September is here and our money-saving steps up a gear

[economymode]

Starting us off for September. Newbies and old hands welcome!

£14.33 in Lidl and £23 in Tesco. Will need a loaf and a litre of milk and possibly some salad before the weekend, but that's it.

£3.01 spent today, on butternut squash and cheese.
Interview went well, came out feeling positive, but never really know with these things. Won't know for about a week tho :(

Tomorrow will have to be a NSD, but not sure what to do with DS2. DS1 is in nursery 9-4. Might have to do some walking practice!!

I hope you get the job Leilandri, it's awful having to wait that long to find out.

Dont forget there is nothing wrong with claiming jobseekers, it's there for people who need it.

I claimed it for a few months, I think I got £20 a week!.

£12.85 on Amazon (after a £5 voucher code deducted). Christmas presents.

£113.09 on Ocado. But I bought loads!. All but two things were on a special offer of some kind. That's nearly all my Christmas shopping done. I only do an Ocado three or four times a year tries to justify.

NSD on Sunday, 13 euros today on lunch with a friend. Would have suggested we get stuff from the supermarket and have a picnic, but it was absolutely miserable weather, so pizza restaurant it was. My first meal out this month though.

Currently wavering over booking a ticket to go home to see my parents for a weekend next month, as feeling guilty after a phone call with my mum. She will pay half my ticket...but it's still not going to be cheap, even with a horrible overnight coach journey one way in lieu of eurostar...I swear, a massive reason for my budget problems is due to travel costs to go home to the UK for various stuff. There is no easy solution in sight, sadly. (CremeEggThief, to answer your previous question I am in France).

Good luck with the job Leilandri, let us know when you hear.

Fingers crossed, Leilandri.

£4 something yesterday on porridge oats and vanilla extract. Porridge season is now officially underway.

£75 this morning (I know) on a heated airer from Lakeland, but last winter was awful with the amount of nappies and clothes we had to wash - we couldn't move in our kitchen. We don't have a tumble dryer, and don't want one. This costs something like 5p/minute to run and I had a £5 voucher Lakeland sent and then found another £5 off promo code online, so got £10 off in total.

I've written a list of stuff we need to get in October and it's quite daunting - xmas presents for nephew and niece, birthday present for my mum (b'day beginning of November), new jeans for MrEconomy (his are getting beyond repair, but will get some from Sainsbos/George) and then a trip to Westonbirt next week. Eek.

That should be 5p/HOUR to run!

economy I just nearly spat my coffee out at 5p per minute for tumbledryer. I was about to phone DH and demand it be taken out of the kitchen!! I'm glad it's 5p per hour...., but it's still expensive. We hang out our washing whenever possible but rely on it in the rain. Perhaps I should invest in an airer....the Lakeland one looks great from a quick Google.

Keeping fingers and toes crossed for you Leil. A week's wait is awful though.

NSD yesterday but I've already spent £23 today on pyjamas for DD, some bread rolls to go with dinner tonight and some tins of soup for work lunches for the rest of the week. Not a great start to the day but never mind...

Tomorrow I have a day off from work and it should be a NSD as I'm frantically studying for an exam.....why I even thought about taking an exam I don't know. I already have my accountancy qualifications so there was no need to put myself through it!! .

Totally forgot - yesterday wasn't strictly a NSD....£4.99 on a Christmas present for DSiL but paid by card online. So easy to forget online spending

Shoop - the heated airer is 5p/hour to run, tumble dryer would be much more I think. I hang out the washing in the garden until the bitter end, but we have one (two come Jan/Feb) in washable nappies and general washing meaning come winter our kitchen is pretty much full of washing ready for the toddler to throw about. Hoping this will speed things up a bit. At the moment we just have standard airers and things take yonks to dry.

The holiday home we stayed in had one of these heated airers and it was great.

Hello

We've had a lovely-cheapish- break. Spent too much money, natch, but far less than staying in a hotel. I can report road tolls of £18-ish each way, so near on £40, petrol about £240. Various days out-most free activities- and a couple of meals out- no idea how much we spent there really.

DDs used a bit more credit from BoM and I bought a £18 hand knitted cardigan which would have cost ten times that in Santiagio because it's artesanal.

Thanks for the approved foods web site economy

Rabbits glad you had a nice birthday.

I need to get a few bits today but first I need to check what's here

Oh economy I think I need a lie down and a ......I got myself so confused!! I'm just going to shut up about all things laundry related. I'm sure 5p an hour is good value when compared to a tumble dryer! I just hope a tumble dryer isn't 5p a minute!!

Adora - glad you had a nice break

If the tumble drier is a 3Kw appliance it will cost 3 x your cost of electric, mine is 11p a unit so 33p an hour. Plus VAT at 5%.

Bosch do a tumble drier that is is only 1.5kw but it's nearly £700.

