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!).

Wow this thread is moving so fast!

Felt like an envelope budgeter last week when I was doing envelopes of cash for preschool, childcare, ss's birthday present, wedding present etc...but really it was to see if I had anything left to spend at the actual wedding!

Spotted a campervan for reasonable money (€1800) on a website, and as it's a lifelong dream of dh's mentioned it to him as we have €1200 saved towards eventual purchase of new car, which I put back to see if we could afford the repayments...thought we could buy camper and then start again for car which isn't an immediate priority, dh response is what will we buy it with and I said savings for the car to which he replied oh sh1t, I never set up the standing order for it! So it's me alone that has been saving for the new car, and I don't really want to take on expense of new car at all!

My quandry now is, do I let him make up what he should have saved towards it, or do we start again and I use what I had saved to reduce my credit card debt? Obviously campervan is a non runner now!

italianwiking glad to see you're back, and that all is well with your little baby.

Congrats on the engagements too, I'm hopeless for names!

adora I'm trying to lose weight so will hold off on the granola for a while. Sounds delicious.

In awe of the plan for doubling up on foods for next few weeks and having half a term of meals put away. I really must tidy out the crap in my freezer to make room for this kind of thing. I've been going through slow cooker recipes and my next item to hunt out is a timer plug as I'm out of the house from 6.30am to 6pm and most recipes are shorter than that so I plan to leave them ready and on a time to switch on during the day. This will give me more time in the evening to spend with dc and mean that we eat well too.

4months till Christmas...
I still need to prep for winter... must get more organized. Am in need of a new lawn mower as ours broke and are grass is uber long and needs to be cut asap.
My 3DC are still young, and at Christmas have a stocking full of chocolate and sweets, a Santa sack full of bits and Bob's from Santa then their main present from us. I am still saving so not bought any gifts yet, hopefully start to buy mid October.
DS1 is 5 a week from tomorrow and is having a mini party at home so I have that to plan for. None of the kids are having a birthday present this year as next summer they are going to Disneyland Paris.
We have inherited a kitten, my neighbour's cat has had a litter and asked if we wanted one for free to save the from going to the rspca. So have got to go out and buy cat things, sometime within the next 3week. The kids are excited, not too sure how it will go down with our dog though.

adora I am shocked. Glass in your food.

Yesterday I spent £3.62 at work.
Today I spent £8.58 at work.

Thanks, everyone. It has been excruciating. I could not get out of bed without DP's help this morning. . I phoned 111 and they said I needed an ambulance . I was like, er, I just need to see an out of hours doctor for some strong painkillers.

Anyway, like MissA I have diazepam for three days as well as the strongest dose of co-comodol. Have taken both and I feel slightly out of it but I can actually sit down (it was too painful this morning). I am also taking lactoluse (sp?) to help with the co-comodol side effects [embarrass]. Total cost was just over £23.

Has anyone switched on their heating today? Not sure if it's the pain but I really felt the cold and switched it on for an hour. This is me, who usually refuses to switch it on before October.

Lots of spending (online) over the next few days as I need to get ds his school shoes, pe pumps and school shirts. I also need to get DP's and my mum's birthday presents as well as train tickets for ds and I to go to London to stay at my brothers as mum wants us all to gather at his, even though we live 5 minutes from each other.

Sorry for the me, me, me post.

Cool oh dear poor you, that sounds awfully painful. You have my sympathy as I suffer with my back and it is horrible. Hope you feel better very soon

I did think about switching the heating on for an hour just to take the chill off but can't quite bring myself to. I have a jumper and thick socks on and I am still cold so I may treat myself to an hour tonight.

cool don't apologise you poor thing that sounds terrible! Hopefully the pain meds etc will help and it'll start to settle soon.
9.45 on tea and cakes with friends.
On our way home now and I'm going to inventory the freezer to see what's in there and make a meal plan to use all the random bits to make sure there is space for all our batch cooked stuff.

I did turn on my heating for an hour yesterday as I had been away and the house felt cold.
I always put it on for an hour or less at this time of year just to make sure it is still working properly. I don't want to wait until Nov time to turn it on and find it's not working.

