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

30p on sp deodorant
£20 on fuel

I'm taking the cat to the vet again later so that will likely be ££.

£25.84. Still out, so I'll read through later.

possibly we spend £65 a week roughly for me, dh, and 2dc (5 and 2). Dc3 will be arriving soon and definitely breastfed. I make our washing powder, use half measure fabric softner, buy in wash stain remover from Quality Save and use value bio on nappies. We use cloth nappies by day and a value nappy overnight which must be changed first thing or it leaks. Value shower gel in place of handwash, half dishwasher tablets. We use very few cleaning products!
Our menu isn't very exciting but everything is made from scratch. We're vegetarian but all our dairy is organic which pushes up the costs considerably! I freeze any left overs and about every other month we have a week when we eat what's in the freezer/cupboard. It can mean some interesting meals but that week the food shop is only £20ish.

Nsd apart from £1 on chocolate for later. That's the other thing treats like wine/chocolate come out of personal spends rather than grocery budget.

Hope sick cats are on the mend. It's awful when your pet isn't well.

We don't have a dishwasher

Anyone who uses topcashback I've got £70 pending from January. It's taking ages I'm getting grumpy about it now

So those of you with low weekly shops (Nugget and ** I'm looking at you) what do you have for snacks? I'm trying to think what the heck we can cut back on to reduce the bill further!

Incidentally, have been monitoring our energy usage on a daily basis for a couple of weeks now and am at how much the oven uses - definite incentive to do all oven cooking in one go where possible to avoid turning it on every day! Our big energy days are those where we use the oven and/or the washing machine does a few loads. Definitely a cost to consider when looking at making things from scratch, makes me even more grateful for the slow cooker!

Spent something like £12 in the naice local shop on wine and chocolate for the nanny's birthday, some ham for DC1's sarnies and some dried apple rings (I am addicted). Also a few quid on postage. But also made £50 from a client dropping some owed fees by, so I'm not feeling too hard done by.

Should say Expecting in there alongside nugget!

Also, those who don't spend much, I like to use wine in my cooking but don't drink so I buy the small bottles which obviously costs more. Any tips on that?

Spotty - I buy a large bottle then freeze what I don't use in ice cube trays then use those in meals.

A low spend day here. Spent £3 on lunch at work as left mine at home half last night left over fish pie for dinner with some hm cupcakes for pus. Am making chicken soup with the leftover roast and that will do lunch for the rest of the week.

Made £120 on eBay today as well and doing overtime tomorrow and Friday. Am determined to get a buffer in an account for nursery fees. Hate the panic every term to pay them!

NSD for me as I had a freebie at toddler group

Oh good idea Ellis I didn't know I could freeze it

We pay nursery fees monthly £2 something a month as dd only goes two day a week 9-3 and gets her eyf

I won't get the free hours for DS till next year but luckily he does just three mornings a week and my DM has him the rest of the time so it could be worse but I need to be more prepared in paying. It's around £480 a half term.

I spend about £45 on a very spendy week's shop and £25-30 if I'm being good. That's for DD and me, and only if I go to Aldi, if I went to Tesco it'd be more like £70 and I'd have forgotten half of it That includes some booze (usually drink a couple of bottles of real ale a week).
We have porridge or hm muesli for breakfast. Lunch is leftovers, dippy eggs and soldiers, scrambled eggs and spinach on toast or similar. Dinner could be anything, this evening we had hm chicken nuggets, with carrots, broccoli and sweet potato chips, last two nights was chickpea curry, chilli and baked potatoes before that. Snacks are fruits, yoghurt, salad sticks with hm hummus, hm cakes/biscuits, soreen fruit loaf, DD likes crackers etc.

NSD. Have kinds run out of ham. Not sure what ds is having for lunch tomorrow! Whoops,many suggestions welcomed!!!

NSD, 3rd in a row

It wasn't even hard - my back has been to the wall at work since 8.30 on Monday morning collapses in a heap

I felt ill after my lunch of (homemade) curry leftovers today, maybe took frugaleering too far

70p on charity donation. Just call ms generosity.

Like lizlemon I spend very little on food but there's only me and DS. I always buy the super6 from aldi and don't eat a lot of meat.

Got collared by school teacher for 7 pound for an event the school are doing and then 4 pound for a new school reading folder ffs ! Then had to get dd some new school shoes 12,50 not too bad and some new tights 5 bloody pound !. Only spend 33 on food shop, need a few nsd's as im broke at the mo.

Whats this super 6 I keep reading about ?

Super 6 is aldi fruit n veg deals so 6 items at cheaper price at mo mangetout n pears are 69p but I think it changes tomorrow as changes every 2wks.

They now do super 6 meat as well

spotty Check tcb forum, it might not just be you. You could go to the customer care section and ask them wtf is going on.

Aldi super six is there fruit and veg promotion, 6 random f&v are priced at 39p or 49p or 59p or 69p depending on the mix. www.aldi.co.uk/en/product-range/fresh-bakery/this-weeks-latest-super-6-offers/ You can chop & freeze a lot of veg plus citrus fruit like lemon for G&T.

£35 in old vet
£10 in tescos on naice food and cat milk to get the cat eating again.

Ellis that is genius on the wine! I don't really drink at home and DH will if it's there but isn't fussed, and we often seem to have a half bottle hanging around after a recipe calls for some.

MissAnnersley oh dear, hope you feel better soon.

Right, food shopping tomorrow, wonder if I can keep it down to a semi-sensible level! DH has requested those skinny steaks (minute steaks?) one day next week, but 3 meals are from the freezer so hopefully that will balance out price-wise. We are closer to lidl (11 miles) than Aldi (22 miles) but I will check super six tomorrow morning and maybe do Aldi if it fits in with our menu plan.

possibly organge

Cheap snack ideas:

pop your own popcorn,
homemade hummous and carrot sticks/cucumber
homemade cakes and muffins,
make your own granola and mix it with yogurt,
frozen yogurt /fruit juice lollies (for hotter weather obviously),
rice crispies treats
peanut butter cookies

We don't tend to buy our snacks really. Both DP and DH love my banana bread/muffins.

misstired ouch at school spend. Gosh, that's a lot of money.

Ellis thanks for the ip about freezing wine. I never thought of doing that - I also only use it for cooking.

Am very pleased with myself because I got £25 worth of organic meat and cheese free by spending £75 at Ocado. Really struggled to spend that money and had to buy 6 extra boxes of cereal and loads of extra things (that we will use - eventually) just to make it up to £75 but totally worth it. DP really enjoyed his lamb burgers. He was saying ooh, maybe we can have these again and I just gave him a look. Not at £4.22 for 2 burgers we are not.

Still it does mean that our shops should be lower priced than normal over the next few weeks.

That's a helluva way to go for shopping, possibly orange

What's the code on that Cadbury and how long is it valid for?

Pfft that's nothing my lidl is 20 miles away and aldi 30

£30 on groceries, again, today. in that I topped up on the corn crackers I got to try last week. very nice, not as expensive as the rice cakes and only 6 boxes on the shelf, so I bought 3 of those. Think each pack has 15 crackers for £1.30 ish. £6 on red lentils, 1 kilo, which I wasn't going to buy but DDS will need filling nutritious snacks for school, when it reopens.

NK do you have, and will he eat, a can of tuna, boiled and sliced egg, cheese, peanut butter?

The voucher code is VOU5962073 and the thread is here.