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.

This thread is moving fast! Glad you found your wedding ring Fluffy

So weather not looking quite as promising today, we have a quiet ish day planned, need to do a Morrisons shop and dd has horse riding later.

Realised that this will be the pre holiday shop as well as off to Weymouth next week. Will take a fair amount of food with us so will only need to buy dinners and ice creams in theory

Thats a good idea about saving the Morrisons vouchers up for Christmas, hadn't thought of doing that. Will they accept more than one voucher per shop though?

None of the nice shoes fit dd and I hate her having to wear the heavy hot boots. I might just tell the school she's wearing trainers and they can stick it.

Hello Can I join you? We're starting a new way of budgeting as from today (1st of the month). I've transferred £100 to my savings account, paid the council tax and filled the car up (£45) to hopefully last the month. No other spending today and tomorrow we're going to the seaside but taking a picnic. Shopping in Waitrose on Monday but only because I have a spend £70 save £14 voucher so weeks shopping should be £54. Feeling very optimistic about taking control of finances.

£60.53 food delivery. Quite pleased as it included toothpaste, loo roll, sponges and ice cream so that was £8 gone.

See ^^ this is where the problem lies ... I can't count

Uggghhh we definitely overdid the alcohol at the wedding last night, dread to think how much we spent. We shared a cab home - I normally refuse to spend money on taxis. Feeling a bit fragile!

collie wobbles! ive just bought a ford fusion. i love it. and 06 plate with 98k on the clock FSH and runs beautifully!

fuzz nice to have a Christmas present sorted already! It's a brilliant idea. When is ds birthday?

lucie welcome to the thread!

lilac Thanks for the link! They have a great range of things. Pity the sterling/Euro is so poor tho. It really knocks the savings. Happy birthday to your dh! Great you got a new au pair sorted too! The nights babysitting will really make a difference.

missymoo welcome! If you struggle with sticking to a list, definitely look into online shopping. I'm terrible for it, I get sucked into buying all sorts of things I don't need. So tesco deliveries are my life saver. I do it 2 days before it's due so I can add things I forget, to stop me popping out after the shop has been.

pointless hope you feel better soon!

Spending day here. Tbh it will be a speedy week. Dh is taking holidays from work. Can't afford to go on holiday, so just doing some day trips. He gets discounted vouchers at work for things like the cinema and the local equivalent of butlins as day visitors, so have saved about €30 that way.

Have a lovely weekend!

collie x posted, you did well with the bargains! Really hope the car works out for you!

Binglet, I sometimes find it's easier to buy things that I've seen on NOTHS from the original seller's website (obviously taking into account any delivery charge and voucher available for each).

Oops, easier = cheaper

Blimey, I've missed loads again!! Is it sad that I'll be reading through the julys and this thread to catch up with you all and make sure I haven't missed any fabulous frugal tips..

Hope your all well! Collie are you getting a new car? Pointless sounds like you had a good night!!

Ooo and hellooo to the newbies!! This is such a lovely corner of mumsnet and everyone is so welcoming

Goodness me this thread moves quick! 1st August and 8 pages in lol.

Collie well done on finding a car you like, I can honestly say DHs new car is paying for itself in terms of the economy of it, nevermind that we havent had to repair a car in months! When we had 2 bangers we were putting money into them monthly.

The kids have a wee birthday party today so I have a few things to pick up for that. Cracking on (or trying to!) with the renovations.

Will update later :) x

DS will be 6 (HOW?!? He's my baby! ) at the end of August :)

Bitten the bullet and ordered most of his presents along with some £2.99 bookends so I can organise the DCs' chapter books.

Mum has given us a diary to use from today onwards (one of those academic year ones) - been using a calendar we were given but the squares are so tiny it's impossible to use! But I'm thinking I might go back to Jan-Dec ones next year as then I can get a fancy one again and I do like a nice diary (lusting over the British Library one for example) I wonder when next year's ones will be available?

Although actually I think it should be DH's turn to choose. I also realised that it's technically his turn to choose the family board game at Christmas. Dammit. Something boring Risk-like it is, then. :o (last year I chose Ticket to Ride, which is FABULOUS)

Hello everyone, kept off thread for a bit as having to do the bathroom obviously took us way off budget (however over all I was okay with how much it cost - 1.5k which included 3.5 days of labour from our plumber. We managed to refurb a few things and do all the painting etc ourselves which helped)

But, now we have to pay it off!

We were given lots of camping stuff so planning a trial run next week, we seem to have everything except camping gas so need to get that.

Any frugal tips?

There's 2 adults and our 3 young DC btw!

Thesesoles what sort of gas do you need? I am about to Freecycle a load of the small aerosol-style gas cans if you would like them? I'm near Birmingham.
Feeling much better thanks (spent morning drinking tea!) and yes it was a good night but I don't think we'll be doing it again any time soon.
Tried Quorn bacon today. It reminded us of Monica's "mockolate" on Friends so we have renamed it "Fake-on", not sure what I'm going to do with the rest of it!

I posted up a good wee while ago but I'm budging myself back in!

Pay day yesterday. Recently moved jobs and my God what a difference! I have enough to pay everything and there's a little left over First of the month so have paid the council tax, rent, my Very account and a bit more off mine and DD's September trip away. Popped into Asda last night to buy some uniform/general bits for DD starting back at school. Really cheap and actually nice quality items. I still can't get over the 2 pack of pretty polo tops (£3.00) and the 7 pairs of pants (£2.50) I picked up for her!

Also, I don't know if anybody has posted about this, but Tesco are going through a company wide range change over the next few months. They're basically shaving 10% of products from every department to make shopping a little less fussy for people, and also then expanding the amount of shelf space top selling products are given. This does of course mean that there is a huge amount of stock that will be getting reduced to clear - it'll start at 50% off for the first week and go to 75% off for the second/consecutive until it's all gone. And it will be on everything. First lot getting done is tea, coffee and hot chocolate. I believe the next is cereals. My store have already gotten a head start on merchandising the first wave which isn't needing done for another couple of weeks, but items are/have already been reduced. I picked up a massive pot of mint Options hot chocolate the other day for something silly like 87p.

I'll pop in here early in the morning when I finish work over the next few weeks and give a heads up on really good bargains and what range is being done next. Toys/electrical will be one to keep an eye out for in the run up to Christmas, especially if you have one of the huge Tesco stores near you