Austere October continues here!

[PeoniesforMissAnnersley]

Impressive that we've filled a thread already

Just opened post to find a £25 voucher for john lewis or wairose, we bought our white goods from JL and got a interest free cc and points. Now voucher is burning a hole in my pocket and neither are shops I go to much at all. How can I use them the most frugally. ...or shall I go and get lots of fancy stuff in waitrose and imagine I'm rich for once

pass I have a £25 JL voucher too! was planning to hit waitrose...

Does anyone know what First Utility are like for customer service? They are coming up cheaper than my current tariff.

italian good luck with the offer. Great news on the mortgage recommendation.

passthecake can you keep the voucher till December and get nice stuff for Christmas at Waitrose? If not, go treat yourself now. TBF, a lot of their essential Waitrose range is quite competitive.

2nd keep the voucher, get some nice wine cheese etc for a nice night in. There's not much in JL for £25. Half a pair of gloves!!

When I had a £10 JL voucher I spent it on hotel chocolat stuff :o

£3.10 today on breakfast and lunch combined, and £2 bus fare. Shouldn't be any more after that.

Fingers crossed for your offer italian. Jealous of those with JL vouchers!!

£48 weekly shop, £2.80 polythene mailing bags as have started to list my clothes on eBay that I can no longer fit in. Very eye opening session trying everything on yesterday. I can probably only fit in 25% of what I have. It is the bloody steroids that are making me fat .

I've hit one of those 'too frugal for my own good' moments. The cupboards are bare, the fridge contains half a pint of milk, some jam and a jar of mayonaise and we need toothpaste, deodorant, hand wash, shampoo etc etc. I'm definitely someone who never has a fully stocked larder but it's reached crisis point. So this afternoon we need to do a big shop. DH is coming with me and we have guests for the weekend. It's going to be a biggy

Hello everyone!
After lurking for ages I'd like to join in please.
I need to start being frugal. I'm currently on the unpaid part of maternity leave and while things aren't exactly a struggle financially, they have become tighter. I'm also finding myself in a situation where I don't know what the nearish future holds so I'm thinking that cutting down on my spending and reducing outgoings as much as possible is probably a good plan.

Our household consists of DH, DD (2), DS (9 months) and me. We don't have a car and Dh commute is a 10 minute bus ride. I can walk to work in 10 minutes so we have minimal transport costs and no childcare costs since we work around each other.

We spend too much on food because I don't set myself a budget. Just buy what we like and often stuff goes to waste. That's stupid because I can cook well from scratch, it's pure laziness. So my plan is to set myself a weekly Tesco budget of £50 which will have to include everything from food to nappies. I want to create a repertoire of 20 budget veggie meals so I can then rotate.

I'm also spending too much on Amazon. Because we have no car, I buy almost everything online and the Prime Next Day delivery makes it too easy to just buy everything on a whim with a couple of clicks. Need to cut down on that.

My mobile phone contract is up for renewal so I'll see if I can get sth appropriate cheaper.

Same goes for landline/internet and home insurance. I don't actually think we have any other bills we could cut back on...

Is anyone interested in my cooking adventures? I could post my recipes once I've made something good.

Wow I have lost the plot. Bought fish and chips for dinner tonight which was an unnecessary luxury. I need to get a grip.

Well I am seriously chuffed, as we got picked for the Bella Italia breakfast review, so we get a free breakfast for four at some point this week :)

Wow fuzzpig how did you get chosen to do that?

Just spent lots! £80 ish on bday/Xmas presents and £60 on new work shoes for me, £18 on clinique toner for me. Oops. In my defense I need new work clothes too, didn't find anything so actually saved money??

mrshux welcome! I'd like to see your recipes!

first utility, not heard good things about them, are you on moneysavingexpert energy club? It's whole of market. Don't forget cashback.

huxtable welcome! Yy to new recipes. Are you with sky or virgin or bt ect? If you ring and say you have to cancel you might get a big discount. Are you registered with topcashback & quidco? Lots of savings on there.

jones I'm sorry the steroids are doing that to you, treat yourself to something nice when you've sold the old clothes.

fuzz !

italian congratulations on the mortgage approval. How exciting.

