We are Resolutely Frugal! Frugaleers continuing their new frugal year. All welcome!

[fuzzpig]

Hello! I hope nobody minds me starting the new thread :o

The way I look at it, Babs, is it's still £3 more than I have now! Webuybooks take cds, dvds and games too, and sometimes offer more than music magpie.

Lovely walk and catch up just now with my old boss. Made plans to do that more often. We walked almost 10k. (My tracker is now annoyingly showing that so far this year I've walked 99k. Annoyed because I was hoping I'd tip over 100k bah).

Dh is making a quick lunch and then we're off to the cinema at 1.30. To see the Leonardo dicaprio movie. Have vouchers so nsd if I can avoid the pick n mix

Woohoo, we've actually meal planned!
M: Steak, spuds and veg
T: Minty lamb burgers, HM chips and veg
W: Scrambled egg (DD before Brownies), Quesadilla (DS), Chorizo risotto (me and DH)
T: Korma and trimmings
F: Cheesy pasta
S: Fish fingers, chips, beans etc
S: Shepherds pie

Well done fuzz, I'm going to do some meal planning in a minute too.
Think DD's lie in might be that she's coming down with something. She's been quiet and still all morning and barely touched her lunch. Most unlike her. Will add Calpol to shopping list!

I need to meal plan today too. After the cinema though. Will have time to get the books out and see what I fancy.

Webuybooks.com have a 10% code, if anyone is interested. PAYDAY10. I just used it to bump up my order (a handful of PS3 games DS no longer wants) to £20.45.

NSD. I don't intend to leave the house today. Currently watching tennis highlights, then going to make dinner, wash up, put laundry away, and settle down for "Labyrinth" at 5 pm on Channel 5.

That's cool that you can get an 'add 10%' type code, suppose it's the equivalent of the usual discounts. I'm not at a stage of decluttering/tidying where I'm ready to do that (and TBH I can't bear the thought of getting rid of any books! ) but I will bear that kind of site in mind for the future.

We aren't spending anything today other than the Tesco delivery which I managed to book for this evening. Thinking that Sunday evenings will probably be better for getting them delivered generally. So Saturday evenings we will need to plan for the week ahead.

Spent about £70 BUT hopefully we've got enough to actually see us through the week. DH's soups are on offer (he is very limited due to coeliac) so I've got about 2 week's worth, which will save lunchtime co-op trips at work. I remembered that we have a social meet this week when we need to take a picnic lunch, so I've got stuff for that, and snacky bits for our various trips across town, because THAT is where we end up spending loads extra, when I forget to take into account how long we will end up being out of the house, and we always change buses in town where the shops are right there tempting us... thing is, I need to make sure we keep those things for when we actually need them rather than munching through them in the house!

Spotty how do you do the creamy chicken leek thing please? Sounds like my kind of thing.

Our meal plan is rather 'meh' this week but definitely better than none which has been the status quo until now. I figured we'd have a boring/easy week, not thinking about making extra for batch cooking and stuff like that yet, as it's always being too ambitious that messes things up before we've got started. Slow and steady wins the race, hopefully.

Right, time to give DS a haircut. It's a tenner to get it done at the barber (it's a floppy surfy look ridiculously cute so not just using clippers) but they always miss bits anyway. DD has never been to a hairdresser, I just do the Mumsnet Haircut and then trim the front, like I do on mine. It's only DH that pays for haircuts now - I have cut his in the past but TBH I find it hard to do his style neatly, and if he's having interviews and stuff it's more important.

Oh and I am staggered that some companies will charge you fees for overpaying the mortgage. WTF? That seems kind of messed up. (disclaimer: I know fuck all about mortgages)

They make less money if you pay it off too quickly though. Ours is 10% of the balance every year and no more.

Speedy day here - £49.00 on a pair of shoes each for the children.

Spends not speedy!

Fuzz pig - I recently bought a soup maker and it's fab. Reckon you could make your own soup pretty cheap and with what ingredients you want then.

Thanks crème.
£8.40 on swimming

The weird thing about a mortgage is that if you pay it off over 25 years, the interest is almost as much as the amount that you borrowed. So we borrowed £160,000 at 4.9% and the interest would have been about £120,000. So having the option to overpay really makes a lot of sense.

My mum has a soup maker Silver and I covet it! :o I'd love to learn to make more soup, I only have a few go-to recipes.

We will switch to making his lunch after a while, but need to get other things more organised IYSWIM, taking the easy way out for now!

