Austere August come join us!!

[takeaway2]

New thread.

rogue I love the idea of Christmas on a beach

Happy birthday to Leilandri's DS

Today has not turned out to be the NSD I had planned . £198 on nursery fees for DS2 (which counts as a bill, not really a spend, but still). Then about £17 on BBQ food in Tesco, plus another £1 on cakes to take to a friend's house for our playdate. I cannot believe the price of meat atm! I usually buy things reduced by 75% in the evenings, so full price is to me. £9 for 10 x Tesco Finest Burgers . My DSis, who is hosting the BBQ for my DMum's 60th bday, wanted me to make them, but she also wanted to keep the party a surprise & given that I share a house with one kitchen with my mother (& father) I don't know how I'd keep it a surprise if I were making them, IYSWIM.

Also had notification of another competition win - a wireless smoke alarm. A fairly good prize, but I'm sure you can get these things free from the fire brigade? I keep thinking that the house/car/big money prize must be just around the corner Either that or it all goes to BIL, who wins something every week & has had holidays to S. Africa, Ipads, Ipods, Iphones etc

Confused, is your bil married?

It's definitely worth contacting the fire brigade about smoke alarms, plus I think they do home visits to check your house is fire-safe. I would imagine its cheaper to send one fireman out to do that than a whole crew to put a preventable fire out.

The utility providers can be sources of hidden gems too, our water board does water butts for £35, the same size in homebase etc is £60! I'm taking the shower regulator I got free off them to the next house

Our councils advertising "green cones" that you put all food waste into and it seeps into the garden as fertiliser with very little residue, it's not money saving now but considering that the EU charges council per tonne of landfill it would be money saving if they decide to pass that charge on in the future. Plus you wouldn't get maggots in the bin. Failing that they do cheap composting bins.

Anyway, £10 ish on housey stuff.

Rogue, get the Xmas holiday. You won't regret it.

Yes, smoke alarms can be obtained free from the fire service and they do ones with pagers/flashing lights/pillow alarm etc. I got my pager & pillow alarm updated and new smoke alarms 3-4 years ago.

Spent £6 on unexpected parking today (thank goodness I had some cash!) - park we go to once a year if that (bit of a drive) has started charging for parking and its mostly permit area around the park. But kids didn't ask for ice-creams so I didn't spend the £8 I was expecting there!!

Where do you find the competitions Confused?

Had a bit of a splurge today and spent £20 on soft play with lunch in the cafe. Had a lovely time with my friend and wore all our kids out, bonus DS looked like he'd been to a rave by the time we left, all sweaty hair and red face.

Also spent a tenner yesterday on fruit, plus drinks at the
library.

DH's work are paying for us to go out to a posh restaurant :) so that is something to look forward to!

Something dodgy going on with those prizes and BIL, Confused

I spent £2 on yucky snack after Pilates. There's nothing where the class is held but OH called and went on and on, and on so I ended up needing to pull into the supermarket for their bathroom and realised I was hungry.

Rogue Xmas beach holiday, no doubt.

OH hasn't so much realised he bought in haste as accepted that yet again he thought 'I'll get these puppies and Adora will do all the donkey work' anyway the vet is not keen to take them back, reckons he won't be able to rehome them as everyone wants fluffy puppies. Friends are currently trying to rehome 96 adandoned dogs they've rescued, and that's just the tip of the iceberg.

ExasperatedSigh when you go for your meal order an extra bottle of wine and ask for the cork to be left in. We did that once. A bottles only 3 large glasses after all.

96 abandoned dogs, that's so sad. Four dogs is a lot of work no matter which country you live in.

Definitely something dodgy going on with BIL & those prizes! And yes, he is married - to my Dsis I just enter competitions that I get sent through on emails, I get about 100 per day, but don't ever get round to entering all the competitions. Quite that the prize I have won is one you could get for free!

