Awesome August Frugaleers..

[Laska42]

Blimey.. It's August Already (nearly)

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.

Pink I meant to say, that sausage meal sounds gorgeous! I'll definitely think about doing something like that. The (also gluten free!) sausages we normally buy come frozen, but I could get some fresh ones and skin/slice them. Presumably I could then freeze some of the slices too. I've wondered about doing some kind of sausage casserole - DCs not really keen on anything stew-like, but if there were sausages in it, that might sweeten the deal :o

Peronally I haven't found growing our own veg worthwhile really (although we do get a fair few blueberries every year) but we have barely any space, and the neighbours' pets are always crapping all over what there is, it just doesn't seem worth the hassle. But if we move to a place with a proper garden then we do plan to dedicate an area to it. :)

How have ye gotten to 3 pages while I was sleeping
Payday today(weekly) have paid my credit card & transferred my portion to joint account, that's it so far. Tomorrow my standing orders will come out for car tax, car loan & savings for dd.

Must must get back on the money saving wagon!

We are in Dubai on hols at the mo and everything is ridiculously expensive. Am refusing to pay £5 for a coke by the pool so have been liberating them from the free drinks happy hour thingey in the evening. Have bought a bottle of squash for the kids which is smuggled in my bag!! Am also resisting shopping here with the exception of a few gifts for people.

Have made a list of stuff to sell when we get back, including my car as have a new one although should profit from the sale. Did an Amazon order last night using a voucher I got from an online forum thing - bought dd1 a lunchbox, a new Sophie for dd3 as she has chewed a hole in hers, a fisher price tea set that had £8 off (putting this away for Xmas) and a nerf water gun for my dads bd present. Have got £30 odd left on a selfridges gift card so will get him something else with that.

It's oh's birthday at the end of the month too but he will have to wait for his gift! Normally we would all go out for something to eat but are having a BBQ instead. Will make cupcakes myself instead of paying a local lady to do it as I usually do.

Also need to cut down on summer holiday spends. Have a summer pass for our local soft play for rainy days and have made a list of free activities - mini zoo at the library, city farm, museum of childhood, using up mounds of craft shit in the house etc

Also have some new clothes still with tags that I bought to wear on holiday which I don't need. Will return them.

Feeling v motivated now!!

I reckon to properly grow food that will save you money (although not time) you need an allotment! My mum came over last night with a huge lettuce and spuds from her allotment for us

So today am meeting friends at Lyme Regis, hoping it will warm up as feeling quite chilly at the mo not sure what has happened to summer! I had to put a blanket on my bed last night!!

Will take food and drink but will probably end up buying fish and chips as well shouldn't be too spendy though.

My kitchen is looking good, quite proud of myself actually not a bad job

My only aim for this month is to NOT go over drawn! This could be tricky as going away next week so large part of the budget for my month likely to go on that.

Frugal win today. I put my old mobile into a sell your mobile website & they've offered €57.75, it's free to post to them & if I'm not happy with any reduction they make they'll just send it back.

Loving the idea of posting your goals for the month of August
reminder to do this tonight

Hmm, goals for August.

Well, we aim to fully pay off the CC - I've transferred some of our savings to get the worst off, but there's about £2-300 left. DSS owes DH about that much though, so as soon as he pays it back it'll go straight on. DH realised the interest on the CC was much lower than OD charges so it'd be better to use that - but the problem was we kept using both, because we would forget how high the CC bill was getting! So we plan to stop using the CC for a bit. We have stopped anything going into our savings, so we just have our two individual accounts to focus on.

I also aim to spend as little as possible on groceries for the rest of the month. Our first shop after payday was an eyewatering £125, but thanks to all the ingredients I bought I've got the freezer fit to burst well stocked with a couple more bits of batch cooking left to do (except I can't make pesto - the basil has gone off already :( I must remember next time to prioritise that and do it on the day the shopping arrives!) so I'm really hoping we can manage with just modest top ups for fresh stuff throughout the month. Tesco minimum spend has now gone up to £40 again so hopefully I can stick closely to that.

I need to be really mindful of all the incidental spending, particularly little bits of food here and there. This is also for the sake of my expanding waistline and the health of the family. Far too often we are popping into one of the many food shops or fast food places on the way home and it really adds up to several pounds (both types of pounds!)

I want to carry on decluttering because I know that clutter leads me to spend more for various reasons (the obvious being that we can't find what we need so we buy it again!). I do have a few things that I really should sell on FB. I've never done it before so I'm a bit nervous! But the items are taking up space and I really don't want to just throw them as I think we could get at least £20 for each.

I'm going to put my piano advert that I made on FB too, and hopefully get at least one more pupil for the new term.

