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

[roguepixie]

New thread for all of us .

FaceCrack. It is good, but I think some things you could buy at the same price at Aldi (if you have one near you). For example, the kidney beans.

But, remember it for next time!

Thanks. No Aldi or Lidl near us unfortunately which is a shame as they do great nappies. We'll be staying at my mums in a couple of weeks so I will stock up then. Anything else I should get while I am there?

Aldi essentials (for me) nappies (if I need to get some emergency disposables), baby wipes, tinned tomatoes, passata, balsamic vinegar, cereals (we eat their 'weetabix', 'shredded wheat', 'bran flakes' and 'cheerios'), tomato puree, olive oil, pasta, tinned sweetcorn and pineapple (all their other fruits seem to be in syrup), tomato ketchup, herbs and spices, flours and baking supplies (sugars, yeast, dried fruits etc, baking powder...), soya milk (if you use it in your family) and cleaning goods (washing up liquid, dishwasher tablets, washing powder, anti-bac spray..). All non-perishable and good quality.

I'd steer clear of their tinned soups and pasta sauces.

Will let you know if I think of anything else.

I agree with spew regarding Aldi essentials, I love their nappies and training pants - refuse to use anything else!
We also rate their stirfry range of straight-to-wok noodles, sweet&sour sauce, they do packet risotto which is lush and quick, they also do a sliced choc-chip brioche loaf, which is a lovely indulgent breakfast (toasted with butter!) and also makes fantastic bread&butter pud :)
Also they doa big block of cheddar (mild or mature) of 836g for £4.99, which as a cheese munching family is a really good price.

I could waffle on praise most of Aldi's products tbh, we LURVE that store!!

Oh yes, agree about the noodles and stir-fry sauces. Not tried the risotto.

Oh fab, thanks so much. I have quite a list now! I'm doing slimming world at the moment so cooking a lot of scratch. I can't get enough of cheap cooking basics!

I'm washing and ironing clothes to sell on eBay tonight. I'm hoping it will raise a bit of cash for a few drinks out one night! Has anyone had much success selling on eBay? Sorry for all the questions.

Was doing well. No cash in my purse so not tempted to spend it. BUT... DS1 wanted a new phone and when he took his old one in he found Orange had an excuse to charge him more than he thought and he was so disheartened I offered to pay for it for him. Such a mug generous person. But he's paying me back a fiver a week from his skittle sticking up money.

Had to buy school shirts for DD. Bugger!

And was persuaded to bribe DS2 with some playmobil as an incentive to get to bed on time

Then needed wellies to go to the N Somerset mudfest Show. £14.99.....

But I also refused to pay 1.09 for dog poo bag and bought budget nappy bags for 27p instead! Hurray!

And we acquired 3 free adult passes for the show so it only cost 18.00 for the 3 kids.

All in all a mixed weekend.

Cheap weekend here, but only because I made DH splash the cash! I spent just under a tenner on lunch for the three of us at a National Trust property on Saturday and £1.88 on milk and a magazine today. He paid for petrol for his car, tea and cake at the NT place, coffee and cake yesterday, a small amount of shopping that was out of stock when I did it online, a takeaway curry and some new work clothing for himself.

I try and ebay as much as possible face I have made quite a bit of money from it at points, different thing sell better for me, I've found plus size clothing sells really well, my newly-slim parents donated me lots of clothes, compared with non plus-size things.
Don't expect hundreds, couple of weeks ago i had 15ish things listed 8 of them sold, made all together about £60.00 not megabucks but alright from stuff i would have thrown away!

I have really mixed experiences from ebay. I can never get clothes to sell (except maternity stuff, that sold ok). But gadgety stuff nearly always sells. I don't think I've ever managed to sell any kids' clothes on it. I try to sell on local classified sites first, as they don't take a cut of any money made from the sale.

I do quite a lot of ebaying. Success is mixed. Sometimes a load of stuff goes on and nothing sells. I then put it on again and most goes . There doesn't appear to be a pattern.

Childrens clothes do seem to be fairly hard to shift - I have let really good jeans (Diesel, Timerland etc) go for a few quid, people just don't seem to want to pay a reasonable sum. On the other hand, adult 'named' stuff tends to go well. CD's and DVD's can be good ... but not always.

The thing is to wait util there is a free listing weekend (you get 100 free listings whe you list at £1 or above). Otherwise, to get you listings free you need to list at 99p or below - you get 100 of those listings every month.

Have had NSDs May 3rd to now.

God, that's nearly a week.

80p today. Hoping not to spend more. Am eating leftovers for lunch which helps too!

Although I have just spent ?38.13 at Approved Foods. (sorry about ? sign- I have a new computer from the US and can't seem to find the pound sign on it).

Did a top-up supermarket shop yesterday, £25, plus face paints for both DDs £7
They are both in the drama class, but different groups and I didn't notice that DD2's set of face paints was three times the price of DD1's. After an hour of whinning I was in a - just take it off the shelf and pay for it mood- which is never good.

