July Frugal thread, Just chatting and saving.

[Fluffycloudland77]

Everyone welcome.

Feels like I am in control again babsmam We are away competing most weekends and it really stretches me time-wise, and I was so desperate for the holidays to start.

I have meal planned too, tonight is easy as it's just hoovering up last nights stuff. I have risotto on the cards, chilli with nachos, a rice dish, chicken and chickpea curry, cheesy chorizo pasta bake, frittata.

Best bit, we are not competing next weekend and I am at home

girlie We went to the Great Yorkshire Show last week for 2 days as DD was riding there. Even buying all my food from M&S and taking a pack up still must have saved us loads, and still felt luxurious

£4.60 for a Pimms, we bought some from Tesco instead!!

Not surprised you went to Tescos need. I like a drink as much as the next person but that's a lot of money for such a low alcohol drink. I want to get tipsy for £4.60.

ipsos, do you still need pans? I was looking at these on John Lewis and they are aluminium but non stick and suitable for induction hobs. www.johnlewis.com/house-by-john-lewis-hard-anodised-pan-set-4-piece/p231836183.

Paid for the bin I ordered yesterday, £15 but had free tea and cake in john lewis.

Adora so pleased you are back here, did you bring the dogs? I will let you off giving me that dog you promised me as I don't think it's fair to see a dog bullied by a bengal cat

Sort of nsd. £5 on church offering, £1 on bouncy castle.

My family and friends railcard is expiring. Does anyone have a code I can use to get a discount for the railcard? Thanks!!

I always forget about approved foods. Must do better.

NK sometimes you can get it through clubcard if you have one.

Be careful not to overwater basil which bizarrely makes it look wilted. It doesn't like to stand in water either. Cut it and/or pinch out the top leaves regularly and it will do well on a sunny windowsill watered 2-3 times per week.
Did well in Asda today £59 on weekly shop inc 3 packs of nappies, 6 pack of kitchen roll, some cleaning stuff plus some extras like hot chocolate sachets for camping.
Also went for lovely picnic near by NT place (we are members) and just spent £4 on ice cream.
Think we have mice in compost heap and/or garage useless cat lies down to watch them in the evening!!

Hmm approved food for holiday stuff is a good idea, i was going to go to lidl but will take a look there.

Should be nsd today getting new tyres fitted today but have already paid.

We've only seen 2 mice in the garden and DH stupidly left a bag of birdseed in the garage which has been eaten. Not sure what to do if they are in the compost, we can't exactly shift it all. Hoping the presence of Pointless Cat might scare them even if he won't actually bother them!

We had nice in the house. We used traps and they eventually disappeared two dead mice later

Trying not to panic unless they come into house! Surely the cat would get off his arse in that situation?! Maybe mice could be a frugal alternative to buying cat food

That cake sounds nice Collie thank you.
Physio today will be £40 plus DD has gone to nursery for the day which is another £40. She is just going once a week during the school holidays so she doesn't have to settle in again in Sept and so I can get some jobs done/sleep!

Approved food are doing 10% tcb for new orders ????

Not sure about today. Was going to be pond dipping interspersed with jobs but the weather doesn't look that good. May need indoor options. Maybe swimming

Lazy day for me. DS has got up and taken the dogs out. Having a very rare coffee in bed, then a few chores. I need a lazy week.

Yesterday turned out to be spendy - €11.50 on family fun day which was quite good, they got to see the minions movie in a theatre(first one), had crisps, chocolate & capri suns during this, a cake pop, 2 decorate your own cupcakes, a piece of carrot cake for me, 2 lucky dips which won them a microfibre cleaning glove each!! I'm sure you can picture dd5's face ds1 wasn't too bothered.

€24.95 on lunch for 3 of us but I'm away from them next weekend so I guess it was a bit of guilt too.

Spent €40 less than usual on groceries though which balances it out.
Tesco doing 4 weekly deliveries for free but slot cost €6 and €7 was deducted from my total as that is the dearest possible slot! Plus used a €10 aldi voucher against the shop as well. I'm away next weekend so going to get groceries delivered thurs pm where slot will be cheaper again & I have another €10 off voucher too

Quick question - does anyone know what Personal Trainers tend to charge for one-to-one sessions? DH qualified a couple of years ago (got the training for free via job centre - he's very fit so it was a natural thing for him) but didn't end up using it. He's agreed that it's a good idea to start finding a client or two but no idea what to charge given that he's just starting out.

In other news DH and I have decided to withdraw some of our savings to pay off some credit card debt. We hadn't used it for ages, but had to in an emergency and then DH realised it was 'cheaper' than overdraft... but we were still using the overdraft too. Anyway I am gutted but there's no point keeping the savings at that level so we are reducing it by 20%. Argh. We are blatantly not going to be able to make that up this year.

Really need to do a proper food inventory today and then do a tesco shop that is as close to the minimum spend as possible. Next week is more like the start of the summer holidays for us (as there's still a couple of home ed activities this week) so I'm hoping to get the DCs involved in batch cooking salad :o - I'll plan for this and do a bigger ingredient shop next week.

Right, time to get DCs in for their core subjects work and then we are going to tidy up a bit. I really feel that getting more organised will help us spend less although I can't quite articulate how.

Dd still hasn't broken up from school, jealous of everyone that has!

£24.40 on an approved food order hopefully there's enough there to keep the dc's happy over the holidays I even got some mini drinks etc.

Also changed £2.50 of club card vouchers so we will only have to pay £22 for one of us when we go in September. Could have used £13 club card vouchers for a whole ticket but trying to save them for Christmas.

You beat me to it ipsos I was about to ask that!

It's a website that sells just out of date, or almost, non perishables at discounted prices.