Only Halloween will be scary in October - NOT our finances :)

[Leilandri]

Oldies and Newbies welcome....
Can't believe we are approaching the end of the year so fast. 9 months of money-saving, thriftiness, waste awareness. We deserve a large

HOORAY IT'S PAYDAY!!!

I have been left with £140.59 and my road tax is about £120 so I've managed to pay for it out of my September wage. This might sound good but it isn't because over the course of the month we've had at least £160 extra income so I'd have been overdrawn this month, and still had to pay road tax. MOT is also due on 19th November.

If I didn't have 16 days of November in my old job I would be tempted to SORN my car and just see how we managed with one car in my new job, as new job is within walking distance and we don't need two cars really.

I spoke to accounts lady at current job and she told me on 25th November I will get half a salary as I'm only working til Mid-November. I don't know when I will get paid from new job or how much, so I might have to make half a wage stretch from the end of November to the end of December! This panics me somewhat. Along with the fact I need to have a CRB check, which manager of new job hasn't even sent off yet! (tomorrow) and I only have three weeks til I finish current job so I worry that expecting it to be back in three weeks is optimistic, so I might find myself without a job if it's not back in time. (current employer have said I can't stay on after my notice period!)

DH has an extra job today which he hopes will net him £180 profit, and I've done some private typing work which will pay £240 and I can invoice her at the end of October so I'll put that away.

Anyway this was my spends since I last posted on Friday:
10.00 cash DH
4.00 - lotto
50.00 - cash (for DH)
25.00 - petrol (DH)
9.59 - Morrisons
8.52 - Asda
17.06 - petrol (me)
13.30 - takeaway
37.01 - Morrisons (ridiculous amount for what I bought)
15.30 - prescriptions x 2 (for me - need to get pre-payment certificate)
9.56 - Morrisons

I didn't get round to doing an online shop and so I've been going to the supermarket each day. An online shop would probably cost me around £50 and as you can see this week I've spent £65 plus I still have to get food in for 4 days (I usually have food delivered on a Monday) so I must try and get into the habit of shopping online again.

Try Aldi, I go early morning on a Sunday and whizz round in 20 mins.

£5 off aldi shop in the daily mirror.

Aldi have a twitter page they announce these things on, I dont usually buy a paper so I wouldnt have known if it hadnt of been in chat.

£12 today. A tenner on the childminer and £2 on a loaf and the bus.

Thanks for the tip, fluffy.

Damn, I snoozed and lost with the Aldi offer. Will head over to their fb page.

Can i join please. I'm hoping to spend very little until the new year.

The children are kitted out for the winter now ( all second hand) christmas is almost complete.
I need to make a bunch of draught excluders ard line some curtains so will need to spend a bit there but that will pay back.

I bought a mountain of flour and yeast in tescos three for two yesterday, so will be making all our bread now that bread is so expensive. Usually shop aldi so food bills are low for what we get. (House full of hungry people.)Planning to track food bills again.

Hello Violet and welcome, come on in

I've never tried making bread, I do fancy it though. I'm abroad and food prices here have rocketed too. Glad you got the DCs kitted out for winter. One of mine was given a bag of summer clothes yesterday and she's dead chuffed because our neighbour does semi-designer where we do supermarket or department store sales items.

Today I'll be spending a small amount on road tolls, going to pick OH up from the airport, and refeuling the car. Not much else though. Don't need much shopping next week, but the dogs will need more food halfway through the week, I reckon.

I'll see you all on the November thread, as I'm just about to get on a plane to Majorca! :o

Welcome Violet.

Bread making is great, I very rarely buy the stuff now. If I need bread in a hurry, then I'll make soda bread as it can be on the table in an hour.

Rolling home from a wedding in Devon:

-£150 for two nights at a b&b
-£45 for dinner for three adults on Friday night (we paid for my friend as I owe her birthday and Xmas presents for about the past 3 years)
-£25 on diesel
-£5.99 on a warm hat for the toddler as he needed a new one (outgrown last year's) and there was a freezing wind.

