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!

Ememem84 a lot easier to stick to budget when you've no other means of spending with you.

Can't find that link about car for sale like a skip if I track it down I'll post it for ye.

Whats your bmi at now peonies? You feeling good now? All my clothes are tight after being on steroids at Christmas but I lost 4.5lbs last week so hopefully they'll be fitting me again in a few weeks.

lilac am off to shops now. Have a list - apples, bananas, satsumas, jam and freezer bags. I reckon I should be able to do this well within the £10 budget (am hoping under £6). Have put a tenner in my coin purse so have about £12 on me including change....

Just had a look at the Matalan sale, came out with nothing, phew.

Popped to Tescos for milk, ended up buying washing powder too as the 45 wash Persil Non-Bio is on reduced from £11 to £6.

Just paid off the white goods we bought from John Lewis as the interest free period is up. "Only" about £11k to pay off by August when the other interest free periods on kitchen and credit card stop . Think some of those balances will be transferred!

£6.07 spent on fruit.

have also just had check of bank accounts and don't seem to have received a refund from study fees i paid to tutor back in september (then cancelled exam so she said she'd refund..) think it's about £300...

This is our first week using our joint account.
Tomorrow I will get paid €563.21 - €400 towards joint bills, €20 towards savings for my weekend away taken out automatically before my wages come to my account, €68 credit union loan, €5 savings for dd, €60 to tesco visa card this leaves me with €10.21 which I will leave in my account to cover direct debits. My wages are a little lower than usual this week & next due to holiday pay rather than working + overtime. I may not put all my self employed income into an account for savings until things are back to normal.

Also leaves me short for money to put in my save & borrow fund but I can fix that next week.

On the plus side though I've 2.97 in my coin sweep account because of interest paid on accounts I only use as holding accounts for short term savings and €3 in my 52 week saving challenge money box.

email sent re study fees.

am also currently trying to get a refund on a taxi between gatwick and heathrow which didn't show up (then when i called the company they told me the driver had another job and would be with me in 45 minutes...) so i ended up having to book another one from the airport which cost me more. Company are saying that because the traffic was gridlocked that day they won't refund.

I've argued that the other taxi was able to leave immediately, and got me to heathrow within 45 minutes (despite the mythical "bad traffic") so i made my connecting flight.

they're not having it. and are refusing to refund me £40. grrr.

on the plus side, i have a very frugal spaghetti hoops and ryvita for lunch. yum.

Tempted by the idea of only using cash for all coop trips etc, taking it out every week and splitting it between us.

DH got a letter from HMRC though - £400 tax rebate wooooo! Also he's been asked to do a training course - would lead to more money. So a good day so far.

Whereas I've spent much of it asleep! :o

£10 foundation.

Good news Fuzzpig

£20 top up and wellies for ds in sainsburys
£10 lunch for us both
£1.60 parking

Aw, pleased for you, Fuzz .
£5.26 in Tesco (mostly ingredients for DS's cookery lesson at school tomorrow).
£23.50 on my niece's birthday present, including delivery.
£1.50 on a birthday card for her.

That's excellent news fuzz, so pleased for you.

NSD for me today, yipee.

Em That's a bugger re the taxi. I am not sure if you have any 'rights' in this regard, or how enforceable they would be anyway.

Not sure which page the dragon pie is on on this thread, if you Google it comes up though!

It was shaping up to be a NSD....
but got a puncture , mahoosive stone in tyre , meaning had to have new tyre....(and handg about in cold and rain to get it fixed) Another bloody £75 on the bloody car ,after a stone hit windscreen last week and it had to be replaced

Feckin roads are covered in sh1t with all this rain at the moment bringing earth and stones and stuff off the fields ..

Thats it im moving back to a city and im having a glass of later to cheer myself up -sod the frugal budget

Here is the Red dragon pie recipe

Thanks all, sadly we won't really see any of it because it'll just soak up some of the overdraft! But still, it means we won't have to transfer some money from the ISA to DH's account as we thought we would, so that's still great.

The course they want DH to do is a dispenser course (he's a pharmacy retail manager) - with any luck it means he can get a better management position within the company (and it's a fast track course). He's been starting to look elsewhere too but if things turn around within this company and he can stay with them (but a different store) then that'd probably be easier!

Red dragon pie looks interesting, what are aduki beans like?

