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

Eek, rest that leg adora! Must be very sore :(.

£29 in Homebase, well pleased though as returned 2 unused cans of paint, which got us £16.99 and £12.99 respectively off the bill for new paint, a sander, masks, special kitchen wood paint. DH spent about £10 from his own pocket money on a top up shop in Sainsbury's.

Halfway through painting the study and just got to the stage where the books/furniture from the study are all over the place and I regret even starting!!

No big food shop now until at least 9th April as we will be away visiting rellies from Weds-Sat, then I go off early the next week on a week long school trip, all meals will be paid for. When I am away DH lives on toast & peanut butter and pasta with tomato sauce Very cheap, if not too healthy!!
We have just enough food to get us through to Tues night, then we'll do a tiny shop for Sat-Mon on Saturday.

Am off to buy a straw hat for the school trip (Turkey, very warm already, yay!!), should be about £15 in Accessorize.

Adora poor you, at least it isn't broken . Have you got open stairs?

I just checked the price of the grass seed I bought in homebargains for £2.50 in homebase. £8.99!.

I plan To Creme, Thanks.

Fluffy we have a hand rail, which I didn't use . Just had To Go upstairs To check something, won't be doing that much Today as coming back down was painfull. I've had ibuprofen, slapped on some homeopático cream, all in the cupboard so no extra cost and I'm sure there's a support I could use around here somewhere. I don't need To Go out úntil just after 3 so have plenty of time To rest it.

Poor adorabell sounds like a nasty dose.

Trying out tesco value sponge mix as a sponge pudding in slow cooker mix cost 59c plus an egg(own hens) and 75ml lemon juice from storecupboard must go buy bread when dh comes home cos blowing a storm out so don't fancy taking the smallies out.

Cheapish weekend, visited my parents bought diesel on the way, ordered some DVDs for Mother's Day while there & got chips for myself & dd on return journey plus a little bottle of calpol for teething ds while up there.

Well nothing like a bladder infection to get the week off to a good start

So I wanted a treat and instead of stopping at the shop in my way home from work I made brownies at home to cheer myself up. I have said it before and I'll say it again -this frugal lifestyle is no good for my waist line!

adora sounds painful . Hope it heals soon. I did my knee in a few weeks ago - somehow managed to twist it as I was getting in to the car . It was swollen for a few days.

For those of you who ebay your stuff - how do you work out the postage? Do you take it to the post office and weigh it or do you weigh it at home and work out the cost? I have recently started buying things on ebay but have never sold anything - I just give to charity.

Talking about ebay... I bought Lego for DS. He is Lego mad and I must be mad. I spent £28 on Lego but it is easily worth triple that. A bargain really.

I have some big expenditure coming my way in the next month or so. MOT & service for the car, fence needs replacing on both sides (and yes, both my boundaries unfortunately) and DS' birthday that's more Lego then. I also have to get the garage roof fixed, which I am hoping to get done through the 10 year guarantee that the roofers provided (and which runs out in 2 weeks) but I dont hold out much hope because the phone number is unobtainable and they are no longer at the address. I will still try to track them down. That's my job tomorrow.

Was determined to have a no spend day but spent 69p in Waitrose, damn you doughnuts!!

ellisisland sorry to hear about the bladder infection, it is agony, i sympathise. How did the brownies turn out? My repertoire is limited to flapjacks and banana loaf, do you have an easy recipe?!

CoolCadbury, there's a postage estimator on the site and some people use scales for accuracy. With experience, you tend to be able to guess the postage. I've only been wrong a couple of times on my 15 sold items. You can also include the cost of jiffy bags in your postage costs, if you're a bit snobbish about packaging!

Oops, last fifteen sold items!

I use the Royal Mail calculator, dh got caught out several times which is why I'm so paranoid about it.

£2.20 on ikea bags but I paid using a free voucher I had on amazon.

Cool good luck, I hope you find them. Maybe the gaurantee has a fund for this kind of thing if you can't find them, otherwise it's a worthless gaurantee.

Needed yoghurt and a few other bits so I'm sitting down in the coffee shop while DDs shop. I've given them a list and they are accustomed to running off for various items while pick up others, but this is the first time I'vd sent them off with actual cash.

Knee is quite sore but at least I have ibuprofen, silver linings and all that

I hear toffee cures knee problems. If you eat enough of it

Poor adora. Hope you feel better soon! Was going to be an NSD (in that I brought lunch). But paid for ds to do tennis £15... Came home with more money demands £3.50 for gym, £25 for holiday club and that's not all of it!!!

Hope your knees ok adora.

£2.99 on Easter bonnet (crown really) kit for dd.

Thanks for tips re bags.

I just guess the postage. Used to work for a company with three eBay shops so I'm pretty damn good at it

Ll, I spent much less than expected as the uniform lady wasn't at dancing. I'll need to pay the £66 later in the week/next week though.

£7 ish in Tesco as I didn't make lunch to take to work today. The money was for a bag of salad and a pack of ham which will also do tomorrow, a second pack of ham as save £1.50 by buying 2, plus 2 oranges (today and tomorrow).

Oh dear adora and elisisland

missmystic hope you have a great break.

1.88 on bread and chocolate. As I'm on a family holiday and am still viewed as being the baby of the family, despite having DS, no one is letting me put my hand in my pocket. To be fair we're not really spending much but still. We're talking about a take away later in the week so I will insist on paying for that.

Fluffy Thanks for the tip

DDs did Well, stuck To the list other than marshmallows and they came and asked me rather than just buy them. Spent £14, then DD1 needed a particular type of paintbrush for school from another shop, that was £3.20.

Well this is meant to be a NSD but dh has drunk all his milk (I don't have cows milk) so I have to go & buy more .

I'm going to get the skimmed lacto free. See how he likes that straight from the carton.

Might as well go to the big tesco for it and collect my heat holder socks.

M&S are offering £150 in vouchers to switch current accounts to them & close the old one but there's a monthly fee of £10.

Definitely not a NSD... just paid £722.17, clearing my credit card to £0!!!!

Now we have to clear DHs 3 cards, hoping to have a surplus at the end of the month to throw at his smallest card. Thankfully his largest card is actually 0% so we have some time.

Is it wrong to hope that today's food shop will be extra frugal because I will have both my mother and MIL with me and one of them might pay?

Oh well done missannersley. That's super. Have you chopped up the card?

I spent my last coins in Waitrose. We calculate our shopping budget from Wednesday to Tuesday. This shopping week we came in at just under £70, which I am pleased with.

Insideleg - I have the worlds easiest brownie recipe! It's:

100g cocoa powder
250g butter
500g sugar
4eggs
100g SR flor

Melt the butter and mix with sugar and cocoa. Beat and add eggs. Then add the flour and pour into tin.
Bake at 180 for 30 mins for gooey brownies or 40 for more cakes one

They are so yummy