The super savvy savers continue steering their way through September

[northender]

Thought I'd start a shiny new thread as we've filled the other one so quickly.

We had a nice day yesterday. I keep wanted to tell you how well it went and then worrying that I might jinx it. It was nice though. Good play dates and ds had a nice new thing to eat. Touching wood now.

ipsos I once saw a house in Scotland on Rightmove. It had its own observatory.

Hello! Not so spendy weekend. Think £10 on Saturday at a street festival in town, and lunch at waitrose on Sunday £18. Shop at waitrose £14.

V busy week ahead for me. Help!! A couple of late nights for work and lots of other expectations. Dd starts school today proper which will be a relief as things like after school clubs kick in allowing us the span of the normal work week. Have a good week everyone xx

Just saw your joke fuzz ... Giggle!! :)

:o the leader of the Transformers is called Optimus Prime :o

the other joke my DCs like is What do you call a Transformer with 8 legs... Octopus Prime...

LOL! Collie that is really typical for Scotland in my experience. Full of really serious hobbyists who use the extra space in their houses to do amazing things. My proxy granny when I was growing up had a spare room in her house for painting in. She used to make exact replicas of the Haywain (www.takeonepicture.org/img/photos/picture/haywain.jpg) and things like that, and almost nobody ever knew.

My neighbours at home have a arbuterum, just because they want to, and another neighbour has a 12 foot tall vertical aerial in his garden and we have no idea why. Another friend spends all his time listing in to aircraft on his short wave radio and has all the maps of all the flight paths in the UK.

$5.95 on a bag of potting mix.

Pushed off the bakery run/things I forgot off the Saturday shopping (bloody bin bags) til tomorrow as I forgot my list and didn't want to shop off piste.

Fuzz

So I have a day off today, need to take my car to get some new tyres. Have a separate car savings account so hoping what is in there will cover it!

My friend has moved house so need to get her a card and small gift, not sure what yet but will have a ponder!

Anyone could with Orchids? I was given one about a month ago and was doing quite well in not killing it but today it looks very all the flowers have drooped over!

Anyone good not could

Well done avoiding off piste shopping digger

fuzzy didn't see your joke yesterday.

Glad you had such a good day ipsos

Not sure if today will be another NSD.

spotty glad your dd is feeling better. It always amazes me how quickly children bounce back.

Take care need

Spent £1.50 yesterday on a drink & crisps at ds' cricket match. Dh bought petrol and took dd blackberrying. They went to a place near my parents & so came back with runner beans & tomatoes from her garden as well as the blackberries. I'm going to mum's today to help her sort her computer out so may well come home with more stuff as I know she has lots of plums & courgettes too.

I've also got a pile of clothes which need mending so I'm going to get the sewing machine out later, more frugal wins.

Inspired by collie's autumn bucket list, dd & I are coming up with ideas for weekend things to do now that cricket is almost over. So far we have
Family Fridays (a tea of nachos/fish & chips/pizza etc followed by a film or board games/cards)
Blackberrying
Going to a car boot sale (dd's idea)
Making Christmas cards
Making bunting from Christmassy fabric for decoration
Welly walks followed by hot chocolate
Bike rides followed by hot chocolate!
The big treat will be going to a Kate Rusby Christmas concert which is always fab
Not as extensive a list as collie's but will keep adding to it. Dd is 10 & in Y6 so I'm getting that feeling of time running out to do some of these things & expecting her enthusiasm to wane a bit once at high school. Need to really make the most of it now. Ds(14) will be made to join us doing some things but will mostly have the choice.

Fingers crossed for that girlie that's my next poa. Next month I will have money saved to pay my cartax in full & next Feb will have enough to pay my car insurance in full, this will free up ??50+ a month so going to put some into a carfund(or ynab category) for tyres, servicing etc and rest will go against my credit cards.

ipsos and collie I would absolutely love to live in Scotland. Got married on rooftop of Glasshouse Hotel in Edinburgh 5 years ago and spent 2 summers in Edinburgh prior to that. It's unlikely we'll move there though so I'll put it down as a retirement plan I think.

Good idea lilac

My morning's been interesting. I picked up my laptop and the screen cracked from corner to corner and then blanked out. No more screen. Fortunately I have a spare (also second hand) of the same laptop in the cupboard that I bought 3 years ago for cheap from ebay. So I switched the hard drive across and now I have a working laptop again. Isn't Ebay just fantastic? I don't know how we got anything done before it came along. FrugalWin.

Frugal win. Sainsbury's are sending me an £18 gift card to use in store as I complained about something.

