We are the Marvelous Frugaleers - Mindfully Managing our Money in May.. Come join us!

[Laska42]

So here is a new thread for all the Magical May Frugaleers!

All are welcome to come and join our friendly supportive group if you'd like to take control of your finances in May and beyond..

We are working together to support each other, live within our means, pay off those debts and save for the life we want!

Good luck everyone for another month

nk hope all is ok. My dad had a stroke (and several little ones) but was mainly ok. It did hang over us all for ages though.

to a pp further up who ate half a daim bar! They are weeny. .. I have two I get the ones that are 4 for £1 in the poundshop, so still frugal.

Going back to work today, still snotty but needs must need to go to primark at lunchtime

Had a spend up on my sick bed as my cropped denims seemed to have grown, really baggy round my thighs/bum -I've worn them for 3 yrs.. nothing else is massive so I think the lycra has gone? Also got couple tshirts from gap including winter long sleeve basics for £2.24! Worth a look ladies.

Made the most of my sick leave and have clean beds and empty washing basket, all dried on the line. Now the rain is coming. ..

Should be lsd today. Have to go to hospital later for three hours so that'll be £4 parking

Long weekend here (today is a bank holiday, and tomorrow we are doing the bridge as the French say - we did two extra half days earlier this month so we don't have to go in tomorrow). Will try not to spend anything by keeping ourselves busy with housework and homework, such fun!

Spotty not sure where we are eating tbh, was thinking would buy stuff for lunches/ snacks at a supermarket and then will only be 2 dinners to think about and obviously coffees/ hot chocs as needed!!

Weather is dismal here today, tipping it down. It better not do this in London!!

Have sorted out filing this morning, realised car insurance is due mid June so need to do some comparing. Tried and failed to get through to tax credit people honestly they make it as hard as flipping possible to contact them!! Will try again in a bit.

Online shop coming today, did well with vouchers (and hopefully cashback) with tesco today. There's a code on mse for ham/cold meat if anyone else is having a delivery.

I realised that we're spending nearly £20 a week on cat food and litter so that's why our groceries have gone up. I think I need to look into bulk buying.

How many cats do you have? You can get cashback from online pet supermarkets. Aldi used to do a brilliant cheap tinned food, then they changed it and added cereals. The look on the poor cats face when I gave it to him.

Pointless feel free to tell us. I am intrigued.

£3.15 wine. Not sure why I bought that really.
60p cat food
49p nuts.
£10 petrol.
£7 later on fish and chips.

£15 has been paid out by Checkoutsmart so when that hits my account I can buy a new slow cooker.

Aldi have a wine fridge coming up in their special deals. I'd love a wine fridge.

Am fed up.

Just entered online electric/gas meter readings and they want to increase my DD to £118 from £89 a month will ring them tomos obv but still annoying and going to have to make more of an effort to reduce usage.

Also fed up as looked into whether an water meter would be cheaper and it seems it would not.

I want to win the lottery

On the plus side today turned out to be a NSD

tewi do your cats eat biscuits and soft food? That does seem steep, I have two cats and I reckon they cost me £5 a week in food max.

I have a wine chiller/fridge. I love it. I am ashamed to say we made sure we designed the kitchen at this house to ensure we had one. It's totally cool and always well stocked

girlie Are you sure about the water meter? Does seem strange.

Hope you were ok at the hospital spotty

Spends -

£19 fee for DS to do D of E Silver award>
£22 DS fee for karate for the year.
£100 fee to builder for upkeep of our small estate.

So quite spendy really. Because of the management charge above.

Girlie do you cook with gas or electric? If you're using an electric oven a cheap halogen oven would save you loads. Home bargains are doing cheap LED light bulbs.

Plus we've just had the winter quarter so lots are in debt because of that.

Two of our relatives have wine fridges, one has a full length one. It's a thing of beauty.

I have no room for a wine fridge. Who ever designed that kitchen left no room for one. Unless I lose a cupboard. Hmm.

Wine fridges are pretty awesome.

