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!

Sorry to hear your bad news collie

We've had the family of mice living in compost bin so dh refuses to allow one, really annoys me as I'm keen to reduce, reuse, recycle.

Yesterday was spendy but planned & enjoyed & did some free stuff too. I had hospital appointment in a city two hours away so took children & au pair for touristy day out. Bought late breakfast & coffee/hot chocolate type stuff later in day. Paid entrance fee for only one place. About €50 for a great day out making memories.

Sorry I have confused everyone. I get paid 15th of each month, so when I meant £66 per week to last in January, I mean from 15th Jan to 14th Feb.

DH's wage pays the bills and my wage is for everything else (and I have to send an amount to the bills account as we now have more going out than we have coming in).

In the bills account there was a large overdraft but due to DH's 2014 Xmas bonus and a football bet win that is now cleared but I know I need to use that as emergency money as I don't have any. So far this month I have paid out for a Microwave, an amount I accidentally went over on my credit card, and Green Flag cover for my new car.

Out of the spends account I pay my catalogue, my credit card, overdraft interest (yes, that account is overdue too), my prescription, kids footy cover, DH's pocket money (agreed at £190 a month but he always goes over), my bus pass, and finally the 'coin jar' which pays for kids bus fares and activities.

This leaves about £790 which petrol and food then has to come out of. My new budget is set at £200 for petrol (this may change depending on whether running 2 cars or 1) and £300 for food.

So this leaves around £290 for the month for everything else although I am going to be carrying a small credit amount forwards and this is what I would be hoping to do every month afterwards, carry something forwards.

I also remembered I pay £21 a month from my wage into a 10-year savings plan that I can cancel at any time and I only started paying into it in October so I am going to cancel that.

Then over the next couple of months "stuff" is going to happen which will free up a bit more money. I get an increment in my February wage (or maybe March) which I think is an extra £36 a month. I pay the last kids football subs until September (£30) and my last season ticket payment (£49), my phone is out of contract in April so I am going to go onto SIM only (£18-£19 less) so that is an extra £100 there.

DS1 leaves school in June after his exams and I have told him I need him to get a job and take over his own athletics subs (£16 a month) and phone (£15 a month).

But out of my next wage they all need haircuts (£15 in total) and I have the dentist (£50) and it's DS2's birthday on 4th Feb and DH's birthday on 7th Feb. I think this is why I am panicking as February is really spendy.

89p yesterday on milk. Il have a think and also post my 'pots'. I try not to think that I have x-amount a week/month as I will spend excess if it's there!

At work today so should be a NSD

I took DDs to soft play yesterday as it was raining and spent £20.85! The food there is so expensive and we were there all day. £1 for pombears

Today WILL be a NSD

£3 so far today on packaging items to post things to ebayers.

Good morning everyone!

Welcome Birding keep posting with us :)

We've run out of fruit, veg, yoghurt and cereal, so today could get a bit spendy. Ds14 has a school rugby match away, so he'll need money to spend for lunch out etc. Hopefully I can get away with a €30 outlay all told.

Have a fab day everyone!

£3 yesterday in sainsburys for san pro, toothpaste. All on shopping list.

Some money for cleaner, budgeted for. So far today, NSD.

£5 petrol
£2.80 gammon joint.
79p marzipan bar.

Mmm marzipan

Nsd.

Glad you will be able to get to the funeral, emem - hope it is a bearable time for you all

I have also done the stocking-up-to-reach-threshold thing on tescos when there's been a voucher. My usual go-to items are laundry stuff and things like loo roll and bin bags. If it's a smaller amount then tinned stuff wins every time! :)

It's really interesting seeing everyone's different ways of dividing up money nosy - it's not something we really think about TBH, we just spend now think later! If at all! This thread, and writing everything down, is really helping my awareness (not sure if it's helping DH quite yet but when we go through the month looking at amount spent in coop etc I'm hoping it will!) but we are still not really budgeting properly. Have a few hundred on DH's credit card (mine is at 0 currently) and usually in the overdrafts by payday.