£10 on bits and pieces in morrisons.

Cool hopefully the painkillers will sort you out. Being in pain is exhausting.

Lila, I'd put the savings toward the cc. Otherwise you're the ant and he's the grasshopper.

Adora how on earth did glass get in the food, surely that's intentional?.

Hi everyone. Been lurking for a few days while getting used to the new mobile layout

That tesco 25 points for shopping review thing - how do you do it please? Does it work if you only order online?

Super spendy bank holiday! Did all the remaining uniform stuff today, including shoes, ouch. I'm pleased we went through their existing stuff though as more still fit than I thought! Must put some cash aside for the couple of bits that can only be bought in the school (wasn't organised enough to do it before summer!)

So in other news, my mum is offering us her flat when she is away at some point next year - it's not that far from us really but different enough to be a decent change of scene (complete with tumble dryer and adjacent playground!) - so looking forward to that, AND my parents have said we can use some of their holiday club points next year. So that will be lovely accommodation - way beyond what we could ever pay for - free, just need to arrange travel. I think we will go for somewhere within the UK this time. Thing is though a lot of these places are resorts in the middle of nowhere so we really need to plan carefully as we have no car.

Really glad it's nearly Sensible September! Still got more to sort out - most notably travel for DSD starting college. I am really wanting to be more organised again and am craving the routine of the school run and HAVING TIME TO MYSELF! Need to use some of that time for frugal cooking etc as well as the occupational therapy stuff. Want to bulk cook too, finally get to grips with my slow cooker and use/freeze scraps of things to avoid waste.

On a more positive note DH has negotiated his hours to mean we should no longer need once a week childcare :) which is a blessed relief as our CM gave notice anyway and haven't found any vacancies anywhere. The disadvantage is that he will be doing 4 full days and 2 half days a week :( but £30 a week saving is not to be sniffed at.

Sorry for the epic waffle!

£20 in asda only ran in to buy a birthday card but ended up getting dd a baking set that was reduced (keeping it for xmas)!ingredients to make a lasagne and dd a jumper. Its freezing here. We desperately need winter clothes (although you wouldnt think so in bloody AUGUST) and some fruit.

Realy need to be careful with my money this week. I seem to spend much less money when dds in school and have more to show for it.

£45 on Mexican. We had £50 cash though so it was ok.

I'm struggling with money atm and can see me struggling next month. I need to get dc a waterproof fleece lined all in one for when we're waiting with dd for the school bus and have a 15% off jojo code. It's my step mums birthday at the end of September and I've got to go on a course starting mid September for four consecutive Wednesdays. It's forty minutes away and at the hospital so will have to pay parking as well as petrol

fuzzpig here is the site you need for the Tesco reviews. I think it is only when you visit the store in person as the questions seem to be worded that way. You get 25 clubcard points per review and also get entered into a draw to win a £1000 giftcard

www.tescoviews.com/tesco/desktop/landing.do

Ah thanks! I think you're right and it's only in store shopping although I could look on my online receipt to see if the four digit number is there! It says only one lot of 25pts per month, but I think you can enter the contest every week so definitely worth it!

£39.90 on our day out, including travel, lunch, tea and cake, and a pint of milk.

Adora, about the glass! How awful!

Cadbury, hope those painkillers do the trick for you .

Back from our hols and back to work tomorrow. Will catch up with the thread properly later.

NSD today. All helps the holiday budget go further!

coolcadbury dont apologise you're going through a tough time of it.

cloudfluffyland he genuinely forgot, he doesn't keep tabs on his bank acc at all, his method of frugality is to not spend if at all avoidable

Found out where the glass came from, I use jars like kilner jars, only I can't get actual kilner jars here. The clip had broken through the top of the jar that I was using for rice. If it had been the suppliers fault I couldn't have proved it anyway after decanting the rice at home.

So, no more cheap copy kilner jars. I will gradually replace them with jam jar types, but 3 times the size of a jam jar iyswim.

I'm trying to tell myself the items make the bill more bearable need, but it's not working yet.

