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.

Good for you onefleu

Wish me luck everyone, taking the car to quik fit today for the exhaust.y dad thinks it's the manifold got my 15% off voucher though....

oneflue good idea about putting the money aside. Good luck with it all.

spotty eek. I don't know what the manifold is but it sounds expensive.

oneflueover have you got NRT off the nhs? When dh gave up they advised two forms of NRT so he had patches & lozenges. We got two weeks supply of patches for one prescription charge & then bought lozenges from savers.

I need to check my fuel bills, sse customers are meant to have had a 3.5% reduction in their bills but I didn't! Plus because I only pay £59 a month (new build, well insulated house) I wouldn't get the full £50 a year rebate anyway so that's not very fair.

Today I need loads of smart price cleaning stuff from tesco (it's not tested on animals so its ok) and magnesium tablets.

Thanks FantaSea have added juice bricks to my shopping list, then we have a little sugary thing to drink.
I have also taken a tshirt and a pair of boxes with me to DP, as well as a deo and toothbrush to he also can feel a little more clean after the labour.

NSW for us as well, very nice. But today we need a bit of groceries and some stuff from the ecological supermarket.
BTW any who have heard that raspberry tea leaf should be good for getting your body ready for labour? I dont mean like starting it, but read somewhere that it should help your body to prepare and make labour easier? Any thought on that?

Italian I drank pints and pints of the stuff during my pregnancies. Can't say if it had any effect or not, tbh1

Hopefully n/lsd today. DP owes me lunch :-)

Raspberry leaf tea did nothing for me. Tasted vile.

Fennel tea however, was excellent, I drank 3 cups a day and it sorted dds projectile vomiting of her entire feeds (bf)

Italian pleased you have got your bags all sorted, and a good idea to take a few bits for DP. You might like to pack a few cereal bars or something for him to eat if you are in labour a long time - I had visions of my DH going down to the cafeteria to get food but as it turned out I didn't want to be left on my own, so you may feel the same.

I thought raspberry leaf tea was supposed to get labour going - it didn't work for me and tasted horrible I thought.

Spotty hope your car is not too expensive.

I'm hoping for another NSD today

Italian, personally I think raspberry leaf tea is a load of rubbish. Much better to have a steak or two and plenty of veggies and calcium in the run up to labour. IMO.

Agree on the raspberry leaf tea - not quite sure it did anything useful but it does help you feel like you're doing something to prepare!

I need some advice ladies. A 'what would you do' answer.

I think I've mentioned our leaky roof before...well after a few quotes we're looking at about 2000. We currently have 1400 in savings. This is everything. Emergency fund, Christmas fund, car fund, house fund. We could pay for the rest out of overdraft if needs be.

I'm trying to get my head around these figures before making any decisions.

• this is the first time we've ever had savings, it will be gut wrenching to see it all go at once plus incruing some debt.
• the leaks are small but long term. We've had the problem for 7 years and have never properly sorted it out. I'm tempted to wait another year.
• or, as long as it doesn't incur extra costs, I'm hoping we may be able to have the front done this year and the back done next year.

I've worked so hard at being frugal for the past 6 months. I've never had a safety net before. I suppose this is what safety nets are for but if we go ahead and then the car breaks down, we're screwed.

£114 with the 15% off voucher. Humph. Could have been a lot worse though.

Spring I would never usually advocate a credit card but if you had a 0% one as a back up you could pay upfront for the roof and then if there is a problem later with the car etc you could put it on the credit card.

I have an "empty" 0% card for emergencies.

Reastie on here, at least I think that's her nn, does legendary Christmas present threads. Typing that has reminded me I forgot to buy fil that malt whisky morrisons had marked down to £20 on hotukdeals.co.uk .

Adora sorry I was too tired to say congratulations on getting rid of the gas guzzler. Well done, I know it's taken you ages to shift the damn thing.

£25 on paint.
£3 aldi on cat food and cheap bubble bath to use as pump soap.
£6 in tescos on sp loo cleaner, pork pies and bread for dh , rinse aid and a card for him.

I've emailed SSE CEO to moan about the £50 they are meant to be giving us all this year, the way they do it I will get less because I'm a low consumer. Some companies aren't even passing on the saving.

I'm going to email tescos customer services now to complain my local store didn't have the smart price multi surface cleaner I wanted. I am very disappointed in them. I've had to mop using washing up liquid.

Fluffy what's this about £50 back? I'm with sse (southern electric) I'm fixed for five years or something so haven't had anything back?

I bought a new vacuum cleaner (£51, after £6.50 clubcard vouchers were used towards it) and new dining chairs (£100.87) online yesterday, but will hopefully make £42.54 from trading in some old books to webuybooks.com. The books were mostly picture books DS has outgrown, but strangely, they were most keen on some old Chalet School paperbacks and Ladybird Read it Yourself ones . Lots that I thought they'd want, they didn't, yet they paid out for the really old ones...