Sainsburys are doing 25% off TU clothes again, I got round the house clothes and thermals. I love my thermal long johns.

I've put another jacket on our hot water tank, it's really made a difference already. The airing cupboard isnt hot when you open the door now. Wickes is doing them for £5.

economy

Just seen your Q about wedding gifts. The best one we received, IMO, was a bay tree. As in the bay leaves we use in cooking. It will need to be planted but can stay in a large pot for a couple of years quite happily. You can get them from herb garden centers, but it must be an edible bay tree as all other laurels are toxic. I hope you find an idea that works.

Thanks, adora, good to hear you enjoyed your break.

Tbh, I guess you wouldn't have a tumble dryer in for all that long, so although 33p/hour sounds a lot, would you really use it for an hour at a time? Hopefully we won't need to have the heating part of the airer switched on for more than a couple of hours per load.

I got a new, separate tumble dryer, when I had to replace my 10 year old washer/dryer in July. I try not to use it much, but it's fab! I can get a whole load of towels dry in 80 minutes now; it used to take 150 minutes to do 2 bath towels in the old one!

£4.40 on bus fares and £1.15 on milk today. It hasn't stopped raining up here since late Sunday night :(.

Glad you had a lovely holiday, adora :).

I've had to resort to running the tumble dryer :( I'm drying jeans and towels at the moment as they take so long to dry. Our dryer is in our utility/playroom so I'm hanging all the other stuff over airers, closing the door, and the dryer is helping to heat the room and dry that lot too, so not as scarily pricey

Spent £1.45 today on 4pts milk. DH took my last 69p for some chips on the way to his Geek Night, so now I have nothing until Friday

Glad you had a nice break adora
Whereabouts in France are you River? My folks own a cottage in Brittany, it is lovely there, and I benefit from cheap when they go away

Ooh, we have a bay tree in the garden and it's fantastic! I love being able to just go and pluck leaves from there when I want them for cooking. Excellent gift idea Adora.

Leilandri - sadly not in Brittany but in the Paris area. Yes, wine is one of the few things that's a lot cheaper here! Of course that's the only reason I drink so much of it, because it makes economical sense ;-)

Well I thought today was going to be a NSD but I just this moment caved and booked a Eurostar ticket to go to see my parents for a weekend next month. £72 one way. My parents are going to pay half of them though, which is nice. So in a way my total spend today is only £36, which sounds a lot better!

I still need to book and pay for the return leg though, which I'm going to have to do on the horrible overnight megabus. Leaves London at 9pm on Sunday evening, and 8-9 cramped, uncomfortable hours later it arrives in Paris at 7am on Monday morning. Last time I did it it was awful, I couldn't get to sleep and we all had to traipse off the coach at 2am or something to have our bags searched at customs...but, all that said it's only £20! A lot cheaper than any other option, so coach it is. Must remember to pack earplugs and a pillow.

NSD as made homemade bread was beginning to find late night flit to tesco embarrasing.

Had the heating on yest to dry clothes but it felt cold and damp so served 2 purposes. Economy were you inspired by the rain thread - I really like the thought of the lakeland airer if we don't get our tumbldryer fixed.

trains are so expensive riverboat it's nice that your trip is next month and you can look forward to it. Talking of trains did people see about the split ticket thing on the martin lewis programme, was quite interesting I thought.

Well, after my shock credit card bill, Ive managed to sell some stuff to clear half the overspend so I am feeling a bit happier about that. Dh's birthday on the weekend, presents paid for, just need to think of something lovely to cook for him once the children are in bed.

I have budgeted spends for October, will be a tight month, but I think we can do it. Have gone through all the cupboards and freezer and most of the meals until the end of next week are using up things we have. I then have the job of defrosting the freezer ready for christmas to look forward to.

Aldi shop on Friday when dh gets paid, plus a few things from tesco which ALDI doesnt sell. Hoping to do the lot for under £60 (which will include cleaning stuff, toiletries aswell as food)

Think I am able to claim some PPI from an old loan so going to attempt that. Has anyone else done this and how long does it normally take from the initial letter until (hopefully) getting a cheque?

Made some flapjacks today as the cupboards are looking bare and we could all do with a treat!!

Just quickly, riverboat, you may be interested in this: £18 coach return London-Paris for travel until 15 December

And £2 off £10 at £land (can you tell I've just had the MSE newsletter through?!)

yesterday I replaced my non stick pan, which got ruined, used a gift card so I kinda didn't spend £20 on it. I drove to have lunch with OH, £4 on road tolls, wont be doing that very often. This week I just need to buy veg, fruit and a few other perishables. I do, however , need to drive into town again to exchange something DD2 bought in the supermarket. I am planing my week to avoid a third trip. also need to get petrol today, that should be around £60 ish

Theres a £5 off a £35 spend in Aldi in the Daily Mirror tomorrow.