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

Yesterday was £525 left with 15 days left until pay-day

Today is £482.12 with 14 days left until pay day

DH took £10 out yesterday for fish & chip supper
£7.99 in interest was taken out today
DH has taken £10 out for himself today

I went to Tesco this morning to buy a bottle of pepsi max, and whilst I was there I fell in love with a leopard print top at £14. Unfortunately although I did not have my debit card with me, I did have my credit card so I paid for it on that. However in my defence I have just now credited the exact amount back to my credit card from internet banking.

I also finally did myself an invoice for the private medico-legal typing work I did last month which will be £50 winging its way to me hopefully next week

ohhhhh I've gone overdrawn by £18, I will pay some money in tomorrow thankfully! How long that will last I don't know!

Just bus fares today of £6.20, taking DS to and from an appointment. We even had our tea and cake at home afterwards, instead of in a cafe :o.

Keep going, everyone.

NSD today.
Went to visit some family with DH and DS's. Left the radio on in car and emerged to a flat battery :( Luckily a friend lives around the corner, and drove round and gave us a bump start :)
Came home and helped DS1 make his first pasta bake, and it was very yummy :)

Expensive day here, puppy food and Frontline for all 4 -£125
Roads-£4
School shoes for DD1 £30
DVDs as part of Xmas gift for OH- £20

Still need to collect DDs and get some fruit juice and butter. I have the vet bill from our holiday, kennelling for 3 weeks, surgery and associated costs x2 -£750 ish. That'll get sorted next week, hopefully.

Argh, I'm so behind on this thread! Have only had time to quickly scan posts...

Tuesday was an NSD. Today I had to take my car in for its controle technique (basically the same as an MOT) which cost me 60 euros. My car has been nothing but trouble in the last year, and has developed a new, expensive problem every couple of months. So I was fully expecting it to fail and had even budgeted for repair work, but...it passed! It's a miracle! I feel really happy about it.

Same as that riverboat - only got to scan over posts so apologies. Had Dd home yest with sore throat so ended up being NSD. Think key to NSDs for me is not going out. Helped that when I packed up old house I finally sorted medicine cabinet so had all 2 hand yest morn when she woke up complaining.

Spends over last few days:
Mon 8th £2.99 Sainsbos
Tues 9th £3.74 Lidl £2.17 Aldi
Wed 10th £3.48 Poundland £3.17 Aldi
So thats total of £15.55

Will need to get something for Sunday dinner but should have enough diesel until Monday - so should be no major spends - note use of should!!

Yesterday would have been a NSD and technically was BUT had to take our dog to the vets to get checked as he has a lump. It has to be removed today so will have to pay for the operation- vet didn't mention how much it would cost but he's not insured so guessing it'll be scary expensive .

Photobox are running an offer where you get to test selected products for free (inc photobooks, calendars, canvases, mugs...). You need to get 6 of your friends to sign up. So, once you've signed up from me, you would then need 6 of your friends to do the same and so on. I've asked a load of my RL friends, but thought I'd see if any of you are interested. If anyone would like an invite, please send me a pm with your email address .

£7 this morning as it started raining on walk home from school so planned trip to Aldi became quick dash into local Coop instead as Aldi is a 3 mile round trip walk. So spend that should've been £4 in Aldi became £7 instead. Should make 2mrw a NSD though!! Fingers crossed

The Co-op is SO expensive! I have one right next door, but to be honest, if you say you're popping there for a few things, you're probably better off going to M&S!

Wiggy, I had a mass removed from my dogs neck last year, it was £90 which was a lot less than I expected.

Co-op is hideous!

Wiggy hope your dog is ok :(

Yesterday was a mixed day. Free songs and stories at the library with DS2, and then we had some lunch in M&S (£9.50) and I bought another pair of school trousers for DS1 (£8).
I had £30 on a gift card for Phase 8, so I have bought a lovely blouse in there to wear when DH and I go out for dinner for our anniversary at the end of the month. It was £60, reduced to £45, so I paid £15 which I am pretty pleased about.
Also spent £2.80 on parking.

Today is a NSD so far, we've been to a free toddler group this morning and now we're home. DS1 has got karate later, but we have paid the joining fee and uniform and the subs are on a DD for £28 a month. They have snacks etc for sale there, but I will take stuff from home for him, and for DS2 to keep him quiet while we watch.

Tomorrow the weekly shop is coming - £108. I have tried to include absolutely everything so that there is no need for top up shops - it is those that blow my budget. No other spending tomorrow.

Saturday my car is having a new tyre - £143. But I have just looked and I think it may need two, so that will be almost £300. We put money into a separate savings for car expenses, so the cash is there waiting rather than me having to find it from this month's budget which is good.