Dh's orchard vouchers arrived so I will buy some champagne for the Christmas holiday & hide it.

£4 sains on squash, toothpaste & garlic bread.

79p mayo in aldi

£1 hair removing cream.

Topcashbacks grocery section is doing free pumpkins up to £3 each.

Passthecake it was a sticky thread on active, Bella have launched a new menu or something and wanted families to sign up. Guess that one is closed now though.

MrsHuxtable I'm very interested in your cooking. £50 a week is the budget I'd love to manage too.

Also MrsH have you looked at giffgaff for your phone? DH and I both use it and we've just put both DSDs on it too. Works out really cheap especially now we can all call/text each other for free.

I actually need to stop myself from buying to many Xmas presents for the children. I'm setting a limit of £50 includings stockings.

Last night I tried to recreate this lovely Aubergine and Potato curry I recently had from our local Indian and I think it turned out pretty well. It worked out at about £1.50 for two big portions. Would easily feed 2 adults plus small children if served if rice.

I used 1 onion, a bit of frozen garlic, frozen ginger, frozen coriander, chilli powder, tumeric powder, a couple of table spoons curry paste, 1/3 of a passata carton, an aubergine and a tin of potatoes. (First time I tried tinned potato after it was recommended on a thread over in chat).

So I sliced the onion and fried it in a couple of tablespoons of vegetable oil. Then added the frozen garlic and ginger, fried some more. Then I added the aubergine, which I had cut in stick shaped pieces. Fried that till they looked golden. Then I added the passata, chilli, tumeric, the curry paste, the coriander and the potatoes (which I had halved). Then I let it simmer for a while adding water when it seemed to be getting too thick.

We had it with rice and I really enjoyed it. I buy the frozen garlic, ginger and coriander from Waitrose (will start doing this for chillies etc too) and the bag lasts for ages plus there's no waste. The tinned potatoes were only 15p Tesco value.

Hi anyone who has yet to use orchard fish coupon cod loin is on half price I got to large bits for 4.42 so was 42p. I used the other £1 ones few weeks ago in same transaction on some reduced coley n plaice as was Sun n crap selection on counter.

Fuzzpig, I'll have a look at giffgaff. I only pay about £13 now and I don't need many texts or phone minutes. I mainly use it for the data as I communicate on whatsapp a lot of the time with international friends and family.

I need to start making veg curry I think. The dc probably won't like it though!

£57.54 tesco delivery. Forgot the bread

The one I use is a fiver a month MrsH but that's not got much of a data allowance (we don't really use 3G much, just use wifi at home) - I know there's ones that do though but not sure if it's better than your £13. If you look at the 'goody bags' bit there'll be a list of the options. Basically you can choose a goody bag each month and can set it to recur only if you want to, so you aren't tied into a contract which is appealing.

And the curry sounds gorgeous!

I'm on sainsburys payg, I topped up £10 and they doubled it. Yy to pairing to your wifi at home.

I last topped up in August. I wonder what your current provider would offer for you to stay.

Tomorrow will be spendy as we are going to see disney on ice. So excited

£8 in Poundland on toilerteries and packlunch bits.

£6 on second class stamps - still can't get over how expensive stamps are

Oh, I think I'll try out giffgaff. Am I right in thinking that you can leave again anytime if I'm not happy with it?
I think I might be fine with just a gigabag for £7.50 a month as I so rarely use texts and calls. My only concern is inside reception at home. I looked at the coverage map and it seems the border is only 50 metres away from our house. If it worked that would be great and I'd save £5 every month on my mobile. Hm.

It's worth a try :) you will need to put £10 credit on it to activate it unfortunately (and I think they give you £5 free) but yes then you can just get the goody bag you want. If you aren't sure you want it, then just get it as a one off rather than ticking the 'recur' box. That way if you don't like it you've not lost anything really (you'd have the credit to use up though)