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?

£12.73 in B and m, £20 ish in Morrison's on a top up.
Hopefully NSD tomorrow. Please

Hi,

Time for some serious saving now the kids are going back to school. I dread to think how much I have spent with childcare and days out.
Alas, the joint car insurance policy is due at the end of September so I won't really be saving anything this month. Why did I think it was a good idea to put both cars on one policy a few years ago? It hasn't saved us any money. I am going to go on one of those compare websites and see if I can get it down.
Here's to September...I love autumn!

Hi everyone.
Im already skint after uniform, summer holidays, dd bieng at home during the day so the fridge has been raided every day :) and all the other general bill's.

Going to struggle this week 2 dd has got 2 birthday partys. And a couple of other bills.

Should get myself straight in a couple of weeks. so she says

Nsd.

This September I have one birthday, one weekend away at my sisters with the dc and my hen do.

Welcome sometimessunshine

You should have 2 accounts...one for direct debits and another for everyday spending account. Once funding is there for the direct debits then your DH is free to spend from the other account...frugally, of course. That is what I do but I tend to take control of all finances and give DH a bit of spending money hee hee

Hi, may I join you. I was on the thread at the beginning of the year under a different name and am ready to start being more frugal again.

I'm not working at the moment so things are tight but we manage. I have split the child benefit into ds3's piano lessons and ds3's school lunches. I plan to do a monthly shop for toiletries, cleaning stuff, dog food etc and get it delivered from wherever it is cheapest (£50) and then withdraw £70 a week, £60 for groceries and £10 for miscellaneous spends and when it's gone it's gone.

I have done my meal plan for the week and have a £5 off £40 for Aldi this week so a good start. I also still have a quite a bit of meat in the freezer from the Morrisons offer in the Sun a couple of weeks ago (I bought six ). I missed the fruit and veg one, couldn't get a paper at our 4 nearest shops.

The dh has a credit card though. It's really hard when they don't quite get it.

There's a credit card calculator on moneysavingexpert that you put the balance and % of interest in and it tells you how many years it will take to repay if you only make min payments.

Checking in

£11 today.

£8 of my birthday pennies on a cd and £3 on a top for dd reduced from £5. First item of her winter wardrobe.

Thanks for the new thread.

Just updated old one with 2/3 NSDs

DDs have had their birthday sleepovers this weekend. I'm too tired to work out which way is up.

Thanks for new thread, September is going to be a challenge as I am without a kitchen, so thinking of frugal things to cook in a toaster and microwave. My mum has lent me her portable hob but as we're washing up in the bathroom I think we'll probablymake do with beans on toast etc for a bit, so long as the meals are balanced they don't have to be posh!

Kids winter wardrobes are sorted now, just looking for a few bits for me but I struggle to get cheap bits being 6ft I have to go for the rip off tall ranges. ...

Oh and we have about £25k so far to pay off on the extension. Yuk.

Hi is it ok to join please?

September is an in between month for us. We had the bathroom this month and it went over budget by £475 not a huge amount but it took up the rest of the savings. This month is now going to be super frugal so we can save some money. We don't have any credit cards or anything so if something goes wrong we are screwed. I always sleep better if we have a minimum of £200.

I have meal planned for the week - if anyone's interested I will post it tomorrow. I shouldn't need to buy any toiletries this month either. I am going to have a go at my own washing powder this month when ours runs out.

I am also going to start Christmas shopping - I have a separate account for this that I put money in to through out the year. I don't have many to buy for this month so fingers crossed I can do it frugally.

I haven't read all the posts yet but I'm in. I will read them after posting as I just need to get on with it and wanted to commit by posting.

Have been trying to be disciplined this year with money and have succeeded at times and failed at others. I would like to continue succeeding and I need a cheap September as October is going to be expensive. Mind you from now until Christmas is expensive with a family birthday nearly every 2 weeks.

Can I join? Massive income cut as on SMP and new baby due end sept means lots of visitors, expectations we'll have to eat out etc. need to keep a constant watch or we'll end up with credit card debts or using savings...

Joining in, being on this thread is what got me through a financially challenging August unscathed.

