Frugal January, part two.

[Fluffycloudland77]

Everybody is welcome.

£11 on lunch today. 2 of my trainees passed exams so it was meant to be a drink in the pub, but they were really busy in both the pubs do it was into the Italian.

£6 to cut a new key for my sister as hers (to my house) has started breaking. £1 on 5 birthday cards. Need 3 for this weekend, but card factory do 5 for £1 so I got 5.

Tomorrow need to buy a present for DD1 to take to a party on Sunday. Should be about £12-15

23/1
20p fruity Friday
£17.09 condoms (so much cheaper on amazon, won't buy from Boots again! Might mess up my recommendations though :o)
£2.50 yoyo DD needs for brownies (the extra costs have started already, she's only done 2 weeks FFS)
£6 DD pocket money (3 week's worth, I kept forgetting! Good for practising her times tables though :o)
£4.99 snack/drink after school - might make this or cafe a Friday treat to stop the requests the rest of the week!
£4.74 DH soup/snacks

SPENDY SPENDY SPENDY!

Sorry I'm a bit weird and sleep deprived right now, am in epic pain and pissed off about it. Day at home tomorrow then DH is taking DCs and DSCs out (I'm having a rest!) so that'll be spendy, plus tesco... Bye bye wages

Oh but I also found out DH hasn't got the money back that his eldest borrowed (DSS' wages have been messed up) - not a problem that he can't pay it back yet, but another cushion for DH's account when he gets it so that's good really. So, what with the tax rebate etc I reckon we will be out of the worst of it soon.

On a totally different note, I would really, really like to go to Paris this year. We've not been abroad for nearly 5 years and there's an exhibition on til August that I'd like us all to see as well as the usual stuff.

But it'd be extremely low budget... No car... Plane or train, WWYD?

Fuzzpig how old are all your dc? Whereabouts in the country are you?

Ouch Angel that is rough. Sounds like you have a plan to pay at least.
Yesterday £3.82 stocking up on cheap booze for the weekend.
Today will be £10 cash out for soft play entry and a coffee. Probably pay for lunch out of existing purse money. Then I have budgeted £20 for a night out with my friend although it sounds like she fancies a night at her place. It's cheaper I suppose! and I have my cheap booze
If we do go out I have a grand total of £14 of personal spending money left til payday, and £40 in the joint account. January has been a lean month. Oh, and I have to pay the car tax but that money is reserved.
Happy Saturday all.

Spotty I have a 5 and 7yo, also DSCs 16/16/22 if they want to come with us. Live near Gatwick :o

ARGH I just wrote stuff and it disappeared!

You're not too far from me. I've done plane and Eurostar and if I were you would fly easyjet from Gatwick. We're going to Paris in May (flying from Luton though) Eurostar was more money plus you have to get the train to victoria then the tube to St Pancras which is no fun with suitcases. It's much quicker to fly too.

audit You can ask the HMRC to defer your 'on account' payment for July. We never ever pay on account, our accountant always defers payment, they grumble a bit but though. They can bugger off for the money, we pay enough, and plenty more through the business. Also, you might be able to see if they will collect through PAYE if that spreads the cost? I would be surprised if it were the car, but it's worth checking though. We once by accident put the paid value rather than the book value on a p11d, which triggered a whole tax inspection for the Company!!

Actually, the inspection wasn't as bad as we anticipated. They pulled us on a few things that we had done by oversight, they advised us where we could utilise tax allowances better to save tax (wasn't expecting that!) but accepted we were and are an absolutely 'clean' business, making the odd error within sound practise. I thought they would question every damn receipt.

I am doing paperwork and finance today, some work on our consultancy business that is doing well at the minute, getting nails done (budgeted last month but cancelled for the snow), and general stuff.

We are out later at a joint 50th, which will cost, but not overly. I forgot that I paid £20 cash for a pressie 'fund' for this.

We need a new kitchen tap but luckily dh's boss is buying and fitting it for us.

Need to pick up my prescription which is free luckily as five items.

£68 tesco delivery.

Need to get my mum some flowers for her birthday £10 max.

Feeling more positive today. Returned both pairs of ill-fitting trousers from last week and bought a dress in the sale that was £15 less than I'd spent on the trousers and I adore the dress.
DH sold a few bits of silver jewellery yesterday for £40 and still has some gold to sell and I had my free coffee and cake in John Lewis.
Haven't done anything about nursery fees yet but at least we now have £55 towards it!

