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.

Trainers for school £85
Tyre £260 - DH poked it when they removed it and his finger almost went straight through. Discovered brakes need replacing too
Ice-creams and coffees £20

I've had enough of going out with DH and DDs it costs too much bloody money.

DDs still need hockey skirts and shirts that are not in stock yet.

NB hope the party goes really well.

lilacclery, I have loads of bumgenius, baba and boo and wonderoos. And some more I've forgotten, which I can dig out tomorrow. Mainly birth to potty. All good condition. Come with one large and one small microfibre insert. I also have lots of bamboo and some charcoal inserts for sale :)

Was going to be nsd but ds needs a new swimming costume as we're going swimming tomorrow so I'm off to sainsburys, dp has given me a tenner to get us some lunch whilst there. Will also go to john lewis and get a new kettle (with vouchers) and show the dc the pets at the poor mans zoo pets at home

£25.50 petrol on Thursday. £22ish on bits and pieces for dinner with family. We are now around £12 over total budget from joint account. claret I am looking ahead to 1st March! I'm going to spread any total overspend over 3 of my budgets - groceries, petrol, misc. So if we end up say £30 over total budget then each of those budgets will start £10 down in March. I'm annoyed for going over, but at the same time the car repair was unplanned. Things will inevitably crop up that haven't been pre-budgeted.

Today will be a NSD.

I'm desperate to buy a water butt and a massive compost bin but I'm sitting on my hands until I've swapped the joint account over & got the incentive money.

I'm going into town tm anyway for my free john Lewis coffee & cake so I will buy car shampoo while I'm there.

claret when you fall off the wagon you've just got to get back on & put your purse away.

All pockets so amber I've a good few pockets thinking I may need to invest in some all in twos like best bottoms for daddy & childminder. One company does 10% discount and a kit with one wrap & 3 inserts works out @ €20.

I'm going to pre stuff my pockets on Monday & see how I am for inserts then. I only stuff as I need at the moment.

Ohhelp, just do a regular search, not a search for friends and it should bring up the right pages. Hope that works!

£38.15 in Aldi yesterday. That will carry me through until payday so not too bad. I'm averaging £45 per week on food at the moment, plus £10 for fruit, bread, milk etc, so £55 per week for a family of 5. Pretty pleased with that!

Yep, all pockets :)

Spent money

£20 in sainsburys. Dd just had to have the Cinderella dress and it was 25% off. Resisted all other clothes and half price toys.
£6 on lunch.

fluffy have you checked your council recycling website? Our sells reduced price compost bins.

That's where I'm going to get them from when I have the money. I've not told dh yet.

He won't be pleased at two 300l plastic darleks just appearing in the garden.

NSD.

Nivea sun cream is only £5.50 on amazon atm, all types

3.90 on bus into town and back. Used 'art space' in the art gallery with DS which is free. However, spent about 3.50 on coffee and flapjack afterwards.

8.14 in Aldi.

The best part of £25 today, on travel, smuggled cinema treats, lunch out and now a takeaway pizza! Back on the frugal wagon tomorrow...

Collected DD2's turtle from the vet, finally, but vet is on hols and his friend who is business sitting doesn't know how much to charge, so all vet costs are on hold until next week sometime.

Spent £75 in the supermarket, will see us through to about Wed I think. Some things I don't buy weekly like tea and coffee, plus sanipro in that lot. Two bottles of wine too but they were cheap ones, only about £3 each.

I'm putting off fumigating as DDs only have 11 days of holiday left and it's so much easier to handle with them out of the way. We should do it quarterly really.

Supermarket today. Spent £100 for five of us and was convinced today was going to be a cheap one. Declaring no spend week from Tuesday. And need help on frugal food. £55 for five-how is that done and is that just food or other groceries, cleaning products, bin bags and the like? I had thought that we were pretty good-few processed things, cook from scratch etc, three main meals at least from meat joint but I've got so far to go. Where we are being frugal is entertainments and days out. Used to do soft play lots and do coffees even at parks which are free.

Claret take out cash for the coming week and put your cards away. Then stop beating yourself up, we all over spend occassionaly and you can't do anything about the surprises life chucks at you.

The first coat of emulsion always looks crap, you need to do two on a test patch really before you can tell.

I use up tester pots by painting terracotta pots for the garden. It works really well.

Today should cost me £2 on car washing stuff from astonish. It's way cheaper than taking it to get cleaned & I like doing it.

NSDs on Friday and Saturday. Have to buy drain unblocking stuff today as my kitchen sink is totally backed up :(

Those of you with toddlers, what do you do for snacks, that are easy to grab in the house and that you can pop in your bag for out and about? DD loves breadsticks, crackers and those organix baby crisps. Not the most frugal OR nutritious! She also has fruit, veg and raisins but I'm wanting to cut out the other stuff and replace with something a bit better. Any suggestions?

lilac great job news. claret I don't think you can do anything other than just move on and get frugal again. No point in looking back, its a blip, don't let it drag you down and keep posting here.

Its dh`s birthday this week which I'm trying to do on a budget. Am using vouchers I have for M&S and debenhams to help. They are vouchers for using their credit cards (balance paid off each month of course ) so money for nothing effectively.

Final car bill is £778 so £378 over our budget. We're now on a mission to save the money for the extra from other budgets before the end of March. Any extra bits of income , money from selling stuff etc will count towards it as well as any money saved from the weekly budgets.

I think the first month or two of the year are always difficult but if you just keep chipping away with frugality you get there in the end. Keep going ladies!

I haven't been on the threads for weeks now but just thought I'd say hi and I hope everyone is doing well :)

I have news - after over 3 years out of work following a back injury, DH is starting a new job tomorrow! :o :o :o

Things will be changing financially and hopefully we will be a little better off overall, although we have to use childcare one afternoon a week and will lose things like free school meals so we need to still plan carefully.

But things are definitely looking up for the Family Fuzzpig :)

We've been doing pretty well at being frugal and seemed to just fall into the habit of Not Spending IYSWIM. We are being much stricter about getting random bits and bobs while out. We've had a couple of days out and have done it frugally!

I need to meal plan even more carefully as I will now be doing all meals during the week. DH has agreed that he will definitely take lunch every day and my friend recommended a brilliant flask so he can take his precious tea with him too :o

Just wanted to say thanks as although I wasn't on the thread much, all the advice and support I got last month has made a huge difference to us already :)

Aw, that's great news, Fuzzpig :).

Congrats to you and your DH too, Lilac.

Great news fuzz pig

We went swimming and they forgot to charge for dd. So £5 something for all four of us

£80 in tesco but dp is putting an extra fiver in for his beer and sweets

Great news fuzz pig!

We just spent £37 at wagamamas as friends of ours are in town for a
Visit from up north.

On the positive side, have frozen lots of food from party so we have plenty of lunch packs ready!!