I need to finish the typing job by the end of August. The writer has said she's not really bothered if it takes longer, but it seems easily doable, and I've politely refused her offer of the rest of the money now (got another £150 to come) as I'd prefer to have it on completion rather than carry on working with no more reward if that makes sense?

Huge well done on sorting out that faulty item, ipsos - I find that kind of thing incredibly hard and am more often inclined not to bother!

Hi ladies, everyone sounds super busy! Been lurking but had no time to post, and not been particularly frugal what with buying school uniform/swimming goggles/ds watch/cinema etc but hopefully spending will slow down soon!

On our way to peppa pig world, picnic in our bag....I set ds the task if finding where we could eat and use our clubcard vouchers and he did zilch. But I emailed the hotel and they said we could get a takeaway and eat downstairs/in our room. Kids have bought £10 each from their purses (bday money) for the shop so that'll save the pressure on me!

Payday fri, I've had a tax adjustment and got £200 less.

My integrated fridge freezer from john lewis that is a year old isnt keeping the food rock-hard frozen so II'll have to sort that. V annoying.

Stolen this from another thread as I think it's such a fab money saving idea..going to put £20 in a pot when dd(9) goes back to school and tell her that if she looses anything school related by the end of term it comes out of that, if she doesn't the money is hers to keep!

Can I join? We've managed to get rid of a loan since January, but I've got £1,400 on a interest free CC, that I need to pay off before the IF period ends (November). So my targets for August are:

Chase up some outstanding invoices, which I'll pay directly off the CC

Sort out wardrobe and ebay/FB, charity or recycle the outgoing items

Four items a week on ebay/FB

Stick to £50 weekly shop budget - should be doable as our garden is now producing loads (just need to work out what to do with it all)

Check electricity balance - I think we're paying too much and should be due a refund (again use this to pay off CC)

Stop the top-up shopping trips or the running to Waitrose for some lunch not good for the purse of the waistline

Day at the beach (same one) again today. The sun is shining too. Brought a pic nic this time. Need to pop to a supermarket on the way home. £1.30 on a couple of kids reading books in the charity.

Well done on the frugal wins guys, today is a new day so put the fails behind you and welcome new people and returners. X

My goal is to get to the end of the cornish holiday and school holidays without being overdrawn. No specific plan yet though. Will consider while on the beach

Well done ipsos

Liking the August aims

Mine is basically to stick to our set budget and put any extras from going under budget, fb selling, ebay etc towards our driveway fund.

We had someone come round to give a quote for the work yesterday. It's a recommendation from friends and he seemed to know what he was talking about (more so than the 2 others who have been). We should get the quote in the next couple of days. Once we know the figure we're aiming for it will give us even more focus.

Currently ds' t shirts are going well on ebay, lots of watchers and bids, they finish on Sunday. Have just listed a few bits on fb selling page and already sold a wine rack for £12 . Dh has a £40 claim in for work expenses so that will go into the fund too (although it's money that has gone out of our day to day budget it still seems like an extra)

Welcome newbies

Pointless It should work ok but just make sure they fit over the toes etc like the shops do by palpating where the big toe sits and how tight/loose it is across between the big toe joint and little toe joint.

ipsos Well done, I wonder how many refunds he's turned down before and it wasn't legal.

Adora Look on "Issu" for magazines free online.

Money in;
£30 refund from bhs
£30 in vouchers coming from homebase, they gave poor service and this is my compo. I will give them to dh for some storage units.

Money out.

£7 parking, pizza and beer yesterday
£2.50, milk and beans today but the beans are on topcashback snap n save so worth £1.20 in tesco boost.

Might do a food shop later.

I've just been referred to a consultant about my knee then came home to a message from the garage saying they need to keep my car overnight which would be fine as I have a courtesy car but I left the child seat in my car and can't leave DD to go and get it or take her with me without it! Looks like I'm stuck at home for a bit!

Grr about the car seat, Pointless!

Frugal fail: £15.16 on lunch from M&S for DH and I. Thus is because we have done our usual "payday hurray!" thing and stopped making packed lunch. Still, we are going away for a long weekend with family, so won't be buying food bar contributory alcohol. Then we'll go to Lidl on the way back and do a proper shop.

IKWYM about the 'payday hurray!' thing, Cheddar!

We had a takeaway last week as DH had promised the DCs we would when we got paid, we are very limited for choice here for various reasons so went for Pizza Hut as usual. Found a good voucher online and to my surprise got a free tub of ice cream but really, for the price we ended up paying (over £30 - DH needs a separate pizza as he's coeliac so that bumps it up!) we might just as well go out. I enjoy Pizza Hut buffet much more than takeaway anyway, and there's loads of chain places round here with cheap meals and/or that accept clubcard tokens. So I think I'll suggest next month that if we really want a Payday treat we should go somewhere - works out similar price wise, and we enjoy it more rather than having the overstuffed post-takeaway ickiness (or is that just me?!)