A miserly May on Mumsnet for the fantastic frugaleers!

[MissAnnersleyismyhero]

Saw April was getting very full so thought I'd start this off early!
Welcome to all who want to save cash, live frugally and pay debts, or just trying to live within our means!
Full of hints and tips on how to save money in the supermarket, meal planning and daily life.

I have quite a few herbs, probably about 14 different ones, but they're things I've accumulated. I freeze fresh ones too. I certainly don't have any posh ingredients though unless you count red wine vinegar and risotto rice

Ooh, get you with your red wine vinegar and risotto rice,Spotty! Nowt like that here!

NSD.

I have white wine vinegar too. Totes posh

I'm sooo hungry. Dp spent 80p earlier, but I think it was his own money, on some rolls for our burgers for dinner. I've got some mexicana cheese to go with mine mmmm

Just had a bbq yep it's raining but had friends over n men n bbq once planned it happens fairly cheap as had reduced chicken wings from 3.99 to 68p in co 99p last night never normally get such bargain. Some value pork belly slices. Couple chicken breasts diced up onto skewers n sausage. They brought some gammon steaks. Then had some salad potato salad n sweet potato wedges n some pitta I found in freezer.

That sounds lovely east. The weather has been rubbish but it's probably stopped us going out and spending. We've had a right spring clean!

Fluffy yes, I should try that

Spotty I didn't know I could count my white wine vinegar as part of my posh stock. Mine might not be in date though

£3 in asda on fruit

£6 on cards from card factory - why would you pay anymore?! That's it though - DP paid when we called to town for some bread.

Tomorrow will be a costly day as car is in garage for its repair so that's £180 plus £20 for two days hire of courtesy car. I'm still aggrieved about this - a car that costs me £160 a month and is 3 months old and I'm already paying out this kind of money! Aargh.

I'm also on half term and seem to spend much more than when I'm at work. Need to have more willpower!

NSD.

I got all my Christmas cards from card factory in the sale too, I allowed for break ups/bereavements by getting ones that said "from both of us" rather than the usual "to my nephews girlfriends dog". I put them in the Christmas tree box so I don't lose them.

We don't have a card factory round here. I always end up in between the lines (don't know if that's a national shop or not but it's one of my favourites!)

Hi, DS and I are back from London. We had a FABULOUS time. Our main events were seeing Big Ben, cosying up to a lion at Trafalgar Sq. and the View from the Shard and hanging out in our swish hotel.

Gosh, London is expensive though. Eye wateringly so. But being the frugaleer I am, I asked the duty manager at the hotel if DS could have free breakfast (we were room only) as he eats so little and he said yes, but yes to both of us. Saved £24.

Fanta how can vinegar go out of date? It is a preservative!

I dread to think how many different herbs/spices we have, but, it is DH's tools of the trade so to speak (and sometimes he decants a small amount from a catering size jar -just for quality control purposes )

NSD today.

Amazing win Cadbury!

Well done Cadbury if you don't ask, you don't get!

DH found a deal for a weekend away that we were interested in, but it was a maximum of 4, we have 3 DC , so I asked who we were leaving behind? He asked me to call to see if we could take the 3 yo too, but as we don't gave a long weekend away from school this year (plus we have 2 weeks of shows for Evita plus Joseph in June and July) I don't know when we would be able to use it.

Could you phone up & see if you could the extra child for a small extra charge?

Just back from London on my fantastic treat from mumsnet and housetrip...! We won a 3 night stay at an apt (of our choice) in London. Had to do a video and do some write ups but all worth it. £345 was what it would have cost us to get that apt for 4 days!!

But yes, London is ridiculously expensive. I live in the se anyway so am 'used' to prices, but man, £8.90 for a tube card? So nearly £20/day for us already before we even start! I realise we were on holiday so already had plans to eat out, do stuff.., but still. We brought out own breakfasts, so I packed a couple of cereal boxes, loaf of bread, butter, 3 cartons of UHT milk, crisps and packs of juice for the kids - enough for 4 days so they don't whinge about being hungry enroute anywhere. Brought a sainsburys takeaway and two pizzas for the first night there.

