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

We've had a made up chorizo and veg fried rice type meal for tea and there's enough left over for dh and I to have packed lunches tomorrow.
In my intro I should really have said that although I find most of frugal living okay as it's what I grew up with, however I do feel resentful at times that we need to live more frugally than we ought because of the debt we accumulated.

northender I hate myself for our debt (and blame dh's parents for leaving the country suddenly after we had been together for six months leaving dh nowhere to live so we moved in together with zero savings and two brand new credit cards!). It's our own fault really, of course. I always wonder what I can do to ensure the dc are savers not spenders, any tips?

Oh, DH found a tenner in his wallet today, so had fish and chips for lunch i.e. spent it, which is why I do the finances

NSD. Drugs are doing well. I did tell the boss that I was ill as he decided to email me at about 9.57 on Friday night...?! He saw me today and asked about it which was nice.

I had chicken noodle soup for dinner. Dh and ds at activity tonight so don't know what they had but dh knows to bring something from the fridge. I don't batch cook for nothing!! I brought leftover salmon teriyaki noodles for lunch at work. Was v yummy. I still have one left over salmon so I'll bring that with rice tomorrow.

Made leftover turkey pasties too and from the looks of it, dh has had quite a few! He works from home so that saves us money from spending at shops. He used to refuse to bring lunch to work coz everyone went out.

Do you guys just cook more and freeze the leftovers or do you eat the leftovers till it's gone (and you are sick of it?!)? I don't have freezer bags. Should I get them? We usually eat stuff till it's gone. To be fair it gets difficult after a while...

Went on a fab CV writing course today, amazing how much the standard has changed since I last wrote one (errrr- 18 yrs ago!). Have got lots of tips now.

I know what I'll be doing tonight.

Where are the accountants in the room? I know there are a couple. Wondering if I would ever be able to break into private sector with only 18 years public sector experience under my belt....pm me your thoughts if you like ladies?

mystic we had a few moments in the past year where family wanted us to go away for weekends in 'nice' places. We tried telling them that we couldn't afford it; they would offer to pay/pay more of the share; we would feel like we were being tight, re-jig the finances again and somehow manage to make it work. Our persistence, however, has paid off. Now suggestions are coming in for this year it always starts with 'we've found somewhere really cheap / shall we just go for one night / we'll find free things to do when we get there'. I think our families are even enjoying the benefit of frugaling too!

£10 on coffees/hot chocolate for early morning train journey.
£9 on souvenirs for DDs
£13 lunchtime snack for me and both DDs
£4 on eye cream, DD1 has a sty
£4 handcream for DD2

Pass Accountant advice.. you need TalkinPeace.. you could Pm her and say i sent you....(or post on the money matters thread asking..shes bound to answer..

Hmm. Had to pick something up from Tesco (already paid for) and was going to buy milk, but got a few bits from the bargain area too. £4.24 and we will eat them (all good value!) but not a planned spend.

ohhelp loads of things! Like not putting home address, putting a punchy overview, skills summary, then jobs with bullet points for achievements within the roles. ...amending for each application etc etc. Might seem obvious but it wasn't to me! I'm getting the notes sent to me and am happy to send on if you pm your email address.

Thanks Laska

Oh, leftovers - DH eats them for lunch most days. I am fairly good at meal planning to minimise but if the kids hardly touch their food (fusspots) it gets put in a tub and DH has it for lunch next day. If it's actually a big meal the extra gets portioned up in old takeaway containers and I remind DH to eat them towArds the end of the month to save the bread etc for the kids lunches.

We do a bit of magic chickening. Tesco have large half price pork joint at the moment, we bought one for 6 pounds and it will do 4 meals. half has been cooked already and the other half went in the freezer for next week. In the end it will do 2 roasts and 2 leftover meat meals.

I've had one last attempt at buying some trousers today. Bought online and they were expensive (£59) but I'm fully expecting to have to return them just like the previous 4 pairs I've bought!
Otherwise I haven't spent any other money today. DH called in the shop for teabags and yoghurt. He bought own brand tea and reduced yoghurt, he's also gone round turning off lights, seems like he's finally getting the idea about saving money

NSD! Hoping for another tomorrow - should be possible. I also biked in this morning with my new gloves: they're not perfect, but I wasn't actually in pain after an hour's ride in the cold, so they're a big improvement on the previous pairs.

I use leftovers for packed lunches. Freeze if we've got masses of something to use up (I'm still intermittently eating the Christmas turkey!).

