Join the Fantastic Frugaleers for a February full of frugality

[northender]

Shiny new thread ready for Sunday. Newbies very welcome. This is a wonderful thread full of encouragement and support

Signing in, thanks muchly for the shiny new thread!

I'll catch up with the old thread and post today's spends on there [stickler for the rules emoticon] and start here tomorrow.

fuzzpig I'm same as that moving between two threads at the moment

I didn't realise there was a new thread thanks northender.

Hello everyone! Mind if I join you? Been lurking for the past month thought it was time to say hello!

We're making a big effort to cut back this year, not to bore you with all the details but its me, OH, DS (age 2) and Im 39 weeks pregnant with number 2... now off on maternity leave, hoping to take the full year. Other than our mortgage we are debt free (for now!), we're in the slow process of renovating a sound but very dated house which has sucked up a lot of our available £ this past year. We run 2x ancient cars on their last legs, so we may end up having to replace one (hopefully just one!) this year as OH commutes to work so needs something reliable. Mat leave with DS and then buying / doing up our house has left us quite close to the edge money wise.

Determined to get a grip this year now that Im on mat leave and the major work is done (still 4 rooms left to do but they are very much just painting etc, and a large garden which although we are lucky to have needs dealing with eg new fencing etc, some trees cleared etc)

Anyway saga over, will tell more over time but for now just looking to save up a bit by being careful! Thanks for having me :) xx

I'll be joining in this month. We spent nearly £700 on food in December which is ridiculous for just the four of us. I've downloaded the mysupermarket app and put in a food order to arrive on Tuesday. I'm going to cancel my gym membership (which I only signed up for in December ) and not buy any magazines. What we need to do most is stop the "topping up" shops. They're a killer!

Sorelip that's one big food bill! We need to rein in our top up shops again it's so frustrating looking at the bank statement only to see 'Tesco £xx tesco £xx sainsburys £xx'

Do you make a list? The organisedhome.com site does printable ones.

Spotty thats My main problem to, in 3 Weeks I've spent just over £200 in tesco. I don't even do my main shop in there.
I've set a budget for £350 for shopping this month, hope I can stick to it.
Had a NSD today hoping for one tomorrow to.

So far this month I've spent....£250 on food/"house things"

I'm going to try and have at least 3 NSd's a week in feb.

Meal planning, shopping to a list, and using the car as little as possible for me until 20 Feb (payday).

Evening all. I was a regular on this thread a year ago but got out of the habit of posting. I've not been too bad but would like to rein in the spending without becoming too obsessed.

Emem that's so good. Our petrol and food together came to over £600 for the month. Both about equal.

I'm sticking my spends on January too. Hello,new people and welcome. They are lovely here. I was a newbie lurker come poster a couple of months ago and getting more of a regular now.

Hi, I need to join, as DH has just been informed that his full time position is being made redundant going to part-time, which will nearly halve his take-home.

I work self-employed part time, only have a few clients at the moment, which is comfortable around school and elderly parent.

I'll be spending this week looking at our expenditure, working out what we can afford, and where to make some serious cuts.

Managed a NSD today, woo hoo Was very tempted earlier to go and get some fizzy drinks from the shop next door but resisted and made do with squash. Should be able to have another NSD tomorrow. Have DS birthday next week and have bought his two main presents already. Will probably spend about another £50 but that will include some clothes that he needs anyway sneaky

Spotty I was not happy when I worked it all out. That figure does not include takeaways! It's no wonder we're both overweight.

Currently watching it on iplayer... been making a big effort to keep our weekly spend as close to £50 as possible and doing okish in that regard - will be trickier when new baby comes in terms of extra nappies, potentially milk if BF doesnt work out :/

A few frugal wins so far this weekend - my foundation was around half done and had stopped pumping, normally I would have chucked it but took it back to boots who replaced it with a nice new one :)

• took back an unopened pack of size 5 nappies to MrT to swap for size 6 as DS seems to have suddenly gone up a size
• tried out the local butcher who do an amazing meat pack for £11 - has mince, chicken breasts, bacon, sausages, steak burgers and 12 free range eggs - used the mince for a shepherds pie this evening and it was lovely, didnt shrink and no fat came out - I am a convert :)
• took advantage of a tesco glitch yesterday on HUKD and ordered family birthday presents until May - trying to be a lot more organised so spent £58 for 8 gifts, PJs and the like, original value was £132 so was pleased with that

Looking forward to the new month!