Just after backing into a wall listening to my four year old moaning, that'll sets back a few hundred quid now. Good start to Sept!

I'm in. Overlapping mortgage and renting from mid-Sept while we wait for the new house to be ready to move into so need to be extra good to compensate. Main goal is to resist spending on "likes" rather than "needs" when there's so much we need to buy for the house.

Christmas is a distant problem. I think I may end up spending more if I start now rather than just admitting we're broke in December and hitting poundland with 50 quid. Having said that I've picked up a few bits for DS on eBay before all the mad house expenditure cropped up.

Yesterday spent 12 taking a friend to a kids farm and buying lunch.

Hi everyone! Just signing in :)

Got to do a tesco order tonight to get packed lunch stuff as we forgot to order school dinners for DD! We were on FSM last year but shouldn't be anymore (not that they've asked to renew info... so she could be?) - haven't even got her a lunch box yet so need to buy that along with backpack. Oh and tights. Aaaargh.

Thankfully DS is only going into year one so will have two more years of free lunches anyway! Not sure whether to keep DD on packed lunches or pay for dinners at £2.30ish a day for the convenience. Hmm.

Also got to sort out DS' birthday party. Feeling like a total failure in that respect TBH. He's not had one before (only had family things) and I'd told him he could (plus DD had one for her 5th so trying to keep it the same) but didn't sort it out and hardly know anyone to invite anyway. His best friends have been deliberately separated from him for this year due to behaviour - I completely agree this is the right thing to do but it's hard for him now until he makes new friends. His birthday was Saturday but the party will have to be into the new term when some of the others will already be turning 6. It won't be too bad as he wants rock climbing (got a voucher from when I did DD's 7th birthday there) and will only be 3 guests, but I have to sort out food. I must not make this mistake in future, I hate how disorganised and shy (contacting parents etc) I am :(

Fuzzpig just make up a packed lunch each for them. You can buy boxes like the happy meal ones. Sandwich, sausage roll, mini pack of party rings, squeeze yoghurt and fruit shoot. Or something like that

I dread parties really not my thing

I always have to assume the DH will be working when I organise a party, as I don't get his shifts early enough. I also do the lunch box thing. What I did for DS last party (last year, this year we took him, a friend and DD1 to Thorpe Park) was make different sandwiches (cheese/ham/jam) and put a quarter of each into a bag in each lunch box so there should be at least one each child likes.

passthecake these Toaster Bags are actually pretty good - they are completely watertight/non leaking so you can make nice toasties in them and when I was a student I also made scrambled eggs, beans etc in them too.

Yesterday we had lunch at a fish restaurant on the beach, MIL paid. Last night the DC ate pasta and DH and I ate a weird bag of left overs.

NSD

Same. Other People's Children. Meh. :o

That's a good idea thanks. Can do that if the weather is good as there's nowhere to eat our own food inside the leisure centre - only a cafe.

I think it will be a short party and parents may want to stay anyway... argh I hate this, I am a hermit usually!

I'm in. DD has a birthday next month so looking at a birthday party and she's asking for an expensive one this year :( May have to manage her expectations.

I've just done a meal plan until next Monday. We should be able to do everything from the food already in the house though cheating a bit as we went to Morrisons on Saturday and spent £108 without even buying one bottle of wine . We got plenty of meat and loads of washing detergent though so hopefully won't need to stock up on those for a bit. Its back to Aldi next time though was horrified by bill in Morrisons. I reckon it would have been a good £30 less in Aldi.

DD back to school on Wednesday so at least that sorts lunches for a bit.

Bit of good news though is that I discovered I've got £100 I didn't know about. I opened a reward account with the Halifax la st year then realised they would switch everything from my current bank account. I didn't want the hassle so I rung them and cancelled thinking I'd closed the account. On Saturday I got an annual statement showing they'd paid the £100 incentive anyway and its just sitting there. Seriously considering switching a few things about now and using the account for my direct debits as they pay £5 reward every month I pay in £750 and make at least two direct debits - much better than the current 0 reward on my barclays account

Oh and jsut remembered got to buy dd a termly bus pass today. £95 :( So much for hoping it would be a NSD