Jacket Potato July: our frugal year is flying by!

[CremeEggThief]

Hi All,
I couldn't see a new thread yet, so thought I'd start one for July. The jacket potato is a marker for starting summer off on a frugal note. :).

NSD so far.

Spendy.....

Had a picnic with friends. Impromptu. £16 - 4 of us, m&s. Was going to use the vouchers that we won but dh persuaded me that they wouldn't refund the extra money leftover, so I paid with cc. Turns out that we would get money back if we didn't spend the vouchers value, because I spent £68 (on vouchers) on some stuff for the kids, perfume, discounted shoes etc and I gave the lady £75 in vouchers and she refunded the rest on a gift card! Grr dh.

Them £70 on a lovely suit from Hobbs. Original price of both dress and jacket would have been £320. I paid £70 as had £30 voucher. So, I'm happy.

We are however eating lasagne that I made yesterday, and a tagliatelle with courgette and bacon which I've just whipped up.

Have a good week ahead. I've got another week at work before I have my annual leave and I have a shed load to get through. Wish me luck.

I don't need to tell you my reaction when something's cheap do I?

The difference is £18, have you got anything better to spend £18 on?

Our nearest forestry commission place (Farnham) is amazing! With two or three adventure playgrounds and loads of walks etc. Cheaper the better IMO

Ohhelp I will keep that in mind. Hopefully the nappies I bought will be the last set! My youngest is 2 1/2 and I'm attempting potty training this summer.

I will start off at the most convenient one to me, which I think is lidl. See how I like it! Will update next week!

NSD, NSD, NSD!!!!

Only because it is Sunday and the shops have shut. I have no dinner.

But hey, my first NSD ha ha!

Ohhelp nope. I only feel disappointed in something if I've been talked out of what I really wanted and into something someone else wants. FE I wanted a brown jacket I'd seen a few years ago. I could afford it but DH wore me down so I didn't buy it. Then the next year they did it in blue. Lovely colour, same price. DH bought it for me. I don't wear it. But if I had got it half price in the colour I wanted it would be used frequently as if I'd snapped it up the moment I saw it.

So with the day out I would happy as long as DDs had a good time.

And yes, Karbea, men can take a loooooooooong to see the frugal light. Do have time to walk DH through the kitchen cupboards and plan a menu for the week? Kind of show him there actually is food in the house?

£4 in Morrisons on Lenor and Kleenex offers, it would have been about £8 but my Mum dashed thorugh the checkout with all the grub I had bought for picnic lunch. Then will be about £5 for MIL for box of naff crisps to take on holiday and some eggs.

Oh help, oh no, I would definitely go for the cheaper option and think what I'd spend on something else. Definitely too if it's age appropriate, eg, if the kids won't know the difference. So if you say, would you like to go to Disney or to the park down the road, most kids would want the former!! But you also know it's a lot more expensive. But if they won't really know the difference between park 1 and 2 and there are similar activities eg same size play area etc then I'd deffo go cheap!

I am just checking in to say I have done really well in July - saved £145 by shopping in Lidl/Aldi rather than Sainsburys. I have put a lot more thought into what we are eating and consequently we are eating a lot better for a lot less! And I have got my DH on board too!

Feeling good because I was desperate to spend some money on some new shorts today but couldn't find anything I liked, came home and converted an old pair of jeans into shorts instead.

I never even knew forestry commission places existed! Just found one near me, so a lovely new place to walk my kids dogs.

I've got one three miles away, I had no idea. They dont exactly push themselves do they? I wonder how much parking is at ours?.

Today was spendy, as expected.

£4.50 parking near theatre (the cheaper car park was full, I did check) £15 on 2 programmes and 2water bottles (one for each DS and DD1) £7.50 for 3 ice creams, £26 for lunch out.

I also got a call from a friend asking me to get her theatre tickets while I was there, £37.50 instead of £81, she is very happy. She'll give the money back next wee.

Ours is called alice holt forest and they've got a grufallo trail at the moment. I've only recently discovered it but it was really busy when we went

My husband is the opposite - he is so tight with money to the point that he monitors everything, I don't even talk to him about buying anything anymore because his response is always "we can't afford it" - even if we had £100,000 in the bank he'd still be saying the same thing. It just makes life kinda miserable sometimes, when it really doesn't have to be.

I often ask him what he'd do if he ended up looking after the children alone, I'm almost certain he wouldn't buy them new clothes and the younger ones would always be wearing mismatched outfits that they had chosen themselves. Sure they would be fed and clothed, but I doubt there would ever be treats, holiday's or a day out that wasn't a freebie.

Infact this year I might just leave him to deal with birthday's and Christmas and see just how he does, I feel like I spend weeks trying to find things at a low cost and all he does is moan about how much has been spent.

Epilated and took off my shellac and painted my nails myself tonight, so that'll save me some money. The brilliant s&b boards reminded me I had some Nivea moisturiser in my cupboard that I'd got for dh awhile back, so when mine runs out in a day or two I can use that rather than having to go without or buy something new, result!

£27.70 on a day out for DS and I at the Sunderland Air Show. It truly was awesome! :)

Will go back & catch up later as have been on hols last week after moving house !

Spendy weekend, 67 food shopping from various places, 33 petrol & 40 this morning for out of school club for DD (thank goodness for nanna & grandad's babysitting club for the early mornings & afternoons or that 40 would be 125!).

We get paid on the 25th of each month so paid on Friday last week & then again 22nd August, so my challenge this month is to have some money left over to cover the extra week before payday at the end of September!

Will be a nsd today. I'm not going to work as I was up half the night with a migraine. Bleurgh.

Hope you are feeling better soon Spotty I started with Migraines about a year ago and never realised how debilitating they could be.

A no spend day today as have to stay in for a parcel that I missed yesterday. Its only a cheap book for school. Am determined to finish sorting the house. Decided to empty boxes and files on Friday and despite spending two days on it, there are still things on every surface. My job today therefore is to tidy the office area and the lounge before DH comes back and has a fit Making homemade burgers for tea with some mince I bought last week so no spend there too.

Went to Lidl yesterday and bought some fruit in an attempt to get DD to eat healthy during the holidays. Spent £11.51 on fruit, 10 neopolitan sandwich ice creams and some other essentials to make freezer stock go further for menu planning this week.

£2.80 Aldi, got a fibre hanging basket liner, some water retaining crystals, tomatoes and vinegar.

£4 homebargains on silver wrapping paper, dw salt, a watering can.

£1.50 on a card in card factory.

£60 on petrol. And 50p on one of those machine rides for dd. Paid already but this is the start of ds' holiday camp. £130/week. Omg. Run by the private school down the road... The real students of that school have their own golf bags and kit!!!

Thanks making. This one was so bad I couldn't even lie down or close my eyes it completely floored me.

Ooo would have saved money on petrol not going to work today. Frugal win