I was going to make like a hermit today, but I forgot a bill last week so I really have to pay that-£40. Good news though is it's no longer a weekly occurance, hence me forgetting about it, it's now every third week

OH has just asked me to "make sure there's room in the freezer" for the weekend. He's ordered 6 kilos of fresh sausages from a friend who makes them. She's a vegearian, so she doesn't test her recipes herself. Every few weeks her OH ges told not to eat a heavy lunch because he has to eat numerous sausages in the evening so that she can be sure she's got the spice blend right.

Hello all. Not a bad start to May averaging £60 p/w for food and household about £20 in cash.Does anyone else not get approved foods. There seems to be an awful lot of processed stuff.Most things are as cheap or cheaper in either Lidl or Morrisons ?

Thanks for the eBay advice. I just want a wee bit of spending money as we are having a weekend away in a couple of weeks.

So far today £3.40 for a coffee and a croissant (yes, I live in London). That should be it though.

I'm impressed at 8 no spend days. Wow!

Oooh can i join please? We have been spending frivilously for far to long and it needs to stop now. We are renting as it enabled our lifestyle but we have now decided to save for a deposit to buy a house. We are both awful with money so i'd appreciate any help/tips...

I have £1000 in credit card debt to clear and normally finish each month about £2k into my overdraft so obviously need to clear all that before we can save. All big bills have been paid this month and I'm at about £0 so anything else is overdraft, I've got diesel and food to buy for the rest of the month and 2 big nights out but hoping that if i'm sensible I can finish this month around -£700 which would be a big improvement...

One question if anyone can help- as I am charged by the day for my OD so i need to pay that anyway would I be better using my OD to clear the CCs?

thank you!

re approved foods- yes there is a lot of processed stuff, but there are also things like anchovies, tinned tomatoes, pear juice, muesli etc... And definitely cheaper even than lidl. I have a(nother) medieval banquet at my house in 10 days time so I bought 6 bottles of pear juice today for that and some little chocolates to go on the tables far cheaper than anything anywhere else.

Mama, it's best to clear the most expensive debt first. Work out which is costing you most and focus on that to start with.

You need to start thinking once, twice, three times about the slightest little spend, however trivial it seems at the time. Think- "do I really need this?" And "Can I get it cheaper somewhere else?". Try to accumulate No Spend Days as much as possible and avoid splashing out even if you have to spend some money. Take stock of what you already have at home before buying new things.

Report on here every single penny- it's excellent for keeping yourself in check on the brink of spending money.

And welcome to WW for spending.

Mama, agree with duchesse. Tackle the most expensive debt first. Usually credit card debt is the best thing to get rid of as, if you don't pay off fully each month, you will incur charges. So, get that sorted. With regard to the bank overdraft - am assuming that this is an arranged overdraft so you should not have fees attached to it . If that assumption is correct then defo get the CC debt sorted first.

Cut the extras - coffees, lunches out, magazines etc. Take packed lunches to work. Watch the extraneous car journeys - masses of petrol/diesel used there - walk if you can (exercise as well there ).

Check your direct debits/standing orders to check that thet are up to date and you know exactly what is going out - you may have things there that can be cancelled.

Plus, do you pay your gas and electric on direct debit? Those monthly payments can stack up ... in their favour. We check our regularly - last time we found that we were £1000 in credit to them!!!!! . If that is the case get them to pay it back to you. They will not offer to do this so find out if you are in credit and ask for anything back.

Good luck and welcome to the thread.

p.s. as duchesse says ... posting here keeps a lot of us "in line" .

Thanks both! Overdraft is arranged but it costs £1 per day so I'm paying that whether i'm £500 or £5000 into it, I guess I've answered my own question that I should pay CCs first.

I pay everything on DD and just swapped energy suppliers so no credit there but will remember that for future.

Today I've spent £1.70 on soup a roll and chocolate. Gym then home tonight so no more spending forseen today.

just need to find a way to keep tabs on DP...

First of all, tell him he has to take a packed lunch to work. Bought lunches could be adding upwards of 100 pounds a month per person to your spending.

Mama, buy your food in Aldi.

Honestly you will wonder why you ever went to sainsburys in the first place.

Home made sandwiches are so much nicer than shop bought ones.

Re approved foods. Yes, there is a lot of crap on there, but as duchesse says, there are also a lot of staples. I bought tinned fruit (in juice), olive oil, balsamic vinegar, toilet roll (not sure how that goes out of date, guess they just do offers on it), tinned lentils etc. Nothing processed (well, a few couscous mixes, but no sweets etc). All at cheaper prices than Aldi. Originally, I thought it was all processed rubbish and wasn't planning on buying anything, but then when I looked closer, I realised there is some good stuff. It's a bit like TK Maxx, in that you have to sort through a lot of crap to find the quality stuff .