Not spent anything more today. Tomorrow need to give Dsis £10 towards flowers for Dmum's birthday, but that should be it.

The house situation is going from bad to worse. Having been told that the court bailiffs would turf out the tenant on 23rd August or possibly even 19th, they now will not come until 4th September. Our mortgage offer ends on 30th August & we will not be able to get it renewed (DH switched a few months ago from PAYE to self-employed, so we'd need 2 years of accounts minimum) The vendor has gone to court today to apply for a private bailiff, but I am scared he will get turned down or that they, too, will not be available until September (apparently he has been told 1 week from receiving the writ, but we don't know how long it takes for the writ to be issued or even if this is true). Have never been so scared or stressed out in my life

Confused - your house situation sounds bonkers.
Adora - 96 puppies??!
Spendy day. £28 on shoes for dd... Yes I just bought some other
Shoes for her last week too. But one pair are sandals for holiday next Friday and one pair was for saving when she's a size bigger (and were doodles from Clark's and on sale).

£25 for dinner at Pizza Hut as DS wanted to eat out. I battled him yesterday and couldn't battle anymore. Plus it's the end of summer camp for him so I guess it was ok.

£19 for hair cuts including £1 for DD's fringe to be done at the barbers!! It was a lady barber who was new and so I asked if she'd do it and she did.

Oh and petrol. Used the 10p voucher from sainsburys so that saved a few pounds I'm sure....

No Takeaway it's 96 adult dogs that one friend has rescued. I also know someone whose friend goes to a place where people dump their dogs and rounds up dogs then pays a local vet to neuter them.

confused for you and your house situation. You don't need so much stress at the moment.
Rogue at your beach at Christmas plan.
We arrived at pil in the wee small hours on the first stage of our hol. We sail to France tomorrow, can't wait. We have a cool box full of meat I've frozen as that seem very pricey last year. Will stock up today on food for the ferry tomorrow to save big spends on the boat.
Have a lovely weekend

Yesterday was spendy, but expected.
£179 on chicken coop, £110 in Aldi, £33 in Argos (Xmas pressies) £228 on DS2 nursery bill and £13 on straw, sawdust and feed for chooks.

Today I need to get little bits in morrisons (£40ish), and get a computer desk and chair for DS1 as he has been given a reconditioned desktop ready to practice on for school, and I need more printer ink (1 cartridge does a year as we don't print much) so that'll be about £60.

For those thinking about Xmas already, I'm on this thread which has some great bargains cropping up ...
Xmas Thread

Still trying for an NSD. Can't believe this month!

Hopefully tomorrow will be one.

Today I need to get more school uniform. Logo stuff today. DD's uniform will be done today. DS will just need trousers after today. Then they both need shoes.

The annoying things is they both change schools next year so we'll have to do this again next year.

confused I have everything crossed for you.

Helenagrace this month is so long...DH and I were chatting about the budget this morning and realised that even though we're being v frugal, we're still not likely to save anything at the end. There's school uniform to get, holiday to enjoy, and then DS's birthday.

Still, I had a good frugaleering win this morning - returned an M&S shirt that MIL bought for DS that was too small, and got four polo shirts for school.

Put £10 of petrol in the car, £20 three days ago. Should be staying home today,DDs have played hockey and I took the old road back so only £2.55 for 1 toll.

Oops sorry adora!! But still that's many many dogs!!!

Forgot about yesterday's shop at the garden centre £9 for grass seed

However today was an NSD!! Surprise! Went swimming with kids,,dh paid. Got a complimentary swim back as they didn't tell us that they were shutting in half an hour! I expressed my displeasure (!!) and the person came back to say I could get a comp swim! Yay.

Returned home for lunch and started packing for holiday (the kids stuff) and then started cooking dinner. So no spend.

Tomorrow might be spendy. Depends on whether the charity shop still has the dress I was eyeing (when I was passing and it was shut) and if it's the right size!

£40 for a radio.

It's for the house .

