Marvellous Money Saving March.

[CremeEggThief]

Hi All,
Thought I'd start a new thread for all regulars and anyone else who is interested in saving money in March .

Ooh, really quick reply from Asos, despite it being Sunday. Fingers crossed they're as quick to refund my account!

Forgot to add, the restuarant DM took us to last night was lovely, I had a warm goat's cheese with parma ham salad, followed by a savoyarde burger and tartiflette, and a chocolate mousse for dessert. It was very very yummy. DH went for a fois gras something or other, followed by duck magret with endives, and warm apple tart and ice-cream for dessert. I'm still salivating thinking about it.

£20 garden spade, 15 year gaurantee so I'm filing the reciept.
£5 fence paintbrush

£48 cashback became payable so I can afford the everedge I need for the lawn now. I was wondering how I'd afford it & then that happened.

Bummer, Asos refund will take aprox 10 working days. Oh well, at least they're refunding me, they never got the return package apparently, so it's on my word (obviously have proof of sending it, but there's no way for them to know what was in it)

Bread will rise on the worktop, true, and it can take hours.

As a general rule, the more yeast you use, the faster your bread will rise - the less you use, the longer it takes.

BTW, two provings - unless the first one is about 8 hours or more - don't do very much for the bread at all, IME.

Good stuff, Laska! Recipes - including mine - IMO, are just guides, tinker with them as you will.

Just been looking at my bank accounts online. Since joining this thread at the start of the year I have accumulated £76 from coin swishing (or is it sweeping?), Quidco and Music Magpie. All things I've found out about from you lot - thank you!
I've also saved £200 towards holidays and Xmas. It just goes to show what you can do if you put your mind to it!

Spent about £4.20 today on lunch. Spent day at spa with girlfriends. It was so nice. Never had a hot stone massage before. Omg!! My back has never felt so good. Then had a facial. And did lots of rounds in steam room, sauna, pool. Etc.

And dh made roast chicken. Amazing. Will be busy week and then I leave for Europe for a few days for work. Yay. Not.

Squiggle how old is your DS? You mentioned needing a next stage car seat. Which stage? Where are you (roughly) geographically?

So my very low spend day has turned into a ridiculously high send day

My mum came over and we have booked a trip to London for the May half term!! Have booked the train which there and back for dd and I is £90 which was better than I thought. Booked tickets to see The Railway Children, my dm is kindly paying for dd (bday treat) so I only paid for my ticket £38. Now working out where to stay, looking at a Quaker House which is £100 a night for a family room with a cooked breakfast (central London) seems reasonable?

Will now be investigating free/cheap things to do in London with dd!!

Thanks everyone. I suggested DS inviting a friend from school, but he says he doesn't want anyone from school to come. I'll see if his cousin can come over, but I don't want to offer a sleepover, as DD1 is having this instead of a birthday party. This might make it hard for his cousin to come after school for just a few hours.

I agree making pizzas would be both more fun and cheaper, but I will actually be working from home, and in order to not be working all evening, i can't invest the time cooking with the girls. We'll probably do something fun like that on Saturday, maybe make meatballs or burgers.

I can't see that I will have time to make her a birthday cake, I'm really not gifted in the kitchen, but also we have dancing Monday, Tuesday is a free evening (too early to make cake?) Wednesday is karate, Thursday I gave first communion class whilst the kids are at dancing, I'll probably need to join DH there if I get finished first.

We are very time poor at the moment.

Girlie how old is your dd?

Free things include the museums.

I used to make bread and use reusable nappies and all kinds of other things that were about equal buying vs doing yourself cost wise but vastly more effort - I don't now because I need the time more!

Expensive day as I knew it would be. Need to break it down but hopefully have kept within budget for various areas.

Audit he's 6 months, we're in the Chilterns. I have my eye on a Joie stages as he only goes in the car at weekends and it turns into a high backed booster so will last til he's seven :) he's working steadily towards outgrowing the Maxi Cosi Cabriofix we have at the moment!

Also today WAS supposed to be a NSD but we ended up going to MiLs so spent just over £7 on the way on baby wipes, drinks for the car and a sandwich... Being on here though is already making me much much more aware of when I'm spending though!

Dd is 9yo, The Natural History Museum is def on the to do list, will have a look at other free museums...

NSD.

We have the Joie stages.

Girlie hotels I have stayed at in London include the hilton at Canary Wharf and an apartment in fraser place. I think prices are around £120 a night so that sounds like a good deal. I love fraser place as it has s kitchen etc and fab view.

£6.35 in Costa but I finally got the £78 back off my travel card which we used for New York (fyi post office are shit avoid at all costs). So I paid that plus £10 for easter from my parents into my account and £5 each for the dc. In a minute I'm going to book my airport parking which is £32.99 plus tcb. I'm paying a bit more so we don't have to get a bus.

I've just registered with a new nhs dentist as I don't like my current one. I hate the dentist so much it took me an hour to pluck up the courage to call and I'm still shaking a bit

I've been busy for a few days and haven't totted things up and posted.

I spent £4.75 on a tub of ice cream yesterday (ice cream snob, only like the 'proper' stuff from the counter, don't really like the stuff from the supermarket) which was extravagant.

I want no spend days for the rest of the week until DH gets paid.

Today, vegetables beware, if you are lurking in my fridge you WILL be made into soup. Or dinner. And manky looking bananas in the cupboard, you will be banana bread before the day is done. It's a war on waste...

And I'm working on giving some of DD's old toys a good scrub and putting them up for sale. Won't bring in a fortune obviously, but might get £10 or £15 as I have a load of branded Baby Annabel stuff and that is extortionate when it's new. Hoping they might catch someone's eye.

126.64 food
17.14 mcDs
24.70 - gifts/parties - some of this is for DDs party some is a couple of cheap gifts I picked up and put away for later.
£6 - craft stuff for kids. Total impulse buy but stuff I had already been thinking about getting and saw a good price.
£34.45 flea and worm treatment from the vet.
£24.60 - restocking garden supplies for veg patch. We are spending less on this every year but need to harvest seeds properly this year.

So a spendy one, but actually very happy with what was spent overall. we stuck to the list for the most part.

We knew this would be an expensive month but with a week to go we haven't dipped into savings and hopefully we won't need too.

If the car suddenly dies or something that'll be stuffed though!

Hope everyone has a good monday.

I am switching utilities today... (polishes halo)

Spends day getting shopping in. DS was off school today and that always adds to the cost. Topped up my ibuprofen and paracetamol on the free pharmacy scheme s that was good. Got Ds dummer shorts on the sainsburys double up so a bit of frugalness in the madness.
My car needs fuel early too as been on a lot of long journeys. Another £50