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.

Blimey, our contents insurance is coming up as £50 a year on go compare.

It's always worth a punt with Virgin, you can always say you have to check with your husband and not go through with it.

Wow, a lot has been going on. Congratulations with interviews, babies, nsds and insurance policies. I thought we were doing alright this month but I'm sure my washing machine is going to stop working any day now :-( It makes freezing breadcrumbs feel a it pointless!

Storm- have a look at Ovo for your energy. They are quite a small company but you can get green or part green energy from them. They are easily the cheapest supplier I've ever had. You can give them meter readings whenever you want so you know your bill is always right AND if you are in credit with them they pay you 3% interest! I've been with them about 3 years.

storm another possibility for energy is Utility Warehouse. They don't advertise, and rely on word of mouth, and then pass those savings onto customers. Slashed my bill from £190 per month to £97 per month

Spent £6.49 today on a few bits (milk, bread, bananas, apples, cola, cheese) will have enough now to last til payday on Friday. Just aswell as I now have the grand sum of 1p in my purse!!

I have gone through my cupboards and freezer and I have meal planned for the entire of February. I am aiming to spend no more than £100 for the whole month on food, by just supplementing what we have already. Will be a huge help to our debt repaying if I can achieve this...

Leilandri, you should do the grocery challenge on mse, you'd be really good on there.

Thatsinteresting, little savings add up to big savings long term, I'm sure the family take the piss out of me behind my back but I don't care because I think long term I will have less debt than them and more savings.

You've reminded me that i really need to sort out all our utilities. I could save loads just by making a few phone calls. Just need to make the time!

Spent £1.09 on some cup a soups for lunch at work.

I spent just under £5 today in Tesco on cheese (2 for £3), bread and fromage frais. I'm just about to order a home blood pressure monitor online as I've been advised to get one by the docs to monitor it at home - I have kidney disease and my BP is a bit high at the moment and it needs to be watched. That will cost me about £15, as Lloyds Chemist have some on offer (reduced from over £40 so quite a bargain, as blood pressure monitors go!).

Am at work for the rest of the week so planning on some NSDs over the next few days.

Fluffy- I know my family take the piss out of us. Every time I speak to my Dad he offers to send a food parcel. We don't have any debt though apart from our mortgage and careful living means I can stay at home fir a few years.

Leilandri- I like the idea of using everything in the cupboards. We've already eaten a lot of stuff from the freezer this month though so I'm not sure we could manage on £100 but I'm going to give it some thought.

OH's family are a bunch of piss takers too, and to add insult to injury they are geniune tight fisted bastards too. There's a difference between trying not to waste money and trying to free load, the latter being their speciality

Anyway, today I spent £50 in the supermarket, lots of food and some cleaning products. DDs have done a Stirling job of over feeding me today, pasta with a Greek salad for lunch, with a choc muffin & ice cream pudding. Dinner was fish cakes made from scratch, chips and sweetcorn followed by homemade cheesecake. If I don't post tomorrow it's because I'm struggling under the sheer weight of calories.

SoftKitty that is a good deal on the BP monitor.

Hope you don't expire through over feeding Adora. Sounds yummy though!

My inlaws freeload a bit but I think it's more that they genuinely don't realise how much things cost. They were shocked that our mortgage was £800 a month. They thought we were being frivolous. They have no concept of how much more expensive houses are. Or anything else for that matter. FIL asked about DH's season ticket. DH said it was £250 a month and FIL said "we'll can't you not travel first class?"! Erm that's not first class and appears to be optional seating at times!! They're just out of touch. I suspect they'll leave everything to charity. It's their choice but I definitely know that they haven't worked out it's going to cost around £250k to put their 7 grandchildren through universities. They could really help out with that but instead I'm sure we'll have a nice plaque in a church extension to go and look at!

Anyhow NSD yesterday, hopefully today too. Tax bill £200 less than we budgeted for and I'm getting a £2.97 rebate (I don't think I'm going to spend it all at once lol).

Interview tomorrow eek!

Helena that would piss me off!

DH's parents are spendthrifts all round, money goes through their hands like water and none of it ever comes this way!

My parents have always earned well, but also been careful and they do appreciate that they have had it fairly good with pensions and so on. They are leaving a life insurance policy to run so that even if all their assets get wiped on care home fees, we will get a big lump sum when they eventually shuffle off
I know they also plan to help out with university costs, and they let us use their holiday home for free so we can have a cheap foreign holiday every year even if we are too skint for anything else!
I am very lucky!!

A NSD today I think, DS1's school is opening late so i'm just off to take him and then DS2 and I will just come straight home and snuggle up - it is bloody freezing here and very snowy.

DH has just looked further into what we can claim as expenses through the business, and we've realised that all the time he was cycling in the spring and summer he could have been claiming £3 a day! That adds up to quite a lot that can be offset against our tax bill, so I'm going to get him to e-mail the details to the accountant later and we can have that little bit back from HMRC!

Ate you putting mobiles through the business?

Also Internet, phone, use if house if you do any work there, £5 for any night away from home. It really adds up!

