Frugal January, everyone welcome.

[Fluffycloudland77]

Useful links.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/other_subjects/1324074-For-those-who-cant-afford-to-use-central-heating-this-year-How-are-you-going-to-cope

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/credit_crunch/1543785-your-top-tips-for-money-saving-and-a-more-frugal-life

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/credit_crunch/1600030-Small-money-saving-habits-petty-even

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/credit_crunch/1628874-Gas-Elec-Bills-monthly-and-SKY-so-angry

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/mumsnet_classics/1911061-NO-MORE-COLD-MUMSNETTERS

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/_chat/2209167-Slow-Cookers-are-shit

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/_chat/2224969-saving-money

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/legal_money_matters/2258202-Debt-mutual-support-thread-number-6-start-the-new-year-with-a-clear-purpose-and-keep-moving-forwards-even-by-tiny-steps?

orchard.tesco.com/ Sign up to this.

www.topcashback.co.uk/home And this.

www.quidco.com/home/ And this

www.moneysavingexpert.com/ And this

www.moneysavingexpert.com/cheapenergyclub ditto.

www.checkoutsmart.com/ Plus this.

www.hotukdeals.com/all/deals/new?page=3 Check this daily.

Happy New Year Everyone!

heyheyhey I feel your pain re prescription charges,they are extortionate and it gives me that they only apply in England. How is it fair that if I lived in Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland they'd be free? If a party campaigned on free prescription charges and better access to NHS dental care and opticians I'd be very likely to vote for them.

As it took the docs so long to diagnose me I was out on looooooads of experimental meds to "see" if they helped, they didn't, so I've paid out probs £80 on useless meds. Hoping to avoid any charges this year by being well

Anyway, and to you and hope you feel better soon!

Thanks for the lentil cottage pie recipes! I'll make some for the freezer next week :)

Still haven't caught up with the thread, on page 6 of 9, I read three pages this morning!

peonies Thanks for the recipe, thats in my recipe storage now :)

I'm amazed by Opies 8 slow cookers! I obviously need to use mine more

You can never have too many board games fuzzpig! We have a nice stack of them now :) Looking forward to building the stack

I've just joined a slow cooker group on FB and a vegetarian slow cooker group too, so I'm going to incorporate my slow cooker into meal planning more! I don't have bills to worry about (LL pays them) but want to get into good energy saving habits before I have to worry about bills!

I'm feeling frugal today, instead of stopping in at Lidl after my counselling appointment (it's right opposite Lidl and if I take my car I park in Lidl carpark!) I came home and had some leftover leek and fake chicken pie that DP made at the weekend :) I even had it on a small plate so that I didn't overeat, as that's a big issue in this house despite our small dinner plates! I had to pay for my Ofsted renewal though, £103 for something I don't use at the moment but need to keep to be able to take ad hoc jobs from my local At Home Childcare Service -_- It does mean that I don't have to go through the hassle of reregistering as and when I need it.

I need to write out the shopping list as we're doing a Sainsbos shop tonight.

Can you freeze carrot sticks? I want to start taking them to work and also freezing leftover veg but I don't want to dice/slice all of the leftover carrots.

Also, what veg freezes well together? I want to buy a bulk load of veggie for our rats and make up bags for their daily dose of fresh food. I've done it before but everything went slushy and horrid and I ended up throwing it all out

DPs car died this morning so that's going to wipe out our savings again. Going into the weddding money from parents again MY bosses gave me a nice bonus for Christmas too which I wanted to spend on a week away but I'm feeling that it may end up needing to go into the car fund, as sods law my car will die too

I had a business idea that I may try setting up though along with signing up for extra work from my local agency. I may end up working full time again, fuck knows what that'll do to my health but we desperately need the money and if it's only for a few months we should be able to manage.

If you have Lloyds, they have a coin saving thing that rounds up to the nearest pound at the end of each spend day automatically. I got £100 in a year from that but turned it off as it was annoying me and my YNAB budget

Today isn't feeling too bad...

£14.50 on weekly bus pass (prices gone up again, ugh )
£2.97 on butter and snacks to keep at work

Got my free Waitrose coffee but ended up giving it to someone at work because pregnancy heartburn kicked in and I couldn't face drinking it

But on the plus side I did finally get to the bank to pay in our Christmas money, and checked with them that they accept coins, so I'll go in with our £24 spare change later in the week.

Also had a nice frugal lunch of homemade bean soup (which was a bit bland, next time I'll throw in loads more garlic or chilli maybe) and toast. Three more portions in the fridge at home... Hoping DH eats some as it's nice, but not nice enough to eat again three times!

£11 on soft play, I'm working at home and kids have an inset. So as a bribe And to wear them out I took them in my lunch hours (12-2). They are knackered now, I can concentrate. ...money well spent. Sneaked in sarnies too.

71p on bananas today! Will keep an eye out for tips on freezing raw veg, don't you have to blanche them in boiling water or something? Carbonara type thing with left over Christmas ham from the freezer tonight. My lot like cheese on toast with soup, I put a smear of tomato puree on before the cheese, then a drizzle of olive oil and oregano for a pizza effect.

Thanks peonies, I really agree - and here's to a healthy year for you!!

DH did home-made chicken kiev using a couple of shrivelled chicken breasts and some old ends of bread last night. 'Twas lush, and enough leftovers for another night in the freezer and some which he had for lunch today

We also managed to get the bank to accept some cheques which were in the wrong (old) name - result as they'd been refusing for a while - and found some euros lying around too. Will come in useful next holiday!

