December debt destroying *blows the budgeteering bugle*

[claretandamberforever]

Okay, so probably not much debt will be getting destroyed this month, but hopefully we won't add too much to it.

Here's the thread you want if you need to keep a spending diary somewhere, confess money sins, ask for help or have a general whinge at the cost of living.

Welcome to any newbies

I make my own bread, definitely cheaper. I do it by hand though, not with a bread machine.

Spent too much in the sales today, will be going to return it all tomorrow...

It's great that some of you are embarking on 5:2. Not only did I lose and maintain weight easily this year following this way of life, I estimated to have saved about £300 in food costs .

Some people who don't need to lose weight also fast for several health benefits, but for one day a week.

All the tips are for newbies and lurkers, get them started for the new year.

NSD yesterday but I need cleaning stuff in savers today, and we are picking up new light fittings for the hall and landing, no more bare bulbs for us.

I've got so used to delivery drivers etc asking if we've just moved in I just say yes now.

Stripping the turkey later which will keep me in curry for ages, only I eat the dark meat. Even the cat insists on white meat.

Hello everyone.

I have finally updated my December spreadsheet and started the January one. I discovered that my prescription pre-payment direct debit is only for 10 months and not 12, so November had been my last payment and my next one isn't until February, so I have been able to put an extra £20.80 back onto my everything else money (woo).

Spends since last confession:
£0.99 - kindle book
£1.00 - bet
£0.64 - first class stamp
£5.00 - DS1 haircut today

I am trying to avoid putting petrol in the car until Tuesday. What I have got should last until then.

Will need to go shopping for some pop as we now have none in but I will leave it til later today.

Budget stands at...
Kids activities: £60.15 remaining
Everything else: £116.66 remaining
Groceries: £17.10 remaining
Petrol: £65.96 remaining
Xmas 2014: £0.00 cash/ £0.00 Tesco Vouchers / presents purchased: 1 (a re-gift)

So quite a healthy balance to be carried forward to January's everything else budget, given that I also have a £50 Asda giftcard so my grocery budget can be £50 less this month. I'm very chuffed that I am actually managing to have money leftover at the end of every month since I started tracking spends on a spreadsheet.

I did, however, want to take me, DH and the lads to the cinema today to watch Harry Hill. However even with a 10% discount for booking online it was £27+ which I just thought was excessive and couldn't bring myself to do it. Family entertainment is just soooo expensive! I might just give the lads some money to go on Tuesday when it's a bit cheaper.

Read the fuel meters (32 days since last read) and approximately including VAT and DD discount total bill should be £181.57. Account is showing at £134.19cr, so I owe them £47+ with two more freezing cold months to get through. I have put the heating on throughout the day for the kids as they have been at home from school though, and one night I forgot to turn it off completely. My little electric fan heater has also been on almost constantly. I'd much rather be warm than save a few quid and I'm lucky that at this moment I am able to make this decision. I feel so bad for the people for whom heating has to be treated as a luxury.

£9.80 spent today on eggs, cream, baking parchment and 2 free range chickens (yellow label, straight in the freezer)
We're going to friends tonight and i've made a pavlova to take with us. Tomorrow ds and I are going to a football away match which is a pretty rare occurrence. We'll take food and drink to cut down costs and 2 friends are coming with us so they will chip in towards the diesel cost. There will be no other spends today or tomorrow.
On Monday we're driving down to Devon to dh's family for New Year so there will be a big diesel spend but I'm hoping to minimise any other spending. Shouldn't need to go food shopping until next weekend and even then it should only be a modest top up.

We've not been to a cinema in ages either claret, I actively object to all the eating that goes on and people getting up to wee because drinking 3l of Pepsi wasn't such a great idea but it did wash down the foot long hot dog and tray of nachos they ate.

I'd object less if I had no allergies and I could have nachos & hotdogs.

£6 in savers on astonish cleaners & mouthwash. Then I found out they are only 89p each in morrisons

68p on a consolation black pudding.

Dh has said we should eat whats in the freezer up rather than do a big shop tomorrow, it's nothing I hadn't thought of but it's the first time he's said it himself so he might be coming round to my way of thinking.

I need 6 led G9 bulbs now, we have new light fittings but they came with 6 33w bulbs. Everything's capsule bulbs now.

Ooh, well done fluffy's DH!

£1.10 on postage and £5.47 at Lidl, so £6.57 altogether. I only need milk, bread, dry cat food, tea and sugar now to see us through until the 6th, but I have enough of the above until Monday anyway.

I went to Asda just to buy pop but I somehow spent about £15 - and forgot mushrooms so needed to go back in after I had got to the car!

£19 spent in tesco this was down from £28 before discounts n coupons did get some reduced outdoor bred pork belly was yummy had for dinner.

Husband ill so not gone to visit family which is disappointing plus side is whole tank petrol remains as would use tank n 1/4 going there then round number of relations then home again.

I've spent a lot today! Picked up quite a bit in the m&s sale and was all going to be covered by birthday and xmas vouchers. However, my mum insisted on getting it for me. She also put £40 petrol in my car. I then treated her to lunch which was £33 but that was her Christmas treat.

