August Frugaleers Part II

[PeoniesforMissAnnersley]

Thought I would start a new one since the old one is full!

WTF! Sounds very high maintenance! Rant away. Enjoy YOUR meal out tonight, sounds like you've earned it :o

Very cheeky of them! Next time, leave them to it.

Welcome Fish, loads of great advice here

Interesting to read that the majority of us appear to have joint accounts. Talking to friends a while ago it appeared that most of them have separate accounts with one joint one for bills. That would drive me barmy not knowing how much money DH had or what he was going to spend it on???? (such a control freak!)

We have a joint account, and our own current and savings account. Theoretically all our outgoings go out of the joint, but the mortgage goes out of DHs, and I cover the joint account. It means that I know what is in my account is all mine to spend ( or not)!

NSD again!

We have a joint for bills but separate current accounts. If one of us ran out of course we'd lend money.

£1 pound shop pork scratchings
£1 temporary led bulb for the lamp but dh bought another so I will give it to mil & probably cancel the ledhut order I placed on Tuesday.
£8 in asda, I got the gravy powder we use marked down so I was chuffed
£1.25 on beer.

Things to still do.

Buy house insurance
Make charity donation
Do food shopping.

Welcome Fish.

You need to ruthlessly plan meals because if nothing else it will reduce your anxiety about feeding the kids and make you feel more in control.

First off do an inventory of everything you have in the cupboards and freezer and a list of meals you can cobble together from them. The facebook page feed your family for £20 and a girl called jack blog are good starting points for evening meals. Plan every meal and allow for snacks etc so you aren't tempted to go to the supermarket for a top up shop.

If you also look on moneysavingexpert.com they have loads of frugal recipes.

If you have one then shop at Aldi/Lidl. We saved £30 a week when we started going there and that was 5 years ago.

Smartprice cleaning materials will get your house as clean as any other type. They are just detergents at the end of the day.

If you don't have a slow cooker now is the time to get one, for three of you a 3.5l one is plenty and you can fit a whole chicken in them. It costs less to run too so your electric bill should fall. They are very cheap in Tesco, asda or Wilkinsons. It makes cheap roasting joints taste really good.

Ring up any providers like sky or virgin and tell them you want to leave, they should lower your bill which gives you more breathing space. Of course you're not actually going to leave but they don't know that.

Moneysavingexpert has an energy club, if you can find out how much electric and gas you used last year (your provider will be able to tell you) you can enter your details and it will find the cheapest tariff. It's whole of market. Then register with topcashback and switch through them using someone like energylinx.co.uk etc, that way you get a bit of cashback. Summers an excellent time to switch because you should be in credit. They wont always pay you that automatically so be prepared to chase them.

If you need to declutter now is the time, facebook selling pages are good for kids clothes.

Do a daily task, otherwise it's overwhelming.

Ohhelp

She cant last forever . My mil would have fed sil kids and herself plus cleaned up after. I am very lucky in the mil dept though.

DH and I have separate accounts (current + savings). We share £ though, and just transfer some in whichever direction we have to now and then. It works for us (and I definitely can't be bothered changing where payments are coming from ).

Bah lost a long post.
Welcome fish
£17 in morrisons top up
We have fully joint accounts and are the only one of our whole friends group

Have a great time Help!

£2.50 on parking at the hospital
£40 for husband to go to London
£7 husband lunch

If he hadn't gone to London we'd have had a very good day spending wise!

Welcome fish! Everyone's very helpful here, and non judgey (unlike a thread a recently ventured onto and omg, the viciousness and ability to throw accusations and pick arguments out - amazing.)

Ohhelp - hope you feel better ranting..! And enjoy your dinner out! If dh made such a comment, he'd be in the dog house. With the mil!

Spent the day at the beach. £10 on lunch 2 hot dogs and a burger. And £7.45 on 3 ice lollies and a bottle of water.

Welcome Fish and John

NSD yay

Got my credit card bill, looks scarily big, but the payment earlier in the month missed the statement (I always pay the minimum by dd and usually clear the rest the same month). I also have my car service on there, but already have the work expenses in my current account from last month (small FAO between credit card statement date and expenses date).

Next month's credit card bill will include DS's uniform, but my refund from Ovo will cover that and the school shoes.

My supermarket habit this week has been hard, but I want to defrost the freezer/audit the contents which I hoped to do last weekend.

I liked the freezer tip to freeze in boxes, then transfer to bags. We do the opposite. When we batch cook we put into bags and stack the bags into big ice cream tubs that then go into the freezer. But we are still getting used to having less freezer space than previously.

Welcome fishfortea
£48 on PE for ds today and had to go to Pool to pick it up so went to big Tesco there too for weekly shop - £70 but luckily had two vouchers so got it for £63 which included school shoes for dd and plimsolls for the younger dd. That should be everything for school. Just need to put labels on everything and make a PE kit bag for ds from some old jeans.

Crikey NK, which thread??

The one about the Chinese school experiment. It's hit 1000 posts now.

Hi all and welcome newbies

Managed another NSD thats 3 in a row!

Need to sort car tomos have got some insurance stuff to sort out, also need to ring tax credits people re my increase in hours plus going to do a Sainsburys shop. I have an £8 off a £40 shop voucher which seems like a good deal plus they have 25% off clothes.

Dd home tomos, missing her now!

Enjoy your night out ohhelp - families eh?! and thanks for the kondo tip - do you put a freezer bag or foil/film in the container to make it easier to lift out the block?

Hello fishfor - definitely look into Jack Monroe recipes if you're worrying about what food to keep in. Particularly in her first book many of the recipes can be made using tinned produce. I've started to buy a few to keep in stock and made a lovely carrot hummous this week which included a 19p tin of carrots!

£1.72 on filo pastry and milk. I made spanakopita. The recipe called for pine nuts but they were £3.85 for 150g so I just made it without. It was pretty tasty and there's still half a pie left and half of the filo pastry for another day.

£150 on 3 new sleeping bags and 3 new roll mats at go outdoors. (We're camping this weekend). It's an investment as we camp a lot and we have a bit of money left over from the wedding to buy a few needed things - next on the list new duvets and pillows for home.

Me and DH have a joint account which most of our separate salaries go into. However we do keep some back to spend however we like. This works for us as we have different spending styles. E.g. DH just spent £105 on a posh anorak at Go Outdoors. To be fair he's been looking at it for about 6 months and it finally went down in the sale. He'd rather buy one investment piece rather than cheaper stuff. I was at the cost but it's his money, he can spend it as he likes. He stays out of the joint account so I can be as frugal as I like with it!

Re bank accounts, I have my own account and so does dh. We also have a joint account from which things like mortgage, gas electric and phones come out from. We both used to put in the same amount every month but since dh was made redundant 3 years back I've been paying in most of the stuff. In theory I can just pay it out of my own account but it's nice to see the separation. It's meant that we have much less savings but well... For better or worse right?!

Kids have their own savings accounts. We also have a rather depleted isa and that will hopefully go up now that dd is going to school September. The after school club will be paid for via the childcare voucher deduction of £243 monthly but I don't see that so that's ok I suppose.

I'm home and knackered. Spent £110