£2.80 posting eBay parcel, and £60 on a Lego set for ds bday...it not for 3 mths but he has asked for it and it is currently on sale for £80 so I may as well.

Ds new school shoes have arrived so I have put his old ones on Ebay. Everything goes on eBay before it goes to the charity shop, doesn't cost anything to try eh.

I spent €1 on a scarf for DD and €14.99 on decent gloves. She lost her other ones just in time for the snow . If she loses these, she can pay for new ones out of her own money.

Money in purse: £2.01 (was £1.55)
Money in bank: £72.05 (was £82.05)
Money in coin jar: £13.35 (was £21.20)
Total remaining: £87.41
Available money decreased by: £17.39
Days to payday: 1 (pay day tomorrow WOOOOHHHH) and I have £87 to carry forward to my next wage which gives me an extra £20 a week to try and stave off the anxiety

Spends since yesterday:
My daily bus ticket: £4
Belt for DH: £4.99 (from a charity shop, but it is new)
Kids bus fares: £2.30
Card for next door neighbour to say thanks; £0.99
Gloves from pound shop for DS2: £1.00
DS1 athletics yesterday: £2.00
Unaccounted for: £2.11 Hmmmmmmmmmm where do these odd bits of money keep going?

Well the car saga is over with. When no one rang me today to confirm delivery I phoned to be told “not today, definitely tomorrow” so I kicked off and demanded my money back. The cocky sod at the garage informed me that they would be deducting expenses incurred for the cost of the repairs so far. Anyway I e-mailed them later and made veiled threats pointing out that they had breached their verbal contract with me not once, not twice, not three times but four, and pointing out as I had paid by credit card I would be seeking advice under Section 75 of the CCA if they failed to refund and deducted any costs. They must have decided I wasn't worth the hassle for £1000 as they rang back and said they would refund everything. Then the cheeky sod said “if you're looking for a cheap car, don't go for a Megane because the electrics are shit”!!!!

So DH has seen another Vectra online so a mechanic is going to come and look at it with us but it looks good however we don't know about cars and are dead unlucky so it'll probably be another money pit.

Good news is I'll have a bit extra cash next month. My credit card bill payment is less than I guesstimated and if my balance transfer goes through in time I won't need to pay it at all.

Bad news is I cancelled my savings plan at work but as it was a long term one, I won't get anything back as the early payments are all setting up costs – what a waste of money that was (4 months at £21)

About £2.50 on lunch today but no other spends. I'm kind of annoyed that I had to pay an admin fee of £20 to change my car insurance to my new car with the same insurer. What a rip off! But they have confirmed that my monthly premium will be less.

I am feeling inspired by all the ebaying and will look to list a few things at the weekend.

£10 on skirt for dd, un-necessary but she loves it.

60p on crisps for ds. Good news! I won £10 on free postcode lottery so thank you whoever mentioned it up thread.

Dragon pie looks great. Will try that next month. Thank you laska42.

Well done for sorting car bantamgirl

Well done for kicking off Bantam. Motor trades full of con artists. Renaults don't have the best reputation though its true.

574, I think Aviva do that for free if you do it online, they usually do really good cashback & low prices too. It's worth having a whinge to the ceo regardless, it costs you nothing & might get the £20 refunded.

More spends.

£5 beer for dh and I. I have the accountants meeting tm and I always get nervous. Plus tesco do 2 Leffe for £5 and at that price it's rude not to buy it

£6.50 two packs of magnesium from holland & Barrett for dh. It's free delivery today plus 15% cashback & it was in the penny sale.

I'll start another thread when this runs out so we don't lose anyone.

Rubbish day in terms of spending

£10 on new gloves for dc
£16 on top up shop

£14.25 on lunch out for dd and I. Don't usually do it but my friend and her wee boy who is friends with dd wanted to meet up and I haven't seen them lately.

Must try harder.

My recipe tonight is - soften an onion in oil, chuck in a chopped red pepper, stir in some chopped chorizo to release the juices, add a tin of borlotti beans, sliced mushrooms , tin of tomatoes, seasoning (all veg is variable depending on what you have in) Served with rice.

Good news bantam about your car and about your savings!!

Really fancy a glass of wine tonight but I will refrain.

pass I would substitute the aduki beans for whatever beans I had in tbh.