Let's make merrily with August austerity!

[CremeEggThief]

Hello All,
I've taken the liberty (again!) of starting our new thread for August. The merrily sort of ties in with Christmas and keeping an eye on any bargains out there, if you're super organised and like planning ahead.

Today's spends were £5.10 on travel, £1.20 on 2 bottles of water, £4.20 on 2 hot chocolates and £17.25 on a meal out (long story!).

£29.50 on a dressing gown for dh but my M&S voucher paid for that.
£33.50 on a tv bracket, but dh will go halves plus that £9 he owes me.

Sold an item on eBay for £118. It was buyer collect only IN SHOUTY CAPITALS IN THE TITLE AND DESCRIPTION.

Buyer lives 300 miles away. Utter bellend.

I hope you have a lovely holiday NK, I'm envious of all the lovely wine and cheeses you'll get over there.

needastrongone Well done on the club card find, all the little bits here and there soon add up. Are you in tesco orchard too? It's tescos version of valued opinions, only you get free coupons to spend on specified products. Dh and I both signed up so next week I should get £6 to spend on ice cream and about £3 for hovis bread.

Then you have to leave reviews and feedback.

Well today was supposed to be NSD like yesterday was, but I spent money. Was on my way to help out at the local 10K run today and decided I could use a mint so spent a whopping 55p on them.

Then this afternoon DD2 was annoying me so I decided to do some baking (something that keeps her occupied for a while), but needed eggs and icing sugar so another £3.68 spent at my local shop.

So even though altogether I spent less than a fiver, it was all frivolous stuff that I really didn't need. Then again this month Im just making small changes here and there and writing down what I do spend so I can see just how bad it is.

Hope your buyer comes to collect Fluffy

Have a nice time in France NK

Tomorrow is going to be a NSD hopefully. I dont usually buy anything when Im at work anyway. Hopefully this week it will only be Tuesday (for a top up shop of fruit and other bits we have forgotten in the weekly shop) and Friday (Leaving Lunch at work - all well and good, but we always seem to be going out for lunch for one reason or another which soon adds up for those of us on the lower wages than the managers and senior staff who decide these things. Though have to admit, this time its for someone who I dont mind spending the money on lunch for) So Mon, Wed and Thurs are going to be NSDs.

Thanks all! Can't believe today was my first NSD. Sigh... Will hopefully have wifi.

£2 on ponchos, £57 on paint for DS10 room plus new curtain pole. £10.21 in Asda..
Sick of this weather...on annual leave from work and am feeling like I have missed out on summer

Buyer wants to send a courier. I can just see me getting stung £12 fess if he refuses the cancellation.

Twunt.

fluffy if the buyer sends a courier wouldn't they have to pay for it themselves before they sent them off to you? Hope you can get it sorted, what a pain.

Yes, but if they say its arrived damaged I have to refund them. Then the courier refunds them.

So I end up with nothing & they get a nice tablet computer.

You have to be so careful with eBay, it's all weighted towards the buyer.

We sent some speakers in original packaging to a buyer, he said they arrived damaged and we had to partial refund him. They made it from china in that packaging intact.

He was a twunt too come to think of it.

fluffy yes, you are right, ebay is all weighted in favour of the buyer. I can see why you said it was collection only so the buyer could verify the condition before you let it out of your sight.

V spendy day yesterday when I decided to go to a splash park in the glorious weather and spent £13 odd on a towel, sunscreen and swimmers as was too far to go home...some storage boxes, some nice bits from asda for dd for winter etc etc etc...£53...then dp had flooded the kitchen doing plumbing work. . £28 on Chinese which was annoying as I had food in.

Nsd today and planning on spending only what is in my purse (£4-5) until Thursday. I will be strong!

Almost a NSD, just the bus fare today (kids go free) to meet DH for lunch and back.

£25 voucher for SIL's birthday plus £17.99 present for DH's aunty's birthday.

Fluffy definitely don't allow. It's not like they contacted you prior to bidding eBay should allow you to cancel and delete any negative feedback. They're always helpful on their online chat.

Thanks fluffy, I will look up the Tesco orchard, which I fully admit to having never heard of!!

Today will be a spending day, as DS needs walking boots and trainers and school shoes (aaarggh!), and the farrier is coming as dpony needs to be shod. Ho hum.

Yesterday I ordered two school skirts and a pair of trousers for school for DD but hoping that will be just about it for both DC for this year. DD did get any new uniform for school last year other than shoes but it does all add up.

