Frugaleers Flying into the New Year All Welcome on the January Thread

[SpottyTeacakes]

New thread hopefully someone can add some old links?

[Ipsos]

Jeepers You're right, it does cut down on eating out, which makes everything a lot cheaper.

[Fluffycloudland77]

£1 tampons
85p sandwich. I WILL take lunch tm. Promise.
65p on a choc bar in homebase to get 750 points. Panicking you need to spend £1 or more to trigger the offer.
£20 fuel.

Need I saw that bridge collapse. I hope it passes over your area quickly.

[babsmam]

Hope people are OK need and they got out with minimal damage . ikwym about "your people" in a good community.
I struggle with meals as DD is fusdy but I can usually change our meal to fit her but we are stuck in a rut.

[574ejones]

Em I used to get a veg box from a local organic farm but even though it was only twice a month, I still felt I could get so much more from Aldi. Put me off when a frog jumped out of it too!

NSD again - long may it continue!

[SpottyTeacakes]

What we are doing a sun holiday in may. IOW mom-fri £150 not including ferry.

Frugal win I did some over time today. Frugal fail I went into tesco for lunch and spent £22

Dh made spag bol for dinner he's an awful cook

[Whataboutreindeer]

Need lovely of you to offer shelter, it's so sad.

I think we've decided we are saving for an extension. No Idea where to start with design / cost / builders etc. We have a four bed detached and would like a single storey extension across the back. I'd use it as a craft and play space and shoehorn utilities in too.

[Whataboutreindeer]

Spotty that sounds perfect!

[Pointlessfan]

Hope you are ok up there need.
I made a massive pan of pasta with peppers and creamy tomato sauce for tea, enough left for lunches for next couple of days. Meal plan for rest of week:
Tomorrow - frittata and salad
Thurs - party food*
Fri - take away
Sat - lasagne made from Bolognese in freezer with salad and sweet potato wedges
Sun - shepherds pie and veg
Mon - leftovers
Will also make soup for weekend lunches.
*Not going out NYE so going to eat up left over party food from freezer! We always have a curry on New Years Day, have done so since childhood so take away on Friday.

[AdoraBell]

More spending bargains today, bought Christmas present to put away.

£20 Estée Lauder gift set, mascara and eyeliner combo, in an outlet shop and £29 on a perfume gift set, Opium. Then £17 on leather gloves down from £60 with a free £30 wallet for DD2 thrown in.

DD1 thinks the mascara is for me and is telling me that it won't last more than 3 months even if not opened, is she right?

Shopping this week is £62 including another Champagne and loo rolls.

Welcome to Newbies, Audit hope you get an answer on that potential Celiac, even though it can be a pain at least if it is positive then you know what needs to be done.

Someone asked where we are, can't see who now but we are in Somerset.

[Ememem84]

need Veg box has:

2 avocado
Coriander
Mint
Vine tomatoes
Small bag of potatoes
Three peppers
Cucumber
Coleslaw
Beetroot
Rocket
Salad leaves.

It's ok. Everything's fresh. It's just not much for my money. Especially as we could get it all cheaper.

But it is all locally grown. I cannot wait until we get our forever home and garden and I can grow veggies.

I have another joules jumper. With a bunny wearing a scarf on it. Love.
Agree they're worth the money. They wash amazingly well.

[SpottyTeacakes]

I don't think that's true adora

[AdoraBell]

I seem to have missed a page, sorry.

Hope you stay safe and dry need

em sorry the veg box didn't seem to be worth the money for you.

[Whataboutreindeer]

Em that does sound very over priced for that content. We have a local guy who sells them but I'm dubious they are worth it.

[needastrongone]

em, I am inclined to agree, that it's kind of mainly salad items isn't it? Not even a broccoli or carrots or cauli or similar?

[JeepersMcoy]

I think veg boxes are nice if you have spare cash but if you are watching pennies they are pretty expensive. I used to get a veg and meat box. The quality was excellent and I loved it all being organic and mainly local, but I just couldn't justify the cost in the end.

I might get one again when I suddenly become wildly rich

[northender]

need stay safe, it's awful isn't it. One of the villages near us which flooded at the weekend is on high alert again tonight but for their other river this time. The community spirit has been and continues to be amazing.