So thrilled that my joint Gas and electricity monthly direct debit has just been reduced from £50pcm to £35!! That's for both Gas and electricity with EON. This is due to over the last year being extremely careful re use of lights/heating/not using tumble drier etc. Previously I had been paying £60 for dual fuel with EDF per month.

Fab Scrambled. I hate high energy bills.

NSD.

We are having home made kebabs tonight. Yum.

Fuzz I just make it up tbh. Leeks fried in butter then chicken and then a cheese sauce sort of thing.

We've been on a really muddy four mile walk in a national trust park then lunch after. It was £53 won't be going there again. Best thing is that dd walked all that way I'm so proud of her. I also managed it and I'm not in any pain although I did take painkillers before I went. I also fell down in the mud

£5.40 on cake to go with our free drinks which was fine but then went and spent £9 on a toy for DD. Budget has gone awry this weekend, back on track tomorrow!

Sounds yummy Spotty thanks. IKWYM about just making it up! DD wants to make a recipe book as part of her home ed stuff, I'm a bit nervous about having to actually quantify anything :o

National Trust is eyewateringly expensive isn't it. Lovely but... ouch! £££

Right folks, HUGE apologies for the epic boring post. I made the mistake of not updating the spreadsheet every day so it got really behind, I was scrambling around for receipts etc. That'll learn us. Anyway I'm just C&Ping from Excel so that I don't miss any days. Sorry

15-Jan Bus £2.65
Train £12.25
Ice skating £7
Magazine £3.99 (was for DS who was very sad he couldn't go skating too)!
Tesco delivery £40.74
Maths game £4.49
Taxi £5.50
Medicine £7.33
16-Jan Taxi x2 £12.10
Home ed books etc £4
DVD for niece £1
Food £1.10
Craft supplies for project £1.99
17-Jan Bus £1.50
18-Jan Bus £12.10
Train £5.35
Lego club £4
Me and DCs Lunch (Beefeater) £18.50
Magazine (DH's pocket money) £4.50
Food £16.18
Prescription £8.20
DH Lunch (McDonald's) £7.68
Game shop (excess from exchanging the board games) £5.51
Beavers £12
19-Jan Bus £9
Food £6
Oven thermometer £1.53
Mini oven £93.80
Creative writing £2.50
20-Jan Tesco delivery £69.06
Food £1
Bus £2
21-Jan Bus £13.70
Snack (leisure centre cafe between clubs) £10.85
Lunch (Pizza Express, after giftcard) £24.40
Tuck money £0.40
22-Jan Various home ed supplies £19.66 (after taking £10 off from Amazon offer)
Piano books for teaching £12.49
Tupperware x3 £8.97 (hopefully the better size for freezing meals)
Bus £3.90
23-Jan Bus £6.40
Food £5.94
Nature book on offer £1 here if anyone's DCs are into woodland walks and tracking animals!
Medicine £0.12

Again. Sorry

£15 in TK Maxx on some household items and £43 in Debenhams online sale: 2 dresses, a dressing gown and slippers.

Free Kindle book (was £3 but had promotional credit).

Dilemma! help me oh Frugaleers....
I made the marmalade , its looking good, have 10 jars, Now I also have enough chopped peal cooked and sugar mix for probably about another 8 jars, thats a hellof a lot of marmalade, shall I make the extra batch and well have marmalade to last until 2020 or shall i just chuck the rest of the peel mix away?.

I know what the frugal thing would be , but you see, I dont even eat marmalade.(or only once in a blue moon). I can give away a few jars I suppose..

Sigh why did I buy so many oranges? Ibought 2kg as the recipe for 1kg said only 3 jars ,.. looks like they were wrong there then..

before you ask , marmalade was made because DH loves it and requested more when the last lot (which I probably made about 4 years ago) ran out..

Hello everyone. Can I join you? I've been lurking for a while as we really need to get control of our finances. I am historically incredibly rubbish with money - I take a head in the sand approach - but it's time to grow up. DH and I are lucky to both have good jobs and we earn a decent amount of money...but we also have a lot of outgoings. I need to change my mindset from "I earn enough and I work hard" to "what is my actual disposable income?" Ultimately I want less stress in my life. This has all come to a head because of a very unexpected and very large tax bill (employers had given wrong assessment of my income to HMRC). I spent a day feeling murderous and hard done by and then decided to get over it and find a way forward. Today - inspired by this thread - we have set up money dashboard so we have some proper visibility on where it goes. 😳 Should have done it years ago but better late than never. So, today I become something I have never been before - an aspiring frugaleer. 😊

laska do you have some extra jars? If so, make the marmalade. If you would have to buy jars then don't bother as that would be a waste.
You could use a lot up making delicious marmalade cake.