Fantastic Frugaleers Continuing Austere April!

[Cagliostro]

Hello! :)

Fluffy I scraped a C in my 3rd attempt at passing my maths GCSE which was largely due to my parents paying for tons of extra tuition and luck. I def agree that those who can add up should help us less mathematically minded people out - do it Cag!!

Well. If you insist. :o

Thanks all! I'm starting to feel like I can really do this. The piano teaching is going so well, I'm enjoying it even more than I thought I would, so anything I can add to that is a massive bonus!

Ooh Em I love Milka.

Had a takeaway tonight - but that's the first time we've ordered a pizza since new year's day, so that's pretty good going for us. And I only got a pizza and garlic bread rather than all the trimmings so it wasn't expensive either. I just felt so frazzled and stressed that even putting the perfectly decent frozen pizza in the oven was beyond me DCs staying up late to finish watching a movie as a treat, DH is working late.

£5.35 in the bakers.

I agree Cag, if you can help by teaching then go ahead. I have no idea how I scraped through my maths CSE because I get a complete block with even the simplest of sums. Well done getting the take away. I'm exhausted ATM and last night we had cheese on toast/can of soup. Tonight, frozen potatoe waffles, eggs and tomatoes. Plenty of opportunity for actual cooking when we have the energy for it.

Think I need to take a dog to the vet, his ear is really irritating him and I can't see anything, but he won't leave it alone.

Thanks so much everyone. It's funny, I've honestly never thought of it like that - I mean the fact that it will be helping people. I know that sounds silly! But I suppose a part of me still feels guilty for taking money for doing something I find easy (I don't mean that in a boasty way - it's pure luck that I'm good at maths, it's probably due to my Aspie brain which I inherited from my equally Aspie dad! :o). Mind you I've got used to it with the piano now so I should give it a chance shouldn't I :o

Cag I think that sounds a wonderful idea to try teaching maths. Definitely worth a go and you can always learn as you go along.

My dm tutored maths for years and she used the series of books called "Blackie Chambers" for inspiration, which must be cheap as chips these days second hand. They look like this: www.abebooks.co.uk/MODERN-MATHEMATICS-SCHOOLS-Anonymous-BLACKIECHAMBERS/871884314/bd

Collie sorry to hear about the fussy eating. That must be frustrating.

I have had a nice couple of days. I visited my supervisor in my volunteer job and came back all buzzing with ideas. Then I had ds's birthday party today and that went well. So that's two big things done and sort of milestones achieved.

I had a frugality idea today that worked well. I set up my Tesco shop online and then after looking at the price and having the sharp intake of breath, I went through the "basket" deleting everything that I thought, on reflection, was probably not needed. I saved £13.

Cheers Ipsos I'll check those out :) oldies are often goodies I find!

I absolutely love coming up with fun ways of learning maths (and anything really but maths especially) - I get asked SO often by non-HE parents "how do you cope with having to find stuff for them to do?" and I'm like helloooo it's a dream come true for me! :o :o Nerd heaven. The idea of being able to do it on a bigger scale is really exciting.

Will definitely need to sort out the printer issue though - sounds more and more like the subscription thing would be worth doing. Also I think I've had the final push towards getting a laminator - was talking to a pupil's mum today (she has become one of my best friends, since I met her through teaching her DS :)) and they're so cheap to buy now. TBH I've been longing to get one for a long time and a guillotine and a spiral binder - it's amazing I've resisted this long. But as well as home ed and maths stuff it would also be useful for piano - I write out scales/arpeggios etc for my pupils in their notebooks as they learn them, but I don't really like doing much of that in the lessons because it takes my attention away from listening/checking they're playing correctly. So I thought a kind of 'cheat sheet' thing would be good, I could just give them the right one laminated obvs when they were ready for it. If I'm getting a laminator though, I really need to find somewhere to put it...

Do it cag. Have a go at the turoring.
Led planned today

I'm about 8 pages behind but think it was dont that was wondering about cost of insurances

It was me, lilla, thank you! It gives me a fough idea what to expect, thank you!

Oh I forgot how much I hate eBay sometimes sold large bundle toys one of which needed batteries was practically new in box as Ds1 never used it so checked it worked before parcelling everything packaged carefully and hey presto they received but this toy apparently doesn't work even with new batteries now transit wouldn't have affected it so I have offered for them to return it - I know I am responsible as seller for return postage costs so no doubt will end up agreeing to a partial refund as eBay always finds in favour buyer so may as well agree something this is why I do collection only on a lot of stuff - money was for ds1 anyway as he agreed to clear out some toys.

Strictly a NSD today!

DS randomly ate cottage pie yesterday. Shocked / confused & happy. Must not get over excited as he probably wont eat anything that good today.

Strictly a nsd, strictly a nsd, strictly a nsd. going to repeat that all day long!

excellent fencing glad you found it so quickly.

Hello, wondering if I could join you lovely bunch. Reading your posts and I can relate!

