Judiciously June frugal thread now including Christmas bargains.

[Fluffycloudland77]

Everyone is welcome.

We spend about £70-80 a week and there's only 2 of us.

Typical meals:

veggie + cashew nut paella
spinach pesto, cumin carrots, pasta
frozen salmon fillet, carrots, kale, spuds
kidney bean + carrot burgers, sweet potato wedges, salad
roasted squash, couscous, veggie sausages, salad, hummus
veggie stir-fry and egg noodles
falafel, hummus, tomatoes, salad, pittas
veggie curry with tofu cubes, rice
rice salad (cooked and mixed with soy sauce, fried white cabbage, dried cranberries) with tofu "steaks", green leaves

I eat fruit or home-made fruit smoothie every day for breakfast, I have lunch at work 5 days a week. DH takes leftovers or makes sandwiches for his lunch.

We don't eat meat really, except the odd frozen salmon fillet.

Our budget is £75 a week. Branded for me is Andrex loo roll, bounty kitchen roll and lurpak. Otherwise not fussy. We don't have ketchup

I buy whatever butter is on offer, or Sainbury's/Tesco own brand (but not value), beans are Heinz.

I try to stockpile store cupboard things when on offer, I bought about 6 bags of Napoli bronze die pasta at £1 a bag a few weeks ago. DH likes De Cecco pasta. Having said that, we used to feed our previous dog pasta, and we were left with a large amount of a huge sack of it that we then ate, DH did concede it wasn't too bad!

We use a lot of frozen veg because then they don't go to waste before they get eaten. I did buy a load in Aldi a while ago, and when the freezer needs restocking I'll do that again. I have been using up the meat that was in the freezer, so in a couple of weeks I'll need to restock the meat. I think that may be Aldi as well.

I do like to do an evening scoot round Waitrose/Marks and scoop up their reductions to top up the freezer too.

Not posted for a while, frugality going strong here still. dh is working all weekend, dd is at cub camp and ds is doing cricket scoring so I'm going to have a quiet one. Really need to get some studying done but that involves motivation, something I don't seem to have a lot of at the moment!

£61 in lidl but that included washing powder, eight pack of loo roll and nappies. About to put £30 petrol in.

You know I sent that wedding dress back? The seller hasn't collected it from the post office and although I have the tracking number I don't have the receipt so eBay won't refund me. I'm so angry and feel so stupid.

Dp found it

£35 at Aldi for weekly shop, £10 at butcher, and that leaves me £17.50 for the week. I budget £50 for food and £12.50 for other non food bits. We are using up stuff in the cupboards and freezer so are saving quite a bit each week. I will need to top up with fruit and fresh veg over the week. We make all our own bread and usually cook from scratch. There are five of us, two in nappies still.

Been to clarks. ...both kids feet have grown and managed to get sale shoes at £14 each. Yay. Ds can wait for school shoes thou!

Plus m&s to take advantage of 20% off uniform. ...dd starts in sept so at least I'm spreading the cost..tshirts, .jumpers and shoes to go, skirts and pinafores bought, Itried to get her to agree to size 4-5 skirts and she said "ok I will roll this up"....omg where do they get such things from, smaller size bought instead

Made a soup with some leftover veg and some homemade bread this morning, and I already have tonight's tea (Thai green curry) in the slow cooker, so feeling very organised. Spent £70 for the week's food shop in Asda which is about £20 less than I would spend in Sainsburys so that is good, and I have already planned in some batch cooking.

Unfortunately, had to buy a suit for DS prom - left it so late - for £120, but I am hoping he will get some wear out of it for interviews afterwards!!

@Passthecake - £14 is a brilliant bargain for Clarks' shoes

£31 at hairdressers, £30 on fuel, £20 in lidl and £86 in morrisons. I'm at the amount I spent on food but I did get about £10 worth of stuff for a relative who's had an op. Still, our budget is supposed to be £80 for the week, for two of us.

We are quite brand led though - butter has to be lurpack, beans have to be Heinz. Brown and red sauce come from a local deli and are delicious but £3 for a small bottle!

charlieboo- are you trying to save money? Or is this a stealth boast?

NSd for me.

Washing line from John Lewis broke, that'll be going back tomorrow

Poundland sell washing lines.

deepbluetr - I guess saving money is a bonus for me but I'm not very good at it! I can remember spending £40 a week on food when DP and I first met (8 years ago) now it's usually £80. It's tricky as DP is diabetic so I can't just buy anything - it all has to be checked.

I don't need to save money but I'd like to!

Dp and I used to spend that too! (About seven years ago) and that was buying whatever we wanted. I'm diabetic too. Rubbish.

spotty - I can easily see ours being £100 a week before long!

I've found I can do most of my shop in lidl now. It certainly keeps the cost down. I still get most meat from tesco and a couple of other bits but not much.

Adora happy anniversary

LSD today, first one in ages, £1.50 on bread rolls.

Spent £2.30 on salad this morning.

Nothing other the Chocs for Anniversary, I think you could be right Fluffy

Thanks for the good wishes.

DH has paid a long outstanding vet bill today, think that was about £600.

Aldi for main shop £37. Then went to tesco on way home from town and spent £4. Oh, and sainsburys for some choc for brownies (in oven) and spent £10 buying other stuff. This popping in thing has to stop. So in total about £63 for this weeks shop which includes a £1.50 bottle of something for school fair. Was thinking of making a cake for school fete, but that will mean popping in to shop to get some things like flour (running out) etc. plus won't have time! Oh well...

£1.50 in Morrisons for DS toothpaste.

£17 on a dinner and a movie plus 70p parking.

£1.20 on chips and £7 on a bottle of wine.

I try to stick to £50 a week for all my groceries, but it is just me and DS (11) and our cat, and we humans are vegetarian. DS also gets school lunch free, so that saves at least a fiver a week. That said, everything has crept up this last year or so, as I'm sure I used to spend £40-45 most weeks a year ago.

Happy Anniversary, Adora .

Your vets bills are frightening Adora, but I suppose with 4 of them their always getting into scrapes & needing the vets.

I hope you've had a lovely anniversary