an Ostentatiously Austere October...join here for a frugal month ahead!

[PeoniesforMissAnnersley]

All welcome to join the MN frugaleers for another month of recording our spends, frugal wins and frugal fails!

NSD = No Spend Day (let's have as many as possible!)

LSD = Low Spend Day

Italian hope baby is ok - my now 4yr old ds was a bottle refuser every brand tried even new ones to market at that times n variety of stratergies once I got my head round he was never going to take one (really hard bearing in mind my job n I get calls to support parents with same issue n always succeed!!) We just moved on n bf til he wad nearly 2. At 8mths a mth before I returned to work I reduced day feeds to 3, one first thing, one at 5pm straight from childcare n one at bedtime and did same on days off. He slept from 8pm-5am Fr 13/14wks n til 7am from 16weeks

Good news east but two hours is a shocking wait! Mine were always pretty good.

Passthecake poor dd is going to struggle enough but maybe I could put her in the box too....(she gets a bus so has to carry it all herself).

Oh and I forgot about the £20.98 I spent yesterday on a Henry Hoover for ds' birthday next month and a Christmas DVD for them.

Today will be a spend day. It's my "groceries, errands, electric/gas meter top up, petrol top up" day.

Switching from margarine to real butter today as well. It'll be something for the dcs to adjust to, but I think it's better. I need to buy an insulated butter dish from Lakeland. I've looked around at different ones, but keep coming back to that one.

£37 on train fare yesterday but claimable. £27 on dinner with friends. Friends I'd not seen for 3 years!! So worth it. Great catch up. £2.20 on bus ride home from station.

Haven't really done a big shop so when I do it tomorrow it will be 2 weeks! Haven't really been around much either (the home) due to work load.. But no one has starved!

Should get back to normal this weekend... For another couple do weeks then I'm off to Taiwan for work.

sixforgold I can highly recommend self saucing lemon pudding for dessert, pure comfort food and little effort to make an impression!
www.deliciousmagazine.co.uk/recipes/self-saucing-lemon-sponge

Going to try for a NSD today - nearly did yesterday but had a bag of crisps from the work vending machines!

lilac you are a genius! Can it really be as way as it sounds?! A perfect recipe, thank you...will let you know how it goes

As easy as it sounds!!

£54 in Sainsburys, got quite a lot for that though including wine, marmite, dishwasher tablets etc.

NSD yesterday. Today I have done my food shop £63 Aldi but bought loads. I think the days of putting washing to dry outside are numbered, but have rather optimistically done so anyway.

Hope baby Italian gets better soon.

Italian thinking of you and hope your baby is getting better

£93 in Tesco omg but that did include a new landline phone and another black cartridge for the printer. Why is ink so expensive?

£47 lidl in wine and a plant for presents and wine for tonight as friends coming over with take away, they are paying!

£5 creche

Hopefully thats it!

lilac oooh that looks delicious!! Unfortunately the dcs might not like a saucy pudding. Guess that means I'll just have to eat it myself.

Fanta it's ridiculous the price for ink, isn't it? I have a Kodak printer, purchased mainly for that reason - because their ink cartridges are cheaper. But still dear!!

£71 in Waitrose. Yes, yes, I know - Aldi is cheaper, but Waitrose had some good sales specifically on things I wanted to stock up on. And I don't think I'd be saving much money running around to 2 different stores in 2 different areas. And I'm now happily stocked up on some cleaning stuff I needed. (plus they gave me a free latte )

FantaSea Asda do refurbished ink cartridges for £5 and they are just as good as the original ones. I also bought some on a Groupon offer recently.

I really want an NSD today.

I made all the necessary purchases for this month, now it's just food and fuel for the car, hopefully.

Realised that we are going to a party tomos evening and dd has nothing to wear on her feet other than trainers going to have to take her into town after school and get her some boots or party shoes will prob end up getting her a macds as well!!

NSD again today. 4 this week. I need to manage grocery budget now and not go crazy.

I bought my last toner cartridge on eBay, £10! Total fluke though.

NSD.

£18 refunded by paypal but I can't see it in my account yet. We'll need naice red wine tm though.

If anyone wants a slow cooker aldi are doing 3.5ltr ones for £12.99. That's big enough to fit a medium sized chicken in.

£54 tesco delivery. Will get £2 back for raspberries that go off tomorrow and for some reason got three giant leeks, tender stem broccoli and cadburys sponge puddings that I didn't order or pay for

Yesterday I went into Tesco for lunch and spent £43! I realised that I hadn't got any meat for Sunday so got a reduced price chicken, so that is in the freezer until tomorrow. Also bought ribs and coleslaw for dinner last night. Today, £11.

The kids have asked to go to Legoland on Sunday. I'll need some picnic food if we do, and it won't be a major visit as DD2 is too small for some stuff and with DH at work that means DS and DD1 have to go alone or not at all. We already have Merlin passes and I have a voucher to convert for DD2's so no entry cost to pay, just drinks when we are there and parking.

Diesel yesterday but that gets refunded on expenses from work.

Need to start getting DD2 some birthday presents for the 13th. I have 2 small things so far, and she wants every thing advertised.

Sorry, I forgot, hope baby Viking is feeling better.

Will update later. Babygirl Italian, dp and me are still hospitalized with a very stubborn girl who refuse to eat from the bottle.
We are looking into alternative options now...
Thank god the children ward is a bit more nice looking with Hans Christian Andersen deco and clowns.

NSD!!!

buffs nails

£21 at Tescos for uniform (£2.50 for a pack of 2 polo shirts, long overdue), an elsa outfit for dd, and pjs for ds - his old ones are short.

Still not bought the big shop yet. Maybe Sunday?! Dare I? That would be 2 weeks! Still have to get ds' friend a present for tomorrow. They are going rock climbing.l.! He's 6!

Oh that lemon pudding looks great. I would like a slow cooker but not sure if there's an Aldi near me will have to check that out.

Today:
£5 lunch
£130 on outfit choices for a wedding I'm going to in a few weeks - hate everything on so will be returning .

Tomorrow I have to pay car finance and put petrol in so that'll be £200. But petrol will last me the month. Also going out for dinner tomorrow night with family. Not sure how bill will be split.

Would like to get the house "done" in next few weeks. We've not got much to do but I'd like some new furniture bits.