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

Hope you feel better MissA

Overall, a good day

Bad - bought the dog a new toy, which he lost within 2 minutes, so that's £2 lost immediately. Lent work friend a tenner. Spent a tenner on euro lottery under duress at work.

Good - £30 cash back being paid into my account Monday for switching energy suppliers. Found a £15 M&S voucher in my shredding pile

lilaccelery believe it is up to 25% until the end of December, with a deposit of £40 per person.

£13 voucher received for dual fuel bonus so used that towards electric meter today.

Groceries, gas/electric meter, bill paid, CM paid, petrol. Bit of an "ouch" day.

£10.99 on birthday gift but that's budgeted for. £39.50 AutoAid renewal. £10.44 in for some mystery shop work I did. Haven't sold anything on fb. Our pages have got really busy since the last time I used them. You can only re-post every couple of days so your post quickly stops being near the top.

Good find needa. Have a lovely weekend everyone.

Thanks guys I do feel a little better thanks.

I returned loads of stuff I had with tags still on, posted stuff back to GAP today and a skirt to go back to Boden tomorrow. All with original invoices so hoping to get the price I paid but even if they just give credit I will use it for xmas gifts. Am feeling positive about the savings.

Also colleagues paid me back for their dinner and theatre tickets and I forced myself to walk to the bank and pay it all in rather than keeping cash in my wallet (fatal ime!) will transfer it to my card tomorrow when all the transactions should have cleared.

We use a John Lewis credit card for all big purchases and clear in full every month, we got £25 JL gift vouchers today, can be used for anything or given as gifts etc.

I'm glad you feel better, the GA messes you up ime. You take longer to get over these things than you think you will too.

I'm thinking of getting a cc for shopping now aldi takes them, santander gives cashback so I might look at JL too.

£15 tescos, £3 of that cat stuff.
£28 aldi. So £40 food. It's always more expensive if I take dh.

£5 thrush tablet.

30ish in tescos. Probably could have gone without and could certainly have gone to aldi but I was drawn in by a money off voucher for the second week running! I bought some pork mince - what shall I do with it? I'm thinking meatballs but would rather a creamy than a tomato-y sauce. Also bought some chicken and wraps for tmrw night. We have peanut butter and I'm invisaging some kind of satay wrap - not sure how to bring my idea to fruition though!

missa take it easy over the weekend xx

Just had a dominos, bad. Tbf for 6 of us i got the meal deal for 4 and there was plenty £23 and its way cheaper than indian. Frugal right?[smile

Pizza here too, but just myself and DS, DH and DD are at a concert.

We have the M&S credit card (and bank account). I stick all my spending on it and have a direct debit that goes out for the full amount each month. DH runs his expenses through the card too, which can be IRO £2/3k per month. This converts to Marks and Spencer voucher, circa £80 per quarter and is better than a slap in the face

six I get stuck with pork mince, but would think meat balls? Turkey mince is the same, I get stuck!

Scrap man came to work today and so DH has a bit of cash to tide him over too.

NSD.

Tomorrow won't be though. Need to go to Tesco for a big shop (nearly 2 weeks, need bread, milk, but quite ok otherwise) including party food for DD2's tiny party, plus a cake. I also want to pop to £ shop for something kitted for pass the parcel, hairclips or something. Need to take DD2 to buy white ballet shoes for show next month, and need to visit fabric shop for some stuffing and a headband (so I can make her bunny ears stick up rather than be floppy!)

Six: You can make Danish frikadeller with gravy and mash
Or mince on the pan with veggies and gravy and then jacket potatoes and use it as fillings
or make mince on the pan with onions, peas, carrots ect and gravy and then make mash and put in the oven (kinda like lasagne, so first the meat filling and then the mash on top) then it gets grated a bit.

NSD Thurs & Fri.

NSD although have just donated £5 via text to Stand Up to Cancer.

£10 out ATM - £4 bus ticket, £4 lunch

Six I made pork and apple burgers with pork mince this week with a recipe from Red Online mag. They were lovely!

Yesterday spent about £43 ish on a asda delivery, atm I'm doing a online deliver twice a week of £40 and if I'm struggling to get to that amount (unlikely) I get a couple of xmas goodies in.

Also ordered condoms off amazon 24 for £12. In order to br frugal I will keep my legs crossed

Dd school shoes are knackered and she's been in them 4 weeks. Not impressed as ds ones are made so much better (clarks)....any tips on where to buy sturdier ones?

We always go independent for shoes but couldn't find any school shoes that would fit dd's insoles in so ended up with kickers (£55 ).

I got pk of pork mince cheap n thought would make meatballs but actually used it for spag bol n tasted no different to beef mince once everything else was bunged in.

An odd little thing. I used to shop at Sainsburys and Aldi's mostly. Very careful to watch for bargains. But I found myself purchasing things sometimes that we didn't necessarily NEED but were good buys IYSWIM.

Over the summer, due to ds1's disabilities, we ended up shopping in Waitrose. It's one of the few stores he can sometimes cope with fairly well, plus of course the added advantage that they have the child wheelchair trolley, which our local Aldi does not.

Anyway, I do have to be careful to keep the budget in mind, but I've also found that I'm stopping and thinking "do I really need that?" before I put things in the trolley that I see while in store. I'm being much more careful to stick to my list and stay within budget. That also means the dcs are getting a lot less junk IMO as I'm less likely to overspend on junk food. So I buy a treat or two for the week and choose it more carefully.

The big test is going to be when all the lovely Christmas stuff starts showing up and I have to resist. (It's already started showing up in store!)

I did have a look at kickers but kids have very narrow feet (c/d) so tend to be stuck with e fitting from clarks. Have googled and found start rite shoes with narrow fitting but no stockists nearby (john lewis half an hour away but they only stock f fitting). Argh.

I always get pork mince as I am intolerant to beef (and lamb). Use it for meatballs, Shepherds pie, lasagne, spag bol. Sometimes I treat the others to beef mince and have something different.

Great pork mince ideas, thank you! I think I'm going to try meatballs with some apple!

pass I did grin at your frugal sex-life! I've just had my implant taken out but we haven't decided yet if that means ttc#2 or not, more just getting ready for I think. Hadn't even considered amazon for condoms so thanks for that frugal tip

I've saved 2 this morning by going for a run on my own rather than running club but its going to be a very spendy day as I'm buying my mum's 60th birthday present (Pandora bracelet, will split the cost with my brother)

Pass my dd also wrecks her shoes regularly, I have found no difference in the expensive Clarks ones to the cheap Asda ones as to how quickly the get wrecked!!

She now either gets Clarks if they are in the sale/ on offer or Asda ones. They last about the same time. Over the winter she will wear boots to school (not strictly allowed but she seems to get away with it ) as these are sturdier and last better.

Can you not get condoms for free via your Dr or family planning centre?

Condoms are free on the nhs. I've seen the nhs order book, you can get different makes/flavours/colours etc.

Start rite shoes are mail order or in John Lewis. Tbh if they still fit her & it's something you can fix by glueing something I'd do that. If the heel backs gone really soft or the vamp areas gone baggy then youll need to get something more supportive.

Kids spend more time outdoors and on the floor than us, play time & lunchtime etc so they are going to look wrecked compared to adults shoes.

5£ on breast pump but other than that it should be a nsd.

Child check on Monday 450£ but think we will save it all