The Ebay thing doesn't sound great? Haven't used that often, I stick some occasional stuff on the Facebook selling sites but that's it really.

need I'm signed up to tesco orchard. So far I've had half price steaks and now I'm waiting for some bread vouchers to come through.

I regularly sell things on local Facebook, so much better than ebay. We stupidly sold a table on ebay this week thinking we'd get more and it only sold for £6 it's definitely a buyer's market.

Quite spendy yesterday. £5.70 on coffee/cake for me and dd - annoyingly I had to spend £5 minimum for a card and then dd didn't touch hers because it was 'too windy' to eat or drink! £24.10 groceries - included a chicken, beers, a thank you card and fruit/veg. £12ish on drinks at the beach.

We need to get a few more groceries today when we head into the town and may go swimming depending on the weather.

Probably shouldn't be thinking of next year's holiday already but....! We want to visit family in Normandy next year, closest ferry port is Caen or we could get the euro tunnel. We want to stay with family for a couple of nights, then stay somewhere closer to the d-day beaches for a couple of nights before heading back to family. We haven't done anything like this before so any frugal tips welcome, especially finding cheap ferry tickets!

Just back from France for a week - I feel like I have spent loads, so the rest of August will have to be very frugal, although had a good start with my weekly shop coming in at under £50 in Lidl.

£170 Disney on ice tickets my friend will give me £85 back tonight and hopefully Dp will give me half so should only cost me £45. Pretty excited tbh....

Ooo Disney on ice, fab. My parents took me as a surprise when I was 8ish and I still remember!

£4.20 swimming with kids. Sold a bed guard on fb site for £10. Frugal win as I'd got it 2nd hand for £10 anyway. ....

Need bananas, milk, ham. Then I refuse to step foot in the supermarket before our hols (sat)!

Cinema trip kids showing for me n toddler£3.50 saw postman pat and met husband for lunch at pub had a £10 off £20 on food n just had water to drink so main meal for all 3 plus a kiddy pudding for me n little one after daddy went back to work was £11. Means no cooking tonight as were big meals so something light for dinner.

Oh bugger I messed up today :( was ordering clubcard vouchers for our trip, Bella Italia ones came through on email as normal, but then I checked to see why the la tasca ones did not arrive, turned out they are sent by post. We leave tomorrow morning so won't get them :(

Anyone know if I can cancel them?

It's not a total disaster, I can choose a different chain (and we can use them on a day in London or something, that's the nearest one) but it's annoying as I was really looking forward to it :(

SpottyTeaCakes, we are going to see Disney on Ice in October. We booked ages ago and got front seat tickets! Looking forward to that.

Well, decided to order in rest of school uniform from the embroidery shop today. I had decided to keep DS10 polo shirts for the last few years that I can pass on to DD6 (the ones with the school logo on). So, I have a few of those and I bought her 2 packs of the Asda's own ones. I am glad I did this as I have ordered new ones for DS at £10.50 each!!! OMG! Total bill so far for school uniform is £150. Shoes still to get.

Cinema with dd booked and paid yesterday and took our own snacks/drinks.

£27 in Lidl.

We watched Postman Pat too east

Fluffy absolutely do not send that item. A similar thing happened to me a couple of years ago. I refused to send it and the buyer left shitty feedback. I contacted ebay and they removed the feedback straight away as I had clearly stated collection only.

fuzz it's probably too late to cancel as they've been processed. You could sell them on ebay.

£6 odd on groceries.

Supermum which day and where? I might come sit on your lap

I'm not sending the parcel. He's refused to cancel the transaction despite living 300 miles away from us. He is a cunt.

£10 b&q on lawn weed and feed and a bucket.
£4 on a paint tester pot.
£3 in tesco but I'll take that out of the housekeeping. I used our clubcard voucher. I bought the smart price bio powder, £2.50 for 3kg & not tested on animals. It's cheaper than Aldi powder.

Now I'm going to spend best part of £100 on professional decorating rollers etc. I use a painting & decorating blog and the difference you get using pro equipment is amazing. I figure its cheaper than using a decorator.

We used our john Lewis cake and tea vouchers today, dh had the pink sponge gateaux. Then we went to look at reed diffusers. I think he's in denial but he swears he's heterosexual.

I'm just getting my head around cc vouchers fuzz, could you use them when you get back? Post holiday treat?.

super I don't know why schools insist on logo tops, one child in a glue-paint-food smeared top looks just like another at 3pm. The logo ain't adding cache to the look. It just pisses parents off.

NSD today, but gearing up for our holiday. We are going with in laws which should help keep costa down. (In theory...)