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..

NSD.

Letters to claim back a "try me free" and my mobile line rental redemption ready to post.

Spotty why don't you look on the debt thread in money matters run by Talkinpeace? She's brilliant with debt. Two minds are better than one. Especially when one is an accountant.

NSD so far, have had chicken with mushrooms and rice for dinner, needed a bit of spicing up with some sweet and sour dipping sauce though!!

Going to go out to Morrisons though as no bread, milk, fruit etc seems more sensible to do a bigger shop rather than keep popping to the local one iyswim.

Am budgeting no more than £40 though.

Twatfreezone - something I used to dO when I was really skint was to write a spreadsheet that showed when all the big in and outs were and how much should be in the bank account.

So for eg it would go
1st May maintenance £200 bank total £200
2nd May child benefit £190 bank total £390
2nd May -water bill -£40 bank total £350
3rd May groceries -£65 bank total £285

Does that make sense? So the idea was if there was an unexpected spend it was a bit easier to see if you could afford it or not because you can see how much you've got now and what else there is to come in/out.

Cinema turned out to be 23€ instead of 14€, as it was the later showing that was reduced oh well, we all enjoyed the film and DH made doghnuts with the new fryer (I bought some bathroom scales too )

Sorry to hear about your son's interview, Laska. I hope something turns up soon.
I can't believe there is talk of Xmas already, how organised!! I was pleased with myself for getting a birthday pressie for my niece whose birthday is in October, I have some catching up to do!
NSD but this has been a spendy month. I've just been reminding myself of my targets: Pay off cc by June when interest free period ends; aim to pay off car by Nov 2017; afford to have another baby - those go together because the baby/mat leave will be more manageable if I'm not paying out almost £300 per month on my car. Need to stay focussed. I'm going out on Friday but will tighten up after that.

Sorry to hear about your son's interview... Does he know what he wants to do? How's his cv looking? Can he start volunteering to add stuff onto his cv? Can he afford to go back to college?

Nsd other than cleaner £36. Was going to buy a friend/colleague a coffee but by the time we were done the servery had closed. I'll have to get him that next time. He spent 2h with me sorting out something that shouldn't be my problem but will result in it being my problem if I don't sort it. Argh.

These people are being paid v good money to be feckless. Argh.

Spendy day today! £14.50 travel, £2.55 Costa Coffee, £7.45 lunch, £1.85 ice cream cone and £44 cheque for a DBS. I registered with a supply agency today, so hopefully it will lead to more work than what I have had through the council.

So umm went slightly over budget in Morrisons

£76

however got £4 off at the till in vouchers and at least £20 of that was non food - got dd some new underwear £4 and a onesie that was in the sale for £6 plus persil was on offer, got a massive box for £6.

Still way over budget though!

Also had a major moral dilemma as found a £10 note on the floor of the shop well to be more precise dd found it. She wanted to pocket it but we had a loooooooooooong chat about the rights and wrongs of keeping it and she (begrudgingly) handed it in. I did however ask what would happen if no one claims it they took my mobile number so you never know!

That was the right thing to do right?

Welcome to Twatfreezone. Could you move all your direct debits to around the same date, as near as possible to when you get the majority of your money through? Also, I think you can get child benefit and child tax credits changed to weekly payments. That might be more helpful for you.

Thanks everyone, yes he is downhearted (and me also a bit) but yes he'll have to keep plugging away.. Sadly he has problems with dyslexia and this was the first decent job he'd seem for ages that didnt need GCSE English Grade C ( which he wil never get because of his very slow writing..you can t have a scribe for English or do it on a computer it seems ).

But when he had a educational psychologist assessment he came out very high on comprehension and intelligence and is a very clever lad in maths and science .. but sadly these days GCSE English grade C seems to be a basic requirement for almost any job or college course .. ).

Also, we live in a very high unemployment ( and very seasonal employment area) .. hes 25 in a couple of months so cannot get free/reduced college places any more. (and sadly we are not in any position to fund him )

He has had jobs before (one govt training schemes which was closed down bythis last lot and the last place he was at went bust last summer so that was that but something wil turn up eventually im sure.

.. I've gone well over budget now..
£45 petrol
£15 in Lidl for DS and I also bought him an electric wok so he can at least cook some healthy stuff in his bedsit ( it only had a microwave and kettle) oh and £10 on drycleaning his jacket . ( it really needed it!)

Spotty yes Talkinpeace* is a whizz at debt management..

Welcome twatfree , yes write stuff down and then start aplan to reduce debt / spending , by planning ahead what is coming out in months ahead.. is the way..Talkinpeace has an expenses planning spreadsheet you can download and use on the debt thread.

