Super Scrimpers sashay, save & --squander-- their way through September

[lilacclery]

Thought I'd start us off!

Can I join please? After sticking my head in the sand about money for ages I've realised that we fritter away around £600 a month and always end up completely broke.

This month is no exception. Payday is Friday and I'm going to have to go to the shop and get milk and washing up liquid on a credit card as we've no money left

It's pathetic really. Dh is on a pretty good wage. I work part time too. We have 3 dc and a dss who stays here 2 nights a week. We never seem to get anywhere with cash. We have about £6000 in debt plus a £600 overdraft that we end up in every month.

We've just moved house (debt was around £4000 but moving costs bumped this up) and there's lots that needs doing to it. No carpets, no wallpaper etc. We've nothing saved for Christmas. We don't drive, we don't go out, we don't have holidays and I'm sick of it. I get my hair cut once a year on a Groupon deal and I don't buy any make up/beauty products (you can't polish a turd to be fair )

We've annoying dietary requirements. 2 of us are coeliac. 2 are vegetarian. 1 is a fussy bugger. Meal planning is tough work and I probably spend around £120 with the odd extra top up of milk/bread/bananas later in the week. But I also tend to add on chocolate, crisps, cake etc to the top ups which is where lots of the money is going Dh is terrible for buying his lunch at work too which is between £3-£5 5 days a week.

Sorry for the essay!

Welcome honey.

Just got £14 refunded from the party shop for the balloons I got for the baby shower. They forgot to put the gel in so they didn't stay up over night. They gave me cash which was good.

Welcome Honey!

Thanks Lilac I'm doing reasonably well at the moment. The heat doesn't agree with me so we had a very lazy summer :) getting back to regular term time stuff now, but managing ok thus far :)

Welcome Honey, you'll get loads of advice and support here.

Lilac beware the Lidl bakery! Everything is delicious!! They do really good doughnuts and croissants especially.

Just spent over £80 in supermarket, eek! That included a lot of nappies, cat litter, shower gel, moisturiser and dishwasher tablets though so I suppose the actual food shop was about the same as usual.

My thoughts are turning to the fuel bills now its getting cooler and darker. DH wanted to put the heating on last night, he was handed a jumper! The lights have been going on earlier though. One advantage of me being so tired is that we've been going to bed really early so turning everything off!

Hi honey welcome aboard.

What are the planned expenses for next month and see can we help you bring this down? Do you meal plan? Your dh definitely needs to cut out the packed lunches as that's 10-17% of the overspends He can still have lovely lunches but made at home.

Welcome honey that sounds tough with all the dietary requirements! Big no no to buying lunch every day though I think its always a good start to sit down and properly go through everything to see where the money goes and then decide on a realistic budget and savings plan.

Snuggly I'm the same bit worried as still not worked out how the central heating works! The house has these little thermostats in a few of the rooms that tell you the temperature, apparently its not properly cold until its 18 degrees in doors, its currently saying 21 so thats fine for now....

Have a day off which is so nice, have done a bit of tidying and am popping over to a friends for coffee in a bit. Need to start planning as have lots of bdays in Oct including both my brothers and two close friends! Quite pleased as seem to have clawed back my money this month after getting off to a poor start.

Em is it definitely the case that your cat has some straight from having kittens without a home, to being in your house without kittens?

We had a cat once that we allowed to have one litter of kittens and then we had her spayed before she could get the next lot on the way. The kittens were still suckling when she was spayed and the hormone change really messed her up very badly. If your cat is dealing with that as well as rehoming then that's a big challenge for her.

Thanks for the maths book recommendation Cag. I have ordered that from The Book People (and a couple of other things. Ooops)

Welcome honey! My dad is coeliac and he gets a load of stuff like bread and pasta on prescription, big boxes at a time. He's on holiday at the moment but I can find out the ins and outs of costs/applying for it when he gets back if you like?

Need to pop into town later to look for a christening present but that should be the only spend today.

Glad to hear things with your DS are better creme

Welcome honey.

Didn't go to stay and play as too knackered after a bad night. So saved £1 there. Drove into town and paid in some cheques. Parked for free and as far away as possible so I got a 2 mile walk in.

Welcome Honey having DH on board with being frugal helps massively.

So, I just spent £50 in town. But some of it was budgeted for. Some of it wasn't but I needed it anyway.

I have just calculated my carbon footprint and it's 111% of my share so, have just been having a look at ways to reduce it and after we move it reduces down to 76%. (No commuting by car) and we're adjusting our diet slightly too.

We have decided to start eating less meat. We usually have mainly vegetarian meals because meat is pricy and veggie meals are tasty. But for some reason in the last few months our meat intake has increased loads. DH says that it's effected his stomach so we're going back to eating fish and mainly veggie. With chicken once a week / or 2 weeks. It will help loads with the food budget too!

I would love to have thermostats in other rooms, girlie. Ours is in the most stupid place - the kitchen! So if the oven is on the heating goes off. New central heating controls is on our list of work we want to get done. We had controls put on all the bedroom radiators last year which made a big difference to both our comfort and our bills.

Just spent £55 on gap for dh.

Sorry Genie the book people is dangerous isn't it? :o It is a good book though - I read it as I thought I should be more aware of the school methods even if I don't agree with them being enforced - one of my pupils for example is only HE while waiting for a school place so I need to respect the methods she will use there! I bought his other book, Maths on the Go, on Kindle as it might give me some activity ideas.