We've completely cleared both credit cards (well - I assume so, the bill still said 77p but DH had paid that a few days ago so presumably it was just too late for the bill - but still counts presumably?! His app says 0.00 so that's ok right?) and so only the overdrafts (in and out of it each month) to focus on now.

Anyway. Have a vague idea of meals for next week and a fair bit in the freezer, tesco order of around £100 done for tomorrow. I'm pleased that this is exactly the start of the month as I'm going to suggest a weekly food budget to include top ups etc and save the excess at the end of the month.

I'm back to work on Monday after 3 weeks signed off sick.

Good going, Fuzz. It must be an immense relief.

I decided to pay my tax bill in full this month, I had (just) the money in the bank and HMRC don't like to wait!

I will pay my work expenses off my credit card as I have the money. I will then wait for Barclaycard to send me a zero % balance transfer offer and move the Christmas expenditure to it. I had (almost) the money for the credit card bill, but then I discovered I had underpaid PAYE so couldn't offset the rest of my tax via Zoaye as I owed too much.

Today I have to part with about £165 in costumes for dancing. I have decided that the children can contribute towards their costumes from their Christmas money. I thought if they pay about half, DD1 can pay £40, DD2 £20 and DS about £15 for now, but he needs to get a suit plus other things yet.

Can I join? Dp and I have separated so I am now a lp and need to get my finances under control. We were in arrears with lots of things, but I am determined to get back on top of things to secure mine and the dcs future. Today I am taking the dc to soft play and then dd has her swimming lesson. So not a particularly low spend day, but I did buy drinks and chocolate from Aldi to take with us so that will keep the costs down

I'll join you if I may :)
We've had a few 'bad' months (read unexpected/unplanned expenditures).
So I need to get a slightly tighter grip on our finances.
1st of Feb-I paid the BT line rental a year in advance, saving two months worth of it. £169!!!
I have a good idea about our monthly expenditures. All on dd with a ringfenced amount each month for them.
All this year's holidays have been paid, all I need to do is book and pay the taxi from the airport for one of them. I am saving £150 a month for next year's hols.
I am also saving £50 a month for Christmas.
Another £150 for stuff like boiler/insurance. I didn't last year.
I am taking on extra work that will pay for 'treats' such as cinema, books, events.
I need to clear a small overdraft.
I bought all my summer wardrobe in Jan sales, only need a couple of tops.
The food budget for Feb is £250 and the cupboards/freezer are full.
I need to look at the bills again see if I can save anything by switching suppliers.
March I've taken in lots of overtime and all the money are going towards a new car, mine has reached 130 000 miles, half expect it to die on me! But it's been recently serviced and MOTed, but just in case!
So, onwards and upwards.

Thanks creme :) yes it feels good to have that cleared. It was not very much (a few hundred on each over the last few months, although given our income that is still a lot really!) but it's nice to start this month knowing exactly where we are. I do want to get back into using the CC and paying off in full each month, to boost our credit rating, but I want to leave it a while until we have got everything else under control.

Keeping properly clear of the overdrafts is going to be a real struggle though I think.

Jan for us was our first proper month of being frugal (again).

We did ok, we had some big bills but still went overdrawn. That said it could have been a lot worse.

Since pay day, things are going well for Jan/Feb month.

I have been looking at free things, like the free OU course to make the most of time and money.

We are saving for a deposit on a house. I know we could do it in a year but something always seems to crop-up. My youngest is off to school in Sept and as I only work part-time, that is another expense we won't have to pay.

I have got really interested in gardening, but wary of false economy.

We have been selling a load of things via Facebook (made about £200).

Mine is to also really stop and think "can I use something we already have?"

I have re-started washing the car by hand. Only took 20-mins. It things like that, I believe will really help. Just common sense.

Also mending things and maintaining them. I noticed rust spots on my car. Cosmetic only but I can go and get a rust kit, spray and primer for under £20. Rather than letting it wait or taking it to the garage.

I'd like to join in please! I've been scrimping and scraping a deposit together for our first house. Bit like pulling teeth so far. Shopping online at ASDA has been good for saving, but DH wants organic veg, so we also get a Riverford delivery. Been getting all DD's clothes on EBay. Totally neglected myself for months and have no new clothes or face creams :(