Marching into a miserly march with the mumsnet frugaleers

[Fluffycloudland77]

Newbies, helpful tips & lurkers always welcome.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/credit_crunch/1600030-Small-money-saving-habits-petty-even

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/credit_crunch/1543785-your-top-tips-for-money-saving-and-a-more-frugal-life

Well done audit!

Good idea Ellis I got some anyway so
£6.53 in chemist.

But, bagged some overtime at work

Hello! I'm an occasional poster (I was on here a lot before Christmas!) and regular lurker, thought it was time to rise above the parapet again .

I know there's a few people on here from the debt free thread, but for those who haven't seen me over there, I'm trying to minimise our debt growth for the next couple of months while on maternity leave (DC3 due in a few weeks), with a view to reducing it at great speed (well, as great as possible!) once I'm back at work in June. No paid maternity leave due to the joys of being self employed.

I'm struggling to find any more big savings in our budget this month, so it's mainly about earning extra with eBay etc, but I'm keeping an eye out for any opportunities to minimise the credit card spends.

Today's frugal mission is slightly misguided as I'm not sure it's not costing me more in childcare than it's saving, but I am making tea towels for our (soon to be redundant, sob) nanny. The DCs are going to do drawings of her tonight and I will spend the evening tracing and embroidering the drawings onto the tea towels. Then I'm thinking I'll pop into town tomorrow and get a couple of nice foodie things or a bottle of wine to go with the tea towels.

Hi there, about to name change and am also going offline for a couple of weeks or will only have time to do a spot of lurking from time to time. So wishing you all loads of frugal luck for the rest of the month and hopefully see you in the April thread - new Financial Year, new frugal start for me hopefully...
Had loads of great advice from you all and really value these threads but if I don't spend more time working and less time "funning" then I'm going to be in the poo...

Best of luck Freelance and hope To see you occasionally when you have your work/fun ratio sorted.

Possiblyorange - as you are self employed can you not claim maternity allowance instead ?

www.gov.uk/maternity-allowance/eligibility

Does anyone actually manage to keep their total food bill below £75? (Including washing stuff, chocolate etc).

Ellis I was about to confidently say no as I have small earnings exemption (ie don't pay class 2 NICS), but that link suggests I might be eligible anyway. I am genuinely ! Will be looking into it properly this evening. Thank you!

Spotty how many are you feeding?

Two adults, 3yo and 15mo. I meal plan and we don't top up with junk (only bread and milk). I even shop at lidl!

Hi everyone started march of with good intentions but as it was dds birthday saturday and had a party at home. Spent quite a lot did rein It in with birthday presants though. Got my frugal head on now need to do a food shop tommorow so going to do a meal plan. Need to put some money in my emergancy savings tin (incase anything breaks have some money to fall back on although its empty at the moment :( ) NSD today though :)

£239.something in my credit card after a trip to the vet's with my moggy, who will be 16 in July . She has hyperthyroidism, arthritis and possible heart and kidney disease, so not good... Oh and £1.90 on the return bus fare.

Blimey Creme that's an expensive cat! I would do exactly the same though. My mother spent £900 on surgery for ours once, my step dad was appalled

Spotty you're doing better than me - I spend £95 a week for four (me, DH, DCs are 3 and 6) and a bit extra (nanny 3 days a week, so we provide her lunch and snacks). Nanny is leaving at end of May so we might be able to save a bit more, although she is a size 10 and hardly seems to eat! Would love to get ours down to £80 per week all in (cleaning prods, shampoo etc).

Poor cat though. I hope she's feeling better now.

I spend £35-40 but its just dh & I plus the cat. It helps that dh has "paste" sandwiches twice a week in his lunches but he likes it. He would have jam sandwiches everyday if it wasn't bad for his health.

I don't include shampoo in that though & cleaning products are pared back to bio powder, laundry gloop, multi surface, washing up liquid & sp vinegar as softener & tesco daisy dw powder.

I use branded E-Cloths, there's not much you can't clean with a general purpose cloth wrung out in hot soapy water.

Thanks. I don't think I could stretch to £900 for surgery, if it came to it. . I hope her medicine kicks in soon and I have to take her back in three weeks for a check-up. Currently, we live off child maintenance, housing and council tax benefit, child tax credits, child benefit and my earnings from my extremely part-time job.

cremeeggtheif, if you're in receipt of housing benefit then you are eligible to have your pet treated by PDSA, for a donation rather than full price, sorry if I'm telling you something you already know

my mum got me Jack Monroe's recipe book, so happy! I'm going to cook wonderful delicious meals for £10 a week, too! maybe...

actually I was proud of my frugal yet delicious dinner today, fried some onions and spices then added spinach, chickpeas and a smidge of natural yoghurt and served with cheese in pitta breads. DD ate all of hers (she barely eats, appearing to thrive on oxygen alone) and some of mine!

Welcome audit and welcome back possibly

2 in Jack Fultons and 4.57 in Aldi. I also spent about 9 in asda but I had a giftcard which covered that. Yesterday DS cut his head quite badly and I realised I didn't have a plaster nevermind a first aid kit. Bad mummy. The asda spend was plasters etc.

Ooh, another eBay bid! Current running total is up to £46. I have been trying to list 1-2 items a day, but I've just realised I'll need to stop in a couple of days as otherwise I'll have things due to post when I'll be in hospital recovering from a c-section!

Liz ooh, I look forward to hearing what Jack Monroe's book is like. Have been contemplating buying it, but there somehow seems something inherently wrong in spending money on a frugal recipe book .

Fluffy can I have a rough idea of what you eat for breakfast lunch and dinner? Plus snacks please although I suppose dd and ds do cost a lot

Breakfast porridge & frozen blueberries sometimes with hm bread and aldi marmalade.

Lunch is hm soup or a bean based stew or a sandwiche or scrambled eggs on toast.

Snacks are fruit. Dh has digestive biscuits as snacks.

Sorry dinners this week

Fishcakes with mash & petis pois
Spaghetti Bol with garlic bread
Roast chicken dinner with stuffing/York pud etc
Chicken curry with rice/naan/mango chutney
Chicken goujons in breadcrumbs, chips/beans
Sausage & mash/green beans
Steak pie, mash & petis pois.

Thanks doesn't sound dissimilar to what we eat. I think it's dp's lunch, coffee and nappies that does it maybe. Must start making soup again! Longing for summer and bloody expensive salads though

Fluffy what sort of HM soup do you make?

Another NSD. Will have to pay the cc bill soon.

My last bill at Aldi was £57 and that will do us for a week to 10 days. A weekly top up will be milk and fresh fruit/veg. We have a dh, me and ds6 and dd3. Ds already eats like a grown up. Last night we had an 8 pack sausage and mash. Ds had 3 and he would have had 4. And a dinner plate of mash. Tonight we had salmon, rice and broccoli - 4 salmon fillet, lots of rice and a head of broccoli including the stem.

Ds also takes a piece of fruit to school every day plus a packed lunch of wraps (cream cheese and ham), a packet of Ribena (Aldi version), cheese biscuits (Aldi), and another fruit/veg like cucumber or tomatoes.

I bring a packed lunch to work. Today I had fried rice (made with leftover rice)... Otherwise I'll have wraps like ds.

I took dd and 2 of her friends to the park after school I took some snacks with me and managed to avoid the ice cream van so its been a NSD so far.

Will check out British heart foundation that's a great idea thank you although may get a quote on getting this one fixed first just in case its worth my while.

Thank you for the info about jury service. I think I'll go for the daily payment if offered a choice that gives me flexibilty about whether to bring a packed lunch or not