Friendly Frugaleers chat their way into February...

[Ipsos]

Just setting up the new thread for the chatty Frugaleers.

By popular request - copied from last year

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.

That frugalleer's flu is really getting around.

Snuggled up with a duvet and hot water bottle is the best place to be.

and to you all.

Hopefully I've already had it, although my ear is still suffering a bit.

Yes, it's a funny year for spring flowers definitely spotty.

I seem to have ds's lurgy now, so joining the very long list of frugaleers with hot water bottles and duvets. Oh well.

On the plus side, probably lots of NSDs coming my way.

Well I was right keeping up on here was going to be hard for me. I have had a somewhat expensive few days.

Kids and I saw a theatre show which was a gift for Christmas but I chose to go out for dinner so it added up money wise. Certainly not budgeted for.

Friday was very expensive with a pre booked massage, breakfast out and then I also indulged in cake as well as buying dinner for the kids. I'm not beating myself up too much about Friday. It was the anniversary of my daughters passing so I spoilt myself and wallowed in cake.

Yesterday was grocery shopping and I'm really proud. I bought all on the list with only one small impulse buy. I'm aiming not to have impulse buys unless they are on special and something we would regularly have in the house.

I've meal planned for the week and feel like things will be ok financially this week.

Well probably £100 yesterday was spent on days out. Fab though. Still no food in

£12.50 yesterday on take away. Drank far too much wine with my friend so feeling a bit rough this morning. Still have sore throat but it hasn't developed into anything...yet!
Should be NSD.

Oh no pointless! You need a nice bacon sandwich.

Today need to go to tesco to get the things I couldn't get/forgot in lidl. Also taking dc to soft play and will have coffee and cake but dh will pay for that. Going to make a carrot cake with dd later if she does her spellings in time.

mojito. Some days you just need to spoil yourself.

£20 yesterday on lunch out after (very cold) digging at the seaside!

I really want to buy a fit-bit. I resisted at Christmas/new year but still really want one a month later. Should I go for it? (I figure if I buy it today then I can still start afresh in February )!

I think if you still want it after waiting a month and you have the cash spare then you should

I just worked out all my summaries for the month and I went £95 over budget for the month.

I got the household bills down by more than £100 though and spent very little on fun or the house. Ds had a growth spurt so we spent a chunk on clothes and the bulk of it was all on food.

My budget is £2000 a month and £600+ goes on household bills and £900+ on food every month.

mojito def do not feel bad about spoiling yourself.

£900 a month on food makes my eyes water ipsos even with all your dietary requirements that sounds a lot!!

I am slowly easing myself into Sunday, may get out of bed in a min

Yes it is a lot isn't it Girlie. I'm wondering if I ought to do an analysis of where exactly the money goes, just like I would do a calorie count analysis if I wanted to change my weight. I suspect that we eat a lot of meat. I might try doing that. I should be able to do it from our back list of tesco orders. I'll report back.

Yes that's a lot I'm not sure I could spend that even if I tried! It must be difficult when you're trying to do three different meals every night though.

Lucky you girlie! We've been up ages, folded two loads of washing, about to hang up a third, dd has done her spelling, I've showered, the chicken is almost cooked will then calve it before leaving for soft play!

Having a cuppa in bed before I get up and face the day, I was up for a few hours between 3 and 5 too, seems to be getting to be a habit I can't break.

The intention is not to go out today and not to spend anything given how blooming expensive yesterday was. Dh and I had a long chat about money yesterday which is unusual. I deal with all the household finances as he is hopeless and he can do what he likes with the 'rest of his money after the house has had its share (as can I) but it seemed like he was taking a more responsible attitude towards his own money and personal debt so I'm really quite pleased

Jan seemed to go on forever! Waiting 5 weeks for payday was not enjoyable!

I've got a group of five friends and we've been struggling to find social activities to do that don't involve us spending money (or sitting at home and eating loads of food as we are all on a diet!)