Saved one of the pizzas for our trip back home, so that was ok for lunch today. I reckon we spent about £300 overall... Including tickets to Greenwich, aquarium (using the adults go free Kellogg's promo). Omg.

On way home, we stopped at Aldi to top up food/fruit etc. £39. Had lots of meat from last week, so got UHT milk, crisps, soft cheese (made a cheesecake!), butter, juices etc.

Should be an NSD tomorrow. Ds has tennis camp but already paid for. Am at work.

Hope everyone had a good bank holiday weekend. Can't wait for payday this Friday.

Cadbury and NK pleased you both had such a great time

Audit I hadn't thought of that! DD's bf would certainly approve of your spice collection

NK I wonder if we bumped into each other?

The View from the Shard was £24.50 for one adult - that was a discounted price for buying the tickets in advance! Luckily children go free this half term week. The views were amazing but I'm not sure that it was worth that price especially as DS wanted to leave within 5 minutes . Even the Eiffel Tower and Empire State Building are cheaper.

Also I totally understand about feeling meh about constantly being frugal or only spending money on things you need (eg tyres, fences, boiler service etc) and I think that's why I decided to go to London on a mad impulse. But I do have a frivolous spending category in my YNAB so I don't go crazy and book an all expenses trip to Bora Bora. Putting aside "mad" money helps me to cope.

I, of course, mean that seeing the views from ET and ESB are cheaper .

Cadbury! We were at the natural history museum on sat (btw you can pre book tickets to see the dinosaurs. Tickets are free and that means you don't have to queue!) and then to the diana memorial park for the afternoon. Sun we were at the aquarium. Today we were at Greenwich. Thank goodness for museum and park otherwise it would have been more expensive!!

I know it's nearly the end of the month, but I so need to join you lot. A wee bit of overspending here and there has added up to a whopping £1101.74 credit card debt. Can't tell DH as I've done it before and he bailed me out, so I need to sort this on my own.

I've transferred it to a low interest rate card already, so that's one thing. Need to stop my credit card that I've cleared and then plan some kind of budget. I don't need to worry about bills or food, as they come from our joint account which is well run, in credit and decently funded, it's my 'fun and kids' money that needs to be sorted. And the irony is that we have a decent amount of disposable income - I get £300 per month plus the CB for 3 kids, so total of £488 per month and it all goes and more. I have to pay my NHS prepayment £10.40 and my mobile £35 per month from it and the rest is mine to do with as I please.

I feel pretty horrified when that is written down, that I've wasted so much money somehow. DD1's ballet lessons come out of it, clothes and shoes for the kids and any activities we do on my day off or at weekends. Still should be plenty to all of that and more.

Horrifying.

I think a good trawl through my statements is needed to see where this is all going is urgently overdue.

Mad welcome

I know what you mean about money running away with you, it is so easily done. I used to spend far too much on odd and ends, nothing really, and it is so easy when you have small children. What helped me was having the money I had to spend in cash, and keeping that money separate. If you are handing over cash, you get more of a sense of having 'spent' money. Also, you could try writing down what you have spent - I did this and couldn't believe how much money I had spent in coffees and mcdonalds here and there.

Welcome mad!

Nsd here but have found a hotel for our wedding night. Going to sweet talk mil

Welcome Mad.

Sounds good, spotty :).

NSD.

£1 on a hanging basket liner.

£5 JL voucher received from nielsen points.

Welcome mad. Spending diaries are worth doing, when I did mine I could not believe I was spending £60 a month on car parking & sandwiches.

£10ish yesterday on ice cream and similar. Good day out with dc in the sunshine.

£11 on groceries today but no other spends.

I've checked our bank balance and I know we're going to be £70 over budget and we still need petrol, fruit, milk and some half term fripperies so I'm going to have to move some savings. I'm not surprised as I've made a couple of big purchases this month and it's a long month for us but it's still more than I hoped. I will just get to the end of the month and try extra hard next month.