Sashaying into September savings, the frugality continues....

[Fluffycloudland77]

NSD.

Only spend today should be a birthday card for nephew.

I am doing an 8 mile walk for Macmillan on Saturday. I plan to make a picnic for us all to have in the park. Should be low spend day.

Hi, can i join in? I just posted this on Chat, but then saw this thread and thought this might be the place to ask! I am struggling to keep my weekly shop below £115 (2 adults, 2 preschoolers); that seems way too much, especially as i tend to top up with bread, milk, fruit, chocolate etc during the week.....I keep reading about people who manage to keep to 60 or 70 quid a week for a family of four and i need to know how they do it! If you can be bothered and have time, will you give me a typical shopping list to cover all meals for a week, plus cleaning products and baby care products....i appreciate there is variation in what you need each week but a snapshot weekly shop would help me see where i am going wrong....

Tip for cleaning products and toiletries is to stick to basic items that work for you and buy them in bulk (as big as you can store) when they are on a deal. Reductions seem to come in cycles with them in supermarkets. Eg I get Persil liquid and Ecover laundry bleach (my work uniform is white!) for laundry. I don't tend to bother with fabric softener, it's a luxury. I know Persil liquid works well for stains, smells nice and I don't have to use loads. I find powder clogs up my machine, so I'd rather not use it even though it works out cheaper. So stick with what works and never ever pay full price!

Monkey do you meal plan? I struggle to but I know it makes a difference. Somewhere near the beginning of this thread is a link to a Two week meal plan on love food hate wate, apparently when I link it doesn't work because I'm abroad. Also with cleaning materielas do you buy things like descaler? If so you can swap that for cheap vinegar.

I'm getting confused here, Monday I Spent money and took OH to the clínica, yesterday was an NSD, I must have posted late on Monday because my post shows it as Tuesday. Anyway, Today I need to Get rice and some veg.

NSD for me. Have plenty to do getting DS ready to go back to school tomorrow. Haven't labelled his new uniform and kit yet and will need to take up his school trousers - the regular were too short and the long version is just a tad too long...yuk, I hate hemming.

Will have to do a shop tomorrow...am making a list and sticking to it.

My 1st nsd .. I did want to do 4 this week one is better than none I suppose ..

northender hope your DD makes a quick recovery, the day you have planned sounds perfect.

Rogue labelling for me only took about 30 minutes as I used a laundry marker pen - could you do the same?

Shiny it's a start...

Spent £9 in Tesco today on spare trousers for DS1 for school, bread & stock cubes. But found £1.02 on the floor so quite pleased with that Also spent £1.45 at farm for ice creams for both DSes.

Tomorrow will pay for school dinner for DS, £1.90, plus probably ice creams in the afternoon. Other than that should be NSD as will be painting my new house while DSes at nursery & school

Not a NSD but a LSD. £2.20 for DS school dinner and that was it! Hopeful for my first NSD tomorrow!

Hello to everyone. Sorry haven't been engaging with every post but I have been reading. Trying to get over tiredness and other chores from going away.. And back to work today and the rest of the week. Have a contingent of German people coming over for a week next week for work and have not prepped!! I'm hoping for some time tomorrow.

Today spent the day clearing more emails and had many meetings, some planned, others ambushed! Bumped into my boss mid day and I said I'm dealing with 23rd aug emails.. And that he had to wait.

Hello, I'd like to join if that's ok!

Really need to reign in spending. Was a LP for years while at uni, am now married and have a pretty well paid FT job (am a teacher in Scotland) but paying off my debts now. Just want to start putting money away as well.

NSD today, was in work all day!

Yesterday wasn't an NSD in the end, ended up spending £18.42 in sainsburys and £3.75 in Iceland. All stocked on some bits though so won't need to buy the same bits for a few months.

NSD today though been doing housework and over to a friends this afternoon. Made lentil dhal, vegetable curry and pilau rice for tea tonight, used up lots of bits of veg from the freezer.

Evening all. I was hoping for a NSD today but spent £2 (going rate) on contribution for a colleague's birthday present and £40 on petrol. I was in the red so could put it off no longer. I was v restrained though as loads my workmates had a curry or kebab at lunch but I stuck to my cottage cheese, salad and pitta. Good for my waistline too.

monkey, What I do is shop at Aldi (although its getting busier now which annoys me), meal plan, drop all the branded stuff unless you need it due to allergies eg I have bisto gravy powder as I can't have granules due to MSG and sainsbos own brand one has something else I'm allergic to in it so I buy it in Poundworld. If I do something with mince eg cottage pie, chilli, bolognase etc i add a handful of porridge oats, it makes it much more filling.

I buy loads of ecloths in tk maxx for all cleaning so I don't need much in the way of cleaning stuff really. I even do all my windows inside and out with them. Mainly I use bio powder from aldi, smart price vinegar for fabric softener, washing up liquid and bleach, and dishwasher stuff. All from Aldi and of course dishwasher tablets broken in half.

I also question everything and I try and find out alternatives. Eg I needed coconut milk. It's not cheap but then I realised I could buy a block of coconut cream and cut off bits as needed. Much cheaper but you need to store it in a plastic box in the fridge because its so greasy. Same with curry pastes, took me years to realise one jar of them does four curries.

NSD.

So things pretty bad we're massively into overdraft territory and I need to find ways of saving, I need to have lots of NSDs and am hoping that by joining I can do this.

My first way will be to internet shop all dry stuff then I know I just need ro do fresh stuff. No other major expenses this month but need to save as much as I can.

I need to not spend around £500 this month!

Ended up having a NSD. Woo!