It may seem like an unecessary expense to you now, but I got my spending on track with YNAB and it stransformed my budget planning ( even if I have gone a little over this month).. You can pick it up half price sometimes ( i did)

Audit I hope your mum is continuing to get better,

Girlie yes of course it was , well done to your DD. a good life lesson i think, (hope you get it back!)

I know I should but I know where I'm going wrong. It's the things we do that cost money. In the next ten weeks we have:

Disneyland
Peppa pig world
Dd's birthday party (and birthday)
Night out at Goodwood races
Hyde park concert with over night stay.

I can't cancel any of it now but I know I need to sort it out. I just wish I could earn more but it's impossibly. We are probably going to consolidate our credit cards in October (which will replace our car loan), cut up the credit cards and then we should have some spare money each month to save/do stuff with.

I've already decided I'm going to use clubcard vouchers and boots points for Christmas. I just need to try not to give up in the mean time... It also hasn't helped that dh has hardly had any over time recently as we usually rely on that for extra expenses.

Anyway I'm going to stop moaning and go to bed as I've been up since five.

Laska hope your ds has some luck soon on the job front. Stupid question maybe has he looked on the tesco website? They always seem to have jobs round here.

Oh and girlie that was a really good thing to do you're a better person than me

£140 new night gum guard and £21ish in tescos (ice cream and half price persil etc)

spotty it's a tough one as its nice to have things to look forward to in life! We're also off to see stickman, peppa pig world and majorca, and it all feels a bit frivolous, but hey, life is for living and I will take picnics to ppw and do self catering in majorca. ..

Start my job next thurs, sad that time at home is coming to an end must get finger out and clean house before I start

Fluffy thanks for the suggestion about the meal replacements, but when I visited yesterday she had a clear plate (the ward stank of fish, it looked like fish fingers, but in batter, mash and veg) and she polished off the pudding while I was there

Well, not a frugal day, but then again, it was. Have booked to go away during May half term, to Center parcs, definitely not frugal, until I say it is in Belgium! A short break here in half term (4 days) would start at £539 for 5 of us. I was hoping to book Friday 22nd for a week, which was €749 I was hoping for a late reduction, but apparently Whitsun is a big deal in Belgium and no reductions. For this reason the changeover day then is Tuesday instead of the normal Monday. I had tried to persuade DH to let me book Tuesday to Monday (we have an inset day so I didn't need to take the DC out of school) for €529 instead of €749 but he wasn't happy. Today they reduced the Tues-Monday to €399 so we booked it. £164 for Euro tunnel, plus £40 for European breakdown cover for the week (a year would be £94, but I doubt we will take the car away again so not worth buying)

Just need to see what work need to do re car insurance (I think just tell them). I have been looking at some activities, need to discuss with DH.

We also gave a plan to detour to a hypermarket near Calais to stock up on beer, wine, water and soft drinks, plus cheeses for the week.

I can't wait.

I forgot, the tourist tax, booking fee and compulsory sheets package (?) came to €110 so overall the cost was (depending on the rate on my credit card) £600. That includes the Euro tunnel and the RAC cover.

I can fill my car here before we go, and as soon as we return, but can't claim for filling it up abroad (we may come home on fumes...,)

Am already scoping out a wifi card and activities.

audit that price sounds good. But sheets? ?

Will you hire bikes there?

Going to eat kids easter eggs in spirit of frugality. ... (finished the haribo easter jellies earlier). They'll never know. ...

Fallen off thread for a while but for really good reasons. Still having at least 2 or more NSD per week and trying to be frugal.

Have decided not to bother with jobs anymore as my business has now taken off and have gained lots of clients both local and national. So am now officially self employed and my own boss, which feels great.

Busy in the garden as we have gone all Goodlife and are trying to grow as much veg and herbs etc as possible this summer, don't think we have room for livestock though! .

spotty can vouch for the debt thread, we were in very bad place last November debt wise and now we're almost debt free bar the mortgage. Check out FrugalQueen blog as well she was pretty inspiring and made me realise that nothing is insurmountable.

Frugal win of the day won a £4 Amazon voucher for doing surveys, not much but will mean money off something. Need to catch up on my Orchard stuff and check my club card vouchers.

Ended up spending again today. Had to go to where the cheaper supermarket is so decided to get some bits there rather than use more petrol another day going elsewhere.

£14, then another £6 at the greengrocer's.

girlie yes, it was the right thing to do and a good way for DD to learn.

Pass we might hire bikes for one day, but DH is having knee surgery so it may not be either possible or advisable. We are planning on taking the kids scooters with us.

I don't get the sheets thing either, if compulsory, just include it in the price, but it was only about €7ish each.

I have had a look at a few of the activities, but really, we need to be realistic about what DH will be able to do. Maybe he and I need scooters too?

Good deal audit!

Had a NSD finally! Aiming for two more this week.

Audit that sounds like a really good deal

Pass you def want a picnic for Peppa pig anyway as the food is awful there!