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.

No spend day!

I will rub his belly and give him a chocolate button when he does the washing up later

No spend day. Can I have a chocolate button, too?

NSD.

Planted out my herbs for cooking & mohitos.

Washed my own windows inside and out.

Washed my own car.

2.50 in Iceland and 1.87 in b&m. 40 on petrol.

I am doing well this pay month so far due to being unwell. I am going to book a wee mini break this month and might manage to pay for it just from my usual spends. It'll only be a cheap and cheerful haven type thing but will be something to look forward to.

Ok, I did the party food shop for ds party. Asdas - £113! But it included lots of food that hopefully if it doesn't get eaten will serve us for the next week till the next pay day. Argh

Oh and had to get Hedrin... Bloody head lice from bloody nursery.

Almost managed a NSD today but I'm at my folks and my period has arrived early. So 3 quid on bloody panty liners

I did have a NSD yesterday and only spent money on fuel to get to my parents on Monday, but I'd budgeted for that.

£20 spend, not bad considering DM is visiting and we went to Bicester Village! I didn't buy anything, that was just travel and food/coffee.

We had a lovely day chatting and catching up!

Will need salad and hummus tomorrow but pretty much have all food in until payday and about £30 left in food budget, pretty pleased.

Day out in York. Fun, but expensive!

NSD for me, DH paid for bowling and DDs robbed me of 20p each for pinball type thing with bouncy balls and/or gum balls.

Will try to catch up soon, school uniform is looming large on the horizon.

I need more bread and some cherry tomatoes (as the ones I got from asda have grown fur ) but I haven't got any of my food budget left

Yesterday's spends £7.30 on softplay, coffee and cake.

spotty I'm still not great at knowing exactly how much to put in each budget. Yesterday's spend has had to come out of the petrol budget! Can you eke a bit out from somewhere else for bread and tomatoes?

My scary March spending is starting to look better...have managed to pay for the holiday from this month's money...have my double CB coming early in April...have managed to reduce nursery bill as I'll have an excess in April so will pay less in March and let the remaining carry over. Still haven't switched bank accounts - I'm too scared/loyal/lazy! Is it really as easy as it sounds?

Haven't been on MN for ages due to hideous work deadlines. Did several 17 hour days last week!

Budgets ok. DH still hasn't got a job beyond March. We can manage until June but then it gets scary!

Yes it's very easy to change banks, I've changed both of our current accounts & I'm moving the joint account as soon as the mortgage goes out.

Just don't forget to fill the online form in to shut the old account down because sometimes the cash bonus depends on it.

I'm thinking of switching too but we're in our overdraft

Could probably steal it from petrol... We went £60 over our budget last month, we just can't afford to put in anymore

Loads of NSD's this week everyone, amazing!

Yesterday was an NSD here and today will be as well. haven't spent a penny since Saturday and am feeling very proud. Dd's went swimming yesterday with dm and I stayed in with ds and the dreaded potty. Almost there I think. He didn't mind as he got mummy to himself and is scared of the swimming pool - last time he went he screamed for 45 minutes so best just not to bother. Got 2 shoe bags for school made too using up some of the random fabric I have rather than buy the schools £5 ones. Frugal!

I want to change my bank account too, is it really easy? Looking at a new mortgage as well as we are paying over the odds, looking online we could be over £300 a month better off when we switch! And want to reinvest our pensions as dh is nearly 40. Feeling like a proper grown up!

How to switch bank accounts.

Find bank account you like.

Check if you can get cashback.

Fill in online forms.

As far as I know first direct is offering £125, halifax £100 & £5 a month if you pay in enough etc & Co-op £100 if you pay in £800 in the first month not including what was already in your account when you switched.

The banks have to complete the switch in 7 days because the government told them to.

My mistake, first directs dropped to £100 & a £100 if you leave within a year because your not satisfied.

Meh, I could feign dissatisfaction.

expecting Fluffy my Frugal How to change bank accounts would be a bit different:
Look on MoneySavingExpert - find out which bank is offering a cash incentive to switch
From those, choose a bank I like.
Fill in online forms, etc.

When I switched from Santander to Halifax it was pretty straightforward using their online form, however, my Santander account stayed open. Which works out ok in the end (as long as I remember to transfer money in and out each month - they require £500 to go in each month) as it means I have a spare account for setting money aside in.

Watch out for PayPal though if you use eBay. If the account that is registered to PayPal stays open when you switch over, you could go overdrawn when you buy something from eBay. Like I did!

spotty we put our budgeted amounts for grocery, electricity, coffees/lunches/takeaways and outings/birthday trips in pots as cash each month and we're always swopping them over. Normally we need to spend more on grocery or electricity so we have to spend less on fun stuff. But also the other way when we get to the end of the month and we're underspending on on grocery or electricity? Hello takeaway!

spotty when this happens to me I just take the money from the fun/pocket money budget, we have gone over most months on food since budgeting started in November but rather than just budget more I am cutting back and meal planning more and getting closer and closer to the budget every time, this month we should stay in it as we are meal-planned until payday and shouldn't need anything until then, and I think we have about £20 left in it.

We don't have a fun budget losers

Haven't been on for a few days with real life getting in the way. The car is back at the garage today to have all the work done to get it through the MOT. Not sure of final figure yet but it's likely to be around 400. Otherwise our budgetting is going okay.

We recorded all our spending for 6 months last year to give us a pretty accurate idea of how much we spend and on what. (that was quite an eye opener!) From there we set our weekly cash budget which is significantly higher than I thought it would be. We withdraw that amount in cash each week and put in our "cash" jar. We try to do most spending using cash but if we do use a card then we transfer that amount into our "bank" jar (this money is treated as if it is in our bank account). At the end of the week, any left over cash or any extra unexpected income goes into a "surplus" jar. At the end of each month we can then congratulate ourselves (!) on the amount of surplus there is and then put it in the bank or use it to offset any unexpected spends like cars having expensive MOTs .

I don't know if you followed all that but it works for us.

Ds had minor procedures done on his feet on Monday so has been confined to barracks this week so that has helped curb spending. I took him to have his dressings changed this afternoon and dh has taken dd on a welly walk through the woods to get them both some fresh air (dh has been holed up with ds this week).

I have just sent an email to Clarks complaining about ds' school shoes which have worn through already. Don't suppose I'll get anything back but you never know....

So, the only things that sound come out of our joint account that aren't direct debits are food and petrol. Does everyone think we should just has cash for these?

You can try, dh likes cash for food shopping.

Has he had his toenails operated on North? Email the CEO, it's really effective.

I'm going to have a whinge to furniture villages ceo tomorrow.

NSD.