Judicious January - Long may the credit crunching continue

[roguepixie]

So, the credit crunching team are into Year 2013. Happy New Year everyone.

Let's continue our cost-cutting, , money saving,penny and pound pinching, NSD ways.

So, my contact lenses cost me £15pm incl fluids. They are fortnightly ones so after 2weeks I put them in the bin. £180 a year.

More than my car insurance.

If I switch to Asda I can be fitted for monthly versions of the same lens, it will be £75 a year, £15 sight test, and that's including super-duper protein removing all in one cleaning fluid.

Now I just need to prise Dh away from sainsburys home insurance, found out last week he is paying £18pm for contents only it's due to renew in March so I will find a more reasonable provider.

Goodness it has taken me ages to catch up!

storm you are a good friend.

I agree that getting a MyWaitrose card is a good idea. I have one and they send me vouchers and coupons fairly regularly which make a real difference to my shopping bill. And the tea and coffee is nice on the occasions that I go into a store.

rogue happy anniversary! :)

Adora happy birthday! :)

I have done really well this week. The £50 cash I took out last Friday lasted us for all shopping and top ups for the week.
Shopping was delivered yesterday for £90, and then I took out £47.50 (small shop in Asda plus cash back) to last us for the rest of the week. That will cover top up shops plus any bits we need for the boys etc.

We have frittered nothing, no coffees or cake or anything random. Yay.

DH had a couple of interviews for contracts this week, and has an offer! Start date a week Monday. The other interview went really well too, they are making a decision on either Monday or Tuesday - the rate of pay is a fair bit higher and it is a more interesting project so he is hoping for that one. But if he doesn't get it then we have something in the bag - PHEW!

Excellent news, ali. Really pleased for you and your family :).

Oops, also meant to say that's great going, Mum2Fergus :).

Alibi that's fantastic news congratulations to your DH you must be so relieved. I hope he gets the one he really wants but as you say at least he'll have a job now :)

Unexpected NSD so far here today mainly because I've not left the house and having stepped out to the bins don't plan to its cold and miserable out there.

DD and I spent the morning baking and produced 18 garishly decorated fairy cakes and a banana loaf. Very proud of myself as learning to bake was my new years resolution. I suspect most bakers would be horrifed by the quality but as prior to this month \iv not done more than a victoria sponge cake at school and that was a very long time ago I am pleased.

Have also made a beef stew of sorts and its simmering slowly on the hob for dinner.

Finally I saw someone asking about adding oats to mince to bulk it out. I tried it on Thursday night when I made cottage pie and DP who's a really fussy eater didn't notice at all so you can get away with it. Just make sure you add some extra liquid as they do soak it up a bit.

Thanks Lielendra and Ali I had a fab day.

Glad to hear that DH has a job offer Ali, fx for the other one.

Well done Mum2Fergus and storm for your baking. As long you enjoy the end result then it's a good cake.

Fluffy at the price of contact lenses, I was a glasses wearer for years but never tried contacts.

Another way to bulk out mince recipes is with baked beans, my sister used to do that. I don't like beans so I use more veg.

I'd never thought of adding oats! What a good idea :)

Spent just under £10 on some sugar, lasagne sheets, onions, bread, bananas, humous, garlic and oregano. Farmer's market tomorrow do that will be about £30 at most.

Congratulations Ali's dh . that's great news!

Dh has never noticed I bulk mince with oats.

Good going, everyone!

Great news about your husband's offer, ali and a belated happy birthday and anniversary, respectively, to Adora and Rogue.

Days just plodding along here, waiting for this baby. Just over 2 weeks until due date, but really hoping it's early.

I haven't spent on anything extravagant, so pleased with myself. £100 cash has lasted two weeks, so two big shops and a few top ups, playgroups, random charity shop purchases etc.

Tomorrow we're going for dinner at Giraffe (40% off voucher) for one final meal out a deux before the baby arrives.

Belated Birthday wishes, adora. Glad you had a good day :).

Enjoy your meal at Giraffe, economy. Yum! My sister is due around the same time as you, I think- her E.D.D. is the 27th.

£11.96 on a top-up shop from the local Co-op. I go on and on about how dear it is, so for once I was pleasantly surprised. I bought brioche rolls, wholemeal bread, a bunch of bananas, a bag of apples, a lemon, 4 jacket potatoes, sugar snap peas and baby corn, oven chips, 2 pouches of cat food, a newspaper (with t.v.guide for the week) and S.T.s. Gotta admit that's not at all bad for the Co-op!

Creme - I'm due the 29th, so not long after your sister! I'm looking forward to a meal out, even if it is cheap and cheerful.

Not a NSD as I had to buy a wretched courgette, but shouldn't be spending tomorrow or Monday I think. We babysat DGD this afternoon and my DS made lunch for us before they went out which included an enormous piece of carrot cake. We were still full when we came back and I couldn't face cooking, so our planned meals are being moved on a day, if you see what I mean. Courgette - 54p!