[Fluffycloudland77]

I have to say I agree veg boxes aren't really frugal compared to buying veg in aldi/lidl & blanching it to freeze.

It's ok not to buy organic veg if money is tight. Paying the mortgage/rent is more important.

Muscle foods is very good value though. I only lack the freezer space.

[Ememem84]

The thing is, I can stop at the market I love our market and buy fruit and veg for a week or so ador less than £12. Including squashes/pumpkins etc. And it's locally grown.
It was a trial. Won't be repeated.

fluffy you're meNt to Blanche veg before freezing??? Maybe that's where I'm going wrong.

[Pointlessfan]

Adora I'm fairly sure cosmetics only "go off" if opened as bacteria can get in. I probably need a new mascara now I think about it, Boots points should cover that.
I've realised why we find it so hard to budget, DH gets paid half way through the month and I get paid at the end so we can't tell when one month ends and the next one starts in terms of money. Our dds come out on random dates throughout the month too. So frustrating. Spent ages doing budget for January and it looks like we'll overspend by about £500 but in fact DH's pay will go in and it'll be fine. Can't work out at what point to say any left over money can go in the ISA.
Have paid off credit card so we start the new year with a clean slate anyway, there was only a couple of hundred quid on it so it seemed better not to have it hanging over us.

[Whataboutreindeer]

if you have a joint account can you bounce his wages out for two weeks into savings and then start on the 1st with two wages? Contact the direct debit people and move them? We have a similar issue and it really muddies the waters with my budget. I'm shit at working it all our.

[Allgunsblazing]

need, you were asking why I am trying to save such a large sum. It's because I was one of those idiots who, due to a combination of factors, left the husband to deal with anything financial. And now I'm not anymore, but I've got catch up to do☺️

Pointless, if I may suggest, take advantage of the offers the banks make when you switch to them (£100 for free). So all your DDs would come out of this new account. Then, feed this account through a standing order, yours and your DH's chosen amounts. Use it excusively for bills and rent/mortgage, food and petrol. Took me 20 years, but it's so so much easier now!

In order to save, chose a regular saver account. First Direct has one that pays 5% interest, the max amount you can put in a month is £300. After 1 year you have £3780 aprox. Set it to come out of your account the same day you get paid. It'll be a bit meh in the beginning, but then you'll be so used to it, you won't even miss it

[HarveySchlumpfenburger]

That issue is where I managed to get YNAB to work really well for me after a bit of fiddling around, pointless. I get paid monthly, with weekly tax credits.

You could probably get it to work with a spreadsheet though.

The first thing was to work out what what bills are going out, the rough date and either the exact amount or a rough estimate of how much. Any DD that will go out between pay day and the first WTC payment gets allocated the full amount. Then I budget for food and other everyday expenses until that WTC payment. Anything left over at that point gets allocated to the DDs in date order.

On Monday when the WTC gets paid, I then allocate the week's food and everyday expenses, then allocate the rest to any bills that haven't had money allocated to them. Once all the bills have money allocated to them then that is the money that I either put towards Christmas/Birthdays/clothes etc or towards savings.

[Ipsos]

The thing I find most complicated is the credit card payment going out. I pay it all off monthly but they do the statement in the middle of the month and take payment at the end of the month, which means there's always a new chunk of spending that's still not paid off when I do my numbers each month. I keep wondering if it would be better to just pay it all off manually when I do my numbers, but in the end I just write the current balance in as a negative amount on my spreadsheet and that works okay.

[babsmam]

I struggle with random pay days . one last working day and the other every 4 weeks. Still can't budget properly. I will look to moving DD in line with my pay more about 90% are now but my wage is not enough to cover them all

[Ememem84]

I get paid on 21 of each month dh the 25 (or nearest working day to those dates).

On payday all my direct debits come out. All bills are paid from a joint ac. We have separate savings. On payday money to cover bills mortgage food goes into joint ac. And we live off this. Money also leaves my ac to go to my savings. which I try super hard not to dip into

adora dd is right. Look at cosmetics. They'll have a picture of a little pot with a number next to it. Like a use by once opened.

pointless I think boots have a deal on bourjoius at present. I've been using one of their mascara's. It's black tube with a metallic pink lid. Makes my lashes look super long