I decided to write a post about fun group activities you can do spending little or no money. Here's the finalised post: listsforlifeblog.com/2016/01/31/fun-group-activities-costing-little-or-no-money/

A very spendy day yesterday, but well worth it. Coming to the end of the month, I did save £800 as planned, but I am £170 in minus on my CC due to paying BT a year in advance and changing the DD date on my car finance resulted in paying twice in one month. But, the £100 worth of running gear went back due to being too big, so I should only be £70 in minus. I am also expecting £25 from nationwide into my CC as part of their offer.
I am going to do the big switch with moneysavingexpert for my electric and water, hopefully I will save some more from there.
I have got quite a bit of overtime lined up, should help towards a bit more savings.
It's been a fab, mad month, I have thoroughly enjoyed it.
My february challenge is to have 15 NSD and 29 personal spending NSD. I have started a bullet journal mainly for finances. I shall revert to infantile me, or DD's sticker reward days and physically tick each goal achieved each day. That and the fact I work 23 out of the 29 days should help.

My goodness there does seem to be a lot of illness around! Now DS has come down with a cold, one of those ones which seem to entail a very runny nose which is lovely.

Ceiling will hopefully be fixed by the end of next week when we get the insurance money so then we can start decorating. I feel remarkably calm about it all considered.

We have to be very frugal this month as DH is down £130 in wages as they decided not to pay company sick pay when he was off with flu. I have tax and NI to pay, not a lot but need to cover it off.

I am going to try and make at least 3 days per week NSDs and write down what I spend and where to see if I can save more by changing how I shop. I think making a point of walking to Aldi rather than popping across road to Tesco's might help. It will also help with exercise as I NEED to lose weight, it seems I have fallen into the trap of becoming a fat freelancer!

wow spotty that is very industrious I have peeled myself out of bed now, one lot of washing is on and dd is cleaning out the hamster cage so we are getting there slowly!

Dd is saying she isn't feeling great although looks fine so may not go swimming. Weather is pretty grim today, my optimistically hung outside washing is still there looking very damp and sorry for itself.

Just heard the news about Terry Wogan can't believe how many celebrities have died recently.

Here it is. I downloaded my whole month of tesco deliveries. £180 is still unaccounted for, which must be top up shops and eating out, but here is the analysis of our tesco shopping. It's pretty clear that we like meat a lot.

I just double checked and the meat is not all me. :-) I'm only 39% of it.

Yeah meat is expensive, have you tried cutting down and replacing meat with things like pulses? Did you look into muscle foods?

I suppose that means that if I could switch over the batch cooking with big joints of meat then that would be the place to make savings, do you think? The pork loin joint was 50% of the price of buying pre-cut pork loin chops.

allguns what's a bullet journal? I've seen it used before but not sure what it is. Am I right in thinking it's somewhere you just write down spends? So you can see at a glance how bad/frugal/good you've been?

If so I started this on Jan 1

I bought two skirts on Thursday. I think I'm going to take them back. Or at least one of them anyway. I don't need them really.

Today's jobs are:

• walk 5k (weathers shit so I'm going to set my tracker on while I do cleaning and tidying);
• washing to be washed dried and put away;
• sort sock drawer;
• meal plan for next week;
• take charity shop clothes to shop;
• send proof of postage to Amazon to get money back;
• pack up eBay things ready for selling;

Should really make a start but am still in bed.....

Wolfcub this worries me a bit can do what he likes with the 'rest of his money after the house has had its share (as can I). In our house the rest of the money is all put into savings. Do you put money into savings? We would only have a tiny personal spending budget.

Girlie we definitely can't replace meat. There'd be a riot. Muscle foods prices are the same as tesco for the things that I'm buying and I looked at a bulk catering supplier and it was the same. The best I've found is buying big joints from tesco, and cooking, slicing and freezing to reheat later.

I did try going veggie once, but I kept nearly passing out at the top of the stairs. I don't think I was built for veggie living. As spotty has said, our eating requirements are quite odd at the moment because of health trouble and I think the problem will calm down a lot if we can rest up and make things better in that department. So two plans: rest and recover, and bulk cook for a while.