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Amazing April Austerity.

1000 replies

CremeEggThief · 31/03/2016 20:26

Hi All,
Taking the liberty of starting a new thread, as I went to post spends on the old one and it's full.

We had a lovely day out at the seaside and visited an old lighthouse as part of it. As we rely on public transport, that's always a big part of our days out spend.
£9.60 bus fares.
£9.60 train fares (with the family railcard).
£6 lunch from Sainsburys ( £3 meal deal each).
£4.50 entrance to the lighthouse.
£7.10 coffee, hot chocolate and cookies in a café afterwards.

Oh and DS needed a haircut, which I think was £6.50.

OP posts:
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Ememem84 · 15/04/2016 07:52

£103 last night on dinner in the nice pub. 4 people, 3 starters, 4 mains, 2 desserts, 2 coffees, two wines 4 beers and 2 lemonades. Fairly reasonable value.

Today Im feeling a bit fuzzy headed. Am off to work in my comfiest of smasual outfits and am going to need a lot of tea.

dont I hope you feel better.

SpaceKablooie · 15/04/2016 08:40

Hi everyone Smile, I hope you all feel better soon.

We need a Frugaleer's scale that can be used to give a quick indication of how frugal you are Grin, e.g., me:

Once in a blue moon takeaway coffee
Weekly food budget, compare price/100g
Shop around for insurances etc.

But...
Haven't quite got round to switching energy suppliers
Don't use cashback sites regularly
Have no idea what shopitize et al even are Confused

Oh crap, I'm actually a rubbish Frugaleer Grin. Must try harder.

DontLetMeLetYouGo · 15/04/2016 08:41

Just catching up on all ironing and stuff now to take with us what I really mean is throw it all in the case.

I just realised I don't even have to do a top up shop. We have everything in and will take with us.

Our spends this weekend will just be mainly activities. Not bad I must say.

Fluffycloudland77 · 15/04/2016 09:44

Space

Well the energy bill is easily changed. www.moneysavingexpert.com/cheapenergyclub

EvaDelectorskaya · 15/04/2016 10:39

Hope you have a lovely weekend Dont.

Catching up on spends for last couple of days:

Wednesday :
€22 on lunch.
€13 on groceries
€85 on Gas bill

Thursday:
€9 groceries
€30 diesel
€146 on a Lakeland heated clothes airer, I've wanted one of these for ages and I'm hoping it will be money saving in the long term by using it instead of the dryer. I might even give my dryer to DM as she is thinking about buying one at the minute. But I won't do that just yet, have to see how the airer works out first.

DontLetMeLetYouGo · 15/04/2016 10:46

Eva I've wanted one of those lakeland dryers for forever. Might buy myself one.. My mum can use it and then when I move out I can take it with me lol.

Whataboutwhathuh · 15/04/2016 11:21

Morning! DH came home last night and we had a take out :-( really couldn't afford it but he had a friend with him who was staying over and I just had nothing in the tanks to resist. Sainsbury order came today; I used checkout smart and shopitize and got £1.20 back and £2 again yesterday for the Schwartz. That and my £8 voucher that Sainsbury gave me has really helped this week.

Whataboutwhathuh · 15/04/2016 11:22

I have a Lakeland heated airer and rarely use it. Everything goes in the tumble dryer as we just don't have space to put it up. I might eBay it.

Fluffycloudland77 · 15/04/2016 11:36

I think it's only me and north with spin dryers.

Love my spin dryer.

lilacclery · 15/04/2016 12:15

Girlie I am starting to come to that conclusion too. About 7 years ago I moved out for 3 months and that helped for about 4 years as I suppose it forced him to see that taking me for granted wasn't guaranteed. I'm coming to the stage where I'm saying what's in it for me?

We got a wedding invite during the week, a neighbour who we are fond of, and we have a trip with my parents booked so can't go to wedding. My reaction was 'aww no I'm so disappointed to be missing on their big day, plus the occasion with all our neighbours' His was I suppose we'll still have to give them a present.

Yesterday he was off and said he would do the grocery shopping, which I had planned to do after work. There were some clothes to be exchanged in Penneys(Primark) for dd and groceries were aldi f&v in f&v shop and a library book to be returned. He hadn't the dc dd was at school, ds with au pair. Got a phone call what's this about penneys, does that need to be done, why have I go to f&v shop why not just aldi, I'll be under pressure if I've to do all this sh*t. I replied calmly and said fine I'll do it, I'll be under pressure sat as per usual. Response was to hang up on me! Angry End result all he did was aldi. I will have both dc with me on Sat, hungry after doing swimming lessons. Plus I must do the baking on sat eve for dd's party on Sunday too Smile

Sorry rant over guys

Fencing I will check our mortgage statement tonight as I'm not sure what the split is in insurance and I'm able to access it online

Fluffy matching knickers what are they GrinGrin I've very functional debenhams bras in black and nude, also have nude and black underwear from penneys very basic rangeGrin

Don't how are you feeling today? Great about the job opportunity definitely apply. Great that you've everything in for the weekend away too

I did really well in the frugaleers stakes last night purchased frozen lego castle for dd and a construction type lego thing for the boy she's having her party with both 20% off which finishes todaySmile
They're having a cupcake decorating station so I went to tesco for sprinkles - all reduced by 75%, well all the ones I bought so I spent about €8 on €32 worth of stuff. Delighted.

Also bought a luxury jar of korma sauce which says at end of instructions to add half a tin of coconut milk, I will dilute further and add in some curry paste as I have my parents to visit for the weekend and this will be dinner sat night. Far cheaper than getting a takeaway, bought a bag of mini poppadums for €1.50 instead of naan bread at €1.50 for 2.

