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!

The £120 pw is me being completely and utterly honest, and including even pints of milk etc.

Sorry, I pressed too soon. I meant 'pints of milk' that you pop to the local shop for etc....!

Happy new year again!!

My frugal tip is to do one shop a week. Or even extend it by a day or two so it becomes a shop per 8 days. The way I do it is to buy UHT milk so we don't have to pop to the shops. So for a family of 4 (2 grown ups, a 6 year old, a 4 year old), I buy a 6 pint normal milk, and a few packs of UHT. We overstock so that works. I also buy 2 loaves of bread per week and that's fine. We also have cereal.

At Aldi we end up with a £40/50 shop per week. This is great given that we used to spend £100/week at sainsburys!!

NSD, off to friends house this afternoon. Bringing ham and some other things.

Top up shops have really crept in here in past month so I'm determined to cut that out. We've been able to shop once a week and have enough of everything previously so we will again. Think this has been partly due to Tesco delivery saver & sticking to grocery budget with it but then needed top up from aldi. My delivery saver runs out on Jan 17th so I'm not going to renew this time & going to revert to aldi.

I do have a price promise voucher for €7.88 so will either use that for another shop or in conjunction with my €10 gift card to buy more bernes cookware.

Happy New Year everyone, and hello to all newcomers. I can't wait to get back into the routine of meal planning and frugal shopping for the month. Doing Dry January should also help with this. Off out to DMs for dinner today so should be the first NSD.

£42 I. Sainsburys but should be ok for the week. Speaking of top up shops will probably do one mid week as we seems to eat copious amounts of yoghurt and fruit. Me DH DD7 and DS5. Food I would say hovers around the £100 per week. But that is all meals, snacks, cleaning stuff etc. need to use aldi more rather than sainsburys cos it's more convenient.

I would happily pad out a couple of days with soup or jacket potato, but DH won't have it. I think the best I can do is have a big bowl of soup for a 'starter' then give a smaller portion of meat with all the veg as a main. I'll happily eat soup for dinner and then put it away for the next day's lunch.

I'm also hoping that because we've had so much food in the last couple of weeks DH will eat quite plain food and not be tempted by a takeaway. (It's my fault really, I ask what he wants and he suggests it, I'm a bit tired and go along for the ride!). I need to see the bigger picture and think about what household thing I could buy with a months worth of takeaways...

It was a very easy NSD as we were at a party last night and have visited friends today. I think we're going to a theme park tomorrow if the weather's ok with us, so will be more spendy but hopefully just tickets and juice.

Welcome all newcomers

mortil my shopping is about £100 a week, for 2 adults and DD18. I would like it to be less than this but that is hard to do. I have a Tesco delivery on a Wednesday when the charge is £1 and then go on a Friday or Saturday for meat and fresh stuff. For me, the key is to stay out of the shops - it is so easy to so in for a pint of milk and end up spending £30 just on a few bits. It is expensive with teenagers plus their friends. I know it is stodge, but if they are still hungry after dinner I offer them cereal and milk - boys can eat loads I find!

Good luck Spotty!

Our fence blew down this morning, good frugal start to the year!

We're doing £50 a week food shop ATM, but £20 of that is formula/nappies for dd/ds2.p, using Ocado (with a tesco dash for nappies) as I can't face busy dec shops with 3 young kids!

V excited about a frugal 2015!

Today should will be a NSD, not planning on going anywhere! Dd has a friend over to play and I am cleaning out my kitchen cupboards - rock n roll is my middle name

Weekly food budget for me and dd (8yo) for 2015 is going to be £40 a week think will do what my mum does and add up stuff as going around and stop when reach budget.

Jumping on - have strict grocery budget and NEED to sort myself out this year.

Less spending = less clutter = more freedom
Less spending = less food = less weight
Less spending = more money = more choices

I need to get a massive grip. The trick is to make myself NOT feel deprived by the frugal life. I'm fighting an awful lot of conditioning. But, I am sick to death of feeling fed-up, drowning in tat, overworked and ill. An old-style approach will hopefully help me regain some peace of mind.

Nsd....eating party food from freezer, cheese n crackers and chocolate still!
Next year I won't buy as much I promise. ...

girliefriend, if you can be arsed doing it, one good way to make sure you stay on budget is to go online and plan all your shopping list out first. That way you can see exactly how much everything will cost. If you get to the shop and certain things aren't available, at least you can see how much it might affect your budget by.

(It is a bit time consuming, but it works if, like me, you'd rather go to the shop yourself than buy food online. I don't know why but I much prefer getting everything myself, plus I don't have to pay for delivery!)

I've just gone through YNAB to plot out our monthly budget... I think it's all accounted for! We are a little into the red but as DH gets paid mid-month it should balance out and give us quite a bit left over to go into savings. Provided, of course, we actually manage to stick to it.

Next step is to crack on with a meal plan for the next few days. We've plenty of food in as DH bought a load of fruit and veg in post-Christmas desperation so we should be ok for at least 5 days I think (fingers crossed!).

Busy declutter ing ATM but will read back later on.

Just put this on another thread, but does anyone do the free postcode lottery? It is totally free, you just check it each day. It is worth £70 that jack posts if not won. Not won anything but figure it can't hurt! Link here

Happy New Year y'all -

First financial round-up of 2015...

Money in purse: £25.89 (was £37.88)
Money in bank: £280.56 (was £280.56)
Money in coin jar: £25 (was £25)
Available money reduced by: £11.99
Grand total remaining: £331.45
Days to pay day: 14 (but shouldn't spend any more money today)

Spends since yesterday
£11.99 on anti-freeze for car.

I have had to replace my THIRD electrical item within a week today! Fridge freezer was first, followed by fan heater and last night the microwave blew up! I've had to replace it out of DH's bonus money though but we got a bargain as it was only £49.99 so plenty of bonus left. I did have my eye on a red one to match my tiles but it was £20 more so I am pleased with the following of my head and not my heart :-)

Then the anti-freeze light came on in the car today (again) so we made a trip to Halfords to buy some.

Thanks Fluffy!

HamperNoShow – I haven't heard of the Postcode Lottery, but I've signed up which should pretty much guarantee that my postcode never ever wins.

I did an online shop last night with Morrisons and it's all come in at around £63+ including £3 delivery charge - I would definitely have spent more had I gone in person – I use Morrisons regularly as it's my closest supermarket but this is the first time I have had a go online.

I'd definitely recommend anyone who is overspending on food to do a meal-plan – I genuinely can't manage without one. I probably have been spending around £400 a month in the supermarkets but I want to get this down to £300 to give myself an extra £100 to play with. All it takes is a spare hour or so to devise a 4 or 6 week menu so you're not ending up bored, or eating the same old thing. I also end up wasting less and there's more room left in the wheelie bin when I'm being organised. I love being organised and feeling in control but for some reason I always end up going astray at some point and undoing all my good work.

Hi all, I'm trying to be extra frugal at the moment too. Groceries are our biggest problem, both in terms of our bank balance and our waistlines! Just done a full inventory of fridge, freezer and cupboards. Got absolutely loads of stuff - meal planned dinners for the next two weeks with nary a shop visit needed! Also got stuff for breakfast as I bulk buy the granola I like when it's on offer. Will just need to top up fruit/veg and things for DH lunches. We've got £85 left on a Sainsbugs gift card and I'd like that to last us until payday if possible. Shouldn't be a problem at all if we just don't buy wine, which as I want to have go at Dry January shouldn't be a problem.

Also managed to catch what's on the turn and cook it quickly before freezing. I hate waste, and the kitchen is definitely the scene of our crime!

NSD.