So basically I don't really know how much we actually have, IYSWIM? I did do a spreadsheet last year to figure out how much we could save - I have a standing order of £100 a month to my ISA, which might sound mad given that we have overdrafts, but we figured if we didn't force ourselves to do without it, we'd just spend the extra anyway! So, basically we need to really work out in advance what we can spend on anything. Food is definitely the biggest issue.

Couple of frugal wins....

Asda delivery £42, they subbed a medium chicken (£4) with a large (£5), and upgraded smartprice sanitary towels

Been sorting out my brand new dodgy tumble drier, engineer came round and declared that it didn't heat. Rang up John Lewis to arrange collections and to order a new (different model!) one and asked for a discount for distress caused - £30 goodwill coming my way so I have upgraded my tumble for one £30 more expensive

Emptied car and took it for a wash/inside clean, cost £10 but well worth it. Omg it was rotten. How often do you ladies get your car cleaned/clean your own car?? I generally do it when I go to my mums....every 2 months, but it was really unsanitary in there

Good idea asking for the discount from John Lewis.

You need traffic film remover to clean a car. You can buy it in halfords/amazon etc. It loosens all the dirt & then you can blast it off with a pressure washer before shampooing so you don't scratch the paintwork.

Twice a year tbf fair we live down country lanes so there's no point trying to keep it clean!

it was the inside of the car that was a state.....crumbs, crisps, smarties, sticky stuff, hair, fluff, mud...

it now even smells clean, bet that doesn't last long!

We only clean the inside if it's going into the garage

£3.40 on milk and bread, £1.00 choir. About half of my 20 Ebay items are being watched so there's hope there. Sweet and sour chicken with noodles for tea from my Mumsnet rubber chicken which should stretch to a soup too. Does anyone know how to freeze closed cup mushrooms successfully please?

Afternoon all - fed up :-(

Money in purse: £1.55 (was £5.55)
Money in bank: £82.05 (was £82.05)
Money in coin jar: £21.20 (was £23.60)
Total remaining: £104.80
Available money decreased by: £6.40
Days to payday: 1 (after today, just tomorrow to get through)

Spends since yesterday:
My daily bus ticket: £4
Kids bus fares: £2.20

God, it never rains but it pours. Roofer has been out – proper job would cost £525 to fully repair and a patch job will be £200 so I'm going for the patch job and hope it works.

Still not in possession of my car which I was so pissed off about I phoned and demanded my money back. Anyway the long and the short of it is that they were on with fixing the windows, had taken the motors out of another Megane they had for sale, 2 of them worked and they were on with the third. They said they will deliver the car to me tomorrow, and it comes with a month's warranty so hopefully if any problems crop up they will crop up soon so I can get it looked at under warranty.

DH's car has been looked at by the mechanic who has assured him the timing chain is fine (and he asked him to come and look at it so he could show him what the problem is). However something has gone badly wrong with the engine and 'things' are bent and it will require a full engine strip & refit (or something), which he would have to get someone else to do, and he wasn't in work today so can't provide a quote. DH asked if it would cost more than £500 and the mechanic said yes, definitely. I haven't actually spoken to DH after he'd been told that but I know he will be devastated. I must stay strong though as we cannot continue to throw money at that car no matter how much he loves the car. If we pay on the credit card then it is MY available money that suffers not his. I have a feeling I am going to be under the cosh as far as guilt tripping is concerned.

Feeling so fed up at the moment. I've got a banging headache which I am sure is down to stress.

I've also had to break the news to the kids that at £90 for match tickets and possibly £140-£160 for travel, we simply cannot go to the glamour tie should our team win tomorrow (and because we would really like to go, it is guaranteed that our team will win).

I had also planned to buy DH tickets to a darts game for his birthday, but I would have to buy two tickets at a cost of £55 each so he had someone to go with (probably DS1) out of the bonus money but I am not sure I can justify that. If I have £110 to be throwing about I am sure he'd much prefer to add that to the £500 we had agreed on to get the car fixed.

Hope my week picks up.

Inside I've had valeted a couple of times as friend at works husband has a machine, however at christmas ds got sick in it and I had to revert to soap and water, I cleared out all the junk Sun when I was waiting for dh to join us. It's currently sitting in a bag on countertop in kitchen as mostly paperwork and beauty stuff rather than rubbish. Might hoover it Saturday, if weather is ok, it's kind of annoying me.

