Stampeding through a sensible, scrimping September!

[PeoniesforMissAnnersley]

Thought I'd do the honours

With kids back at school and autumn weather drawing in we all need a very sensible September. I'm putting up my thermal curtains and refusing to put on the heating until October. Who's in?

Ballet stuff for DD £10
2 goes each on bouncy castle for dc £1.60
4 packs of crisps £1.20
2 cookies £1
1 cup squash 20p
2 x face painting £3
small top up shop in co-op £4.63
2 raffle tickets £2

total £23.63. It really adds up doesn't it :(

Tried to spend money today and failed. Wanted to get DS some brown boots but Clarks have no styles whatsoever in a a H fitting. Going to have to try Brighton or Chichester next week.

Swimming lesson £18.50
Ds Barbers £12
Top up shop £16

Tomorrow we are off to buy a laptop as ours is ancient and giving up . Don't really want to pay for one now but needs must. Found a £20 nandos voucher left over from xmas gifts so at least lunch is sorted!

Spent £7 in poundla*d, oh how I love £ shops and could have spent so much more. This included some flexible glue to mend DS2's trainers, fingers crossed it works.

I'm currently looking at some boots on Ali-Express but can't decide weather to get them or not, has anyone purchased any footwear from there before and what was the quality like?

Hello everyone not been on for a day or so.

SpottyTeacakes - is the 10% NHS discount available in all Boots stores? I am known to go a bit nuts in Boots every once in a while

Yesterday I spent £18 total on some bits for the house.

Going to order from Asda later on today for my weekly top up shop (will get it delivered on Monday). Topcashback are doing about £6 cash back on orders above £25. This will be my first time using topcashback. Hopefully I can limit my order to just the £25 needed plus will choose the cheapest delivery slot. I normally shop with Tesco but the £6 saving has swayed me to try out Asda. There is a few offers for Tesco will need to check out if they are only for new customers though.

Menu planning is still going great. It feels great not to be wasting food.

Buying our house used up virtually all of our savings. I'm hoping by the end of the year we have a nice amount saved away again! There is a lot we would like to do to the place but nothing is urgent thankfully. Would like a new washing machine and tumble drier next year though!

Chocolate it's all boots but you need a discount card I got mine from the managers secretary. Might be worth asking in store though?

Today we're taking the dc swimming to Guildford the beasts have been away since 5:15 it's an early session so won't be tempted by lunch out. Maybe breakfast....

girlie I would say £25 per week for a couple weeks is pretty workable. You can keep to a couple cheap meals per week (beans on toast, omelettes, jacket potatoes) and make a big pot of soup that you can freeze some for next week and reheat some this week. Soup is cheap (and generally fairly healthy depending on what you are making).

chocolatedonut I'll have to look at topcashback. I've heard people mention it a couple times. Do you use it a lot?

I need to buy more vitamins for the dcs. A few places have them 3 for the price of 2, so I'll be looking at that online today and picking them up tomorrow when I'm out running errands. I have some shredding to take to the tip as well as some jars to drop off with a friend that likes to make jam.

Been perusing here since ds woke me at 6.15am!! Haven't energy to post my own spends.
Had a frugal win yesterday was in aldi doing grocery shopping & comparing the large vs medium ham for cooking in slow cooker. Large was 2kg for €8.99 and medium 1.5kg for €6.99 on closer inspection most of the extra half kg was fat so came home with medium!

girliefriend

Do you qualify for any help with neutering? Some benefits entitle you to a discount with pdsa.

In the end, I treated myself last night. As I was on my own at the theatre I paid for the private lounge. It is £10 including a drink and nibbles and a private toilet (I think that is my favourite bit) and as I had to be there early to drop the kids off, it meant I could sit quietly reading before the show and gave table service.

Will be putting into church collection today, other than that it should be NSD.

I forgot £14.99 yesterday for DS's new school jumper. They didn't have the right size for DD1 so that us still to come.

