No-Spend November - sign up for a frugal month ahead!

[PeoniesforMissAnnersley]

Everyone welcome, if you've been lurking then de-lurk and come and join in!

NSD - No spend day
LSD - low spend day

We are a friendly and supportive bunch, recording our spends, frugal wins and frugal fails daily/when we can. Lots of good tips on discount vouchers, household cleaning and maintenance, cheap meals and more!

Had a rough night - hard to sleep with the drip thing in my neck as it's very uncomfortable. Just tried some rice crispies for breakfast on advice of nurse and hoping that if I can eat without pain they'll stop the drip feed sooner. Now waiting to see if pain sets in, prob another 20 or 30 mins before I'm safe.
Was feeling mega down earlier, it's our 15th anniversary of being a couple today and we had planned an amazing dinner and night out etc. but then I thought well at least I have a lovely DH and we can hopefully go out and celebrate v soon when I am well.

MissA the 'this too shall pass' thread on talk of the day is probably a good one to read right now!

Hope you get chance to rest today

Have you to enough pain relief?.

www.hotukdeals.com/deals/bosch-tassimo-charmy-red-brewer-40-5-p-p-tassimo-2050569 £45 tassimo.

It's red though.

MissA- how was the rice crispies? Hope it all sorts out soon. I find it so incredible that with all this technology, they can't figure out what's going on. What annoys me on your behalf (and everyone else who's been in this situation, including ourselves!) is the whole fobbing off by the GPs, and then various hospital staff. Isn't it better to sort someone out at the early stages than the later, when more money, time, effort and pain will be spent?!

Anyways... Paid £1 for children in need for 2 kids to wear hero costumes and spots. Wednesday and Thursday were nsds. Paid cc bill but a lot of it was work related, so all claimed back.

I think this whole shopping at Aldi is definitely helping. We are eating well, and yet have money in the bank. I shouldn't jinx us, but I'm not borrowing off the kids accounts! That's a start! I have a car mot and service in early dec but I'm not really panicking about it. Of course, I'd rather not pay it, but because we have to, that's fine.

Having said that, haven't bought Christmas stuff.... Argh. Don't even know what to get people. My work life at the moment is extremely stressful (broke down at work yesterday... Toying with idea to go off sick. Something I never do).

Rice crispies were fine ... Less good the pack of crisps I scarfed when I realised RCs hadnt caused pain in my defence I haven't eaten a decent meal in over 2 weeks...
I am allowed to try jelly next, boom!

missA - keep us posted how you get on. You will get better, keep holding onto this thought, even when it's so hard.

Sorry that you are stressed NK - this time of year can be very hard regardless of work.

Hope you are feeling ok soon too badvoc

Doing ok this month finance wise. Have put an extra £250 aside for an MOT due December. I might not actually get to save that full amount, but I can hope.

In good news, the expensive saddle that we were trying for dpony is slipping, but the saddler has found one that fits much better, which is £120 rather than £550. Win win, dpony has a well fitted saddle and my bank account is much healthier

nsd hurrah!

Miss A hope its more positive today for you !

Have been to empty kids credit union accounts this morning, it'll be paid back by beg of March but still sucks.

£800 to the credit card we took out to buy house things on. £200 left to go, hopefully pay that next month.

I'm going to save up in future, rather than put it on a card.

Applied for a free 2 month taste card. Lots of resturants do 2 for 1 deals on taste cards website.

I complained to the ceo of odeon about a crappy experience we had a few weeks ago & they've sent us 4 free tickets. We can use them on premier seats so that's a nice treat. I wonder if the other couple involved complained too.

Been into town, spent £8.98 in Poundstretchers got dds friend a bday present, some new t.towels and 2 lots of brunch bars for that so not too bad!

£47 in Morrisons, have decided I am going to try and stock up this month and next as January is always hideous money wise!

Oh and nearly £6 in a bakery on lunch for me and dd.

Good job on the rice crispys miss a! Keep it up. You will soon be able to go out and enjoy a lovely meal with your dh :)

Just spent £13 in waitrose, dh will do the aldi shop this afternoon which should be under £20 providing he sticks to the list.

£30 petrol budgeted for.

Managed to stop myself getting macdonalds on the way home because I was desperate for a wee and it would have been drive through

Nurse got over enthusiastic after rice crispie success and gave me a scoop of mash with a tiny bit of flaked tuna for lunch. Cue massive agony for 5 hours - Morphine, tramadol,the lot.

Ok now but definitely sticking to fluids until after this op, it is Just. Not. Worth. It.