Got birthday presents for two family members in boots which was £45.07. More than I wanted to spend really but they are so good to me and my DS. Then in Sainsbury's I spent £27.58 which included presents for DS's dad's birthday and someone else. I got myself new mugs and a butter dish.

So, loads spent but I've got things I needed and lots of presents. I am sooooo pleased with my new clothes as they were well overdue.

I know I am very late to this, but I'd love to join you all!

Today has been a nsd - except dh purchased a sideboard online, reduced from £800 to £197 including delivery. I've just completed two online shops for this week and next, meal planned and made sure everything I'll need for lunches and dinners is there.

I'm aiming to save as much as I can over the coming months, I have spent a fair bit in the sales over last few days - I do find it hard to resist a bargain.

Looking forward to joining the January savers too.

Welcome thatgirl

You could unsubscribe from sale emails. Temptations hard to resist.

My neilsen app paid me £5 in amazon vouchers which will come in handy for some more led bulbs

Have booked to take kids to cinema tomorrow - cineworld movies for juniors plus online booking makes it £4 total for 5 of us :-) 2 adults and 3 kids, one under 2. Will make popcorn to take with us and smuggle in - the advantages of carrying the baby in a backpack is plenty of space to hide the contraband mwah ha ha ha....

Well I'm loving the area where I've recently moved to - I just went to Sainsbury's where I picked up two packs of fresh mackerel that were each reduced from £2.15 to 54p

Seem to have ended December with about £250 extra savings! This year I bought no chocs or sweets because we were going to be away. We got more than enough as presents. Saved a bit there!

Going to do a freezer audit this afternoon as there's lots of bits of cooked meat in there which I can use for pies. I found a gougere recipe in Red online which was good for cooked ham and chicken or turkey. I think it could become a standby for using up leftover roasts.

Needed some brown shoes or boots so I popped into the Clark's sale and got some brogues reduced from £55 to £40. They didn't have my size so they ordered them for home delivery - if they do it in store you don't pay delivery charges

Really need to get to a supermarket to see if there's any reduced neutral or aim wrapping paper. I haven't bought full price wrapping paper for years and I'm not starting in 2014!

Well done Helenagrace - £250 is a good amount to have leftover after Christmas.

My Christmas 2014 savings account is £4 up already. DS1 refused to get out of bed to do his paper round meaning I had to do it. He obviously thinks that because he received over £200 in Christmas money, it means he doesn't have to lower himself to menial tasks at the moment. I could cheerfully throttle him. Mind you, if I did his paper round for the next 50 weeks, that'd mean I'd have £200 towards my Christmas fund.....Hmmmm that's food for thought

Hi, mind if I join you all? :)

Basically DH and I are very low income, no debt except DH's overdraft (in and out of it each month) but trying to save as much as we can to get a mortgage deposit together in about 5 years. We've saved £100pcm this year (standing order into an ISA) but want to step it up in 2014! Not sure how much more we can realistically save though, and we will need to kick some bad habits.

I am actually really looking forward to frugality as seeing the savings mount up has been brilliant this year and until very recently we thought a mortgage was an impossible dream! And we had another positive recently - our washing machine died a few weeks ago! DH was really miffed that we had to buy a new one, but I saw the bright side which was that because we'd been so good with money this year, we actually were able to just buy one outright without having to panic or dip into savings. That would've been impossible a year ago so I'm really chuffed with how we've improved! :)

My biggest issue is groceries really - that's the main area we can improve on. Going to scour the thread for ideas and I'm looking forward to a fresh start in January :)

Hi helenagrace :o

I was just thinking today that I we needn't have bothered buying chocolate/sweets this Xmas. We were given quite a bit from various people which I wasn't expecting at all. I think next year I'll follow your lead and not buy any before Xmas.

I also favour the post-Xmas wrapping paper purchasing :o I resent paying full price when I can just buy some in the sales and keep it for next year instead.

We've agreed to do no more food shopping until Jan 1st so we will be doing a tesco order on NYE. We have plenty of stuff to get by til then (only just finished the turkey) with a bit of inventiveness, but REALLY need to get organised for future shopping budget. I'm so sick of it though. I'd love to get back to really enjoying the planning and cooking but right now I just feel very... blah

£20 on draught excluders but that's the whole house done now.

£5 exchanging a lamp

fuzzpig try shopping at Aldi/lidl, we save £1400 a year shopping there. I dread to think what my grocery bill would be if I still shopped at Sainsbos.

So we are home from the grandparents, with more toys then we can ever play with... Grr.

Also the first credit card bill arrived, and it's more than I expected. Until I looked at it and realised that the car repairs were on this, so that's fine I suppose.

We haven't done a shop for food in two weeks now (well last weekend and today). I'm pretty sure we can go till next weekend without a shop. I have 5l of milk. I have a loaf of bread. I have 9 eggs, veg, and fruit. I have a freezer full of food, cooked and otherwise.

Happy new year all!!

Welcome fuzzpig

Got DS back from his dad today (yippee) so spent £4.50 on coffee for me and my mum at our arranged meeting point. When it's just me I just wait in my car but I can't do that with my mum especially as she insisted on taking her car so no petrol cost for me. She is very generous and a control freak

Then I popped into Tesco to see if there were any yellow sticker bargains but came out £1.50 poorer and with a giant malteser cracker. Not needed at all but a bargain as it has 7 packs in it.