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

We have the LED camping lanterns too. They are really bright and don't use much battery.

£32 on. Cushion covers but I was able to use my savings money I got from lloyds for complaining.

£1 on donuts to take to friend's house. Hoping for NSD tmrw and possibly Tuesday too.

Excellent result on the BBC fluffy. I'm also paying £2.50 a month. When the 12 months is up I think I'll struggle to find the same deal. Certainly won't find a better one.

Have down graded pet food to 'value' for this month. It won't kill them and I'll supplement with fresh vegetables.

Tesco delivered 2 pretty sad looking bunches of bananas. I gave them to the driver to return and he agreed they didn't look that appealing so said he'd refund them but let me keep them to make banana bread etc. I've managed to salvage about half of them and will cook with the rest tonight. Frugal win!

This complaining lark really pays off doesn't it?.

We will get another good bb deal next year. EE is doing good cashback too but they only go up to 17GB limit around here.

Pass sorry! you asked about prizes. As I had so few, I spent a bit more. For pass the parcel I usually just do sweets with one prize in the middle. Thus time I put a pack of 8 colour in Christmas cards (Tesco £1) in each layer. The prize was a little backpack style bag I bought from the Christmas thread for about £1.

In the party bags I put a bag of mini milky bar buttons, 2 packs of maoam chews, a diamanté tiara from the £1 shop. A bottle of frozen bubbles from the works, 2 for £1. I also bought an Asda multi pack of party favours that I think was about £4 containing 6 of each of the following: mini note book, poppa point pencil, rubber and highlighter, then I added for the 3 little girls, a fake mini my little pony toy that my sister gave me a load of plus for the big girls a mini football key ring game, that were also in sisters bag and they all got a super bouncy ball from sisters magic bag. Then they also got a frozen sticker book £2 each in the works.

So each bag was about £4.50 when I would normally spend about £2.50, but there were only 6 of them, so less than £30.

For games we did some musical statues, musical bumps, (no prizes as much easier for the big ones,) pass the parcel, tea, then I face painted them.

Last page! Can I suggest an 'October bulge thread'? (I'm not actually sure how to start a thread though ) as I really like starting a new month on a new thread! I've decided to make meatloaf with the pork mince - anyone made one before?

Well aside from my frugal win at clarks its been a spendy day but we haven't opened the purse for a while! £20ish at soft play/park which included lunch and £42 at frankie and bennys which should've cost about £12 more but I had the meal deal and used voucher cloud. Dp annoyed me as didn't like anything from the set menu. Grrrr.

I'd started feeling v downhearted about lack of spending on fun stuff/treats in favour of paying off extension debt. I feel better now and ready to carry on.

Thanks audit. I have discounted party bags and pound shop tiaras and bubbles already. Might put a bracelet and sweets in too. We'll have lots of party games so I want to do a bowl of plastic tatt goodies and notepads etc for prizes so I'll borrow some of your ideas. ...

I made meatloaf with pork mince, was fine, a bit crumbly thou

Been quite a cheap wend, had a bad headache ystd so didn't do much but we had the town carnival in the evening! Spent approx £2 in change in the charity boxes and £3.50 on chips and drinks.

Today I have been working and only spent £1.30 on milk.

Six main Credit Crunch page, top of page there is an option to start a conversation/thread. Go for it

£8 spent on lunchtime snack while walking dogs.

Ls weekend except food shopping. Dd and DS wanted toys as their pocket money is burning a hole in their pockets but I made them pay me back.
Spent yesterday afternoon at a play park. Forgotten how nice a lovely park is. I love autumn days like this weekend has been. Easy to have cheaper days out

Ohhelp I think it's a lovely idea. My DD is named after my mum who died long, long before she got to be a grandmother.

oHhelp thats lovely

I returned two sleepsuits & a jumper to primark that didnt fit ds & got slippers for dd, socks for ds, and another jumper + €4 on my card.
Returned jeans to lidl & got mayonnaise, 4 choc chip cookies from their in-store bakery & €2.89 cash instead.

574 that'd be great if sale continues until then should know how dh is fixed with work by then.

NSD. I have to start thinking about what to buy my mother for her birthday and Christmas and get it sorted, as she is abroad and I'll need to have it posted early as her birthday is in the end of November. So I've got 2 weeks tops to choose gifts, package them, and send them. I should've organised better on that, so I'm not so rushed. Do it every year, you'd think I'd learn!

Friends baby boy is home again so gone grocery shopping and now going to make different dishes for their freezer so they can focus on their little baby. Also shopped some nappies and food for us so 100£ in total...

Marking my place.

Bought new boots for dd out of next months child benefit (on dh's credit card) €74 I nearly dropped on the spot, I knew they'd be €50+ but I wouldn't spend that on boots for myself that I'd wear every winter! Promptly put her two pairs from last year on fb for €15 and €5 and the €5 pair sold immediately.

One thing I won't go cheap on is childrens shoes.

We had a shock when DD1 first needed adult size boots. My favourite boots, had them at least 3 years, have split at the side. And I recently had to bin 2 almost new Lancôme mascaras due to not realizing I had a low level infection when I used them.

DH's business might be turning around at last. It's taken almost the whole year, and got this close to collapsing a couple of times but things are looking positive at last.

I really need to get veg/salad/fruit today and none of the cards worked in the ATMs at the weekend, DH will try again today. I don't want to pay supermarket prices but if we can't get cash we'll have to.

Italian really good to see your friend's baby is home and well done you for cooking meals for them

Italian that's a lovely thing to do. I'm sure your friends will be very grateful.

£2 playgroup. Bought eggs, yogurt that's 'try me, love me or your money back' fairly sure we won't like them and £1.60 on snack for me and dc because I forgot to pack anything . I won't spend anything else today.

New thread here www.mumsnet.com/Talk/credit_crunch?call=NewConversationPage