Marvelous Frugaleers - May the Money Magic Continue into June

[Unescorted]

Just setting up the new thread for the chatty Frugaleers.

By popular request - copied from January

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/other_subjects/1324074-For-those-who-cant-afford-to-use-central-heating-this-year-How-are-you-going-to-cope

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/credit_crunch/1543785-your-top-tips-for-money-saving-and-a-more-frugal-life

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/credit_crunch/1600030-Small-money-saving-habits-petty-even

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/credit_crunch/1628874-Gas-Elec-Bills-monthly-and-SKY-so-angry

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/mumsnet_classics/1911061-NO-MORE-COLD-MUMSNETTERS

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/_chat/2209167-Slow-Cookers-are-shit

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/_chat/2224969-saving-money

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/legal_money_matters/2258202-Debt-mutual-support-thread-number-6-start-the-new-year-with-a-clear-purpose-and-keep-moving-forwards-even-by-tiny-steps?

orchard.tesco.com/ Sign up to this.

www.topcashback.co.uk/home And this.

www.quidco.com/home/ And this

www.moneysavingexpert.com/ And this

www.moneysavingexpert.com/cheapenergyclub ditto.

www.checkoutsmart.com/ Plus this.

www.hotukdeals.com/all/deals/new?page=3 Check this daily.

Blimey, did we get to another thread?

LaChatte That's excellent savings you have made there, well done.

Italian I hope it goes well for you today, look after yourself as well as your friend.

Think I will be on for a NSD today.

Thanks unescorted. My mums given us £20 for ice cream etc today I might bring dh home a Burger King for his trouble I feel bad as he's working whilst we're having fun.

Thank you Unescorted

Italian Today will be awful, I am so sorry you have to go to a child's funeral.

Any word from your DS unescorted?

Italian, today will be hard.

£20 on home hairdresser last night.

Thanks for the nice new thread and links Unescorted

Good luck with today Italian , my thoughts go out to the poor parents

Thanks need , this month won't be as impressive, as the budget is a lot tighter, but I have already put away my targeted €800, plus and extra €51.73 to make our savings account a nice round number!

Here's my plan for this month:

€600 Supermarket
€90 petrol
€40 fun (busy month at work, so won't have much free time anyway)
€120 spending money for the 4 of us
€100 other

Overview of all accounts gives:

€3,456.78 current account (seriously, look at the numbers, it wasn't intentional
€9,841.72 all savings
€22,149.06 debt (not inc.mortgage)
€137,946.28 mortgage

need he had a really hard morning yesterday and there was worse to come, so have decided to take a "short"cut. They are picking up the race again tomorrow at Fort Agustus. He has had such a great time and is a little miffed with DH for cutting his fun short. If they had continued on the race route their timing would have been out for getting to bothys and open food stops so it would have been really awful for them.

Collie I never understood why toddler shoes were so expensive. I guess the retailers realise that they are cute and therefore they get given to the kid by doting (non parent) adults... usually in the wrong size.

Hello all, was away visiting ILs in NI, missed the past few days and haven't caught up yet. It's been a spendy few days with lots of lunches etc out but back at work from tomorrow so should have a couple of NSDs to compensate!

Need to go to supermarket now as nothing in the house (did the ridiculous 6am flight home this morning)

Just trying to make lists of all the stuff I need to do and not faint at the amount of jobs

I think it's up to 3 days, but there's a help bit if you're stuck, collie.

Italian thoughts with you and your friends today.

We were on track to finish this month in budget but car's suspicious noise is going to cost us £350. Oh well, try again next month...

Been a bit busy and had bit of a bad time. DS was out in garden and I was in kitchen, our garden is overlooked by an alleyway. Anyway some local kids threw some tablets into the garden and told DS they were sweets and he ate one, normally he wouldn't but I think because they were children he thought they must be sweets. Luckily he came and told me after eating first one and I took them off him and realised what they were, cue ambulance/police and we spent most of last night in A&E. DH found some pills packaging in the alley which points to them being a strong form of Ibuprofen. The doctors said as he only ate 1 he was ok but it was very traumatic and I am beyond livid at the 11 year old who did this and more with any parent who brings up a child that thinks this is an acceptable thing to do. Hopefully the police are going to find them and have a strong word with parents!

So yesterday ended up spendy on taxi but since I'd been working all day and hadn't spent anything up till that point ok. £120 paid from 1 job today and more to come in soon.

Sporting That is awful! The parents would be hoping the police found them before I did.

Ti our car was the same - it had a sixth sense that I would have made it to the end of the month and then breakdown.

Morning all. £6 for DS to do a football afternoon

OMG sport that's horrible, how can some children be so cruel? I really hope the police do find the child in question and that the scare the living daylights out of him so he doesn't do it again

I know I am livid, he should have been safe in his own garden! They should be calling back today, they were brilliant yesterday came to hospital with us have called back twice to ask how he is and hopefully we should get an update soon on whether they have found the child in question. I know he won't be able to hide in house forever so if I see him out I will be phoning the police, hopefully it will frighten the living daylights out of him being picked up by the police!

And yes I'm primarily angry with the parents who have obviously left adult medicine where a child can get hold of it and also that they have given their child so little guidance that they think it's either fun or ok to harm another child. And to boot his younger sibling was there (he'd run away) so I'm afraid I did tell her that it was attempted murder and that murderers went to jail for a very long time, hopefully she'll have passed the message to him!

Sportuinguista that's awful. Glad that the police took it so seriously and were attentive to ds yesterday.

italian thinking of you all today

lachatte the €800 is that never touch savings or savings towards christmas, big bills etc?

We're doing really well on the double threads this year aren't we?

The €800 goes into an account which we can access as and when we need it lila , I wouldn't use it for Xmas, and most big bills are budgeted for over the year (although there are a couple which we have to pay in one go, but those months we just won't put €800 aside).

It's more of a safety net in case anything major goes wrong with the house or cars, and at some point we will have some pretty big things to do on the house (just can't decide which to do first).

Both our jobs are pretty secure, we're fonctionnaires (civil servants), which means that in theory we have a job for life until retirement, so don't really worry about not having an income (also have life insurance in case of invalidity or death ).

Currently have €7000 in savings, I wouldn't want it to go below €2000. I suppose we could use some of it for a holiday, but I've never actually been on an expensive holiday (we go to England once a year, stay with family or friends, travel with Ryanair etc. Maximum spend of about €400 all included), and seeing as we live in an amazing area it seems a bit daft paying €€€ to go somewhere else (we live within walking distance of the river, we can go to the Mediterranean coast for a day trip, same for a day skiing sledging in the mountains when there's snow, Montpellier, Nîmes and Avignon are all doable in a day etc.)

I am 100% aware of how bloody lucky I am, I have no idea who I slept with in a past life, but they must have been pretty influential

I have just spent £21 in matalan but on cardholders offers and got an extra 10% off for download the app. Dinnerware

Sporting, Little toe rags, it's quite serious to give another person prescription only tablets, it's a good job it wasn't a beta blocker. He must be so traumatised and embarrassed too that it happened. People have a false sense of how "safe" tablets are if given to someone else.

The French term for civil service sounds so much better. I won't embarrass myself by trying to pronounce it!.

£8 lidl
£38 paying off house insurance, the direct debit failed so I finished it off.