Just say NOvember

[economymode]

Want to cut back on unnecessary spending this November? Then you've come to the right place!

I'm starting off the month by seeing if I can switch to cheaper fuel tarrifs...

I make fudge for teacher presents. It always goes down well.

Yesterday I spent way too much £2.50 on Xmas cards for DDs, as I only do the 3 I don't mind spending a bit more. Plus there's no cheaper option here, other than homemade.

That and my road tolls -£3, was it. A friend bought me lunch which was unexpected as well as lovely. Today should be an NSD other than roads.

I am going to get myself down to card factory for the sales after christmas then, I can get loads of card for next year. I love the idea of photo cards too.

NSD.

Rang EDF to tell them they are not raising my DD from £53 to £220 as we cannot afford it and paid them the £32 cashback I got from quidco. This is what happen's when you give them regular meter readings, they get the idea you use loads of gas and rack the bill up.

I was fuming.

So now I'm going to do heating for 45mins morning, hour when I get in and an hour when DH gets in.

Lei, they sound fantastic, I love a handmade gift, shows someone cares rather than buying generic smellies or chocolate that end up in the bin

hubby has man flu bless him, and he is actually off work- which means it must be rough because he never has a day off. I will now need to go to Asda on the way home because I was not expecting him for Dinner!! Nevermind, we will sort something out.
Other than that, work is good so I am not spending- there is one upside to it being blooming freezing- I dont want to go out anywhere!!

Just worked out I have spent £44.10 posting eBay stuff over the last two days . I will get most of it back, but I underestimated three of the parcels by quite a lot, so I'm probably nearly a tenner down on postage :(.

Apart from that, I bought a chocolate bar and some bananas today in the Co-op, so just over £2, I think.

Well I sold my chef. £101.

Others have sold for much more but hey ho. It's money I didn't have this morning.

That's much more than anything I've ever sold, fluffy :). Well done!

I'm being an ungrateful cow. Ignore me.

Have you been taking lessons of my DD Fluffy? She's been the queen of ungrateful this afternoon and after I spent £47 on her drama costume she's 'sposed to be the red queen, not the ungrateful queen I can't even un-bye it as the lady is shortening it.

Well done on the sale though

So far we look on track to save £1800 this month - bloody good job as we've got £1400 a month rent kicking in next month on top of our mortgage.

Going to make a final decision about which BTL mortgage we're going for this weekend. Once that's in place we can rent the house out and save £800 a month.

Tracking cash spending is really working for us. I've also been trading down brands. I discovered that the everyday essentials Tesco loo roll isn't bad. We get through a amount if loo roll a month do that will be quite a saving!!

Well done on your savings Helena

Today will be an NSD for me, other than roads. Tomorrow I'm going shopping. DDs need a few school bits, socks and shorts that go under the skirt to hide the underwear as they cartwheel around the playground. And I need some new undies.

Wow, that's great saving, Helena - well done!

We've had to shell out £145 to renew our TV licence, which has dented the bank balance. Then took out £100 cash today. I don't plan on buying anything big before the end of next week (pay day), so the £300 or so left in our account should be fine.

That's a fantastic saving Helena. Well done!.

I've had an NSD! Only my road tolls, despite DDs requests

Helena, thats amazing!!! Great saving!!

DH went to get my Pg vitamins today, but I bought a big pack so probably saved a bit buying them that way rather than the smaller packs. He also bought Veg, I know he didnt spend more than £20 cos thats all he had!!!!

Got the water bill but I think we have enough left over from last month to pay it without being worse off next month so Im happy with that.

Contacted the house and car insurers today to advise of the change of address and got refunds of £15 and £25!

Normally this would get absorbed into the general spending but I've decided to move it to savings and earmark it for a treat. We weren't expecting any refund. Wondering about taking them to see Nativity 2 in the run-up to Christmas - normally I'm too mean sensible to pay for anything other than the cheap children's movie deals!!

Lovely surpise!.

If you are with BT give them a ring and tell them you need to cancel due to rising costs and they will knock £6 off the bill.

They offered me unlimited bb for £18 last week, it ought to be £31 a month.

Well done on those reductions Helena and good idea to divert the the savings for a treat.

Fluffy well done on our reduction too.

Today I spent -

£3.60 on roads
£4 on lunch
£34 in the supermarket, storecupboard things on offer and a few Xmas bits
£23 on 2 birthday gifts

I need petrol but don't need to go out tomorrow so I'll probably get it on Sunday. Still need to get the school bits too, that'll have to wait until Monday.

Umm, just fell of the wagon and bought a new car -much bigger than current one and will really need the space when the newest Economy arrives in the new year. Part exchanged my old car for £1500 and got another £50 off by asking. So that's £3150 to pay overall. It's v low mileage for its age (33k and 2005). Got 6 months tax thrown in as well as the standard mot and service the dealer does. I'm happy with the deal as, realistically, it will make life a lot easier with two kids (huuuuge boot!) and we were going to get one anyway, just happens to be a bit earlier than we'd planned.

Essential expense, you have to put the baby in the car, the authorities get really funny with you if you put them on the roof rack.

True, fluffy. Putting them on a tag-along behind the car is also out, apparently.

Tsk, some people have no sense of humour.

wait... you can't do that? Dang, our roof rack is pointless now. Ive only just learnt you cant take a baby on a motorcycle- im so glad people pointed that out

Economy- sounds like a good deal, its cool what you can get when you just ask for it!
I spend £1 on rolls for my lunch. I have 3 left (maybe less in a minute though-im blaming the baby) for lunch tomorrow too.

Just done an online shop for the new house (only 9 days now!!) and tried a different tack. Instead of meal planning first like I usually do I worked out the best deals for meat first and then planned from that. I also tried to limit myself to things on offer only and I've saved about £80 on a normal fortnightly shop. I can do better in Aldi but I needed the first shop to come to me so I can unpack instead of wandering round the supermarket.

Right, back to the boxes!!

I have a question - is it acceptable to pass on your car to a dealer with under 1/4 tank of fuel? I don't really want to put more in, but wondered if this was taking the proverbial?