No other spending planned for the weekend.

Would any of you know of any charities that might take my DS's old cot? It's in perfect condition; it just needs to be put together. I've tried the local Women's Aid, and they'll take the old travel cot, but as they have a quick turnover, it's not really worth their while to take proper cots; and the British Heart Foundation are taking an old table and chairs and a bookcase, but they don't take baby stuff. I don't drive, so ideally would need someone to collect it.
Any ideas? Thanks in advance.

I'll also try this in Chat, I think.

Any news on the dog Wiggy?

Today is £452.12 with 13 days left until pay day thanks to DH taking a tenner out of the bank and £20 for his petrol debiting. I had an e-mail from Quidco this morning to say they'd sent £30 (wahoo) thanks to DH's car insurers paying up the cashback from a purchase in February!

CremeEgg, there's also freecycle, but that's a bit more of a faff as you have to wait in for people and if you'd rather it went to a good cause, there's no guarantee that it'll go to.someone who really needs it.

Have you got a local children's centre? They, or your HV, might know of a family who really could do with it.

Surprised the BHF won't take it. Their loss. All the charity shops round here would, but that doesn't really help you (unless you live in/around Oxford). Or you could contact your local nct branch? Oh, and there was a thread in chat where people were offering their unwanted stuff to those who needed it. Can't link as on my phone, but it was called 'I have that I don't need...', or similar. Might be worth seeing if that's still going. Or, in fact MN has a free stuff board hidden somewhere.

Anyway, spent £9 today. All in the charity shop - £1 on a trundle wheel push-along thing and then £8 on 2 buckets of duplo, which I was very pleased with.

Thank you, economy. I had a word with the manager of the Sure Start centre this evening, and he said he would ask his family workers to give me a ring about it in the next few days.

I haven't been on here for a few days but it sounds like people are doing really well. I haven't read everything, but will try and catch up over the weekend.

I've still got change from the £10 I drew out at the start of the week for incidentals, which is great.

I've been doing a bit of Christmas spending online. I need to work out exactly how much I've spent this weekend and then pay cash back into our account. I've been taking bits of cash out since early summer for Christmas presents, so want to pay back any online spending if you know what I mean. There's a great Christmas bargains thread over in the Christmas topic - I haven't paid full price for anything .

I need to do a big shop this weekend which will be about £80 but should do us for almost 2 weeks I think - I've meal planned everything and DH and I are both on diets which helps .

I'm going to get the M&S £5 roast offer again today on my way home as that was a big hit last weekend.

I've got lots listed on eBay that is ending over the weekend so I'll report back on what I made!

Take care everyone

Cremeegg I hope you find someone in need of your cot. We tried to advertise on freecycle when we were moving as we had stuff that we didn't feel was good enough to sell but was too good to throw away. Old tvs and the like. I kept getting msgs asking if tvs were flat screens etc and when I said they were old style but in good order they said really they were looking for flatscreens with built in freeview! I don't even own one of them I had thought the point of freecycle was so stuff didn't go to waste and went to people who were in need of stuff but couldn't necessarily afford it. Made me think twice when we got rid of the nursery furniture. Not saying all areas are like this but people are advertising on our local site asking for iphones etc.

Anyway 2day I did a quick topup of bread for freezer and some crisps at aldi as kids october holiday starts 2day and I am hoping to avoid shops nxt week while they are off. £3.28 but that should be all for 2day. Got a sale from fb going out later which will be £30 and another £8 one 2mrw. Got a meal out a week on Sunday for my cousin's birthday so my sales will pay for that

Attempting a shopping list to see us through 12/13 days as I'm on holidays and will have no wages for me next week, will have dh's portion of bills coming to me though which will sort out anything we're short.

Thanks All. I've just picked up a voicemail from the SureStart manager and they're happy to take the cot, so pleased about that.

I seem to have spent nearly £30 today, but half of it was on postage of eBay stuff, so I'll get it back through PayPal. Another tenner went on bread, cheese and bus fares. So I actually only frittered £4.60 on coffee and cake! :o

There is in money in the account now and I've had 2 nsd's this week!

Today is £483.23 with 12 days left until pay day. The Quidco money went in today. I tend to be quite spendy on a weekend so that decent amount of money will doubtless evaporate by Monday.

I've got 2 job interviews on Tuesday afternoon, one for an admin job in the NHS and another in a doctor's surgery where I actually used to work. I do hope that someday next week I will be posting on here with a "DILEMMA: which job shall I choose" thread.

Well done, xroads and best of luck with the interviews, claret :).