Spent another £7 today on gift wrap, we get gifts on behalf of family as sending things here doesn't work, so I have to buy lot's of gift wrap, and £4 on pork for burgers at the weekend. DDs are having separate sleepovers and I'm catering here as we can't face the cost of taking them out anywhere.

I'll be robing Peter to pay Paul this week, even though Peter isn't exactly flush either

I really will try to catch up properly very soon.

needastrongone was it you who was asking for present ideas? It's difficult, isn't it? My nephew was given good quality headphones, which he liked. Also those texting gloves for the winter. Bit boring I know but he found them very useful last winter.

adora at Peter not being flush either! Sums up the end of my month too! I've been really good this year and have been saving since January for Christmas as it's such a financially draining time of year; I've just realised that I need to start saving now for next summer holidays. It's not even that I need to entertain dd as she's still at an age where the park and a picnic will suffice. It's more the visiting, weddings, weekend get togethers etc.

I've already spent my £200 allocation for Christmas pressies! But I've used the Xmas thread to grab some bargains and thank you to whoever on here posted the scarf reductions at ASOS, as that's DN sorted. Does include quite an expensive hoodie for DD too, and a slow cooker for DM and.....

Thanks cadbury - we did headphones last year, DD has stolen DS's, as she lost hers. Thats' the problem, he's 'just not that into anything'! What are texting gloves? I'll Google.

Back pain is crap and exhausting, so no need to apologise.

DC are doing an activity day today which cost £80. Includes Laserquest, archery, climbing, zip wire and some incredible jumping thing that frightens the life out of me.

Sorry, but it's ridiculously warm here, I am sat in T Shirt and shorts, outside, and I can't really see the screen so sorry for typo's!!

I've tweaked our supermarket delivery for going home and stripped out anything we don't need. It will be a long month for us too. We have DH's car to tax and part of a ski trip to pay off for DD too.

Why is life so expensive?

Well...2 bills have come in that we had forgotten about :( = £220
Bathroom taps and shower are broken :( = £?
We are both overdrawn :(
Sigh.

Just when you think you're getting on top of things, something else comes along, eh?

£13.57 in Tesco, so we should be okay until Friday, and £1.50 on postage.

£70 down - last minute childcare for tomorrow :( they'll have a blast though, and at least they get one last session with lovely CM (and her DD whom they adore) before she stops. Still - it's double what I'll earn on that shift!

If we've learnt anything this summer (our first with both of us working) it's that we absolutely must be more organised with holiday childcare. So to that end I have already (at 1am because I couldn't sleep... due to panicking about childcare!) started a note on my iPod called "summer 2015 childcare"! :o

It's got various points like info about some local play schemes - never used before as DS isn't old enough until he turns five on Saturday. Thinking of trialling it in Easter (when we will need a bit of childcare anyway). It's a heck of a lot cheaper than a childminder (which we will no longer have as of next month - guess I should seek some out for emergencies though?)

Also a reminder that my hours always change on bank holiday week, so this may affect what time I can drop off/pick up. Little things like that. Hopefully this will help us be more organised.

Thankfully DH has today confirmed that he will be finishing at 2 on Mondays (the day I work late) so no after school childcare needed, hooray! And this will work in the holidays too since I don't start til 3ish.

The problem is going to be Saturdays - I work alternate Saturdays and due to staffing issues DH will be working every Saturday for a while :( (hence changing hours during the week) and if there's any times DSD can't babysit (she does a lot bless her she is amazing - just finding some presents for her as a thank you for this summer) I don't know what we will do! There aren't really any paid childcare options for weekends are there? I'm loathed to ask my parents, they aren't exactly good with the DCs :(

Sorry for waffle, better go do my bank transfer now!

Hi all little one turned 4 yesterday and starts school next week have everything but school shoes will do that Mon schools go back this week here so shoe shop should be quieter Mon.

26+5weeks pregnant slowly getting bits bit annoyed though got second hand cot today was advertised as cot bed but I knew from pic was just a cot think was language thing for them anyway bloke put it all in car for me as I had child with me n being pregnant got it home loads scratches given it a quick wipe over with anti bacterial wipes but def scratches not dirt only paid £10 but not sure we will be keeping it so feel like have just given away £10!!