Not an NSD after all as I needed bread.

Helena I don't need any breakfast, at this rate I'm not sure I'll need lunch either!

Spending a little on vast amounts of coffee while DDs do volley ball. Will update later.

What I don't get with Dh's family is moaning about not being able to pay bills but then showing off new iPhone 5s which are "only £45 a month", But they have one each. I think it's a lack of insight which I find baffling, and annoying.

Ali, you can claim for washing a uniform if its something you can't wear out of work. I buy things as cheaply as I can as well, I know some people have the attitude of "oh well I can offset it" but the money is still being spent and you only claim 20 or 40% back.

Raiding the change jar later for the self serve tills so I can buy bird seed and cat food.

They offered me the job! Bit overwhelmed as it's all happened quite fast, and it's full time which is going to be a bit shock after being SAHM for 4 years. But thank goodness, some money coming in at last.

Sorry for not catching up with other news, lots to plan!

Fantastic news, MrsF :).

Brilliant news! When's the start date?

Well done mrsfrugal!! Hope this is a good omen for my interview tomorrow!

We can only claim one mobile, and the rules are very tight so we don't because it would only save us about £4-5 a month in tax and it doesn't seem worth getting tripped up for it.
Ditto with work clothes, we can't claim it.
The rules are different for different kinds of businesses, and HMRC are seemingly a bit sniffy about IT contractors!

Not a NSD after all, as night nappies were needed. £8 spent.

Congratulations Mrsf ! I'm so pleased for you. Super exciting :o

I spent a bit more then planned today. £15 in health food shop, £6 fruit and veg, £6 in the pound shop, £6 on tupperware, £3 in sainsbury's. So around £36.

Well done MrsFrugal That tough interview was worth it! Treat yourself with a tonight

Fluffy I totally understand what you're saying. Had a very frustrating debate with a family member, in a bad financial way, yesterday as to why they 'need' 2 cars bought new and would not benefit from selling one for £4.5k, as they couldn't get anything reliable for less than that. Umm, our car was £1.4k, we've had it for 2 years & in that time it has only cost us for things that go on all cars - tyres, handbrake, light bulbs - to a total tune of maybe 1k. Their car worth £4.5k has just cost them £500 on the brakes, this despite being 6 years newer than our car! Rant over

Today was practically an NSD. Spent 40p for Edward Bear fees, 35p in charity shop for car for DS1. Tomorrow will get MOT retest done, so will wait at McD's, but have complete card for free coffee & will take drinks for DSes. Also hope to visit DGrandad, so will be £3 parking (min. charge for 15 mins- 3 hours ). Will nip into Sainsbug's as is by MOT place & have £3 of £20 voucher so will stock up on cat food, tinned toms, potatoes.

off not of

Good luck for tomorrow Helenagrace.

Congrats MrsF such a shock to the system going back to work after being a SAHM for a period of time, but so nice to have money coming in :)

NSD today.

DH negotiated with his managed loan company today and shaved £20 a month off his repayments. Will mean paying for longer, but will ease the burden this year. Hopefully will be able to increase payments next year.

Sky are next on my hitlist, and Vodafone. DH is reluctant to change mobile companies as he has been with Vodafone for over 10 years. We have a shared contract, with 2 handsets (both smart phones but not top of the range) unlimited calls and texts, and a high MB limit, but still costs us over £60 a month He seems to think that this is ok, but I think it's a rip off!!!

Also does anyone know if you can get a broadband and line rental package without having to pay anything for calls? We don't even own a home phone, so I begrudge paying for a service that we are never going to use?

We have two talk mobile phones, they use vodafones network, for £15 for both. We have loads of minutes and texts and 500mb of data.

I got £60 cashback from topcashback.

I think primus might do phone and broadband cheap but they don't get great reviews. Have you rung sky? You might not have to change at all. Sky let you buy 12 months line rental for £10ish a month according to moneysavingexpert, but they don't advertise it. But if you do it with BT it ties you in so if you leave you don't get it refunded.

Congrats on your new job MrsFluffy, that's brilliant news! When do you start?

Leilandri tell your DH that Martin Lewis always says 'loyalty doesn't pay', and he's absolutely right. I can never understand why people are brand loyal, especially those on tight budgets. £60 per month is a lot to pay, even for what you get. I'm with Giff Gaff, which runs on the O2 network. I used to get a £10 per month goody bag which gave me something like 250 mins, unlimited texts and unlimited data. I think that goody bag now costs £12 per month but still far cheaper than £60! I'm still with Giff Gaff but I'm now on PAYG as it works out cheaper for me - I put £10 on my phone at the start of Dec and still have over £2 left. GG are great as every month you get a breakdown of exactly what you've used and they tell you if a cheaper goody bag or even PAYG would be cheaper for you. If anyone wants referring to GG please PM me as I believe we both get £5 credit, iirc sorry for blatant beg .

Today was a NSD for me. I ordered my blood pressure monitor yesterday and managed to find it the same price with free delivery on Amazon, so ordered from there rather than Lloyds chemist, as they charge for delivery.