November Numbercrunchers *blows the budgeteering bugle*

[claretandamberforever]

In here please.

Feel free to post a daily spending diary, to ask for advice or just for a general money moan.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/food/a1453155-Two-meals-slow-cooked-so-far-Two-piles-of-inedible-slop

There you go, I think the trick is to season well & not have it on for too long, I think modern ones are hotter than the original slow cookers were.

A ham hock/shank, stew veg & a cup or so of red lentils makes a lovely stew in mine but its a 3.5l one.

Hi everyone! Been away and been spending BUT I have been spending well.

Two Kindle Fires for main Christmas presents - £40 of free Argos vouchers with those so that's over half of DS' January birthday present sorted.

Also got three presents in the 3 for 2 WHSmith deal AND they let me use the £5 off a £15 spend voucher so got £30 of presents for £17.

Going to do a shop in Lidl to see how I get on. Aldi is a 16 mile round trip but Lidl is a mile away. Any recommendations?

Thanks all.
Helena...lidl is my pils fave shop! :) they buy lots of fruit and veg there, the frozen stuff is prettying old too. Also jams, honey, condiments etc.
Their range of Xmas stuff is usually good too...lebkucken, pannetone, marzipan etc
Mrswolf..thanks. I will phone them tomorrow.
I am determined to start using my slow cooker....dh and I love stews, chicken etc. Kids won't eat it, but I can freeze what we don't eat for another day.
I treated myself to a small food processor from lakeland yesterday. ATM if you spend over £50 (it was £54) you get free delivery and a free naked wines vouchers for 6 bottles of wine for £4.99!!
So that's more Xmas gifts/party drinks sorted.

We invested in a slow cooker yesterday and tried overnight porridge, which was a disaster - think giant, brown wobbly biscuit! Off to get a timer for it now, worried that we have made an expensive mistake

I use my slow cooker all the time. Great for casseroles, ham in coke, chilli, bolognaise etc.

Rice pudding is amazing in the slow cooker and cheaper cuts of beef (brisket, shin etc) are beautiful cooked long and low.

Just checking in. Will read thread later.

Back from Scotland now having had a great time but without the underspend I was anticipating . However our credit card has arrived so we just need to transfer the balances over from the other cards now. Its 0% for 27 months. We won't spend on it and I've worked out how much needs to be put aside each month to cover it at the end of the interest free time. In the meantime that will go into our offset mortgage pot to help bring that down.
Now I do need to think Christmas and start buying things and putting to one side. About to meal plan for the week although it starts well with tea at my parents .

Hope you're OK adora
I use the slow cooker a lot but it does take getting used to, how much liquid to add, etc. Loads of threads if you search on food and recipe topics.

Badvok - I've got a chicken curry on the go now. Onion, two chicken breasts, butternut squash, dried chickpeas, chopped toms x 2 and a tin of coconut milk. I've chucked in madras and curry powder but not much as my 16 month DS will eat it too. The chickpeas take an age and it seems like they will never go soft but they do.

Sounds lovely mix! :)
I would love to try that nigella ham in cola recipe and I am sure I read someone did it in a sow cooker...
It would be great for a Boxing Day buffet I am doing...
Northender...we have just switched to a 0% cc for 15 months. We hope to pay as much off as we can and then we will just shift it again (I think it's called being a card tart! :)) we incurred lots of unexpected costs when we moved into this money pit house 2 years ago.

I estimate I spent about £165 on our three days in London. Not too bad, but I hoped it would be more like £100. I always, always go over budget there...

Hugs for Adora.

Hello all

Spends since the last time...

£3.00 parking at the cinema (mum paid for the ticket)
£3.61 Kindle book from Amazon (book of the film that I went to see)
£4.00 DS2 haircut
£4.73 on Saturday night's tea from Asda
£29.52 in Home Bargains
£9.24 in Morrisons on groceries
£6.00 on hairdye
£2.99 on a new lipstick
£1.99 on a can opener (debating whether this comes from the grocery budget or the everything else...)