Thanks everyone :) Big relief, his last contract finished on the 7th December!

I hadn't thought of using oats with mince. I use a lot of grated carrot, celery and onions in my mince recipes.

economy enjoy Giraffe. I love their sweet potato chips, yum! DH and I had our last meal the two of us before DS2 arrived at Pizza Express - I was 38 weeks and it was as far as I could manage!

Creme that is good for Co-op. We have one near here that is a 7-10 store so we do use it for milk, bread etc sometimes, especially if we've been away and are coming home late on a Sunday evening. I am always at the prices - and I shop in Waitrose mostly!

NSD here today. Tomorrow we may go into town so that we can get the boys hair cut. So parking plus £14. I might do DS2's myself, really resent paying £7 for him when he only needs a few wisps cut off really

I was agency for 10 years before going entirely self employed, could he do that?

You only need a handful of oats, it doesn't bulk it out so much as make it more filling.

Course if I told Dh he would say he knew something had changed.

Really spendy day, went to buy curtains for our lounge/diner as ours are literally hanging off the curtain pole all ragged (and are such a wrong colour I don't feel like fixing them!)

However once we got the ones we bought home (£80 worth) the colour is wrong (again) so they have to go back tomorrow to try again, the annoying thing being the petrol cost. And the fact I'm spending a whole weekend on bloody curtains!

Just to say my Austerity Housekeeping eBook is free again until midnight on Amazon, if didn't get around to downloading it the other day. It's Kindle, iPhone, iPad, PC and Mac compatible, so you don't need to buy a Kindle especially.

Fluffy was that to me about the self-employed/agency?

I always chuckle at your posts about having to dupe your DH

Hi do you mind if I join in?

I've just download the Austerity Housekeeping eBook from Amazon for free so that will be this weeks reading.

We're changing from weekly pay to monthly at work so need to save the pennies, along with Car Tax and DD's 8th Birthday this week.
I'm going to try and have NSD as much - this week I'm going to aim for Monday, Wednesday and Friday as I know I've got shopping arriving Tuesday and Thursday.

Good luck to all

Forgot to say happy birthday to Adora. Hope you had a lovely day

Ali great news about your DH's job, Ali. I know well the feeling of being between contracts. The industry my DH is in is very heavily contract-led and when he was starting out (only graduated & got first job in industry in 2008) he could go 2-3 months between contracts & would have to get temp work to tide us over or, failing that, we were lucky that I could work FT for my Ddad in short bursts. It has also led to a lot of credit card debt being built up as, on more than one occasion, we had to use credit cards to pay our bills or risk losing the house . Fortunately, DH is now nearly at the top of his game & well-known for what he does, so he doesn't have to look for contracts any more, he is frequently being contacted with offers of work.

Spent a bit today. Had a spa treat that DH bought for me via Wowcher (a guilt gift) which was £20 instead of £140 (but paid for in November). Had french manicure done there which was £5. Then went for dinner with DH & DSes in a local restaurant I had researched on internet, which did 2 courses for £7.95, 4-7.30pm. So we each had that deal, DS1 had a pizza (DS2 had a bit of everybody's!) & we all had drinks, it came to just £30.50 & we left £4.50 tip. We couldn't manage it all as they were very generous portions, so each came away with half a pizza for lunch tomorrow! It was great to support an independent place, as well. If anybody ever wants to eat out in Southend, I can thoroughly recommend this place!

Ali, yes.

Poor DH. I blame his brand name mad DM.

It's for his own good.

Jenduck thanks.

Paranoidmother hello and welcome. It's always a pain adjusting from weekly to monthly or erratic in our case pay.

economy hope you enjoy your meal a Girraffe.

NSD yesterday. Mainly due to not leaving the house due to torrential rain.
Small top-up needed today of milk, eggs and bread. Hoping it stays dry today, so we can get down the allotment. Have sorted through my seed collection (free from magazines!) and have plenty to get sowing now and into Feb, so need to make a start ... It's just sooo cold out there!!

£2 on Lidl sliced mild cheddar. Half price today 49p a pack will keep me going for sandwich cheese for ages.

Today is going to be expensive. We've decided to go out to lunch with some friends and we've stupidly let them choose a not very cheap place. At least it will be a treat and I can make up for it by eating from the freezer all week. Except for bread and milk I don't think we'll need anything else until next weekend as I got a lot in Aldi on Thursday and there's plenty in the freezer

Spent rather more then planned today. I blame the cash machine as it only gave out £20s so we had to get out £40 rather then £30 so of course it all disappeared. Also we haven't had a farmers market for over a month so got a bit over excited

Still we now have super posh apple juice for minimum of 2 weeks, a dozen eggs, 2 packs of sausages, stewing steak, 750g steak mince, 4 chicken breasts, a large pheasant, and a massive pack of pork bones which I will roast, take all the meat off and then use for stock (the last lot I got lasted about 6 months). Oh, and a huge Belgian bun. At least we shouldn't need much at the next one.