Although I would much rather receive good service and good quality products instead of a gift voucher.

for need
glad your dd feels better today spotty
collie my dh wanted us to have a smallholding after he retired (after watching Grand designs) so I used to look on Rightmove all the time and always found perfect places in Scotland, usually in the middle of nowhere but he changed his mind, so now we live in sticks in Cornwall
Another busy day yesterday
£10 for dd ballet audition, she passed so will have to pay £120 on Sunday for her to join Duchy ballet for another year
£8 at the market for tray of eggs since ours don't lay a lot when it's cold, box full of greengages and some bramley apples and £10 for a big box plus couple other bits from B&M. Made greengage jam and soaked some more to make wine. Picked some blackberries and made 3 trays of fruit leather with the apples from the market. Baked another cake and buns for lunchboxes and breakfast bars too. Managed to do math and science homework with ds after being very grateful for having internet at home
£72 today for ds trombone lessons at school, he is very shy so we are very happy he wants to learn an instrument so he can join the school band
Dh finished his first shift at the new job so I have just sent him with a list to shop so we can do step 2 in our wine making adventure

What's fruit leather LoveToKnit? It sounds good.

That's funny about your husband's smallholding plan. I know what you mean about those places in the middle of nowhere. :-) Good that you found a nice place to live. :-)

Hi everyone!
Weather is absolutely miserable here today. Got all my bits of housework done this morning, so once ds 1 is home from school and homework done, it's an afternoon for getting cosy and doing nothing.
Had my tesco delivery this morning for 112e, but will be a nsd apart from that.
Bank accounts are looking very empty, roll on pay day next week.

I've never been further north than Great Yarmouth

Weather is awful here too and I've just noticed some marks on something I sold on eBay. I've washed it but they haven't come out. I'm going to send it and hold my breath.

Otherwise I'm being pretty lazy today after a rubbish nights sleep last night!

Weather awful here too today

Would have been a NSD for me but needed bread £1 and may get a friend to pick up some wallpaper if it's in stock for me which will be £9.

Considering opening another account specifically for Christmas as have a little bit to put in there and would be good to keep it apart from every day account.

Spent a small fortune today on 2 prescriptions, dosing myself up with Sudafed etc, and taxis to and from the doctors as I was in no way up to walking. Oh and getting a few bits from the co-op as I couldn't face cooking either... and I always crave Dr Pepper when I'm ill with anything coldy, what's that about?!

DH taking the DCs to soft play this afternoon so that'll be over a tenner, we don't go much (we actually get in for free if the owners happen to be there - our DCs are BFFs - but we never rely on that as don't want to take advantage of their generosity) but DD was really brave going with a new friend to a new home ed group today and frankly I could do with having the house to myself for a bit! Going to start an art project with the DCs before DH gets home. Glad the new term has started and the DCs are happy about doing work too :)

Need to find the camera battery and charger so I can start taking photos. My iPod is no longer holding a charge and my phone camera is rubbish. Not having much luck with tech lately - kindle (4yrs old) and iPad (5yrs, was 2nd hand) both died lately! But I want to take lots of photos as I'm planning to start a home ed blog.

£1 toddlers (I think the £1 a day we spend there is the best value pound we spend - tea / coffee & buns, snack for the kids and a mornings play, all for £1 per family lol!)

£6.89 at the local shop getting spuds, bread, milk etc.

Home now and DM has the kids this afternoon so time to study

Hi all, spent £44 filling the car up - am pleased with how cheap petrol is all of a sudden! Am sure this time last year it was nearer £60 to fill it up.

Had a letter from tax credits and as usual am confused as it doesn't look like my payments will change even though i am working more and earning more considering i have been getting TC since dd was born I still don't really understand how they work it out! Oh well will have to see how much i get paid at the end of this month but if i have worked out vaguely right I should be quite a bit better off....

Popped into tyre place they quoted about £50 a tyre which is what I thought tbh, there was an hour wait though so am going to go back another time.

What are you studying blue?

Hope you feel better soon fuzz I need to sort my camera out as well, i bought a cheapie one a while back but i really miss my Nixon one that broke, am debating getting it fixed which would probably be about £100 but that would still be lots cheaper that getting a new one.

Anyone got any reviews on the Hudl 2? Am thinking about getting dd one for Christmas.

I'm getting the dc hudls. I've got dd's and got it for £27 with my clubcard points. I've read lots of reviews and am happy with my choice

My parents both have hudls and like them.

NSD here today, I've been home from work about 30 minutes and I've usually been sitting in the garden with the dogs and a cuppa, but today it's been pouring down so they decided to stay indoors. Need to collect ds from school football training at 4:30, he usually gets the bus, and then dd2 has her tutor later on.

Dinner is BBQ chicken and Bacon pasta and I'm really looking forward to it. I made sure that I had all the required ingredients in yesterday, so I'll prepare as much of that as I can before collecting ds.

Not planning on any spends this week, the pot is almost empty so that's a good thing. Wondering if I can manage a complete no spend week Mon-Fri? I'm thinking of scheduling my Tesco Delivery for Saturday afternoon anyway, and I've already budgeted for that. I'll give it a go and see :)

Just wondering about Christmas shopping and the budgeting side of things, I usually buy things on sale or at knock down prices on Amazon, but this means that sometimes the children don't get the things that they really want, and I end up buying things because they are bargains, This year I think It's better to just go out one day and buy things at full price but ultimately buy less, make a list and stick to it, come home wrap it up and relax, rather than spending Sept - Dec shopping for bargains. Just a thought. I'd be interested to hear the way you guys shop for Christmas.