Amazing April Austerity.

[CremeEggThief]

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.

I grate to the rind I didn't realise I shouldn't?!

Today will be a nsd. We're staying in.

Hope you got some sleep cag,
Welcome daff and well done on the insurance
Good luck don't
We have villeroy and boch bathroom it's a good make em.

Will be Mia for a week as will depend on wifi connections in Windsor. Country bumpkin from the north not used to city lights and all that

Hi! Spendy weekend. £16 on food at service station on our way to a wedding in Gloucester. Accoms paid for but topped up £10 for extra bed. Still v reasonable wedding price.

£50 for money gift (on top of £40 purchase on gift list).

£50 petrol on way back. Way back, stopped at outlet store to have dinner (£16 McDonald's) and went to Clark's, got shoes for dd £21, ds £32 and shirts for dh £69. Didn't get me anything. Trying to Marie kondo my life first! Oh, Asda shop £35.

Should be a few nsds next few days as at work. Happy Monday everyone (well I'll try to have one!!).

Good luck dontlet.
Today we need to update our budget app with all our holiday spends and do our budget for April, we've been putting it off. However, I was pleasantly surprised when I looked at the bank balance last night. A few bills haven't gone out yet like car insurance mobile phones but those together come to under £50. I transferred £100 into savings last night so we wouldn't be able to spend it. My aim is to save another £135 this month as that would take the (small) sum in the ISA to a nice round number!

My estate agent friend said that if we have a "brand" kitchen/bathroom we should note it in our listing as this is what sells (over here anyway). She mainly deals with the multi -million pound properties but said its the same for smaller places. People want to know that if somethings new, it's great quality.

spendy day today re the above.

Driving to work today as have to take gym bag, and bags for charity shop in. Too much to carry on foot!

NSD here too, since Saturday (£25 on petrol, £4 ? on Lidl bakery)
I won't go to the shops till Thursday.

I have a new plan for the new financial year, I want to open a shares ISA, I need £1000 and then £100 a month. Given that I am squirreling away so much of my salary already, that's going to be pushing it a bit understatement

But I really got into this whole saving thingy, it makes me happy.

www.quidco.com/shepherds-friendly-stocks-shares-isa/?st=Shepherds&tr=9878&fn=home&fr=multiple&si=57020f1d3b0c3&sv=4 Fence is this one any good? £160 cashback.

I'd go through topcashback though and ask them to price match quidco, Tcb pay out quickly.

Em Yep, v&b bathroom would catch my eye too. Ours is Roca, all the developers around here use them. Apparently we have porcelnosa (sp) tiles as well.

That's great news Collie. Well done one getting all that working together.

Well done Wreck's dd. Nice job!

I have ordered a nose balloon for ds so great amusement is promised by that if he's prepared to try it. I will be doing it myself for sheer amusement.

I've had the most unfrugal moment ever. My grocery shopping bill exceeded £150 twice in a row. I have no idea how that happened. It used to be £90 on a good day and £120 on a shamefully awful day. Has anybody else's bill gone up massively or is it just me?

Oddly I've discovered that 1kg of chicken breast in Tesco costs almost the same as 0.5kg, so I'm batch cooking and freezing. Cooking 3kgs diced chicken in a big pot is really high living I can tell you. There's no fun like it.

Wow, fluffy, you have opened a whole new world to me! Thank you!

I haven't noticed that much of an increase tbh ipsos fruit and veg seems pretty cheap at the moment, mind you I don't buy much meat other than the odd bit of chicken and bacon!

You lot have inspired me to be brave and go into hsbc and make enquiries about a loan I took out in 2003, does anyone know if they were mis selling PPI then? I have no idea if the loan had it or not but am guessing will be worth asking. The loan was only for about £1500 to buy a car with and I paid it back pretty quickly.

Anyone else with older kids that watch 'Got what it takes' on cbbc? Dd has lost interest and I am still sat here hooked

£14 for the boys hair
Just about to go and get their feet measured and then talking mum to Costa for a coffee so a very spendy day!!

I need to redo my budget as its new tax year. Meh.

£30 on new shoes for DD plus £1.30 parking and I got a couple of bits in Hobbycraft, about £5. It's sunny at the moment, hope it lasts so we can go to the park later.

I do same as wolf with parmesan rinds or sometimes into soup. Once I did that and left the lump in the dinner when dh's friend was having dinner with us & he ate it out of politeness off to google uses for parmesan rinds
fencing I love Lidl bakery but try to steer clear.
Made a lovely treat breakfast this morning 60g porridge oats, tbsp cacao(expensive but you use so little of it and it's very good for you) an egg and a little bit of milk. Pour some boiling water on the oats to soak them for a few minutes then mix in remaining ingredients. Makes 8 pancakes so serves 2/3 Had this with some greek yogurt and strawberries. Helped soften the blow on returning to work after a week off
I noticed that about my shopping in February ipsos but it seems to have settled down again

I'll have to check in more often. It took forever to catch up.

CremeEgg sorry to hear about your job . Glad you got to meet up with your sister and niece after all.

blueteapot delighted to hear about your shorter working week. I think the extra family time and reduced stress will more than compensate for the reduced income.

