Frugal January, part two.

[Fluffycloudland77]

Everybody is welcome.

£6 in sainsburys topping up kids sweetie stash (will last ages and stops the whinging for the shop where there are other things such as magazines! )

£30 on meal out for dp and I while kids were at a party and we had to wait close by. £6.40 on chippie for them as "party food" consisted of crisps. ...

Dp accompanied me into sainsburys where I looked for a new hole punch and I rejected the £3 offering there. He was a bit stunned lol. He doesn't really do any shopping/budgeting here and just thought I should get it, I said if I had his reasoning we'd be skint.

I usually cook rice in a normal pan, didn't work tonight though because the pans in the lovely place we are renting don't have a tight fitting lid.

NSD for me, DH bought me a merino wool sweater reduced to £29

Food shopping coming today if he gets through the 2cm of snow (steep hills each way to get in back roads). My side/back is killing my where my physio made me do sideways planks

I can't fit all the gadgets that are currently in my gadget press. Maybe I should get rid of steamer which I use about once every two years, that'd make room for a rice cooker! and the fruit bowl that hangs out there that we never use cos its massive!

Today will be spendy out of joint account but all planned, shoes for ds & food. Hopefully not as much as last week, will do cupboard audit before we go.

Drat just logged into my bank account to discover my mobile phone direct debit not due out until next payday has come out early now only have €9.50 in there so diesel will have to go on credit card, grrr!

My phone bill was really expensive this month

Looking forward to catching up with 'eat well for less' (I've just eaten chocolate digestives for breakfast - perhaps i need an overhaul?!)

Spent £45 last night on dinner out with my mum. We're going to London for the day today. I've made a list of small things I need to satisfy the spending urge without breaking the bank - bubble bath, hair-bands, knickers, tights, socks - let's see how I get on!

Have a fab day Six.
I'm off to play centre and lunch at the local Wyevale. I know how to live

Yesterday:

30/1
20p fruity Friday (except after school DD accused me of forgetting... because she didn't check in her bag )
74p DH picked up some honey as DS requested honey on toast

Got 12 pages of the thread to catch up on now should keep me entertained while I'm lazing in bed! :o

Yesterday I received £105 back from PayPal. I'd raised a dispute with a taxi company about a journey I didn't take (they didn't turn up). Pay pay refunded me. Money straight onto credit card to pay it off a bit more.

Still in bed at the moment. LSD today. Parents are coming back from their trip at some point this evening - boats have been delayed for days due to bad weather here- so need to buy them basic groceries for Sunday Monday.

I just did out monthly expenditure and we've come out £26.80 in credit. Better than nothing but feeling disappointed. It's all gone to bloody Tesco too.

Enjoying catching up on the thread while the DCs watch trap door (I've said it's still a bit early to play out in the snow... lazy mummy)

I've got one of those spend x a week for y weeks and get £40 free tesco shopping. But this time x=£105!!! Not sure if that's worth it this time. We can afford it, and would mostly stock up on laundry stuff etc, and also need stuff for the next lot of batch cooking, but... hmm. Not sure.

That said this week we spent nearly £100 on shopping and for once didn't need to top up.

£55.41 food shop. They didn't have raspberries and I forgot loo roll and nappies. Bloody expensive week.

£48 on food shop and have meal planned to cover the week again, as I truely detest going to the supermarket!

Omelettes, roast chicken, spagbol, toad in hole, fahitas, chilli com carne, frozen fish/nuggets n chips.

Kids swimming lesson £18.50 today and that's about it. The delivery from George came but about half going back or exchanged (slim lanky kids!)

I got that offer fuzz. I understand that they are trying to increase sales But this week I spent £53 so £105 is a bit of a leap! 3 X £75 for £30 off might have tempted me.

spotty credit is still credit.

Thanks, Spotty, I'll hold off buying Elle till I see your review of the mascara! I love Benefit generally but their mascaras are a bit hit and miss.

