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!).

I have a serious aversion to maggots, hence threatening to actually hang, draw and quarter DH a couple of years ago. Bin gets emptied every day, even if it's less than half full.

Hi Id like to join please as I really need to cut down on spending.

Ive decided to start a spreadsheet and see what Im spending my money on. Im going to colour code it between necessities (ie rent, council tax, water rates etc), important (ie school uniform, school trips, birthday presents - things that are either needed or possibly something that could be cheaper if need be) and frivolous (ie CD's, Crisps from the vendor etc).

Im going to see how much I spend on the frivolous stuff and challange myself to cut down each month. Im even going to list my weekly shopping separate as that is one of the times when things go in the trolley that shouldn't.

Hopefully it might stop me buying more as I will only have to put it on the list

Im also going to be more strict with DH. He will often say lets go out for tea and I'll go So need to stop that. He's more frivolous than me. I want to save more.

You sound very organised! Welcome. I did a spending diary once, it was an eye opener. No wonder I had no money.

Spotty don't worry about the maggots, it's not dirtiness it's these two week bin collections and the heat.

fluffy did your spend diary reduce your spending? Have you got more money now?

Oh yes massively.

£5 off a £10 spend on fruit and veg in morrisons if you buy the sun, it's on hotdealsuk but its unconfirmed.

Morning! We are now on holiday! 60 petrol, 10 McDonald's breakfast on the motorway, 3 parking at the beach. I found a shiny 1 coin in the sand!

spotty we had maggots in our outside food bin recently for the first time in 7 years. The weather conditions must be perfect for them right now.

Ok, off to make today as frugal as possible by foraging in Pil's fridge for a picnic!

£7.20 yesterday on buses and £2.32 on milk. Whoever asked up thread about the Tesco voucher it can be used in store for groceries as that's what I bought milk with.

We have about £40 in cash and Tesco vouchers to last until tomorrow. I'm really pleased. It's been a long month full of exceptional denial but I've cleared last months debt. Sure I'll run up a new one during the rest of the school holidays.

My washing like has just snapped

£3.50 on cat biscuits
£5 on whisky tumblers.

Spotty I've used poundshop washing lines, it did the job as well as any other.

It's the actual plastic of the rotary like that's broken fluffy.

£22.50 on shoes got ds again
£2 parking
£5.35 on two birthday cards
£10.20 on lunch.

Line not like

Had a successful NSD today, after yesterday's very unsuccessful one

Made a cockup with my childcare so ended up having to take ds into the office with me, not ideal given that I had meetings all afternoon. Luckily my lovely colleagues looked after him whilst I struggled to get out of meetings in time, but I ended up treating him to lunch at yo sushi to make up for it. Sigh. Twenty quid down.

And the car insurance is due for renewal. Looked on comparison sites but can't seem to get it down from £39 per month...

Then again, I did quite well as two of my colleagues were trying to get me to order 'hello fresh' meal delivery boxes - I asked how much they spent on them per week (for 5 meals delivered to your door) - they were totally shocked when I said that the £49 they spend on those 5 meals does my whole family for every meal for a week!

But they turned their noses up when they found out I shopped at Lidl...

Another spendy day but I am off work at the moment so no wonder. Somewhere around £50...
Will try harder in September!

Oh, can I ask you all how much of an 'entertainment' budget you set for the kids each week? I mean things like swimming, brownies/rainbows/football and days out at the weekend. Term time.
I am thinking of cutting my budget (£100 a week) for kids (2 of them) down to £50.

Can I join? Desperately need to get my spending down. So hard in school hols too. DS is in holiday club some days and others he is with me or DH. We're going to have some family days out all together too, have used Clubcard vouchers to buy Warwick Castle tix as one of those. Today was one of my days with DS so have spent
2.70 on cheap cinema matinee (Cineworld booked online). Took own sweets and drinks.
16.70 on lunch out
Then did playground, park and library so that's it for today. Sausage and chips in the oven tonight. I am v low on petrol though. And now scared to look in my kitchen bin. My kitchen is far from well kept!

£1 on banana republic trousers in a charity shop!!!

Parents paid for 6 ice creams and buckets and spades... Oh and £7.50 for lavender stuff for car and for kids.

Lacuna - I am with LV and no one beat their quote when I renewed this year. Try their website?

Lacuna, are you adding a second named driver & using cashback sites?

£2.50 on extra lunch as was hungry after eating my packed lunch. ...oops. Got nothing from the pound shop near work for the kids for a couple of weeks..hopefully they will stop asking me "did you buy us anything" the moment I walk through the door. After a hard day at work it doesn't make me feel particularly missed. ..so I've cut back because of that and my pocket!

Ds does beavers and a dance class (total £10ish a week term time only) and they share private swimming lessons £18.50 a week. Nothing extra for dd yet. But I don't class that as "entertainment"....to me entertainment is soft play, swimming etc- where I'm a tight wad and probably spend £20 a month max!

Supermum222

Your budget is far more than mine. Since the holidays all days out have been free - school fetes/country park etc. I make a packed lunch for all of us and buy ice creams from a nearby supermarket.

I have paid a few pounds for the dc to go on the bouncy castles/mini rides and bought sweets.

Some families must spend thousands, especially when their day trips include theme parks and zoos!

Supermum to me that's loads, in fact about what I earn a week! It all depends on whether you can afford it or not though I suppose. It's all relative.

Welcome new people

Will try LV, thanks! Have got dp as named driver, both of us driving for 20 years... Haven't tried cash back sites though, will give them a go too.

Have you got a parent with a clean licence & no accidents? We put fil on until he got too old to bring it down.

Of course it matters what car you drive. I only bought a small car because it was cheap to insure.