim nappy' the staff at the pool said it wasn't going to be effective enough so I had to buy a nappy for her there too. Only £1 but I spent a bit more on her swimming costume precisely because it said it had it built in! Gah. Still, at least I know for next time and can buy some in Boots rather than paying pool prices every week.

Fingers crossed that plus the £3.50 bus fare to get us there and back will be my only expenditure today. Also I ordered a tablecloth on Amazon ages ago and realised yesterday that it hasn't arrived so I've written to the seller and they're going to give me my money back. I still need to buy a table cloth so it's not really money made but it feels like it in the short term!

Feeling positive about May's finances. I think.

Had to pick something up from Homebase for a friend today, but she will pay me back at the weekend (£5 something). Other than that, nada! And not planning on going out either. However, the internet is at my disposal. But I don't NEED anything. Just want, and there's a difference.

Kaloobear, be warned, if you take your child to swimming lessons, you will most likely have to get a neoprene swimming costume (called a Happy Nappy) that keeps everything inside should the swim nappy not contain it. They're around £10 or maybe cheaper. Just thought I'd mention it, in case you are planning on having lessons.

I am off swimming tonight - I am going to walk so wont have to pay bus fare, and on the way back I am going to pop into Tesco and see if they have any reduced items.

I am determined to start saving as much as possible in my ISA, therefore what I do is I transfer any 'savings' into it straight away.

Thanks Spew-it was a lesson today so hopefully I've got the right kind of costume-or they didn't notice!

I have to get new school bags for the DDs. Nothing wrong with the existing rucksacks the problem is the sheer weight of the books. So, OH is defying the bully head teacher and we're buying wheeled rucksacks? So there.

pixie so glad you are feeling better after your treatment, I agree £80 well spent.

Hi all, nice to catch up with everyone's news today.
Fishpond, you will use all that stuff, so please don't stress. It is not wasteful.

Glad to hear the osteopath helped, Roguepixie :).

I like your ISA tip, Voidka.

Today I will have spent £15.43. £1.43 on bread and a paper, £7.90 on Costa for DS and I in town (pre-swimming lesson snack) and £6.10 on bus fares.

Well the marked down foods going well....except I picked up a pot of coleslaw for 9p that has milk in in (am allergic ffs) and dh hates coleslaw.

Someone else got the joint of beef I went back for. They do two lots of markdowns so I drove back and it had gone. Just a beef shaped space where it should have been. Sigh.

Today I got;

gammon hock joint 99p
3 packs of cooked chicken slices 49p each (cat had one)
coleslaw no one can/will eat 9p
vanilla fresh cream slices 39p
warburtons wholemeal bread 800g 19p
2 big packs of garlic sausage slices 39p each
cheese and onion large sandwich filler 75p.
Butchers choice sausages 49p a pack.

I'm starting to find Aldi expensive by comparison. I mean, a whole £1 for sausages? daylight robbery, that's what it is.

Oh and I was in sainsbos the other night and bought tangerines that were £2.70 marked down to 20p.

Who the feck looks at 8 tangerines and thinks "£2.70, thats a fair and reasonable price for fruit". And do you think they might want to adopt me?

Can I clarify this is extra spends? So petrol (£65 ouch), regular mutual aid savings (£50) and karate for 2 kids (£5) are normal and not required to be admitted as evidence :o

Cos if so, I have only spent 99p on a SIM card and £1.50 on a birthday card .

Tomorrow I have to pay childcare for the week - necessary evil!

fluffy :o at those tangerines! I feel mean saying "NO" to various fruit, especially as it does all get eaten but thats ridiculous!

Our local supermarkets are a nightmare at markdown time sadly I don't think I can face that.....tempted tho, the markdowns are fab if you time it right!

Well I am not going swimming now as DH has had to work late, so I have saved myself £3.90 - although that means I cant go and see if there are any bargains in Tesco.

fluffy - before my frugal drive I probably would have got those tangerines without blinking.

I need to add an extra £11 to my spend. I was tempted by two DVDs in HMV! In my defence, I really wanted to see both films in the cinema and didn't get around to it, and they don't seem to be available for hire on lovefilm.com (only on Blu-Ray, which I haven't got). I very rarely buy DVDs, as I usually think of them as a waste of money, apart from some box sets and kids' classics.

So my total spend for today comes to £26.43 now.

I think with fruit/bread it gets eaten so fast it hasn't got time to go off. I freeze bread as it's only us.

Don't forget to register your debit card with quidco to get cashback at selected stores. The list isn't great at the moment but I'm hoping more retailers will join.

There was a lot Levi jeans at tk maxx today & some lovely decorations, if you were getting married you could clean up, they had tigi bed head, plus Lancaster makeup bronzer for £8.

How do you know when markdowns happen and what will be marked down? Or is it just a question of turn up and see? I've never seen any markdowns in our Sainsburys local

Well our local supermarkets shut at either 8 or 10.

So I went to the 8pm one at 4 by chance and their were markdowns, 2pm the markdowns were not as good, so I had this week off and I have been going at 3.30 or so. This seems to be the best time for that one. Aldi hold their nerve for longer so more like 8pm (they shut at 9pm).

Sains and asda seem to do theirs about 8ish. Sains shut at 10 so they want it off the premises. I assume they have to pay a refuse company to take unsold food away.

So that's what I do after work now. I'm usually home about 2pm so it's no trouble to nip in. Tinned stuff, pop etc I still get in aldi because you can't their beans and peach flavour water.