Don't worry Takeaway. Anyway ours have gone to the vet for two weeks. It's a stop gap and now he is finally going to get me the number of a trainer I've been asking for. OH has accepted that he shouldn't have bought them. If we can get them back under control then we can keep them.

No further spending today, not sure how tomorrow will turn out. DD1 keeps reminding me it's Children's Day and I keep reminding her that it's all about rights of children and improving their lives in countries where they are not valued. She has a list as long as her arm of things she wold like for her birthday, and every thing is related to One Direction.

Well done getting the comp swim and good luck with the charity shop dress Takeaway

Fluffy careful there, you could end up spending a small fortune 'for the house', that said a radio would be on my 'essential' list.

Spent £62 in Argos yesterday, £55 on filling the car, and £23 in morrisons.

Today should be a NSD. Need to spend the morning packing my boys cases, passports etc as they're off to France with my folks for 9 days this evening then this afternoon I'm roping DH into some heavy lifting and organising at the allotment. Taken dinner out of freezer already, so no reason to spend ...

Today should be more or less an NSD. DH wants to go to the pub later to watch football on Sky, but don't plan to spend anything apart from that.

Yesterday was not too bad. Went to my DSister's house in London, so had to pay toll for Dartford crossing each way, so £4 there. We have a Dart Tag, but it didn't have any credit, so cost us an extra £1 (tariff is £1.50 with Dart Tag I think). Also spent about £6 on rolls & cheese as part of our contribution to BBQ. I am glad we don't BBQ often, it can get v. expensive - about £25 all in on burgers, rolls, cheese, potatoes, corn on the cob & garlic bread

NSD for me.

As predicted. Spendy.

Went to charity shop, the dress was too big - but found a bag for £4. New! Ok it was new look but it was the kind of bag I was looking to replace my current bag that's looking rather sorry for itself (the colour is all peeling off...).
Got dc a £2.50 DVD of mr men.
Then walked past shoe zone and got DS a pair of wellies for school £4,99. Went to the works and got some stuff and then had 10% discount so £5.80?

Then had lunch £10. Then went to boots to get face powder that was running out and a new lippy that's also running out - buy one get one half price so £16? Then to tesco to get lasagne sheets, cheese and some other things £8.

Have to have a few NSDs before we go on hol!!!

NSD for me, OH bought sandwiches and chips when we walked the two dogs. We have decided to have 2 weeks without the puppies,I'm going to keep pestering the vet for the number of a trainer. Apparently he's lost the trainer's card but knows a police dog handler, but doesn't know the officer's work schedule. So I have to nag. At least this way the authority here ( we're in a condominium) know we are trying to do something about the problem. They can confiscate dogs who cause a nuisance but the problem is they don't dare go up against the richest families here.

Well done on the 'new' bag Takeaway, shame the dress didn't fit.

Confused yep BBQs can be v expensive, here people eat huge amounts of meat at a BBQ - probably 4 times as much as we're accustomed to.

Hope DSs enjoy their holiday Lielandri

Not sure what this week's spends will be, I hope to avoid going into town.

Today will be spendy, need to do a modest weekly shop and replace a bald tyre. Bought a silk dress on eBay yesterday to wear to our posh dinner, was only £20... I hope it fits.

agirlcalledjack.com/category/below-the-line-budget-recipes/

I wondered if you'd all seen 'A girl called Jack''s blog, value range haute cuisine x

Makes for compelling reading :)

We are back from our holidays so I am now trying to get out of the 'go on lets buy it' mentality I slipped into. Today got blazer for eldest (£25 with voucher as uniform changing halfway through time there) and shoes for smallest three (£30)> went to the market for veg and was only £2.50 for carrots brocolli and a cauli so am tempted to get a shopping trolley and start buying in town. Our butcher has good deals on and I would rather have less decent quality meat than lots of cheap stuff. May have to nosey at ebay for a non tartan trolley..