But, I have made about £30 on eBay so far today, selling some old clothes that I couldn't shift locally. I think I've charged enough for p&p this time - when I sold my old laptop, it cost more than twice what i charged to post it.

Hope you have a great time Creme

Over the weekend I spent, £60 on fuel, £2 on road tolls. Today, £5 on fuel, my car is in for service and the loan car was almost dry, £3 on roads, £55 on groceries and £3 on a snack.

Glad you got to treat your friend to dinner economy, it feels rotten when you can't buy birthdays gifts, doesn't it?

Bit late now but can I join you?

On paper we have a good income but from next month we'll be paying rent and a mortgage as we can't sell our house but DH has a job 300 miles away.

We're trying to rent our house out but our Building Society are making life very difficult so we have to remortgage first.

We have a doable budget but it's tight. You seem a nice supportive lot I'm hoping you'll keep me going!

One area I think I can cut down is food. I've cut a third off our food bill but I can do better.

I'm job hunting as my job for the last 6 years has been running DH's company - which no longer exists.

Everyones welcome!

What have you done so far with the food bill? A thirds quite a good saving anyway.

I switched to Aldi for everything I can. I've stopped cooking things that need chicken breasts (they are scaryspensive) I've cooked more roasts and made them last two or more days. Cut down on peppers in cooking (also scaryspensive) bought more special offer fruit and veg and gone back to ruthless meal planning. I've cut down snacks, switched to big bags of crisps rather than multipacks and only taken the money I need for the things on my list to the supermarket. So if I need a loaf I take £2 only and no cards.

I don't have a Wikinsons near me but I will when I move. I hear they're good for household goods.

Next thing to go is the movie channels on sky. Going to replace them with Lovefilm and save £10 a month.

If you go through quidco or topcashback you'll get cash back for that Lovefilm subscription.

Ooh thank you fluffycloud. I'll look into that.

Quidco charges an admin fee, topcashback may be better.

Haven't posted for a while
Welcome Violet and Helenagrace
Helena Peppers and chicken breasts are "scaryspensive" (I'm stealing that word, lol) but we use frozen ones. 750g of Farmfoods frozen chicken breast for £3.49 (Aldi's frozen chick breast are good too) and £1 for a 1kg bag of Farmfoods frozen peppers. Both are just as good as fresh when used in curries, casseroles etc. Well done on cutting a third off bill tho, that is good going.

Over the weekend I spent £5 something in canteen in work, and a further £15 getting bits and pieces from shopfloor before going home. This HAS to stop! I need to go back to lists. I do mealplan, but it's all the extras at the moment, juice one day, bin bags the next and so on. Need to write one big list, and stick to that.

Got to go to Poundland tommorow and pick up a few bits for Halloween. Have decorated the outside of the house, just need a few bits indoors now. hopefully it might even be reduced [hgrin] Happy Halloween Everyone

Hello and welcome Helena, hope you don't mind sharing because I think I'll be using "scaryspensive" too[hgrin]. In return I'll share too, I use chicken thighs instead of breast, and if you do use chicken breast slicing/chopping rather than serving whole means you can halve the quantity. Ditto the thighs, of course.

Squandered £6 today on a snack because I needed sugar, nothing to do with blood sugar I was just [hangry] and didn't want to scoff sweets/chocolate again. Add £4 on roads and £80 on dog food and chew toys, £15 on groceries and I feel I've had a disasterous day. at least I didn't have to pay for the car service as OH is a master arm twister negotiator and got it included in the purchase price.

Lielandri I remember those days of just nipping to the shop floor to buy 1 thing, it never was 1 thing. Other than that, how's the job going?

Had to eat lunch out today, needed painkillers after the dentist so food was essential, £4 on toasted sandwich, water & coffee. £70 on petrol, it's gone up again, and £3 on the roads.

Tomorrow is a public holiday Friday a bridging day and then we have the weekend.

new thread for all those that want to stay on-board!