Bought a white vest top reduced to €3.75 also, my current one is very grey.
I use Reep Rewards app which pays out 15c per receipt. Did my Tesco shop in 3 separate transactions to earn 45c instead of 15c. Also helped my budget as top was out of personal spends, cupcake stuff is being split between us and other mum, and remainder was grocery budget using joint account card.

Tell me about lakeland heated airers[intrigued] I'm allergic to clothes horses, so it's either clothes line or dryer and in winter the few bits that can't go in dryer go on racks on radiators.

Well done to anyone who has read to the end of this epic post. Can you tell I opened it up in a separate windowGrin

Fluffycloudland77 · 15/04/2016 12:28

I hate my clothes horses, as soon as I've had the downstairs tiled I'm buying a heat pump tumble dryer. It really hurts my back and shoulder to hang clothes on racks.

CremeEggThief · 15/04/2016 13:43

I use my dryer for most stuff, but a fair bit goes on my winged clothes airer. I'm lucky enough to have a spare room though, so it never bothers me.

75p on a stamp for that ppi complaint. I made sure I got proof of postage too.

Happy Frugal Friday everyone Smile.

OP posts:
Colliefeatures · 15/04/2016 13:47

Just a very quick post to say that BT have just responded to my complaint and basically told me I will not have to pay for any equipment and that my contract WILL end this month. They apologised for adding a month on to my contract (making it a 13 monther). They've apologised for everything! And I'll be getting my refunds in the next week or so.

The guy actually said my complaint was so well written that it made it easier for them to investigate. So he thanked me for that too!

NSD here

northender · 15/04/2016 14:04

Woohoo fluffy was just thinking yesterday, we haven't mentioned spindryers for a while!! I'd never choose to get rid of it now, it would have to be prised away from me.

northender · 15/04/2016 14:18

We may have a bit of money coming our way in the next few weeks from my mum, one of those condenser dryers is on my list (our current tumble dryer is at least 20 years old), as well as a new Kenwood (my current one is a family heirloom from the 60s) and a new sewing machine (current one around 20 years). Can you tell I'm not one to replace things unless really necessary(or a little windfall comes along?!

CremeEggThief · 15/04/2016 14:45

I'm the same, Northender. I would love a new green kettle and toaster (£47 for the ones I want in Next and I have a storecard) to complement my kitchen and match my other equipment more, but I just can't, while my old ones work fine. Please break soon!

OP posts:
Ipsos · 15/04/2016 14:46

I've made a small breakthrough in finally finding something to write in the column of my spreadsheet called "Nice things for mum" (Which is me.) I bought a copy of the People's Friend and really liked it and it was only £1.10. I think that's going to become a regular entry in the table. Smile

lilacclery · 15/04/2016 15:20

Deffo needs to be little treats for you too ipsos
I buy the daily mail every Sat because it comes with a lovely magazine inside, no matter how broke I am I buy it. I only don't buy it if I'm too busy the entire week to get a chance to read it.

north that's a nice plan for your windfall.

EvaDelectorskaya · 15/04/2016 15:32

www.lakeland.co.uk/21736/Dry%3ASoon-3-Tier-Heated-Tower-Airer.

This is a link to the heated airer. I'm expecting it to be useful when the temperatures are too high to have the heat on in the house but it's too wet to have clothes on the clothes line. This is quite a regular state of affairs during an Irish summer! And I don't like using the dryer for lots of things.

WreckTangled · 15/04/2016 16:05

Great news collie and so they should!

£5 something in tesco on a birthday card, carrots, salad bits for dinner

Dd's best friend moved schools at Christmas and now her other best friend is moving. There'll only be four girls in her year now. I feel really sorry for her. Also she has to dress up as a child from 1916 in a few weeks I think I'll just Amazon something they've got some Victorian girls dress up for about £8.

Cagliostro · 15/04/2016 17:08

Ooh those heated airers have always taken my fancy! We have nowhere to put one though. I do really love my tumble dryer anyway - like Fluffy I find it very painful to lug wet laundry around and hang it out, so I'm not being flippant when I say having a dryer has changed my life!

Had a nice day - learning stuff in the morning, then friends visited and they even brought lunch for us all which was lovely. DH should be on his way home from work soon.

eastmidswarwicknightnanny · 15/04/2016 17:18

Wow end of another thread already

Ememem84 · 15/04/2016 17:29

£5.48 in McDonald's i know on lunch. Was feeling more hungover as the morning went on.

That's it today.

I go through phases of being super frugal then mess up by splurging.

I'm kidding myself though by thinking that I'm just getting it all out of my system before kids. I'm trying to.

Am so happy to be on my way home! For sleep. And pizza and a movie. And no more booze.

I can't handle it. I'm out tomorrow for dinner and will probably be the driver as am finding more and more now that my hangovers are ridiculous. When ive not even had that much. Last night I had 2 large glasses of white wine. And a million foods. Did not deserve to feel as tough as I did this morning.

Newmamatobe · 15/04/2016 17:47

£13.20 on a Chinese takeaway which I'll split and have for lunch tomorrow too!

£1.49 dog treat as I'm guilty I've been neglecting him due to DD.

Fridge/freezer food being eaten rest of weekend...

Ohh I like this!

Not got round to doing anything yet! DD been grouchy after jabs poor thing! Sooooo tired!

SpaceKablooie · 15/04/2016 19:01

I love my Lakeland heated airer. I use it for things that can't be tumble dried, or that I would rather not tumble dry. As PigletJohn often says on MN though, if you're drying clothes inside, you might as well be throwing buckets of water at the walls Grin. So definitely make sure that your room is well ventilated, or use a dehumidifier at the same time Smile.

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