We aint no April Frugalling Fools.. There may be Showers ahead, but we'll sail through together ...

[Laska42]

Heres a new thread for the April Frugaleers!

Spring has arrived and summer is a-coming..

Good luck everyone trying to save money, There's lots of good support here..

£9 lawn weed stuff.
£1.50 biscuits but free on click snap.

Great news on the pump spotty.

I'm also impressed with your Christmas planning fluffy. We'll be at home so FC can find us, will worry about guests nearer the time.

£20 on sunglasses for dc and £7 on a hat for ds. We're now ready for summer

It's not really good organisation, it's mild panic that it will get booked up & we won't get a nice christmas.

That is great news re the pump Spotty

So had to spend £3.70 on parking for work today but can claim that back, no other spends so thats good.

Will need to pick some food up tomos have run out of all the fruit and veg, will aim for less than £30 though.

Haven't thought about food for next week!! Right

Sun and Mon - vegi spag bol and garlic bread.

Tues could do chicken with salad (must remember to get chicken out of freezer)

Wed fishfingers, chips and beans.

Thus pesto pasta with tuna and salad.

Fri pizza and salad.

I need to get organised and make a shopping list and going to make a concerted effort to stick to the meal plan.

I'm struggling with something here. I borrowed a library book about being an ethical consumer. A lot of it is frugal anyway - energy saving, reusing, buying second hand etc but I have issues with food.
Pre-DD when I earned more I did buy organic, Fairtrade etc but now we have less money and we're saving towards a hopeful second baby I have started using cheaper supermarkets that don't have the choice of organic. I'd kind of put it out of my mind but this book has reminded me about the damage done to the environment by intensive farming methods. I've always been a bit of an environmentalist but out weekly food shop has gone down by about £25 a week!
I am now in a quandary about how to eat well, save money and be more ethical. Any thoughts please? I know some of you have organic veg boxes delivered - are they good value?
NSD anyway which we needed!

Could you grow your own veg? Or share an allottment?.

My dad had one and the potatoes were amazing.

We do grow a few, things like herbs, chillies, lettuce, radishes, runner beans and beetroot. We have had success with carrots and potatoes too but we don't have a huge amount of time unfortunately or I'd love to have an allotment.

I keep coming and going throughout the months, hopefully I can stick to it a bit more this month.
Yesterday-NSD
Today-NSD
and hopefully a NSD tomorrow.

pointless - I have had this debate many times. The reality is we (personally) can't afford as much or as varied an organic diet and as a skinny family we all need the calories so not being able to afford as much matters - it will definitely negatively impact on us and our children.

If we get to a point where I feel we can afford it I will switch to an organic diet but otherwise I just keep an eye out for deals and reduced stuff! We grow our own a bit as well.

Massive frugal win of the day - stopped off at the recycling centre to hand in old lightbulbs and batteries and picked up a bathtub in really good condition for 10 quid! Very happy. Just have to work out where to store it while we look for everything else we need...

Other spends -
car lightbulbs: £18.97
toiletries: £21.97
kids shoes (3 pairs): £56

I was the same pointless pre dd bought mostly organic but can't afford it now. I would worry with a veg box that I would end up with fruit or veg that I wouldn't eat.

Personally if I could afford to be more ethical I would be, not just with food but with cleaning products and clothes as well. However I just haven't got the money so don't beat myself up about it.

I also would buy more organic if I could afford to, but I think the most important thing is to only buy what you need and then use, with the least possible waste.

NSD for me today, DH spent money.

I'm tempted to switch to organic because, at least here, the rise in cases of cancer in children is thought by doctors to be due to the chemicals used in pesticides. There are less restrictions here though so maybe your food is less toxic over there. And we can't get organic meat or fish so it seems almost pointless.

I planted a few tomatoe plants before our holiday, a couple of months ago now, and I thought they'd died. Hadn't bothered to pull them up and they've sprung back to life so we should have lot's of toms by the end of next week -ish. Peppers seemed to have died completely though.

Going to be spendy today. Dd has had a growth spurt and none of her summer tops fit her. Ds also needs some bits will get it mostly from h&m hopefully.

I said to DH last night that maybe we should just buy less food and stretch it out more - he looked like this:
There are some interesting points in this book e.g. you would think that cleaning with lemon juice would be more environmentally sound but you have to consider where/how the lemons are grown, the chemicals used and the transport which is probably air freight. Strangely I feel bad about my food but a bit better about using cleaning products etc.
That's a great bargain with the bath tub Tiwi. Could you try reclamation yards for the other things you need? I had a look for some garden stuff and they have some excellent things.
I am really on a water-saving mission after realising we are paying nearly 50 quid a month. I suspect I am the main culprit in our house as I'm a bit ocd about rinsing out the sink, soaking pots etc so I'm making some small changes e.g. washing veg in a small bowl of water not under the tap then using the water on the garden and I've ordered a water butt.
Should be NSD for me today but DH is heading out to buy some meat for a roast.