Fab morning with a couple of pupils and I'm £33 up as their mum bought a couple of little things from me too. :)

Another pupil later but only really make a fiver from that as I have to get a taxi back from Brownies to arrive on time!

Ok so a big list of money in/money out

It can vary month to month but on average we get about £2150

Rent £360
Council tax £125
Gas/Electric £65 (this will go up soon)
Broadband £24
TV licence £12
Mobile phones £24
Credit card 1 £200 (balance £800)
Credit card 2 £56 (balance £3200 - stupid agreement of minimum payment or full balance payment)
Credit card 3 £35 (balance £2000 0% interest)
Netflix £9
Health insurance £15 (I get an allowance for dental and opticians so it's well worth it)
Water £37
Bed payment £35
NT membership £6

Total: £1003

Bus fares come to £150 and we home educate so we allow £100 a month for various trips/workshops etc.

So £1253

Then £500 a month on food (not including the pricey top ups) which I know we can cut down.

£1753 so actually it's £400 that gets frittered away on dh's lunches and top up shops.

We've got nothing for Christmas, nothing towards any house refurbishments and debt is taking an age to pay off. There's no allowance for clothes, shoes, or haircuts either. Or birthday presents. It's no wonder we're in a mess!

Honey your out goings are actually pretty good going, your rent is low.

Can you set up a direct debit for a savings account? I have two, one is solely for the car and I put £50 a month in (this covers annual insurance, service and any repairs that crop up, tax I do monthly.) The other savings I put £100 a month in and that is for any unexpected emergencies as well as to help towards Christmas and Birthdays.

I think posting spends on her most days will help with the frittering as it makes you more accountable!!

That said today I went to Sainsburys to have a look at clothes as it was mentioned on here about the 25% off having started! I spent £44 - eek - but have got myself a couple of nice Autumn bits and dd some long sleeved tops that were needed. I also got my brother a birthday present so not too bad I guess.

Honey we home educate too :) DS is 7 and DD is 9, they've been out of school over a year and a half now. Loving it! The trips and workshops and clubs certainly add up though :o

Honey the "credit card 2" setup sounds a bit dodgy. Are you locked into just paying the minimum payment? do they continue to charge you interest? I hope I'm wrong and misunderstood!

Girlie I've also just spent £45 in Sainsbury's on clothes, they have some lovely stuff! I got 2 dresses to tide me over at work until my mat clothes start to fit and a really cute fluffy dressing gown for DD that I will save for Xmas.
Honey could you try and do any balance transfers to another 0% card? If not, try and pay off the one with the highest interest rate first. Lots if good cc advice on MoneySavingExpert.

Us pesky home edders seem to be everywhere these days my dd's are 7 and 8 and have never been to school. Ds is 18 months old and won't be going either.

I'll get dh to clarify about the highest credit card because it didn't sound right to me either. We're going to try and pay off the one with £800 on as quickly as possible and then fingers crossed we'll be able to get a good 0% deal and transfer the £3000.

Embarrassingly we've had a bit of a 1950's set up because of me doing the majority of the home educating he's dealt with all the finances and I've not had much of a clue.

Will do my best to post day to day spends. I'm thinking of leaving my card at home and just dealing with cash. Contactless payments are evil!!!

Indeed Honey! In our town the amount of HE families has tripled in just two years, it's a good few hundred now.

We nearly HE from the start but decided to try them at school, then we took them out when they became really miserable (bullying etc, they both almost certainly have ASD too) - definitely the best thing for them, and unexpectedly it's been great for me too. :)

Haha yeah they are evil. We're going to start using the cash in envelope system from November so we no longer use the debit card for day to day spends. Hopefully it'll help.

Thanks for your advice and patience folks. I will try PayPal. My bank details are already in TCB as I booked a hotel through them and had to put details in
Lilac, good idea helping DH out. Perhaps he will eventually get the "we're in this together" thing.
Sensible about no trips in January Cag, it's cold and miserable and the days are short. Also probably have lots of Christmas stuff to do. I like libraries in January. They always seem warm, friendly and welcoming.

trying There are no stupid questions. PayPal will charge you though. Email tcb and ask what's going on.

Honey Welcome. I'm allergic to milk and find it cheaper to cut out than buy free from stuff.

Looking at bills I would ask the council to put you on 12 month council tax, look at moving broadband and using a cashback site because we pay £6 a month to sky after cashback, look at water use (do you have a dishwasher?), tell Netflix you wish to cancel so they offer you a better price, and cancel national trust in favour of new zealend national trust which is very cheap compared to uk and gets you into English heritage places too which would tie in with home ed because their stuffs mainly ruins.

Then I'd take a long hard look at energy consumption (water heating on for ages? Oven on to power a clock? Ditto microwave? Freezer set to arctic circle in winter?). Led lightbulbs off led hut.co.uk are fab and there's always discount codes about and of course cashback.

£44 cut and blow £5 of that is tip because he's a good cutter.
£1 cashews
£3 lunch fil is still in hospital and I'm more disorganised when stressed
£33 three months contact lenses.

Up to £12 in valued opinions but need £21 to get vouchers

Shopitize new offers are out, and shopmium app.

Just received an email from Topcashback, saying I have cash back paid out. I excitedly logged in, as I have £70.70 pending for my broadband switch and £139.48 confirmed for my bank switch and at long last, the energy switch I made in February through UK Power. The amount that's payable? The grand total of 0.86, from my travel insurance!