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

NSD

I posted about my debt but no intro.
We're a busy house - I work five days in my fulltime job and one night as a self employed Unislim leader, dh works 5-7 long days/nights per week as a truck driver and we've a sweet 4 year old girl and a daredevil 15 month old boy. We also have a live in aupair who has given me back my sanity and saved me from a breakdown either physical mental or emotional! Groceries include all meals for all 5 of us so is quite frugal at about €140 per week.

We spent about 4 years on short time at work plus I had two maternity leaves and we also had teenage ss living with us so all this led to debt, we got married also which was quite a frugal affair in some respects but we hadn't really saved for it.

Dh also has debt in the form of 2 credit cards & a credit union loan and he's working through them as well with less of a structured approach than me. However I'm going to deal with my own first and when I've it done if he wants help I'll give it.

£8.37 in Lidl and £5.52 in Tesco, totalling £15.89.

Nsd

+£10 from fb sale.

Bacon risotto for dinner cooked in the oven.

Oh dear, I dont know if this is hormones or sense talking... overwhelming urge to do a huge stock up shop pending the arrival of DD... I have been using up all the random cupboard and freezer bits so it feels a bit mother hubbardy... I know that makes sense though rather than sitting on loads of stuff. OH starting new job though so no paternity leave - maybe stocking up the freezer / cupboards a bit with easy things makes sense!? Help! Is this hormonal madness!

You'd be better off buying stuff for batch cooking and getting a freezer full of home made lasagne, shepherds pie, chilli etc for when the baby comes. Cheap and easy. Lidl lean mince is super cheap this weekend.

if you're going to breastfeed I would stockpile biscuits and nuts and things you can eat with one hand if you get pinned to the sofa for hours. Big glass of water also useful in these situations!

Batch cooking is a good idea too. Having something lovely and homemade appear minus the effort on the day is great!

Mm youre right. I think I'll do a smaller stock up and a bit of batch cooking - planning to try to BF again, didnt manage long with DS so he ended up bottle fed but definitely worth another go :)

I batch cooked loads for when ds was born but we spent so long in hospital by the time we were out dh and dd had eaten it all

It is def worth stocking up, when is your baby due? We haven't had a birth on the thread for ages

I found chocolate hobnobs were essential for bfing

£1 at Gregg's (ohdeardiet) but +£5 selling some clothes.

I remember lots of tears whilst breastfeeding as I always left the recommended big glass of water too far away to reach I felt like a genius when I started leaving a sports cap water bottle rolling around on the sofa next to me

oh no, six! I remember those moments.

Actually by the time I had dc3 and 3 under 5 I was maintaining lucozade to stay awake/hydrated, actually think the isotonic thing really works. Not the bargain option though!

Good luck with it all blue.

fairly low spend in cash today , 7.99 in Boots on cold and other meds,
£2.02 in co op on reduced celery, loose carots and packof whole meal pittas .

However i have two direct debits out today, TV licence and phone. - was horrified to find my BT bill had gone up to over £50 this month ( we dont use it much usually, must have been over Christmas) , but then when i went on line i discoverd that ive also been paying for 'Call number recognition' for some time ( i dont have a ohone which shoes anyones number ), and that 1571 answer id also payable now ( which i didnt realise it was) so have canceled both of those . Sneaky ..

.. People will just have to ring back now if they want me, or just text me.

I need to pay my rental up front also,(did that before , but its slipped back into monthly , by me not noticing or them convieniently not reminding me, more like ) but am leaving that until next month. I have enough yearly bills due in , Jan/Feb as it is

So how was the first day. em?

NSD today. Lovely chicken dinner cooked in the slow cooker tonight.

Afternoon all

WOO - will be in single figures to payday soon. Isn't it awful living from one month to the next. Still my main aim to get through to the next payday is so that I will have the success of carrying some credit over to the next month giving me a little cushion for unforeseen circumstances.

Bank: £438.18 (was £528.18)
Purse: £25.38 (was £7.08)
Jar: £36.70 (was £39.50)
Grand Total: £500.26 + £120 + £15
Reduced by: £74.50
Days to payday: 10

Spends:

£10.00 – Sent in a card for Godson's birthday
£0.64 – stamp
£30.00 – kid's monthly footy subs
£10.00 – collection for the Hospice at DH's grandma's funeral
£10.00 – given to DH to stay out with because he has obviously spent all his cash with 10 days to go.
£13.86 – spend on drinks in the pub after the funeral.

Here's my intro - I'm going to be 40 this year (no big celebrations though) I'm married to DH who is 43 next week,, two son's aged 18 and nearly 12. I am in debt because I spend impulsively. DH cannot manage his pocket money and I fall soft, give him the spare cash, and then I spend on the credit cards which then also means as we have no spare cash, I also resort to the credit cards in emergencies.

I work in the public sector and DH works in a very small company and the thought that if one of us were to lose our jobs, our house of cards would come crashing down around our ears and the thought now terrifies me.