Pointless I struggled with the organic question too. We just can't afford organic food. We do cut as much waste as possible and have reduced car journeys to essential only by using shanks and public transport if we can. Reduced waste to a minimum - I figure the environmental damage caused by the "premium" packaging of a lot of organic food outweighs it's environmental good in some cases. I try not to think too much about the individual animal. I also consider the distance the food has travelled eg I would use a non-organic English asparagus over a Peuruvian organic one.

Vinegar does the same trick as lemon - it is the acid in them both.

The fact you are frugal goes a long way because you are mindful about the unnecessary things. That 3p saving on a carrier bag that you have reused type of thing.

Yesterday was a NSD - dinner was at my parents so do not feel at all hard done by. My mum is such a good cook!

Farmers market? Or farmers shop?.

Yy to vinegar, Bicarb is good too but don't mix them together or the acid/alkaline cancels everything out.

Lsd today. Need some elastics for trainers to replace laces in pe shoes and sun hats for school. Also need sun cream. Anyone know a good all dat sun cream that's not boots as DS had a reaction to it and the school encourage it?

In regards to the environment on a limited budget you can only do the small stuff but , at the risk of sounding twee small stuff counts too for a culumative (sp) effect. Such as carrier bags, less packaging and food waste, chazza shops and bargain baths!

Thanks everyone, you are making me feel better. I already buy only seasonal strawberries, asparagus etc as they are more of a treat and packaging is a pet hate so I do buy things that don't have much/any. I also get most of DD's toys second hand and a lot of her clothes are hand downs from friends. We use the car very little and recycle as much as possible so I guess we are doing our bit on our budget.
Would vinegar or bicarb get the gross black spots of the silicon round the kitchen window?

Babs ultrasun is really good but £££

I use nivea pure and simple (factor 30) on dd, she has sensitive skin and so far this has been o.kay, I look out for when its on bogof offer

Agree with babs and unescorted - I think that a by-product of frugality is a more ethical and sustainable lifestyle - re-using, second hand, stretching out meals, finding a recipe for the stale bread rather than throwing it out, heating on less, led lightbulbs (I'm a convert fluffy). Organic meat may be better for our family's health but a by-product of my frugality is that we don't eat much meat anyway and eat many more vegetarian meals.

NSD yesterday (well, we did have a couple of drinks and a packet of crisps in the pub garden but paid for by DH). Our friends went home before dinner so I've frozen a batch of chilli and added that meal to my monthly plan.

Now, I love Jack Monroe's blog and her first cook book (that's where our pizza dough came from on Friday night) but as I browsed through her second book last night I was increasingly annoyed by the amount of recipes that say 'I made this out of the veg/herbs/cheese languishing at the bottom of the fridge'. I don't know about you but I meal plan to such a degree that I'm never lucky enough to find 'a handful of fresh parsley, mint and coriander' at the bottom of my fridge!!

I just opened up my summer savings account online! I'm going for £10pw from now until the summer hols, hoping to save £150.

We have nivea for day to day and he is fine with that. It's the 6 hour stuff for school I need. Will look out for ultra sun. Don't mind paying if it is ok for him. Rather that than sunburn. he has my fair skin and is a bit ginge

Hello everyone. We have had a chaotic week. Four performances of the dancing show ending last night. The spending wasn't too bad, except DH and I went to Aldi yesterday and spent £191. I spotted that I had been charged twice for a bottle of whiskey, do went straight back in and got a refund of £11.49 that shill made it an expensive shop. Mum will give me some money tomorrow, but I will still need to buy lactose free milk.

DH has got a problem with his blood pressure, which may jeopardise an operation due in 2 weeks, so the shop included lots of unprocessed/prepared meat so we can minimise the salt intake.

Brought frozen fish (yuk) roast beef for today, pork roast, pork chops, some low fat mince and have to try to cook healthily (at least when he is at home, the rest of the time I can eat normally! But since I could do with losing weight, I will also benefit)

The shop included 6 expensive bottles of wine. DH then wanted me to spend another £59 on wine via the Internet. I told him to get some using the money I accidentally paid to his business twice (£119 in June which they haven't given back yet despite me asking more than once)

We have a week off dancing to recover from the show, but back to school and work tomorrow.

Need to buy diesel.

Did the show go well audit? I'm sure they enjoyed tthemselves!

That is a bit annoying six - I find when I meal plan really well there is nothing left too! But it is useful sometimes as we tend to have leftovers if we have guests... I think Jack grows all her own herbs so they're pretty much on tap for her.

Pointless - I haven't tried it yet but have heard bicarb paste works really well on the black stuff.
there is a reclamation place fairly near us that does paint etc too so it's on my list to check out and look for tiles but not been yet. - We're going to get the toilet new, bathstore have a well rated ecoflush toilet for £52 currently.

interestingly our water bill has just gone down from about £50pm to £33pm - we haven't been making a big effort so all I can think us that it's because over winter we installed a dishwasher and weren't using the hose to water plants.
we definitely need a water butt! Not sure where to put one though - how have other people positioned theirs?