Girlie you must have got such a fright when your DD ended up in intensive care. Glad to hear she's on the road to recovery. Your friend sounds amazing. Hope she liked her hamper.

Cagliostro your day at the HP Studios sounded like so much fun. What's Hotel Chocolat? I probably shouldn't ask! That's a lovely story about the little boy playing the piano but it's terrible that school had such an impact on him.

Em I'm still shocked that H Samuel wanted to charge you £60 for a watch battery! That's daylight robbery! Glad you're starting to make some progress with the bathroom.

northender what a shocking experience for your DS (and you and DH, by extension). I think it's great that you followed up with the school. If an incident like that ever occurs in future, I hope the school have a plan in place to deal with it.

Ipsos glad you discovered the problem with your DS's ears. I've no experience of these issues but I feel so sorry for your DS. The world must seem a very confusing and frightening place for him.

Lila hope the counselling is helping.

needa the 80s disco sounded like so much fun. I love 80s music, the cheesier the better!

eastmids I'm laughing at the image of your DH playing freezer Tetris.

Money hope the JSA comes through for you.

Wolf congrats. on paying off your student loan. I got a grant when I went to college and I'm so grateful for it.

Badders sorry to hear that you weren't paid for the Easter period. Is it possible to claim anything for the days/weeks they didn't pay you?

bees and Collie good luck in your new jobs

Nothing major to report re finances. LSD today as I just needed bread.

I went clothes shopping over the Easter break. I bought a lovely top in Debenhams for €60 but it only cost me €5 as I had a voucher (from Christmas) for €40 and when I handed over my Debenhams loyalty card, the cahier told me that I had €15 on it. It must have been an introductory offer when I signed up for the card. I practically danced out of the shop .

DD was back to school this morning after an extra long Easter break. St. Patrick's Day and Easter were very close together so the schools were closed for two and a half weeks! She was very grumpy when I went in to wake her this morning.

Ooooh boys feet have stayed the same size!! Woo goo!
Work aren't putting me on contract til after Easter - I didn't understand why at first then it clicked...they won't have to pay me for the Easter hols!

Will you get paid for the 6 week holiday though?.

I've made American pancakes for lunch. Feels like a big treat but all from stuff that was in the cupboard/fridge.

tayto I wasn't home when dd was woken for her first day back at school after their long holiday but I'd say it wasn't pretty. Blow was probably softened by fact dh was at home though. Starting counselling tomorrow evening, have told my nearest and dearest cousin though and my friend at work already knows, and another work colleague in my second job so at least I've people to talk to.

My bank account balance looks good but must pay mechanic for work done to my car this evening so it won't be as healthy afterwards but at least it's money I have not money I'll borrow [happy]

You must have been making notes tayto as you were catching up, fair play!
I added up the spends on clothes and shoes for dc - scary €400. A small bit will come from Christmas savings as I bought two shirts and two chinos for ds and children's allowance will cover €270 of it so joint account won't get massively battered.

Lilac I find sometimes the only way to do multiple replies like that is to have two copies open, one for writing the reply in the box and one for reading. Othewise I'd just get hopelessly mindboggled by it all. Tayto is that what you do? Any tips gratefully received.

On the app you can type a reply, close the box to read, then get it back up and your reply is still there so you can close it again and repeat iyswim?

I didn't know that wreck and I use the app a lot of the time.
Good idea too though ipsos I've sometimes made notes on a post it as I was going along!

That's very impressive, Tayto. Lovely to see you back.

Ipsos, I hope that balloon brings a smile to your DS's face. It's another wet, miserable Monday here and I could do with a bit of cheering up. Back at Pilates this evening, so looking forward to that.

Girlie, I'm in a similar position. I took out a HSBC loan for about £3000 in 2002 and have no idea if there was ppi on it and obviously, not sure how to find out. I got about £300 back (which they had the cheek to tax at 20%!) 2 years ago for CPP on my credit card, but I have no idea if there was additional ppi on that. It's so confusing, when you don't even know if you had it or not...

I have MN and Excel open at the same time, so I make a quick note in Excel as I'm reading. Then I delete the notes as soon as I've posted. I'm not a stalker, honest . But I'm going to check in daily so I can keep up. I use Excel for my budget anyway.

I seem to be in a rut where meals are concerned. Does anyone have any recipes for rice dishes?

Also, DD's gone really fussy where veg is concerned. She doesn't like sprouts, cabbage, onions, peppers (except red peppers), mushrooms and isn't so keen on broccoli. She ate a lot of these when she was younger but seems to have gone off them all over time. We seem to be down to carrots and sweetcorn . Obviously I can't do carrots and sweetcorn on alternate days as we'd all get sick of them. I'm worried she's not getting enough of her 5 a day. She loves fruit though and we got a blender recently so DH regularly makes us all smoothies. Maybe I should make some soups and blend up all the veg so it's hidden?

Tayto I love pilaf you might be able to adapt that for dd? Also risotto. I use a lot of onion so must be hard. My dc love home made soup lentil and chickpea is dd's favourite.