£7.10 on Drinks at the party we only stayed a couple of hours and made one round last. Ds3 (8) had to be hustled out crying as we left before the buffet (which he pronounces phonetically). He doesn't do disappointment well! Ds1 and ds2 declined to attend which saved further on drinks.

I ordered the "diary of a Wimpy kid" book set from the book people for ds3 as he, apparently, has "nothing to read" and also a Minecraft Manual which I will keep for Christmas. I used a 10% code and a free delivery code so about £12 altogether.

It really, really has to be a NSD today. It has been such an expensive week.

I have just made dh's sandwiches and sent him off, given ds3 a pain au chocolate, a carton of orange juice and a wee box of raisins and come back to bed!

Morning all.

Should be a NSD here today.

Hoping for nsd, going to blitz the house

On my way shopping ?? will report later ??

fluffy I doubt it, I work part time and only get tax credits, it's o.kay - will probably have to use some savings to pay for it though - but not something I can put off!

Have to pay for dds swim lessons today but otherwise not spending any money today

Dc had us up at 5:15

£8.90 on swimming.

£27 on breakfast dp paid.

Italian thank you for the other sandwich suggestion, that is very kind of you

girlie welcome do you and DD like porridge for breakfast - a big bag is really cheap and it works out loads better than expensive cereals.

Hoping for a NSD today, I don't seem to have had one for ages.

Fanta my 4yr old fav breakfast is porridge and he has value oats with milk done in microwave and then has 1/3 pot of a fruit pot like hipp organic in it (always get on a 4 pots for£1 deal n the exotic fruit flavours) he has had this breakfast since 7/8mths old!!!

My dc have value porridge oats for breakfast too.

Ds2 will eat porridge oats. Ds1 won't touch them. I wish he would as it would be an easy make for breakfast, especially in the winter. But he is disabled, and has some serious food issues and that's a texture he just can't tolerate. Gags at every attempt. sigh.

Spent £45 on lunch, impromptu not because I wasn't prepared, but because we bumped into friends we'd not hung out with for a long time. So we decided to go for lunch. Agh. But for friendship....!

However, have already made sausage casserole with beans in the slow cooker. Am going for a nap now.. Am vv tired, not sure why. Have had enough 'hours' sleep but just don't feel rested.

Not sure what my meal plan is this week. I tend to do my shop first then think later... I'm sure that's not the sequence I should follow!

Italian- could I have your recipe for Italian tomato sauce please.

I had LSD (low spend day) today and was out the whole day shopping. In fact I managed to spend just over $1000 but luckily it wasn't my money and instead was relatives who needed help to buy a new computer. I bought some more coffee for me +$30 and a pain au chocolate for my cousin. Other than that all good.

Will post recipe from computer later
Only spend today was 20£ on 3 boxes if ice creams for the family.

Have been out for a meet up at a farmers market today with friends and managed to only spend £2. Good going but one was a bottle of water as I was under-prepared for such hot weather! The other £1 was on an ice-cream for dd, I asked for a small amount of ice-cream to save on dropping disasters and was charged half price!

Spendy day yesterday. £40 in Aldi. We've got loads of food in already but I've started weight-watchers and needed to stock up on tonnes of fruit and veg. Got loads for the money so feels ok. Another £40 I remembered I owed a friend for dinner last month and then £18 meeting said friends for lunch.

It's supposed to be sensible September and we've already been out to eat twice. This is the area we really need to cut back on. It's not loads - lunch yesterday was only £6pp - but it all adds up.

Since we've done the pizza delivery this last week, I've resolved not to do any takeaway for the rest of the month, with one exception.

I have my "take care of everything" day coming up in just over a week. That's errands in town, hair cut, and lunch out with a friend. I try to do that once a month. I have found that if I save up all my errands in town for once or twice a month, I spend MUCH less. Mainly because sometimes by the time I actually go into town, I've changed my mind and crossed a few things off the list. If I fired off into town within the next day or two after deciding on buying something, there'd be no time to mull it over a bit more.