Have a fabulous frugal February with the fantastic frugaleers

[northender]

As we filled the old thread, thought I'd start a new one for February.

Was all going well today until £17.50 on fabric in John Lewis. However, we did not visit the cafe, we took sandwiches from dmil and spent precisely £0 on entertainment for last three days. And the fabric was for charity sale and another lady has offered contribution for materials so hoping to offset some of that.
I am still not frugal enough but I'm spending less than I was. Same story as yesterday. Nsd tomorrow. Oh, and turned down a night out tomorrow so heading in the right direction. When I think where I was this time last month I am so much better.

Sorry about illnesses, miserable days and car troubles. We are just recovering from some whopping car expenses in the last few months and hoping to have quiet time on that front.

About £57 on a planned day out.

Nsd

I'm a lurker on here but would like to ask if anyone knows how to do their own credit check without it affecting their credit score? Everytime you do a credit check does it affect your credits rating? All very confusing.

Water sorted. They only run DDs for 1 year, so our payment was sitting in a corner all by it's self because no one had the nouse to deal it. It's now off DD and we'll pay it manually when the bills arrive.

DH has been spending, shoes for DDs, £20 on 1 and £45 on t'other, supermarket was £110 and there's a £300 kennel bill to sort. I spent £7 on a metal card case because my new CC is a contact less one.

Spent £24 yesterday on meal out on account of ds' birthday. It was actually cheaper than expected because we ended up at harvesters and they do an 'eat cheap before 630pm deal'!! And we brought a cake so that was dessert!

Should be an NSD today. Tomorrow evening will get stuff in for party prep.

Gruffalo I've not heard of checking credit scores affecting credit scores. I think these days they expect you to check them anyway.

If you haven't checked it before you can go through topcashback and get a free trial & some money back.

gruffalo I think if you get a credit report it's different to someone running a credit check on you - Martin Lewis seems to recommend you get your own credit report quite often. But that's different to say, applying for a mortgage where the bank does a credit check.

But maybe someone else knows for sure! Which reminds me to cancel my equifax free trial this week...

2.80p on a coffee, scone and hot chocolate at work yesterday (uni). DP bought pizzas.

Just been looking through the bank statement. Dp annoys me as his diesel for the week is £40 but he often spends £41.35 etc so he's obviously buying more than just petrol! That all adds up over the month.

spotty is he maybe just bad at stopping the pump at exactly £40? I am rubbish at that!

Gruffalo you can check your own credit without affecting your rating, it doesn't negatively impact it to check it, what impacts it is asking for more credit/applying for cards etc.

Maybe a couple of pence but definitely not over a pound!

He's pretty addicted to cans of coke so that sounds about right plus a copy of the sun

Yesterday
€5 for breakfast club (for week)& bus to playschool for dd as I'd an early appointment for blood tests
€0 on parking at hospital as I parked on roadside & carried ds in baby carrier, exercise + free parking!
€4 at gym to do my running session, if ds went to childminder for the hour it would've cost €5
€10 on toilet paper, Parmesan, rolls & cookies from Lidl bakery for a picnic with dd
€0 on my children's photo session at professional photographers used voucher from Christmas
Dd loved picnic which cost €1.56 plus stuff from fridge at home before this challenge we'd have eaten out at cost of €15 or so
€30 on second hand buggy with cosy toes fleece liner carrytot etc - can't find adaptors for my own car seat when I do will sell own travel system for approx €150-€200. This €30 is worth about €250 so will resell when ds is walking.
€10 in tesco on 5 bottles of cordial & 6 peppers, dd sensitive to aspartame so when I see cordial without it I stock up

Spendy day but much more frugal than ever before!

Today
€20 childminders
€30 diesel
That should hopefully be it!

spotty give him £40 cash & lecture on cola at home tasting the same as the ones in the shop. Like you do when kids nag for sweets and they've got sweets at home.

I've just totted up my budgets. This is was the first time I'd devised budgets so I wasn't sure if they were entirely realistic. This is what I have remaining:
Me/household:-£12
DD (includes nappies and activities): £41.60
Dog: -£3.57 this will average out over the months though, as some months I will overspend when I need to buy I big sack of food then the next month I'll be under.
Food: £13.72 :-/
Petrol: £60
Misc/backup: £68

I can see where I'm over spending and not being as frugal as I should. I'm not sure if I should tweak the budgets for next month to give myself a bit more to spend on food for E.g or leave it As is and just up my frugality. I need to do that anyway, definitely, but this is a pretty steep learning curve so I'm not doing too badly, I don't think

Ooh actually, that's £61.60 in DD's budget. I know I'm not going to spend that this month! I thought I might take her to one spendy activity at the end of the month if we're under budget. Not v frugal but lots of things you pay in once and get free entry for the year so it'd be worth it

Fluffy I think coke is yuck and I'm diabetic so would never think to buy a big bottle (plus it's so bad for you I wouldn't buy it anyway!). Loving the cash idea though might take his card away as he uses it to top up his phone too which should come from his own money

Should be a NSD today as working from home, although childcare for DS for today will be billed at about £25.

I really really need to get my expenses claim in, I haven't done one since before Christmas and have clocked up interest on the cc . When it's in it will pay all but £40 off the bill though, so that'll be a relief.

Spent all of 22p on make up yesterday - used vouchers for the rest. I'm not sure why but I hoard vouchers to buy something 'special' when it would actually be far better to use them for something I would buy anyway and hoard the cash instead.

£25 on spare car seat for ds (second hand from a friend)
£6 on an inflatable seat for ds when we go swimming

Dp just hung up on me. Conversation went like this:

Dp 'do we need anything from tesco?'
Me 'no, we haven't got any money left for food this week anyway'
Dp 'I know I was going to put it on my cc'
Me 'don't be so ridiculous'
Dp 'but I really want some chocolate I will pay it off tomorrow when I get paid' (haha yeah right!)
Me 'I'm trying really hard to sort our debt and you want to put chocolate on your cc!'
Dp 'yeah well it's my debt not yours I'll pay it off tomorrow'
Me 'it's stupid don't do it'
Dp 'I'm doing it'
Me 'it's stupid'
And repeat.

Argh!!!!!

No spend day today, felt good!

He knows he's wrong, that's why he hung up.

Ignore bad behaviour, reward good. Like dogs.

And toddlers.