Hope DD enjoyed her duvet day and recovers quickly Northender

Shiny 1 NSD is better than none

Good luck with your saving goal sportinguista

I bought veg after Pilates, local grocer, about £3 and because I only wanted a teeny tiny bit of chopped celery, fed up with buying a whole one and chucking most away, he didn't charge me for it. Then I went on to the supermarket for rice, butter and bottles of water for school, £4 ish. Can't get DD1 to remember to bring her bottle back home for refilling. I know I could freeze celery but the freezer is currently full to the gunnels and I need to use stuff, not put more in.

Tomorrow I'm seeing Dr so that'll be about £75 I think, haven't been for a while so not sure how much he's charging now. Plus tolls, but I can park free.

Dd is doing well, thanks for all your good wishes
Nice to see so many newbies on the thread, remember every bit of money saved or extra income helps. So yes one NSD is definitely better than none.
We would have had a NSD yesterday but then ds needed a £10 deposit for his locker, I needed to put £10 in a birthday card for BIL, plus £1.20 to post it so far from a NSD.
Today should be ok as I'm in with dd again.

Spendy day yesterday as paid for school dinners for the whole half-term which was £74 and £9.43 in Home Bargains, although I probably won't have to buy work soups until after half-term as well!

3 weeks until payday and I'm going to try to manage without going onto my credit card; have about £250 to budget which sounds a lot but I have to fill the car up every week which is £40 as I have a 50-mile round trip to work. Need lots of NSDs!

£17.14 on fruit, bread, fromage frais, card for nephew and a bottle of wine!

Supper will be potatoes, omelette and veg. I might bake some cupcakes for lunches.

jonbon, good luck on the budgeting. I'm using YNAB and it helps a lot.

marking place, this is a great thread

So I did an online shop this week, and it should last 2 weeks, spent 155 quid...it included bulk buy laundry stuff/dishwasher tablets/cloths/soap/toothpaste etc etc Plus LOTS of bread for the freezer.

I've done a meal plan and stuck it on the fridge. So far so good.

I have also managed to avoid the shops on way back from school run so far for the last 4 days! so that's 4 NSD here so far.

I read something in an old mag I had lying around yesterday about the savings of not having a takeaway coffee & a cake each morning, and how a shop bought lunch really add up

• so - my plan is to take out the money (in cash from the bank) that I would have spent on those and keep it in a sealed tin and keep it for Christmas Fund!! Wish me luck...

I think I'm aiming for 50quid a week or so - ie a tenner a day which would have been spent on coffees/lunches etc and if I can manage to put away 50quid each Friday, then I could possibly up that about to 60quid a week in October.

Hello, I'm back from holiday and back on the threads. Had a lovely time away but got caught out by the bloody campsite not taking the money for our pitch until the day we arrived despite me having 'paid' several months ago. No mention that they would do this at the time. So that was all our spending money vanished and we had to credit card stuff until DH got paid at the end of our stay.

Expected expenses this month:

DS starting school, have most bits but still need to get him a bag

car insurance needs renewing - does anyone know if you can shop around for best quote and then buy that quote through Topcashback? Also, with TCB can you pay in lump sum (as we do atm) or does it have to be direct debit? sorry for being lazy and not looking myself

SIL's birthday at end of month, coinciding with charity pubcrawl

I have a filling appt in a few weeks, although should only be about £20

finish decorating living room and put up shelves - dithering over whether to buy a workmate and attempt this ourselves or pay someone to custom fit them into an awkward space

Unexpected expenses:

the sink surround is fucked, has been absorbing water and is close to collapse. DH has done an emergency grouting job but we are really concerned that it might become unusable in the future. We want to replace the kitchen at some point but certainly have no money for it now.

bathroom woodwork still rotting, unsure how to proceed there.

I did a £93 shop at Lidl this week, £22 at Sainsbury inc. DS's plimsolls, and tbh we shouldn't need anything other than fresh stuff for the rest of the month. I am aiming to spend no more than £30 a week on top ups.

At least I've saved money on the catfood - boycat needs special gastro stuff to stop his pancreas flaring up and the vets were charging £42 for a 4kg bag. Just ordered it online for £30, free delivery too.

Bought my first christmas presents... 2 lego ninjago books for DS (his current obsession!) for £11.03 from the Book People. I probably could have reduced this had I been able to find a free delivery code. Still, a 10% off one worked.

Thanks Pretty , adora and fluffy . I was doing meal plans but for some reason they weren't really coming out that cheap....i think DH and I might have problems with compromise....he hates things made with leftovers and likes his meat....plus the kids and i demolish fruit really quickly, so its gone by midweek. I'm crap with money, and we are stoney broke.....so i'm watching this thread with a lot of interest. Aldi and lidl shops are virtually impossible with the two very naughty pre-schoolers (they are really uncontrollable in supermarkets) so i do an online shop at tesco or asda, weekly but with top ups. Aldi and lidl don't do online do they?

You can pay upfront with TCP but I usually go through aviva on TCP.

I'd go on a day/morning/evening I had childcare if it meant I had more money in the kitty.

Monkey could you go in the evenings? I much prefer evening supermarket shops, although my local Lidl closes at 8pm so it depends when your DH is home to take over childcare.

Generally I find the DC behave much better in Lidl than in other supermarkets, but they were bloody awful (and tbf so was I) when we went on Tuesday

Yeah, I know...i will try to do a lidl shop; DS 1 in playschool 3 mornings a week, so i could go then, although its his little bro who is the real pain in the ass; will not stay in trolley seat. But as you say Fluffy , worth it if it saves money. Exasperated, can't really do evenings as DH not in til 6, and then we battle kids bedtime together, as he works a really long physical day too, so not fair to leave him to it.