LSD today

£3.65 in co-op but got 2 packs fresh new pots, bag of carrot sticks, planet of grapes, pack of cherries, 1 pint of milk, bag of apples and a bottle of water. love getting there when they reduce

£1 on 2 tin opener required money boxes. 1 is for xmas and the other is for dp to save.

trying to hold off main food shopping till Thursday (our budget for the week begins then) will need bread and possibly some chips for dp.

does anyone know any good dairy free recipe groups/websites?

planet of grapes sounds delicious!

stupid autocorrect!! my tablet has a mind of its own, im Sure it makes more mistakes than it corrects

planet of grapes would be good the way my girls go through them!!!

£3 Panaforte.

Don't be too down on nhs England about prescription charges, welsh people are moving to England to get cancer treatment because the waiting times are too long in Wales & they don't have access to the same drugs.

Free scripts was a vote winner but its having knock on effects plus the most expensive times of life (childhood & old age) are free.

Hard veg freeze well incl par boiled spuds for roasties.

Yay NSD and infact am actually £6 up as sold to pairs of dds trousers!! That can go in the school dinner pot. Don't planning on spending anything before Thursday now fridge is looking a little low but hoping to eek the food out as much as poss.

Cheap dinner of pasta with tuna and pesto tonight

TWO not 'to'

Nsd! And found a nice pack of sausages in the freezer I had forgotten about

I find hard veg like carrot, all types of cabbage, broccoli, cauli, squash all freeze well.
I make a salad of very finely sliced red/white cabbage, red onion, grated carrot, finely sliced peppers, wafer thin celery, sweetcorn, fennel when in season and then freeze leftovers to use in asian noodle soup.

Cucumber/watery veg is gross when frozen

Peonies, that sounds lovely, both the salad and the noodles. Do you freeze them raw?
I only ever freeze par boiled veg or mashed potatoes unless it is a casserole or something and they are cooked.
Just batch cooking some pasta sauce for the freezer in fact!

An actual NSD!

Was back at work. Quite a relief actually given the amount of spending we were doing. Dh works from home so he has been tasked to eat up all leftovers.

Paid one bill. The extra work I did in sept finally got paid in so after huge taxes I got back something like £500. Putting that towards the gigantic car bill. Not sure about the other cc bill which should come in the next few days but cut off is today I think.

Tomorrow in London but will claim for it for work. Will get some things from the Chinese supermarket! Yay!!

NSD Saturday and Sunday. Spent £8 in Tesco on tissues, paracetamol, cough syrup etc Then £4.85 on dinner at work because despite that lot I crashed at about 4pm and knew I wasn't going to be arsed to cook once I got home.

Which is a habit I got into last year that I definitely need to reign in this year.

Yes I freeze raw and then chuck in hot wok with cooked egg noodles, plus crushed garlic, grated ginger, diced spring onions and loads of soya sauce and sweet chilli sauce (or fresh chilli) , fry off for 3-5 mins and add hot water or veg stock. Then serve with drops of toasted sesame oil on it.

Afternoon all

Money in purse: £8.20 (was £27.70)
Money in bank: £130.81 (was £210.56)
Money in coin jar: £43.00 (was £43.50)
Available money decreased by: £99.75
Total remaining: £186.01
Days to payday 10

Spends since yesterday
£14.50 – my weekly bus ticket
£61.98 – Grocery shopping came out
£13.67 – Credit Card
£3.00 – some wax melts (my guilty pleasure along with pepsi max)
£0.15 – moved to pennies tin
£2.45 – kids bus fares.
£4.00 - entry fee for DS2 athletics competition.

I had hoped today would be a NSD but then I got a parking fine so that's £25 wasted. I thought it was a free carpark and it is for an hour but you still need a ticket. I may appeal.

Then I remembered some friends are back from holiday today and I wanted to have flowers delivered to welcome them home, so that was another £29.99 gone. Ouch.

DP has spent £13 according to YNAB. It's his first day back after two weeks off so he was restocking his work food.

I managed to stretch last night's roast to stir fry this evening and I made chicken stock. Lunch was chicken and vegetable soup made from leftovers too and that will laste tomorrow as well.

Food shopping is my weakness so I'd really like to keep to my grocery budget for once.

And here's another lentil pie recipe for anyone that's interested. It's delicious and even carnivore children have been know to eat it
www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/10035/golden-veggie-shepherds-pie

Hi. Planned spend of £51 for swimming lessons reduced to £38 (DD broke a bone and missed 3 sessions of the last lot we paid for. Asked about a discount and was given one. Shy bairns get nowt.)

Asked my doctor about free/discounted gym sessions. He has referred me to a specialist team as he agreed some exercise could help my low mood. Again shy bairns etc.

Used the phone in the housing office to ring repairs instead of my own.

Walked instead of getting the bus (10k steps again)

Went on a coin raid down the back of the sofa. Found £1.55.

Took own lunch and snacks to work so have spent zero on myself today.

Feeling guilty as spent 81 in Debenhams sale on some clothes and 4 on tonic water and cold remedies.

Am going to aim for a NSD tomorrow.

I need to top up tomorrow but haven't done a main food shop yet this week and have four (possibly 5/6!) meals left if I get some veg etc.

Spent a few pounds on coffee and bacon roll at work today, which was a bit naughty but made dinner from leftovers and have enough left over leftovers to have with some pasta tomorrow as well. Also have left over curry in the fridge so might heat that up and stick it in a flask for lunch.