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.

May I join please?

its I had a similar letter from Tesco - I am going to try and be strong and ignore it. I spend too much in there as it is!

I am in the process of running down my freezer with a view to defrosting it. I have been trying to do this since the summer without success. Last week I made a really tasty soup with some leftover chicken that I had frozen a few weeks ago, some veg that was left over in the fridge and some extra garlic and herbs to give it a bit more flavour. I am going to try and make a soup once a week in an attempt to cut down our food costs and also use up some of the veg that accumulates.

Welcome monikar.

£1.83 on postage and then I put my car in for it's mot. £260 sob. Oh well. I was expecting something but not that much. While I was waiting for the work to be done I spent £3.35 on a coffee for me and lunch for DS. Later this month I have tax and insurance to pay. It's going to be a bad month.

And now it turns out they have sent the paperwork and the other provider were wrong, apparently the other provider are going through a system update which is causing this problem for other people, but of course the old provider didn't bother to mention that to me during the 27 minutes of 0845 call I paid through the nose for!

Argh! I must say Ecotricity have been very helpful today, I'll not know until this final bill from the other supplier materializes/fails to materialize towards the end of next week whether it has been resolved though

NSD today! First one of the month.

Made some soup in the slow cooker for lunch and have some left for tomorrow. It was made from leftovers so it feels like free food!

DH has been approached to apply for a job in Bermuda. Nice idea but I don't think it's going to happen!

Fluffy, how bloody annoying! You've been after a spin-dryer for aaages too.

So, £22.32 at Lidl and £28.84 at Tesco. That's it for the week, apart from milk. £1.50 on padded envelopes for posting off eBay stuff tomorrow. £14.15 on travel, cafe and swimming session for DS. Total: £66.81 .

So, you'll laugh.....I was looking at the wrong supplier & it was still on there for £92 so I've ordered one and now I feel a prat.

At least I can stop boring everyone about spin dryers now.

£30 on a spin dryer.
£20.01 on petrol

I got £30 in unclaimed tesco vouchers today.
Doubled up means £60.
Of course, you can only spend it on certain things - not food for example!
But it will come in handy for the last few gifts for Dhs family.
Bought some boys for he co op and some bits from he post office and before you know it...£20 gone.
Must try harder.

at fluffy and the spin dryer saga. Hope it's worth it!
On the way to school with dd today met another mum who informed me it was an inset day . So ended up a bit different to plan, went to the library, did some baking and started to sort her room out. The only spend was £6 in aldi for carrots, cream cheese, bread rolls and 2 bags of bread flour (we baked a carrot cake).
Cottage pie for tea (mince cooked in slow cooker) and made another to freeze.
Should be NSD tomorrow

Well, a normal washing machine spins at 1200-1600rpm, a spin dryer spins at 2800rpm. The reviews on John Lewis, asda & amazon are all good.

The downside is it only holds 4.1kg of washing and you have to load it properly or it moves around.

The upside is that it's cheaper to spin water out of clothes than heat it out in a tumble dryer.

Given that in the winter the drying time you get outside is minimal it means I won't have to use the dryer a lot, if at all.

Dh is against me having one but he doesn't have to do laundry. He will not be pleased.

I don't know....the fastest spin I've seen is 1600.

Our grans had the right idea, apparently if you have a twin tub you can wash the least dirty clothes, then the dirtier ones so you get two washes out of one load of water!,

I spend too long thinking about this stuff.

Still haven't had a reply from the CEO of EDF

Spends...
£32.00 on clothes from Tesco. Feel really bad about this. Our uniform has been relaxed at work and we can now wear our own clothes in a corporate colour so I went and bought a new top @ £14 and then I saw a denim skirt which I absolutely loved for £18 and I had been after one for ages as I have got too fat for my other one and I know I'll wear it loads and loads but I still feel bad!!
£28.04 on a Tesco online shop. (chose a later time slot for tomorrow night so saved £1.50).

