Judicious January Jangling & Juggling *blows budgeteering bugle*

[claretandamberforever]

Sorry, couldn't resist going overboard on the J's

Happy new year y'all. Welcome to expert budgeteerers, newbies, lurkers and de-lurkers. We're a very friendly, non-judgmental bunch so please use this thread as you choose whether it's as a spending diary, to confess your money sins, ask for help or have a general whinge at the cost of living.....

Me, nada

DH, paid for keeping DDs entertained, cheap lunch and a holiday. He's too stressed, more glitches, and I know that if he doesn't relax he'll just jack it all in.

Will catch up later.

NSD here.

Nsd again for me!

Not looking forward to tomorrow..council tax comes out

£2 on some side plates to use as cat food dishes. Apparently the world ends if he eats off ours.

John Lewis have agreed to price match dunelm mill for an e-cloth mop which is good because the nearest dunelm is miles away. It will save me having to use hot water to mop the floor.

I'm going to invest in a thermos king food flask, I can take hot meals to work then. It will mean buying a microwave though so I can heat the meal up in the morning but it will be a smart price one. I'm beyond bored of sandwiches at the moment.

Hey artemis that's a great saving on your fuel bill. Ours recently increased from £42 to £101 hence the name as I feel like that is my main occupation at times!

I did spend a little last night - £1.90 on a camomile tea. Extortionate but just needed something warm in the tum!

3frugalthings: went to the library to order in my next book club read, it was £1 to do this (who knew?!) but saved about £5 on amazon price; had a very make shift lunch of bovril and bread after getting up seriously late, so late it could have justified a shop lunch but I got by!; walked home instead of catching the bus.

Arrived home to two letters on the door mat. One was the nursery bill. The other a letter from HMRC changing my tax code to allow for my second job ! I had a half hour panic that I was losing part of my tax free allowance (all due to a one off extra shift I did earlier in the year) but thankfully it was easily sorted. Just need to get one off job to take me off their system once I get paid at the end of the month so a P45 is generated.

As much as I get a strange satisfaction from frugaling, love a bargain, high 5 myself for a NSD, I hate that when you live within such a tight budget the smallest thing can have huge ramifications.

my third non spend day in a row. I am not gloating though because I am taking my car for new tyres tomorrow and to see about getting the blower mended. It could be expensive.

Turn. Camomile tea is my favourite evening drink. Asdas own brand is lovely.

Fluffy I got a big thermos food flask for Christmas. On Monday I took left over gravy and mashed up veggies for lunch, it was yummy.

NSD today and downhill to the end of the month for me as I get paid next Friday. .........seems to have been a long one!

NSD!!

turn £101!!! Switching and learning how to read the meter etc has made a huge difference for us, I go around turning everything off all the time. My big crime now is leaving phone charger in and on, which uses almost as much energy as actually charging the phone.

Should have been an NSD today but ended up spending £15ish on 2 prescriptions, grrr.

NSD here.

At our library you can borrow those gadgets that tell you how much electricity and how much you are spending - it was really good at helping us learn what it's worth being thrifty on with electrical stuff e.g. How expensive it is to take a long shower and how our dryer is less expensive than I thought.

Worth borrowing if you can get hold of one.

NSD. We did pop out but DH said we had large plástico plant pots left over, so I Stopped searching for cheap plástico ones amongst the cerámica ones.

Fluffy for whom does the world end? Just wondering if your cat is on a wind up, because my dogs don't care what their food is on the philistines. I had To stop one from licking the cleaver this evening as I scooped up a morsel I had dropped.

My eye seems To be clearing up without the help of medicine, maybe it was a reaction To something rather than an infección.

I am rather of all you people shopping around for cheaper utilities. The market here is too small for genuino competición so there is no cheaper option. Other than burning wood, which is banned now.

does anyone know if there's a particular day that is good for getting reduced items at the supermarkets? Or is it simply every evening?

It's dh who thinks we will DIE from a horrible infectious disease if we eat off plates the cat has eaten off

£20 last night on an ecloth mop.