NSD so far today, but I'm going to get some ibuprofen in a minute, as I feel flu-ey :(. And we might have a takeaway tonight, but it'll be under a tenner if we do.

Mmm take away, I ate lunch out but actually need an Indian.

£12 on shoes for ds
£6.99 frozen cd for me dd
£10.24 more presents for my sisters bday
£36 lunch out

£35 towards cc

Ouch.

No take away for us!

Last year the government reduced the "green" tariffs, it was meant to give us all £50 to reduce our fuel bills BUT some companies haven't paid out at all, some are offering £12.

Sse is offering 3.5% in price cuts from March 2014 for standard tariffs and June for fixed rate. If you spend £1100 a year or so it's roughly £50 incl a £12 rebate we'll get in the autumn.

I've spent a lot of my cashback money and changing banks money on energy saving led bulbs, thermal lined everything and spin dryers etc so my bills only £59 a month. So basically high users save loads and I get shafted.

I have read that if uk usage continues to rise they will have to upgrade the infrastructure to cope and the consumer will be expected to pay for that as well I imagine. Or maybe the government will have to pay and that's why they want the providers to fund green alternatives and home insulation program's.

fluffy £59 a month is fantastic. We are £179 and that's with thermal curtains and wooly jumpers. We are in the Scottish Highlands though so it is generally colder. And teenagers don't help - every electric device known to man!

NSD so far today but have run out of yogurt for breakfast. If ds1 pops to Tesco as he is threatening I might ask him to get some - they have their uses.

Got to the beach in the end... After dh sorted skirting boards out and I had a go at the steam mop. Woah! Read the instructions and it said to wash the wipe cloth I need to use liquid detergent. Really?? Does anyone know about the shark steam mop? I use powder and I'm not about to go buy a bottle of Persil for this!!

£1 for ice cream - dh paid the rest, and £18.60 for fish and chips. Argh.

NSD tomorrow... I'm at work!

NSD today and just £1.30 yesterday whilst out on an ice lolly for DD (being used to a box of Aldi lollies for a quid = rip off!)
Ooh just had a thought.. Do we include monthly, regular Direct Debits as daily spends??
£27 on a lovely ASOS bikini which was reduced in the swimwear sale
£6.50 on socks for DD at Sainsbo's, and a blummin' £3.50 begged-for hairband (which has since been left at a friend's house!)

I've never incl DD, that's usually money you have to spend like rent or broadband.

Thanks Fluffy, DH realized today that he left cash and his prepaid parking card in the glove box. Of course it wasn't found by anyone, he can cancel the card but don't know if they'll transfer his credit which is about £15, and there was about the same in cash.

I spent £25 in the supermarket today. Couldn't get into the green grocer's as he was having Tarmac laid. Obvs doing well as until now it's all been dirt track parking and no one else along there has anything other than mud for parking spaces. I'll try to get veg etc tomorrow.

Will catch up properly tomorrow.

fluffy is that for dual fuel ???

We pay about £70 per month for dual fuel and have a small deficit (less than £100) which I am hoping will even out now it's summer still bloody freezing

NSD yesterday, should be today as well.

We're seeing the mortgage advisor soon and last night I used Satander's Affordability calculator to see what we might be offered under the new mortgage rules. Cue panicked conversation with DP on how to reduce our expenditure so we can get a decent mortgage. The calculator looks to see if we can afford a 4 pc increase in our mortgage repayment. Means cutting back and being extra frugal now to show we could if mortgages shot up in the near future.

I'm in for this month. The house refurbishment is nearly finished and my bank balance is looking very sorry for itself so I need to build up a buffer again. Hopefully, once the next CC bill is cleared then the big spending is over (except for Car Tax at the end of the month which I only noticed yesterday ).

I need to draw up a list of big payments due for the rest of the year like insurance and start putting aside money monthly now so I'm not taking money out of the savings pot I'm trying to rebuild to pay for a predictable expense.

I will draw up a 2 week rolling meal plan this week and a basic budget.

Thanks for the advice re the tea, think I will buy it if I see it, but not wander half the town around to get it.
Went shopping yesterday, no idea what we bought or the price of it. Became very poorly in the middle of the store (I have a heart condition) so ended up sitting on a chair, feeling very bad, close to fainting and could barely breath. My partner did all he could to be there for me and still do the damn shopping. Did anybody help? Nope not a soul. So disappointed, eventho my DFIL after we came home, that it is typically Dutch not to help. If it had been in Denmark, at least somebody from the store would have come and asked if I needed something, a drink or something to eat, if I would have like to sit in the employee room, call an ambulance ect. Here, absolutely nada. There were even people complaining to my partner, that he was taking to long to do the goods at the cashier and why I couldnt just get up my lazy ass and help, even when he explained that I was 37 weeks pregnant, the lady just said "pregnancy is not a illness", and when he then said, "no but heart condition is" she just mumled something about young people being entitled.
ARG! Rant.... Dutch people, when you feeling ill and poorly are clearly just rude and impolite...
Breath....
That helped getting it off my chest...