We have 2 loans that take up quite a bit of our income. One of them is due to be paid off in three years, and the other in four. But in three years I would like to pay off loan 1, then consolidate loan 2 and the credit cards into another 5 year loan, and only be resorting to credit cards in absolute emergencies during that time. So, debt free in 8 years hopefully without accruing any further big debts in that time (96 months, sob, weep, wail). There is 15 years left on our mortgage.

I also am in a large overdraft in my spends account and I would like to build up that emergency cushion every month where possible, but leave it sat in the account so that it is meaning I pay less interest on the overdraft each month (Currently £16!) and maybe eventually pay it off....But the total will still be available in my total money left section in my daily posts.

I'd also like to have enough cushion to pay my house insurance in full when it is due (August) and not get charged for monthly payments.

Bantam, are you on topcashback & quidco? You run a house & have kids so you'd make money off what you have to buy anyway.

Leading to....

Topcashback are doing £5.40 for a drive now registration but you can claim it in tesco clubcard points then convert using boost to pay for summer days out. So really it's £20 isn't it?.

I'm going to register dh too.

needastrongone and opals thanks for the responses to my "being frugal while not peeing off the rest of my family" questions

Am always very glad to accept gifts or loans of items for DS and rarely buy him anything new (he's too young to realise that toys don't start off with the paint chipped!). It's the offers of loans of cash (I'll have more disposable income at some point but we have plans for what we need that to go on) that I find tough or the prospect of having to ask DP's mum or my DM (who are both lovely BTW), to pay for me and DP if we are going to take part in any family events they're organising - birthday dinners out, overseas wedding (yikes!).

NSD and a frugal win - rather than go to the shop to buy bread, I made it with DS - you need to be home for a few hours but it's really therapeutic and you can get on with other stuff in between doing things. Voila. One great big crusty white loaf.

Ooh also I have been experimenting with reverse-engineering the Organix chewy bars e.g. Apple and Orange by making up a recipe based on the ingredients list. They're so expensive to buy and pretty easy to make. Can share my recipe if anyone wants.

NSD for me, so I'm chuffed and we managed to put another 2 euros in the jar.

I'm going to try the cutting the dishwasher tab in half tonight and see what happens. I have cheap electricity on a night so that's when most things get turned on, the dishwasher, washing machine and electric water heating.

I've just bought a halogen oven because I was told they were more economical so I'm hoping to see.

I'm a bit of a saddo at the moment and am checking the number of units of electricity used a day, 12 on a quiet day and 22 on a day when I'm using the oven during the day and the washing machine goes on during the night as well. I used to pay 120 euros a month electricity, it's gone down to 22 for the time being but only because I had to move out for six months after the house was flooded last winter. I've replaced all appliances with AAA appliances and switched the kettle to gas, I'm hoping to make major savings there, because I work from home a lot and I'm a real tea wifey during the day.

1.40 on yougrts, I wasn't going to bother but they were on offer from 2.79 and I like to have a little snack watchn TV at night

Yes please mystic!

Can't remember who was saying their dc still likes fruit pots? Dd and Ds (4&2) have fruit pots in their ready brek and ellas kitchen fruit pouches I spend £6.50 a week on those bloody pouches

I am 28, DH is 29 and we have Ds 3 and Ds 1. We have around £2500 of debt on a credit card and nearly £600 on a catalogue. The debt has mounted up because of our impulse spending and lack of savings, leaving us stuck when unexpected bills come up. I'd like to be debt free by the end of the year and to start an emergency fund.

We get two hours off peak electricity in the afternoon so that's when we use our tumble drier!

spotty bacon risotto in oven recipe please! Sounds fab.

We had chicken & ham special fried rice - enough for 3 adults 2 children plus one adult portion leftover using just one chicken breast from roast chicken & one slice of ham from ham joint I slow cooked for sandwiches. I've a feeling this is going to be the mumsnet chicken that keeps on giving! I'm about to make soup with homemade chicken stock from last weeks roast chicken.

scrambled egg & pitta were my lifesavers when breastfeeding, both cook in similar time & can be eaten then with one hand and while feeding baby.

bantam I don't know if this would work for you and your overdraft but what a friend did with her credit card was every time she managed to bring down the balance she reduced her limit accordingly.
it was only when you mentioned bringing your balance down I thought of it.

I originally used this recipe and now I just adapt it to whatever risotto I fancy. We have:

Bacon pea and mint
Bacon and leek
Chorizo
Feta pea and mint
Chicken and leek

I would like to get beetroot as that's supposed to be nice.

Bloody Aldi. This is what pisses me off about that shop. I only went in for coffee and Sudocrem/Vaseline (the pony's rug is rubbing). Of course, they had nothing resembling the latter and I didn't have time to drive to Tesco by then. I know you guys think it's great, but it annoys me too much!! I did get coffee though, and a small gammon joint as we have no sandwich stuff at all in apart from cheese, the DC will rebel after 3 days of cheese sarnies..

We had cheesy pasta bake, using up a few cherry tomatoes, half a pepper, some kale and 2 sausages I had left over from the weekend. Was lovely.

mystic yes please to the recipe.

I have also spent £3 on thick and sturdy zippable freezer bags for soups and vegetables. Love Amazon, which I have ordered my Vaseline from too now.