Mystic we don't have such generous family members (well, my in laws are really v tight) so what happened this year for the summer was me saying to my dad that we couldn't fly long haul home as it was just going to be too expensive. So what they did was they decided to come over!! Saved me £5k in flights, but I still spent about £2k on holiday here but that was for 3 weeks of things to do including Paris - 5 days, and apartment.

In laws just don't do things so we don't get anything much. Lucky if they treat us to a beefeater. I've just about given up. If they feed us whilst we've traveled there, and they buy our kids a couple of presents for Christmas and new year that's good enough (they do buy the other stepchildren and their kids a heluva lot more but not going to compare...).

I think amongst friends and family, you just have to make it clear that you can't afford x. Or when it's time for you to suggest dinner out, then choose a place that is cheaper, has offers or time it such that you can actually afford it. Good luck.

Aside from the earl grey this morning, i have also bought bread for sandwiches 0.94p.

so not too bad for a LSD.

tomorrow will kill it with a NSD.

My intro - it's me and DH. We are saving (seriously this time) for our new "forever" home in 2017. We want a 3/4 bed house, with garden and space to grow our own veggies. We want kids. and a dog. (and I want a goat and some chickens) We want to be almost self sufficient. Like barbara and tom off of the good life.

we are aiming not save 40k this year. I have paid down credit card (mine) as much as possible (need to finish the payments once I get paid) and we are overpaying the mortgage at present so we can get as much equity out of our flat once we sell.

Whoops, just bought freezer bags form amazon. £2.39.

I think I will start freezing the food. Even if it's for a couple of days, at least we aren't eating it 3 days on the trot! At the moment, I have chicken soup, potato leek soup, and chili sitting in the fridge. Oh and my salmon.

Ah, if we're doing intros...

Me - 47 and DH, feeling ready to retire, and two 13 yr olds. Also a 30 yr old stepson but he is independent. Plus four bloody dogs.

at magic chickening.

9 pages! Better do my intro now before we end up on another thread. We're me, dh and 3 dc under 7 (whoever was wondering about having 3 it's definitely the right thing to do). I have had debt in the form of credit cards and overdraft which was once equivalent to half my salary. I finally paid it off about 4 years ago and gave up work to be a sahm. We have a little bit in savings that would cover 1 maybe 2 emergencies but we wouldn't be able to replenish them so I need to forget about them and manage our income so we stay in the black.

mystic I'd love your recipe please. All those toddler snacks are so expensive. When dd was small I often had a hard boiled egg in my bag for her as they're cheap and travel well. Unfortunately ds won't even consider trying one.

We're lucky in that a lot of our friends are in a similar situation so expensive days out are unlikely but our richer friends know we'll bring a packed lunch etc, it's just what we do. We don't take loans because we don't want the repayments. We sometimes take money, it depends who is offering. I would hate my dc to struggle and hope when they are adults I'll have spare cash and can help them out. I expect my parents and dh's feel the same.

£1 playgroup. 60 on snack.

Blue, I would recommend batch cooking too. Before DD3 arrived my lovely DM and DSis cooked a freezer-load if meals for me. It's made a huge difference knowing we are all fed with no planning required. My DH had no paternity leave either (took a whopping 36 hours off!) and having food in has made coping with the day to day stuff do much easier. DM also made me lots of soups frozen in single serving pots so I can have a hot, quick and healthy lunch when I am feeding DD yet again, it's been fab.

OK, thanks everyone for excellent advice on dealing with better-off family when frugaleering. Here's my recipe which I cobbled together from the ingredients on the back of the bar and checking out different flapjack methods:
Apple & Orange Chewy Bars (in the style of Organix)
200g rolled oats (could blitz in processor to make finer like in the bars)
140g raisins (I chop these up a bit)
at least 50ml sunflower oil - I accidentally doubled the amount last time and it came out fine
at least 25ml apple juice - cheapest available - I usually add more though or it seems a bit dry.
1 teaspoon of orange oil - expensive to start but lasts a long time in the fridge

We have a Rayburn, but it works the same as a gas oven (or a really preheated conventional oven) so it needs to be 160 degrees Centigrade.

I simmer the chopped raisins, sunflower oil, orange oil and apple juice for a few minutes stirring on a low heat. Usually add another splash of apple juice at this point. Then stir in the oats until they're all coated. Tip the mixture into a small oiled square tin, or a large oiled loaf tin. Press it down with a spoon to make it firm. Then bake for at least 25 mins. It seems to be ok to cook for longer but get it out before it starts going too brown or the raisins burn.