At least I can have nice drinks, DH brought me soya chocolate milk and they're brinigng me water, squash, coffee etc through the day. And I may risk soup or ice cream, since rice crispies seem ok, although the pain is so bad it always scares me off eating for a good while.

peonies hard not to be afraid of eating when that's the result! It's only a matter of days now.

Good news in our family df won a car worth €10k thrilled for him.

We're both wrecked & have a long journey tomo so dh is going to drive to party tonight & i'll just have one drink so only small babysitting cost. We found a gift card for our fav restaurant too so thats tomos dinner sorted!

Wow that's great lilac!

Had a NSD! I had planned to go on a walk with DDs, then paint their nails, bake cakes together, then watch a XMAS movie with homemade popcorn, but my eldest had an almighty tantrum that lasted 2 hours, so we did none of the above. My poor youngest DD suffered too! Hopefully we'll do something fun tomorrow instead.

Tyre is changed! Will need to take it to a garage to see if it's a repair or replace job. Hopefully it's not too expensive to fix!

DH accidentally charged £100 to our debit card instead of his company credit card . We'll get the money back, eventually, but my tight budget is now even tighter! Cracked open our huge piggy bank that we've had for a year - there was over £300 in it! Also, I rummaged through every drawer in the house and found £10 of loose change.

Trawled through the last year's worth of bank statements - we've saved nothing and been well into our overdraft for 10 out of 12 months. I honestly had no idea!

Well done lilac!

Went out last night... First in many moons. Spent about £23 which was really quite good value which included a show. It was in a small restaurant and fab food and good company,

Today will have to do the Aldi run.

£68 on food for the week yesterday, plus £4.50 on coffee and cake when we took DD to a museum (we have annual passes so that was all it cost us). Today I need to take DD to buy a birthday present for MIL, as well as getting her hair cut and her feet measured, so no chance of even a LSD.

, MissA. Hope they build you up soon and you can have the surgery, get out of there and start eating again.

Friday £17 on bits in supermarket, £2 for DD2 for CIN. Saturday I had to work, DSIs had the kids, took DD2 to a party, DD1 invited to stay too (friends with party girls sister) lunch for DS £6, plus owed DSIs £6 for some laundry spray Tesco have stopped doing. 70p for jelly tots after swimming for DD2.

Today DSis is going to grab cooked chicken, frozen roast potatoes, bread and milk. The kids have a combination of the following today: 9.30 - 10 DD1 swimming lesson; 10.15 DSIs dropping DD2 off, plus friend dropped to me to take to a party at 10.45; DS dropped to swimming; 10.30 - 11 DS swimming lesson; then collect dancing costumes from home; 12.30 collect DD2 from party; take all 3 children to dancing dress rehearsal 1 - 3; 3 - 4.30 DD1 has panto rehearsal (fortunately in the same place!), then we will have time to eat!

Should be nsd today. Going to my grandparents for coffee and biscuits then home for housework

lilac wow how amazing! Is he keeping or selling? I've never known anyone win anything so large!

I had a rough night and a terrible morning,
I think they're starting to wonder if I can last a week before surgery. Pain seems to have settled now but haven't been able to eat or drink anything orally since last night.

Sounds horrendous MissA

My nan and grandad just have me my wedding present early £500 love them

Wow spotty that's so kind! What are you going to buy? We got soooo many gorgeous house things we could never have afforded with the cash lovely wedding people gave us, including a proper set of plates, bowls etc that we still love and use daily, nice glasses, bed linen.

Well I put my wedding ring on my credit card so it will pay that off!

Hi miss, just wanted to add to everyone's best wishes for you - it all sounds so horrendous :(. But I did have a little :) at your continued optimism and good spirits jelly - boom ! Congratulations for your 15 year anniversary! Me and my (soon to be) DH have also been together for 15 years this Christmas.

I'm still only on 5/15 NSDs. I have had lots of little spends - Wednesday wrapping paper, Thursday and Friday some last bits of Xmas shopping, stopped at services on the way to my mum's yesterday etc etc.

I'm in that annoying last phase of Christmas shopping where I think I'm done and then I remember one more thing/person etc. even if it's just a gift bag or a tube of smarties etc it's annoying because I think the spending is over but it just keeps on! However, I know this happens every year and I'm still pretty chuffed that because I've managed to get myself organised at least these 'last minute' spends are going to be accounted for in November rather than the financial black hole known as December!

Btw loved the idea up-thread about stocking up on essentials now ready for January. January is bleak but this could be a good way to start the new year on a good footing!