It's because we have two fairly old cats and they're really fussy, plus hypothyroidism so have to keep their weight up. At the moment they only eat whiskers grilled or braised poultry selection or the waitrose equivalent. they eat 4 pouches a day each, plus a small handful of biscuits each (the chicken iams). They also don't like to wee outside anymore so we use at least two big bags of litter a week.

The aldi litter is fine and good value, so we've cut down there. I'll have a look at cashback on pet food!

£6 on a tshirt for a fancy dress party (American theme and I am that uninspired/unmotivated to dress up I grabbed a Friends tshirt in primark)

Grand opening of our new Asda today. ...apparently they were doing prizes and all sorts. ..wonder if it's all over??!

£4 parking.

Inserted a cannula into my stomach all by myself. Will start my pump in two weeks, I have to add it to the house insurance wonder if it'll put it up much it's worth £3k.

needa I did an online estimate for a water metre and it actually came out as more than what we are currently paying!! I think the lack of a shower is the main culprit.

Fluffy we cook with gas, gas usage is actually low but the electric is high as we have storage heaters and storage heater type system for the hot water as well. I have now turned all but 2 of them off, the 2 that are on are on very low! We have all the energy saving lightbulbs.

Am thinking maybe washing machine/ dishwasher is pushing it up a bit? Will try and get down on usage although don't feel I use them excessively now tbh.

Am going to look at a shared ownership house on Saturday, I would have to raise £88000 mortgage and then pay rent on the other half. Probably can't afford it but will go and have a look anyway!!

Have just eaten a massive but yummy dinner of vegi spaghetti bolognese with garlic bread - can't move now

Have a look girlie - we looked at shared ownership self-build and it was a pretty good deal on the project, the rent on the other half was really surprisingly little. Probably depends who owns the other half though!

so spends today - 3 on baby group, 64.79 on food, hopefully should get some cashback on that.

Your dishwasher should cost very, very little to run. Much cheaper than heating a tank of water using electric, which is £££, to wash up.

Can you put the water on for an hour to heat up, or do you have to heat it overnight?.

The trouble with electric heating etc is that it should heat, then go off when the temperature is reached but when I lived in a house with all electric the damn things just kept eating the leccy.

christmas survey for us crazies: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/mumsnet_surveys/2378557-Complete-a-survey-for-MNHQ-about-Christmas-200-voucher-prize-draw

I always put the dishwasher on the eco setting half load setting (unless its really full!)

The water is heated over night.

I think the no shower things is a problem as we have 1 or 2 baths every day, so obv use a lot of water and empty the hot water tank daily. However when I looked into having a shower put in the quotes were £800 plus would like to move in the next couple of years. Its tricky!!

Yes will see what they re the shared ownership house, it looks lovely, brand new and in a fab area with a great secondary school for dd. However when I looked into this before financially it would have been too tight, will have to see......

Public holiday here today and tomorrow so went to the garden center, 120£ish but we got cucumber melons tomatoes chilies and pebbers for the green house and garden
Tomorrow the baby store do free photos of your baby, but of course you have to pay if you want any of the pictures, I'm thinking of going and see if I can get any good pictures of dd....

Not very exciting I'm afraid Fluffy - a missile (my jar of moisturizer) apparently launched itself out of the cabinet and fell into the basin!
NSD but had an interesting evening being surveyed on household expenditure by a lady from the ONS. We now have to keep shopping diaries for 2 weeks - I should be good at that! Can't wait to see what DH actually buys in a week. I suspect he has treats that I don't know about!

Oh and our bad luck continues, the kettle died today. Actually quite pleased as it's a rubbish one and I want to get an eco one.

Dh bought an eco kettle. Not sure how Eco it is though, I think some act like flasks so you don't have to reboil as often.

Bad luck with the sink.

We have a wine fridge, in the playroom (in our defence, it was the dining room [grin ] )

Spent £12 at lunchtime. Bought jacket pots for lunch today and tomorrow with snap pot baked beans, some grated cheese, sweets and snickers (Marathon) bars.

Just done Tesco click and collect for tomorrow. They had an e-voucher for £10 off £75 send (and £20 off £150 spend) but it wouldn't go through. I called them and they sent me a separate voucher.