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.....

poundlandemail.co.uk/IO4~BhdE5Fy2W_Plg6pxO1s0Ue7zbZg1tKdpw5_5V6M/WebView.aspx

£2 off £12 spend in poundland, the garden stuff is in!

Another pop in to supermarket yesterday but again it was a trip after nursery drop off and before heading to work. So that was £2! For two tubes of tomato purée and mozzarella (home made pizza last night). That's great.

I'm hoping to be able to pop in tomorrow or so just for fruit, bread, veg and milk. And that's us done.

NSD yesterday, won't be today as I have some alterations to leave into the tailors. If they let me pay on collection next week does it still count as an NSD today?

IKEA tomorrow, have a list and will be sticking to it religiously!!

Morning, I haven't reported in for a few days but it has been a fairly spending week, only managed one nsd this week. Though I am very impressed they I have saved £7.00 by fixing brake blocks onto my bike. I watched it on YouTube and did it. Very proud!

The thing is I am finding hard is friends asking to go out. I arranged a girls night in next week at a friends with wine and takeaway which I thought a tenner would cover it. But I got a text message the other day saying that after the takeaway we will go to the pub, which will add another £10-£15 to the night.

Some friends had a pamper party last night which I didn't go to because it was arranged after I had done this months budget and because of the unexpected costs of my car. Now my friends are asking me if everything is ok and stuff.

Don't get me wrong I have lovely friends but if I mention about money being tight they just don't seem to get it. And a cheap night it seems to roll into something more expensive. I am ok if I know in advance and can budget for it but I am not very good at spontaneous spending!

Morning :)

Not been to bad this week paid for school lunches £21.00 (that's for two dc)

£5 something at coffee shop with friend

Will be a spendy weekend. My freezer is empty (its fed us very very well tho!!) . Ds2 now needs a P.E kit for school and have a few school trips coming up.

Can I join? Have been reading these threads for months and with the help of them I am now debt free ! 20k down to zero in a year. Lots of that was from selling our flat in London and moving to rented in Wiltshire. But now we need to save to buy again and also want to create a 'safety buffet' of money so that we are never reliant on credit again. It was awful and I don't want to be back there.
Also have an almost 2 year old DS if like to start saving for when he is older. Am also 6 weeks pregnant and due in sept so will be down to mat leave money
Currently my main focus is selling stuff we don't need on eBay. Have made £130 so far. I want to get enough so anything I need for the baby I can pay from that rather than CA.
Am meal planning like crazy got our shop down to £50 a week. One thing that really helped has been getting milk delivered. Has stopped the midweek trip to Tescos and getting other bits as well

Sorry that got a bit long!

*buffer not buffet !

Checking in as fell off my TIO, will be reviewing later!

Well done Ellis!

Hope you get your mouth sorted picnmix. Sounds really painful.

£1.50 on toddler group and don't plan to spend anything else. I seem to be on target with my budgets this month so far, and once I get my expenses paid I'll be able to pay off all but £60 of my credit card.

DC have been invited to five parties between them so spent £45 on presents and cards. Ouch.

On the positive side we have missed two 'proper' dinners for snack type meals so the food I planned for those meals can be eaten next week.

Well done on clearing the debts ellis, the hard bit is not repeating old mistakes.

In this vein I haven't bought wine even though I popped into aldi & the rose was calling me.

£1.89 potatoes in aldi.
£10 thermal leggings & top in tesco there not as good as the M&S ones though.

I've done a meter reading and the gas, if I've worked it out correctly, is £25 a month. It was £40 a month in the old house.

help, my current account only has £3 in it & it's staying like that until the dd go out.

Well I spent today sorting out posting eBay packages and I sold a load of books on webuybooks.co.uk so that's clearing some stuff out and all together it's about £50.

My DS woke from his nap with infected eyes poor little guy was on the phone with the doctor on hold for ages so gave up and just took him to the Pharmacist and got eye drops from them for £6. Would rather he had them quicker and paid instead of waiting for the doctor.