Outside dh gets a burst now and again and power washes both cars or if I've something on or feeling flush I pay to get it washed.

pass that's great to get sorted with tumble dryer and get a better one.

I sat down with dh at weekend and showed him my projection for joint bills etc, he first had a hissy fit that our household is costing too much to run on a weekly basis, then he suggested getting rid of the cleaner, then he came around and realised that we're doing our very best. Playschool will be finished with in June which will reduce our outgoings a bit. We've decided that my self employed income will be stored in a separate account and will be there for tax bill, dishwasher, weddings etc during the year.

Today I cancelled my tesco delivery saver, it just wasn't as useful as it was in the beginning. Apparently they will add up what all my deliveries cost and if I'm due money back they'll send me a voucher. I think other than last month I made good use of the pass so there won't be anything due back to me. Going forward Dh can do some shopping on his return from work in lidl/aldi/tesco/dunnes/supervalu any evening. Now that we have joint account he will have card to do this with, instead of us swapping money over and back. Or I can do shopping on wed eve after my class or on Sat with kids in tow, this usually involves eating something out though because we're gone from 10.30am so not the most frugal.

I downgraded our toilet roll on Sat - usually get the 10 pack flordlys in lidl for €5.99, well pack beside it was 9 for €3.49 and meant to be recycled so trying it out.

lila Can't be doing with cheaper loo roll...I get 30 double velvet from asda which I think is a very good price?

bantam sorry to hear the car woes

NSD yesterday and LSD today - just bought a birthday card.

My car is disgusting inside - dirty and damp. Even though when pick up my new one I will try to keep it clean, I am sure it won't take long for it to get filthy again (2 teenage boys, nuff said)!

So sorry Collie.

bantam what a nightmare for you. Really hope things improve for you.

We (and I mean DH ) just washes and hoovers out car every couple of weeks (or even weekly as it can get muddy round here) .. He also does all the windows on the house and the conservatory too, cleans kitchens and bathrooms and washes kitchen floors and things !

( I have married an Absolute Gem I think you'll agree)

So I met DS (24 who is sadly unemployed) for lunch .. got out £40 cash in anticipation of being 'touched up'.. but NO . It seems like he won £100 on the lottery and has managed to stay in the black so far this month..

Lunch was £15.50 - 2 pannini specials and 2 coffees
£9.50 in co op , 3 reduced posh pizzas and I pack each of reduced mozzarella and pepparoni (DS having one pizza tonight and the other 2 will be our friday or saturday evening meal) a bag of salad and a bag of clementines (im mad for clems at the moment) had a £1.50 off voucher for coop I used and theyve give me another one for this week.

also £1 45 for two kilt pins! I only needed one but they come in packs of two it seems.

so money in purse now £25.40 ( no doubt I will give DS £20 of that when he goes tomorrow he is here to have an evening meal with his lovely mum to use the broadband that is.

Collie sorry to hear your news.

Today NSD -I remembered to take a packed lunch.

DH called and said he could cover picking up the DC that mum normally does, he is also going to pick up tomorrow. (Only because he wants me to to take his mum to a hospital appointment tomorrow) I don't mind taking her, will leave work under impression I am collecting kids which has already been agreed with my boss.

I get my car valeted about every 3 months, costs me about £28, but I can reclaim that from work. My car is disgusting. The Zdc treat it like a rubbish bin. I get sick of the mess. Every now and then, I clear my stuff then send the kids out with a bin bag to clear the mess out, so they deal with the consequences.

Has anyone joined "the money club"? I have agreed to a 4 week trial for £1, but I am not convinced. The membership is £100 a year. This year I have saved £100 through Quidco, I already shop around to get the best deals on things, our holidays are usually just flights, which I get best prices through whoever flies the relevant route. My car insurance is on the work fleet policy (company car). I shop around for house insurance, change utility supplier regularly.

I am trying not to spend money. I have a credit card to clear of £4,500 and I have to pay back DH for him repaying my debts last year.

I just don't see that I am assured of saving enough to pay the annual membership upfront.