I recently found out that DH has a bit of debt, which he pays but gets charged 20% interest on!!!!! So a big whack of his salary goes to that. I am on mat leave and the smp ends and the end of next month, currently in negotiations to get a transfer to a local branch of where I work. Once I start earning again hopefully things will even out. I came into a 3grand inheritance which has unfortunately gone to bail out DH from his overdraft. I have kept 500 to start savings for DD. I took out a loan of, which finishes in September this year which I pay a large amount every month to. This has been a strain with being on smp.
I am at the point now where I am taking DH credit and debit cards off him and cutting them as he simply doesn't know the value of money. He feels terrible but I don't blame him in the slightest. We will support each other through the tough times.
Has anyone has any success in doing a once weekly/fortnightly online shop and living off that and avoiding the supermarkets? This seems to be our biggest downfall. I really need to get my arse in gear meal planning (cheap meals)
Any tips?

Welcome firstmum. We've been in a very similar situation recently. I started doing the weekly shop online and it helped us massively. When things were really tight we did one big shop every two weeks and had a set budget per week to get fresh milk & fruit.
It was very hard to do but it stopped us from popping to Sainsburys and wasting money.

We also joined Nectar and used their my-coupons website which helps us massively! (same with tesco clubcard).

We reduced our monthly supermarket spending by roughly £45 per month!

We also learnt that including foodie treats in the main supermarket shop stopped us from popping to the Spar shop.

A slow cooker helped us immensely. And we use veggie mince instead of minced beef for meals like spag Bol and chilli.
But we stick with mince beef for meals like cottage pie.
Jacket potatos are a weekly meal here as they are super frugal. As are frittatas!

:) I'm using my phone and I'm struggling with the tiny screen. Hopefully I make sense! Haha!

Thank you for all your handy tips! I love my slow cooker but don't use it nearly as much as I should.
We are taking my parents to the airport today so will have to make sure we come straight home instead of going for lunch/glass of wine. This will no doubt put DH in a bad mood.
I am a huge fan of the tesco club card! I have put a ban on all spar trips - too easy to fill up a basket and spend £30..!
What is this quidco I have been reading about up thread?

Hi Firsttime welcome, has your dh had advice on that debt to see if he can pay it back at less interest? I think you will need to find a way of getting him on board with thinking about money in a completely different way if you want to avoid more debt.

Agree with Collie re cheap meals, cutting down on how much meat you eat will help, we use vegi mince for Bolognese, pasta bakes, jacket potatoes and we do one or two quick freezer dinners a week i.e. fishfingers or pizza! Also dd will have beans/ scrambled eggs on toast for tea some days (when I'm knackered )

Happy Birthday Ipsoss ds, glad he had a good party.

Collie kids are like that with food, dd will eat something one day and then swear blind she hates it the next it drives me mad!

Weather is grim here today, not inspiring me to do much! Do need to pop to town really as run out of make up and a few other things also need to pay a cheque in £95 refunded from dds holiday club that she didn't go to.

8 have you started packing yet? I have started collecting boxes but am still scared to start packing incase I jinx things have emailed the solicitor this morning to find out whats going on, it all seems to have gone a bit quiet at the moment.

East thats annoying.

Oh yeah we have a cheap freezer meal once a week too! My favourite days

firstmum have you got Aldi near you? We have and it's fab. Their posh share bag crisps are amazing. I was so surprised! And I hear they do naice wines too ;). The trick with being frugal is to still have fun - albeit frugally. It's important you have nice food and drink at home to enjoy in the evenings or at weekends.

I often make a list of seasonal frugal family activities. Such as taking a picnic to a park in the Summer or taking hot chocs in a flask for a Winters walk.

And start saving for Christmas now

My favourite cheap meal for ds is microwaved new potatoes and cheese grated on top, with microwaved frozen peas and sweetcorn. He loves it, and unless I'm being really deluded about this, I think it is cheap. It's also quick. I know that sounds really minor frugaleering to many, but it's a major victory for me, as expensive food is our nemesis.

I am not quite sure what my spends will be today. We're off to our local theme park for a couple of hours, then DS is having an ice skating lesson (accounted for) and we are going out for my mum's birthday meal.

We are going to the Italian we always go to. I think I'm going to share a main with DS as we both always end up with half a pizza left each. And then we can make room for dessert as always.

Thursday spends:
£4.90 buses
£13.98 pizza
£10 DH haircut (phwoar!) :o

firstmum Quidco is a cashback site. Sign up and use it to renew insurances & utilities. I got £60 cashback for signing up to PlusNet and £40 for a home insurance plan as both were up for renewal. It takes a few months for Quidco to process and then you can have the money sent to your bank account.

We also use it for online shopping. Most retailers are on Quidco (like Mothercare, gap, new look, Asos and Argos). Other frugaleers here use Topcashback. And fluffy knows all about the cashback and grocery side of things.

We save all our cashback throughout the year and it goes towards Christmas as we have a massive family

£7.30 on a toasted wrap and a sandwich for Dh and me. We sat outside in the rain for lunch. Under an awning. Was nice actually.

Almost bought a new bikini for my trip to Israel. But decided against it. Pretty sure I've got one seventeen at home!

Bikinis are wierdly expensive aren't they Em? I wanted to buy one in Paris as a souvenir on my honeymoon and the cost about £85 each. Mindboggling for the amount of fabric involved.