Thanks for the nice comments. It was a slog paying it off. For a while I was working nights getting in at 4am then getting up for the day with DS at 6am! Never want to do that again so definitely taking control of finances and building savings !

Wowzers Ellis! That work pattern sounds like hell on earth.

Mouth update - amazing service at the dental hospital. More photos taken as apparently my ulcer/sore/horrible thing is something that students MUST see. Left with various mouth washes including a steroid one and an appointment for next weeks.

£36 odd in Aldi but that included nappies and loads of washing tabs and conditioner.

wow Ellis and very impressed! I've paid off a comparatively measly £3,400 since August and have £1,600 to go before I'm debt free, then about £2000 to "pay back" into our savings which I borrowed for moving house expenses.

I find it hard to see my pay come in after a frugal month and know I have to pay a huge chunk off debt, but at the same time I know its my own fault for letting the debt build up in the first place.

considered wombling the paper from work at the end of the day for the Aldi voucher this week but felt funny about it. Probably just ended up in the bin too!

£5 on breakfast club, £2.94 in Tesco, and another 80 p for DS' s bus fare to Scouts later. So, £8.74 total.

Have a good weekend, everyone .

I'ce done fairly well today. Took dd to walk around the duck pond this morning rather than pay for toddlers, then cleaned my own car (heaven forbid) rather than take it to the cleaners. So all I've spent is a bit on fuel

I'm down to SMP next month so really need to get a handle in things. Both myself and DH have made considerable changes to how we view money. Beforehand we just spent, and if we didn't have the money we'd put it on the card. It's scary how quickly it all adds up no wonder we are 1000s of pounds in debt.

Welcome ellis! at 'safety buffet'! Also hello again kinky!

I've had a LSD. Just bought ingredients for dinner tonight and tomorrow from M&S but used £7 I had left on a voucher from Christmas so only spent £2.96 'real money'! Have also sold my second item, another £3 for Christmas savings.

I've had such a good clear out this afternoon and feeling better for it (inspired by the minimalist thread I've just discovered, hello to some of you I see hanging out over there!). I used to be so good at clearing out, sending unwanted items on to charity and feeling like I had room to move. However since trying to live more frugally and having success in the past year with a car boot sale and ebay selling, I've been finding it increasingly hard to part with anything as I'm only judging it by the monetary value it might get for it. Today I've had an epiphany and now have 3 huge bags to pass on to charity, friends or a local sale. Yes I am still aiming to sell 60 lots of things this year, but I need to be choosier, selling the stuff I can get better money for and getting rid of the rest of the crap!

LSD at play gym something like £6 I think.

Happy weekend everyone. Another week to payday. I never ever thought I'd say something like that. Yes I've always looked forward to payday but I never needed to if that makes sense. This was before kids, or when we had kids we had two solid incomes. Now it's down to me and although I earn a significant amount,my dh is self employed and although on paper he looks like he's earning £2k a month, somehow it's not contributing much to the household - v strange given that he really doesn't do any shopping on himself, any booze, wine... Or anything else. All food shopping is from the joint acc and so is petrol.. And no he's got no time for any affairs!!!

He has to pay for professional fees etc. it is worth it to be self employed for him but many a time I do wish we had them bad old days again.

YAY, I finally have a start date for the new job, 24th February, a month exactly.

NSD today too. 6 days to get through until pay day. No plans for the weekend. Have enough main meal stuff to last until pay day so just need to buy packed lunches and accompaniments., pop, milk etc...hopefully there will be some grocery money leftover to put in the Xmas fund,

That's fantástico Claret Congrats

Will catch up and update later, just going out To Get supliese for yet another sleep over.

What's wombling?
Have been following all month, most days are nsds on state maternity benefit in Ireland which goes in on sat morn & direct debits come out mon & that's pretty much it!

Wombling is picking up thrown away stuff that could be useful to you. Like asda receipts or newspapers with aldi coupons in them.

Congrats, Claret :).

That's great news claret