Supermarkets usually mark down daily, some reduce food more than others. You've got to see which one is best really, people flock around the mark downs in asda but they knock 10p off each item whereas the local morrisons takes more like 75-90% off.

Low spend day yesterday , £7 in a pub as was out for a meal for tea. Should be a NSD today and pay day tomorrow :-)

hahaha Fluffy my DH is the same - in my mum's house she uses normal spoons (i.e. the ones we eat off) to serve the cat food, and once when we were over there I went to use a spoon and he yelled "NO! THAT"S THE CAT SPOON" because he'd seen her use it once to serve the cat and thought it must be a special contaminated one we kept just for that...

(should say she has a totally mismatched cutlery collection, so pretty much every piece is different)

Fluffy would it help To tell him I used To be just a tad fussy about the dog bowels being washed with the washing up cloth, we feed them raw food outside, but my DH ignored me How daré he and we're still alive.

The dogs have not suffered at all from having washing up liquido used on the bowls, and I've even started letting them, erm, clean the odd plate/chopping board for me prior To putting it in the dishwasher.

I predict a small spend Today, I need a little freedom me time so will try To Go To the coffee shop by the lake shop To pick up my phone later on my own.

De-lurking to giggle at the dogs bowels being washed with a washing up cloth.

lurks again

We just cut our broadband/phone deal in half my mobile company had offered us a better deal and when we rang up to cancel our current provider offered to beat it! YES! Saving about £13.50 per month.

EMERGENCY SPEND ALERT

Oh good god. I'm sitting here post brutal budget planning minding my own business and fin myself browsing theatre sites so far ive resisted booking

Gruffuloe
Horrible Histories
and Charlie and Chocolate factory - with a meal inc.

I even reached for my purse for the Gruffuloe then realised there are no cards there anymore

I was utterly convinced they needed to be booked as part of my summer holiday planning because my PFB just wont survive will he - he'll be an ill rounded uncultured loon

Ive spent most of day doing a 'value' shop/meal plan on tescos that doesnt involved roasting garden sparrows.

right er as you were. just needed to ge that off my chest I did the right the thing didnt I?

NSD then actaually.

Adora Seeing your Spanglish posts never fail to make me smile... Where are you in L. America? Though his name fails me, there is a particular comms mogul (perhaps richest man in the world? Or once was at least). He owns all the comms in Mexico, the monopoly means that Mexicans pay the most for those services across the world (adjusted for PPP). A similar scenario applies across much of C. & L. America. Particularly frustrating when most people in those countries earn so little and have little to no state support.

Anyway, off track! Spendy day Ordered groceries online - have been super busy plus achey due to health issues so difficult to do the local shops as it will take at least 2h and limited in what we can cart back. Still like them though and will be trying to shop between online and local, especially for the bits we can't usually get online. So, groceries were £102 2 weeks of food (freezing half the meat and fish, plus a loaf of bread), to take advantage of offers and free delivery. Did work out however where all my money was going before (shop with Ocado, which I haven't done for 3-4 months). Spent far too much on deli and cupboard so I wrote a list and stuck to what we actually need. I used to buy a lot of sweet treats for DH, but actually I have lots of flour, stork etc so I can just bake cupcakes which are very quick and easy. Food comes Sat so between now and then we are using up leftovers and previously frozen bits, it's oddly satisfying to make my way to a nearly empty fridge freezer.

I have to be honest with myself when I shop, eg knowing what I don't need (tins! no more tins!) but also what I do. We get caught out by not having enough bread, milk and eggs so I have bought more than usual, otherwise I have to do more top ups which take more time and risky for budget especially if I'm with DH

ashamed he'll be fine - send him out with a net to catch some sparrows for tea. Good healthy exercise

silk Although evenings is typical, it depends on each store too. I go to a Sainsbury's local near uni occasionally for top ups which never has reductions, the one near our house has them regularly around 8-9pm. Waitrose near us does the reductions during the day, around 2pm, and 24h ASDA near our old house did them around 10pm. Like someone else said, Morrison's has some really good ones - shopped there in 2 different cities where it was our most convenient store, everything from packs of meat to bread and desserts would go down to about 5-20p depending on the item. It was great!