I'm having a lovely lazy day today: DH has taken DD to see MIL, so I had the house to myself yesterday evening, caught up on Wolf Hall and didn't bother cooking. Then had a lie-in this morning and have been working uninterrupted on a job application (I tick all the boxes in the person spec except one, and it would be a lot more money than my current job, so I think it's worth a go - I probably won't get it but I might at least get shortlisted, which would be good practice for future interviews etc.). In a little while I ought to go out and do some basic shopping.

Have a good day out six.

Am at the pool waiting for dd to finish swimming. Did Aldi shop when dd was at ballet and it came to £48. Included bottle of wine for a friend's 40th birthday. Have just done food plan for coming week.

Includes chili con carne w rice, fried rice (leftovers), salmon teriyaki with noodles, pizza and a couple other things which I can't remember at mo.

I am feeling incredibly well for someone on 2nd day of antibiotics. I think these are new penicillin type. Don't know!

Have a good weekend everyone.

This is our meal plan:

Fish cakes mash and veg
Chilli and wedges or rice
Spag bol
Shepherds pie
Bacon risotto
Lamb casserole

I'm a meal short it seems. Can have shepherds pie twice though. The meals aren't very healthy really need to sort that out.

Should be nsd today although dd is keen on replacing her gerbil who sadly passed away last wend!

I think the key with rice is to not fiddle with it too much!! One part rice to two parts water, put in the pan bring to boil and then simmer. Don't stir it or look at it!

Aw, sorry to hear about your gerbil, Girlie.

NSD to end the month. See you all on the February thread.

girlie about to say the same thing. We've started cooking our own rice so we can still occasionally have a takeaway (so much cheaper to do your own rice). We use the Delia method:
1 part rice, to 2 parts hot stock. V briefly fry the rice in a bit of oil in a large pan that has a tight fitting lid, then add the hot water/stock. Stir once. Put the lid on and put it on the lowest setting. Leave for 15 mins. After that check by tipping to see if the water's gone. Then take off heat, put a clean teatowel over the top for 5 mins, fluff up with a fork and you're done.

DP has been adamant we need to use microwave packets of rice until we gave that a go and now he's converted.

I've been working too much this week to be able to get online and catch up.
pass we got the mortgage life assurance, and separate life insurance cover through Legal and General, via Family Insurance (brokers) who I think got us a really good deal. Tip - we took out a policy each on separate occasions which meant that we got the £20 M&S voucher for me referring them a new customer (DP).

Back to work for me today, also working tomorrow. Having paid the tax bill I'm slogging away so I can pay back the money borrowed to pay it asap.

I've been having a chat with DH about his car. It needs some maintenance on it so depending on the estimated cost of the work required, it may be more cost effective (in the long run) to take out a car loan and buy a new (well, second hand one). I'm not thrilled about the prospect of taking out a loan but the car is 11 years old and has a lot of mileage on it as DH has a long commute to work. If we did get a new car, our car tax would be cheaper and DH reckons he'd make a saving on diesel as new cars are more fuel efficient.

We'll see what the mechanic says. We'll have to make a decision fairly soon as DH's NCT (equivalent of your MOT) is due soon and it probably wouldn't pass in its current condition.

For anyone who has YNAB, what do they say about car maintenance costs? Obviously it's something you need to budget for but it's hard to know how much to budget.

Could be a good idea tayto especially because his will need need nct every year now, something I haven't budgeted for & my car is 05.

Not sure what year ye would be looking at but not all 08's were lower tax.

I've spent €20 in fishmongers & 14.30 in butchers & €3.87 in aldi on milk packet white sauce & puff pastry made a lovely leftover ham & chicken pie for lunch, making list now to do proper shop tomo when I'm without children

Regarding car maintenance in ynab you can have a category for anything

so far spends are £18 in waitrose - Dm's favourite supermarket, she will not shop anywhere else.

Will get that money back though so technically it's a NSD for me. Have paid the £100 refund into my account from paypal, and have paid off a bit more of my credit card. Balance now down to £500 which will be a lot more manageable on payday (21 days and counting).

Freezer is full to bursting with meat, veg, and bread. Have spent the morning making soup and freezing portions for lunches next week.