Budget's remaining
Kids: Budget = £169.40 / spent: £10 // Remaining £159.40
Petrol: Budget = £255 / spent £56.80 // remaining: £198.20
Food: Budget = £350 // Spent: £43.98 // remaining: £306.02
Everything else = £482.12 // Spent: £70.35 // remaining: £411.77

Really need to rein in my supermarket shopping. I couldn't be fagged doing a big shop as I hadn't written a shopping list so I just went to Home Bargains and got 2 weeks worth of snacky stuff and pop (all the stuff that costs a lot in the supermarket)

Rang EDF to complain about the £26 extra that they had taken and honestly I am banging my head against a brick wall. I'll try cut this as short as possible. I owed them in April £642. I took out a 2 year payment plan to pay it off at £26 a month. I have been paying varying different amounts every month since then which adjust because I now submit meter readings every month. However the £642 debt has been taken off my main balance so they are two separate entities and their computer doesn't recognise that if you subtract the credit balance (main account) from the debit balance (debt) the difference is only £21 debit. As I have signed up to this 2 yearly payment plan at £26 a month they are just taking £26 a month from my payment towards the debt and the rest to the fuel account so I now have a credit balance on the main account and a debit balance of £426 (£648 minus 6 installments of £26) however although the actual bill recognises this but the computer and call centre people don't so they just keep saying "you still owe us 18 installments of £26 and if you leave, we will immediately take the whole remaining debt balance from your bank and then re-credit you the outstanding amount from your fuel account"!!!! How ludicrous is that?

The lad I spoke to yesterday said he would adjust my direct debit to £114 + £26 payment plan = £140 a month but in January when my account review is up, they will increase my direct debit because I will be paying too little. Apparently my direct debit for the fuel should be £159 a month. I asked if they would definitely take the rest of the 'debt' and he said that is what they would do. I really want to leave them but I don't want them to take nearly £500! I think I need to write an e-mail to their CEO don't I?

Yes you do.

NSD for me.

E-mail sent.

£2.50 on parking at a local wildlife attraction. Nothing else spent, although Tesco shop due this evening at £70. I am determined that the days of the top-up shop are over. This is our biggest failing with money: popping in to pick up a couple of forgotten things, and ending up spending £50. So, I'm going to try and work on the principle that if it doesn't arrive on the planned shop on Sunday, we do without it.

Spoke too soon. £8.50 on DIY stuff. Not quite sure what I got for that but dh is upstairs swearing at something.

Good for you, Claret.

Hello! We are back from Leeds after a lovely wedding there. The trip cost us £120 for hotel (family room x2 nights), breakfasts at McDonald's for about £14 for all of us on one day and co-op shop about £10 the next.

Service station meals about £40 in total. Petrol another £100 in total.

Argh.

Today did big shop at Aldi's £80. And then went to sainsburys to get clothing for £50 (thermals, gloves, belt for dh, underpants for kids...). Then cling film at tesco because I forgot and I was near there. Too many spends.

Hopeful for many NSDs this week. Should be ok other than DS's school dinners.

We have just discovered homemade pizzas. I know we should have done it earlier but we have no discovered it. And it's so cheap. And so yummy. At the moment we are using the pizza based from sainsburys (2 bases for £1). But using a slice of ham (or 2), one pineapple ring, some grated cheese, some spinach and some corn costs a max of 90p (including the 50p for base). If I make my own it will be cheaper. And looking at my aldi shop where a pepperoni pizza costs £1.85 I can make my own for half the price! Amazing.

Hello all

had fireworks party tonight £20 on box fireworks. Friends both brought a box also. Brought pk cheap aldi 12 for 99p sausages n marinated since yesterday in bbq sauce. Pk frankfurters 99p. 6 chipolatas for 72p. 18 finger rolls 75p ( out freezer prevreduced buys n frozen) 2 onions n some hm wedges all went down well n not too pricey.

NSD here. Didn't even leave the house.

NSD here, not sure what tomorrow will be.

hugely spendy weekend so aiming for NSD today, tomorrow and Wednesday. Ideally I'd like not to spend anything until Sunday when I'll do the weekly shop. I'm working every day this week so it shouldn't be too hard!

We have menus planned for lunch/dinner until Wednesday dinner, for the rest of the week I plan to use up what's in the freezer/cupboards to get us through until Saturday night. Good luck to everyone hoping for a spend-free day!

£1.18 on milk.

Really cross with amazon, I've been waiting ages to get a spin dryer & they had one for £92. I had £60 in amazon vouchers so I thought I could finally get one. They raised the price to £119.

Fuck you amazon.

Now I have amazon vouchers that I won't use & I've had to ask topcashback to convert my cashback to a BACS payment which is a hassle and I doubt they'll want to help me.

with ecotricity... we switched to them when we moved into the new house and got official letter saying we were supplied by them from 19th September. I rang old provider who said they couldn't send a final bill for 8th Aug-19th Sept until Ecotricity sent them some paperwork to confirm the switch.
I rang Ecotricity on 20th Sept and they said it was in hand. I have jus received a bill from old provider for the 8th Aug-21 OCTOBER for £139 because the paperwork was never sent, they are demanding we pay it even though they admit they are not currently supplying the property!!!