Not an NSD but no real unplanned spends so around £20 spent. Went to the park with DS so got some fresh air and exercise. Just doing cleaning and tidying. Planning to go to Aldi as they have some gloss paint cheap so can redo all wood work and will get some paint for kitchen at least while I'm not working I can get all these jobs done.

Got a kids birthday party coming up for DS and my Dsis birthday in early February but will budget for those. Probably NSD tomorrow as we all need a chilled day.

£1.30 on a drink while dd was at a party

£22 in Matalan, included a dress in the sale for me £7 from £20....a onesie on sale for dd (£9 to £4.50) which will stop the washing stress as she only has one, and a dress she coveted which will be her party dress for the next two years I imagine!

£5.16 in tesco, I used £5 of vouchers (£4 orchard and £1 off fish), very pleased with my self!, £40 asda delivery to cover food up to about next Saturday. Got a gippy tum today so that'll save money...no food for me

audit deferring your tax sounds like a good way to go....

£81 in the supermarket, including £15 on a new non-slip mat for the bath - DD could almost certainly manage without but finds it comforting, and the old one had gone into shreds. So not too bad. And DH popped into the greengrocer and bought a melon, which was another £1.

Unfortunately the cinema tickets for this evening are £17, and there'll be another £25 for the babysitter - heigh ho. But we don't go out very much together these days so I don't think that's terrible.

Audit, much sympathy with the tax bill. Mine was only the child benefit, and the gift aid reduced it a bit, but I still winced.

robin which cinema is that, apparently there is 20% off Cineworldegifts

NSD.

£14 cat litter tray & a liner.

£60 on glasses for DS1. I also bought 4 books but this was covered by vouchers.

Thanks for Paris advice spotty :)

Sorry to butt in, just wanted to give a big cheer to bantamgirl who must be having a great day out at the football. Think the expensive tickets will have been worth it

pointless Probably a good call about the trousers. If you weren't entirely comfortable, then you wouldn't have worn them anyway.

£23 in Sainsburys on beer and wine on offer. Have found out you can take your own tonight, so we will (not all of it!!).

Ordered some half price boots in the Next sale which I always do for the next year if I need them. Current boots have lasted 2 years. I will send back if I don't like them and use the current ones another year. £30 from £85 and a classic riding boot which won't date. Having tiny feet helps!

DH is being spendy, I think he is rebelling

Yesterday, paid £25 for what must have been one of the best massages I've had. Been having v bad neck and shoulder pain (typical office worker's woes) but it has been quite significantly awful. And he came to the house too! Result. All I had to do was get into pjs and crawl into bed after.

Today, spent £69 at noa noa as they were having a refit sale and I bought a £10 present for a friend, 2 pairs of tights for dd, and a dress and skirt for me.

£10 for lunch at a Japanese restaurant by myself (whilst waiting for ds attending a birthday party). It was so nice and peaceful.

Oh, £25 at boots for much needed vitamins for me, and the kids.

Hi, pass, it was an independent art-house one, but thanks for the tip. A bit of a failure of an evening really - DD's babysitter texted during the film to say her temperature had shot up to 38.5, so we went zooming home (annoying everyone in the cinema!) half way through the film. DD seems OK but definitely feverish. The infuriating thing is that she was absolutely fine when we left the house!

A result on the birthday present for tomorrow, £7.50 on a scooter, 3 rolls of wrapping paper on 3 for 2 plus some pain au chocolat and croissants, £12 ish.

New glasses for DD1 £31, the frames were £15 but I paid £16 extra for anti scratch coating as she scratched the last ones really quickly. We can reclaim the cost of this. Also, the lady at the opticians said to take the old frames into them in about a month and they will put the new prescription lenses into existing frames o we have a free spare set.

£3 on shortbread from bakers for the kids. £3.75 on church collections.

Needastrongone I think you can only ask for it to be collected via PAYE if it is less than £2k. I have reduced the payments on account to nil, and will do my next return as soon as I have the P11d in July, and hopefully can do via PAYE.

It should be less as I have asked them to stop the child benefit. I think it is really unfair the way this is treated now. Our joint income is under £100k but we don't keep any because I earn more than DH. If we each had half our shared income, we would keep it all.