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 far spent £1. On parking at local beauty spot.

Morning All ... and welcome to all the newbies and de-lurked lurkers .

It's been one NSD after another here at Chez Rogue - the only spend has been an online food delivery...feel very proud of myself.

RogueJr got a new kindle (paperwhite????) for Christmas but I am limiting him to downloading free books at the moment - there are so many classics available for nothing. Although the outlay for the device can be high, your costs for books are then reduced and there are lots that are free.

Need to do a freezer and cupboard check soon as I recently ended up with three bottles of mayo.

Happy new year to everyone. I am so motivated to turn a corner this year.

Can I join? Have been on these threads before but given up as very disorganised busy! Hoping to move house soon, so really want to save as much as possible.

Didn't spend anything yesterday, so that was a good start to 2013!

Been to Tesco this morning, spent £16.17 on a top-up shop - milk, cereal, spuds, cheese, yoghurts, some reduced Xmas cake , toothbrush for DS1 as we seem to have left his somewhere & a few other essentials. Our 2 freezers are pretty much full of meat, fish & some veg (all yellow stickered!) & we have lots of stinky cheese & veg left from Christmas, as well as 7 tins/boxes of both chocs & biscuits, so foodwise should really only need bread & milk for rest of January.

Also in Tesco, took back a Fireman Sam set that DS1 had been given a duplicate of, but didn't have receipt, so was only able to exchange for something else from toy dept for same value, £10. DS1 chose something off shelf that was marked £10, but it came up as £7, so had new toy plus £3 change!

DH & I are starting to save all our £2 pieces in a money tin that can only be opened with a tin opener, after reading on here that somebody had done that & opened it after 3 years, to find £1800!

Hopefully going to be another NSD here but definitely not tomorrow as I have to go to town.

Hello again jenduck, I remember you . Glad to see you back on the thread. I am doing the £2 thing too - I have done it before and it's amazing how much you can put aside ... think I got to £90 last time.

Meant to clarify above - only spend since 24th December has been an online food shop - all other days have been NSD's!!!!!

Am swapping my mobile provider to giffgaff - for a £10 goody bag you get lots of minutes, texts and data downloads!! Far better than the £20+ I am paying Virgin at the moment.

Want to buy a sewing machine - not much in the sales that I am interested in so am going to check out my Ebay sales money and see if I can get one with that.

I am going to empty coin collection into one of those machine thingies. And then use the voucher/cash in store. Which would deliver more for my money? Tesco or Morrisons?

I was here last year and did well for a few months. My dh kept derailing things but now I have a part time job so I feel more in control of money now. I have £150 on my credit card and £180 on my Next account which are priorities for me. I have signed up for online banking on my own account which has seen little action due to me being a SAHM( have joint in another Bank with dh) and am saving a bit too every month

MOT and tax due the end of the month so this is a tight one. Good luck everyone

Hi again Rogue. Am always a bit nervous when someone says they remember me...

Nkf, don't do it in store, I think they take 8% of your money! Either use your coins in the self-service tills or, if you can, take them to a bank. You may not be able to pay them in over the counter, but bigger branches have machines like Coinstar which take & count your change & credit it straight to your account.

Fridge/freezer/cupboard contents rewritten...have plenty to see us through til w/end except for fresh milk and water. Decorations down and packed away, not going in loft, plan to clear space somewhere(?!) and start packing for housemove...decorations will be first contribution lol...some serious Ebay/Gumtree action in the next few days too. Hope everyone is doing well?!

Water?! I meant bread lol

Just going over accounts for last month and thought we had done suspiciously well only to realise that dp's work are over paying him, so it turns out we were actually over a hundred quid down as i am assuming they will want the money back. :(

So far today I have spent £10.59 on some mouthwash, frozen salmon fillets, frozen peas and green beans, and some sponges. Currently debating whether I need to pop to sainsburys and pick up a few bits for tomorrow or whether to go in the morning. Decisions, decisions...

Anyone else use moneydashboard.com? I signed up a few months ago and it currently rocks my world. I've linked up all mine and dp's bank accounts so I can see everything in one place. Also it has lovely graphs :o

Looking like another no spend day for me here. Was going to meet friend for coffee but DS poorly so stayed home.

DH back to work today, he is the main culprit for always wanting to eat out, have sent him to work with a packed lunch so no spend for him either.

Have meal planned for the week so feeling very positive, even though its only day 2...

Rouge, have you checked out car phone warehouse? They are doing £35 cashback on new contract phones, I got a talk mobile Sony smart phone for £7.50 a month with free minutes and data etc.

Talk mobile Use Vodafone network the same As giff gaff use O2.

£2.40 for milk and smart price pickle for my sandwiches for work, I'm going to batch make corned beef and pickle and then freeze them so I can just chuck one in the car in the morning.

Hello to all the new de-lurkers! I knew we had lurkers. Knew it

Pretends to not remember Jenduck

NSD yesterday and today.
Probably tomorrow as well, DC are full of the cold so I won't take them to toddlers club, saving of £3 :)

Until Saturday we will be living out of the freezer/cupboard, so am hoping to have NSD tomorrow and Friday.