£10 on a deposit for my work's Xmas do.

£7.99 on a takeaway

My budget stands at
Food: £269.99 remaining
Petrol: £198.20 remaining
Kids: £158.40 remaining
Everything else: £374.12 remaining

I shall now be uber frugal until the weekend

Still feeling really bad about the denim skirt...

Thanks North and Creme

Feelling better now, four day break To lié in helped

Spent £35 Today, no sign of activity where I normaly buy veg and nuts. Hope they're open Tomorrow as I need nuts and really don't want To pay súpermarket prices for my veg. I want To grow it, not pay through the nose for it

Haven't caught up properly but agree Fluffy you should sell your vouchers.

Fluffy if it's any consolación I also feel like a Prat, advizing you To flog the vouchers after you've said you can now use them. Doh!

claret it's probably busier on a Monday. Did you check spam too?

I'm hoping today will be NSD, can't think of anything I need.

No NSDs for me so far, but my £100 cash per week plan is going alright so far. £58 in Lidl at the weekend, £10 on eggs and a roasting chicken from the farm shop. I'm taking £15 into town today as need some bits, including a card for friends who have just had twin girls :)

DD was sick on our living room rug on Saturday night, which means the rug is a write off. It was disgusting anyway. DH wanted to go out and spend £50 on a replacement straight away, I said no

Nope. Nothing in spam. I don't expect a reply to be honest, or if I do get a reply I expect a "please contact customer services on..."

Tried the denim skirt on and I love it so no hope that I might take it back for a refund!

My husband wouldn't eat the food from Aldi and I do try to buy as much Organic as I can. Organic meat is far too expensive though and DH doesn't eat meat, so might have a look at the meat at Aldi to save some money. If it weren't for my husband's Diet Coke and junk food diet we would have a much harder time spending the £90 at Tesco.

We've had NSD on Sunday and Monday. I need buy some groceries online today it's all whole food stuff so not expensive at all.

Making soup for dinner with chicken and cabbage and whatever else I can chuck in. Probably make enough for around 10 portions, so will have loads of soup in the freezer for later in the month. I'm also trying to eat healthier, so will probably bulk out the soup with some sort of grain type thing.

Forgot to mention I have stopped using shampoo and have loads of it. Not sure what to do with it all, can't imagine I could sell it on eBay? Going to sell a lot of baby clothes on eBay, so that will help add some money. We spent £750 on Royal Mail Shares last month and paid the £800 car insurance so it feels like there is a giant hole in our savings.

Hello! Lurker popping up to finally join in properly. I'm a NCer, as I'm very 'out' on my usual username, and don't necessarily want family and friends coming across my financial stuff!

Having been burying our heads in the sand for a long time about ploughing through savings since setting up a new business (as in, there's virtually nothing left of really quite a big pot of savings), DH and I finally sat down and really went through our income and expenditure last night. It was and how much we've been blowing on not vey much, despite living really pretty staid and sensible lives. We are bored silly of renting, so have set ourselves some saving targets to attempt to get the house deposit savings back on track. It was horrible, as I felt like such a nag saying to DH 'no, we can't really afford that', but he finally got on board with it and has put the You Need a Budget app on his phone to track spends (I already have it on mine, but haven't been using it).

Signed up for topcashback last night and can't believe there's no catch, iykwim. Got £1.22 back on some coach tickets that I had to book anyway (and made the choice to catch the coach at £22 rather than the train at £70, which would be my usual choice). Not much, but every little helps, right?

DH is low carbing at the moment, which isn't cheap, but I am going to get some cheap meat from the butchers on Thurs and do some slow cooker stews. Love the sound of all the freezer/leftover soups, we don't have huge amounts of veg waste, but definitely enough to do the odd portion of soup.

Any good blog/website recommendations for more frugal idea much appreciated!

Subterfuge maybe local Facebook selling page?