Jenduck - it's all good . Just remember you - along with BoffinMum and IamMummy. It's good to see so many returners, de-lurkers and newbies.

Fluffy - I will check that out, that sounds like an excellent deal. The good thing with giffgaff is that all calls to other giffgaff users are totally free. So, as DH is on giffgaff and we will move DS onto giffgaff too all calls between us will be free!

flossy, if you can get the freezer/larder contents listed it really cuts down on duplicate/unconscious spending and then if you meal plan on top of that, it can really cut the food bills down. Packed lunches are another good cost cutter. Sadly DS's school won't allow packed lunches, they all have to have school lunches which, whilst good, cost quite a pretty penny!! Still, it's a good meal in the middle of the day.

Decorations are coming down tomorrow - then the real January clear-out begins.

Room for another delurker?
NSD yesterday & today....will try for 3 in a row tomorrow!

People who've contacted sky to reduce your package costs; do you threaten to walk, or just say 'I've been here 4 years, what can you do for me?'

Council tax is paid over 10 months instead of 12, so we should have an 'extra' chunk the next few months.
Going to investigate what's free/cheap, inside & local for DS (1yr old)...only so many time you can freeze your babies bum to a swing

Aw, thanks Fluffy & Rogue, I obviously made an impression

Gary re Sky, just threaten to leave them. Or actually leave them then rejoin. Sadly, they seem to value new customers over loyalty.

For your 1 year old DS (I have one of those, too!), do you have a local museum? Mine loves to wander about inside, playing with the interactive displays & there is a little room you can take your own food into, which has a few books & games, too. Plus toddler groups when they start up (next week round here). Church ones tend to be cheapest, I go to one which charges 50p per family per week, but saves it & puts money towards a mums' Xmas meal (they pay first £5) and one which, and another which says donations voluntary, so I give 50p per week to them, too. If you have a local library, they will do Story & Rhyme time for free. A wander round the supermarket can also take up a good hour or so! Finally, meet up with other mum friends, take it in turn to host & others bring cakes etc?

Threaten to leave BT. £6 off a month straight away.

Thrilled to hear we are popular enough to.be worthy of lurkers! Hello !

Got a huge shock as Orange billed me £80 for my last phone bill. £18 package, £6 insurance and £25 for a replacement handset. But then a mystery £30. I got all uppity on the phone with them and was adamant I didn't make the calls they said I had. I also used 3 times as much data as usual. However, I think I did make those calls, chasing up fricking useless couriers, companies and insurance providers. Still no idea about the data though, but it has taught me to always check my bundles in the morning, so I can hold back on calls etc if nearing the end of my credit. But if people did their jobs properly and didn't need chasing up, I wouldn't have this problem. They were all landline numbers via saynoto0870, but ut seemingly added up.

Plus our shower hose packed up this morning so we had water coming out of that, but not the shower head. So £6.49 on a replacement one from Homebase. Oh and we had to have the kitchen tap replaced last week, so waiting for that £90 cheque to be cashed. Not the best start to the year!

Hello all :)
Was too busy in December to check-in regularly, but I've read most of the month!

Have set ourselves a goal this year. We want to end the year financially in the black. We've been in the red for years due to combination of 2 lots of maternity leave in 3 years. Me going part-time, DH is in commision based sales, so his wages fluctuate, and we've moved house too.
We currently owe - £900 to nursery (due to cockup by tax credits), £225 to my parents, £180 to several utilities and £750 is our overdraft.

Have made inroads into nursery debt this month, we hope to have that cleared by Easter. then we'll pay back my folks, hopefully by June, and that will leave 6 months to clear the overdraft. It's going to be tight, but I'm determined to do it :)

Just adding on £15 for nappy liners and £2.50 for food bits to the £10 I spent earlier. All done for the day now though and hoping to have a nsd tomorrow.

gary when I recently left Sky they were falling over themselves to persuade me to come back. They offered me a free HD box and free multi-room for a year. I left because we've moved to a conservation area so we can't have a Sky dish. we have to have bastarding virgin who are so crap their box hasn't even lasted a month

Only bought bread and milk today and I just need food for Sunday so not bad considering I haven't had a shop since 20th December apart from bread, milk and fruit.

Having done some sums, I can't see us getting through the month without dipping into savings. Not exactly the start of the year I had hoped for.

As well as the known expenses, we'll also have final gas and electricity bills as we've just switched providers.

I could cancel my haircut, but I haven't had it done for 3 months and won't exactly have the time or inclination with a newborn in a few weeks.

However, from next month I'll get maternity allowance and I'm tempted to set up a separate savings account and put 50% of that into it each month.

Leilandri, good to see you back and good luck with your payback mission!

On the plus side, our across-the-road neighbours have given me their wifi password, so I can piggyback on that until our new router comes.

Just a quick update, spent £50 in the supermarket, bought lot's of ice cream and fruit juice to make ice lollies to combat our summer heat. Went to the local supermarket and their fruit didn't look so good, apart from mega expensive imports, hence the extra juice.

No roads today, but I did splash out £1 on a coffee.

I may have to go further afield later in the week to pick up dog food, it's cheaper in the capital than locally. I haven't planned my week yet, too lazy so can't say when my NSDs will be.