The Friendly Frugaleers, figuring out our finances with furry feline photos!

[Cagliostro]

Hello all :)

Mammy I think i know who you are to! Must be one of our Irish Frugaleers?

Enjoying another day off its nice to be able to catch up on the boring stuff like house work and washing but also going to meet a friend for lunch later.

Pay day today - woo hoo! Although am going to not go mad like I did last pay day and spend the rest of the month skint

That said am going into town, need to get a few bday gifts for various people and start thinking about Christmas I suppose.....

Fluffy. I have just done the mortgage over payment. Having plugged in rough figures into MSE, I've saved £7800 in the 13 years we have left on the mortgage, or 2 years 7 months.

I've also spoken to Ocado this morning and saved £60, as the delivery pass I signed up for was actually included in my original £20 voucher. Free med week deliveries for a year.

And cancelled £7 pcm Morrisons delivery charge.

Frugal morning!

Meadow I have Asperger's too :) only diagnosed last year at the ripe old age of 28. It's changed my life though, being able to understand and accept myself. I also have physical health issues (CFS fibromyalgia and POTS) so I totally empathise with the meal planning difficulty. I am using more stuff from the freezer now - frozen rice, what a godsend! 2 mins in the microwave rather than lifting a heavy pot and stirring etc.

Nsd today. Went to the new bank for the initial chat and a real estate is coming to valuate the house later today... Have to then wait and see if they wanna take us...

My grand mother is making a cot bumper for baby dds bed in the same fabric as the baby nest, it's going to be so cute... Because she already has the fabric it's only going to cost approx 15£ instead of 50-70£ in stores....

Yes girlie you're right
frugal fail today, what with staying in bed to put ds to sleep I hadn't enough time to make a lunch for me and dd, so obviously her lunch was more important

I need diesel anyhow so I can kill two birds with one stone as they say.

Think I will fill the tank on new car to see if it is doing the mileage that the computer says it is. I'll be putting this on cc but I budget for diesel every week so will allocate the funds back before bill is due.

We've had 8 fraught days in a row with DS! my mood is low and that gives me the urge to spend.

I feel so close to getting a job which I'm perfect for but I know I won't get it. Gutted! Will try anyway. I'll probably embarrass myself in the process

Hang in there Collie.

Does anybody know where Iceland comes on the food quality scale between say Asda, Tesco and Waitrose?

Also what do you all do if your dc have set their heart on some ghastly plastic toy that is really expensive and they will only play with for ten minutes? I'm torn between letting him have it for Christmas and just sidestepping the whole issue to buy him something that will last longer.

This is the offending toy:

www.amazon.co.uk/Go-Jetters-DMF45-Jet-Pad/dp/B01E3UXJ78

It doesn't come with the plastic people that are needed to play with it. They cost another £70. I'm trying to explain to him that they're out to sting him but it's a tricky one.

Hello, following to get some tips thanks!

AGenie that's very expensive! Tell him to write you a letter on the 1st December listing the toys he would like for Christmas. Hopefully he would have forgotten about it by then!

Does he have his own money he can spend?

£1.68 posting birthday card to my sil in NZ it's mils birthday tomorrow and dh hasn't organised anything...

£3.15 satay noodle salad.

Handed yet another "I have an offshore bank account because I live offshore" firm to Hsbc. No doubt I'll see this one back again.

Still feeling awful. Super tired. We're supposed to be having Sunday lunch on Sunday at my fave place for my birthday. Tempted to cancel and sleeeeeep!!

Early night again tonight.

Collie That's a good idea. The thought of spending all that money just to have the toy dumped in a corner is a step too far for me I think. Ds earns money doing stuff around the house, but it's a drop in the ocean compared to the cost of this thing.

Em I've been on industrial grade rest for days and I still feel like garbage. I think this is a stealth virus. It pretends to be mild and yet turns out to be surprisingly persistent. Maybe your birthday could be put back a week so you can enjoy it properly?

collie that's my dinner tonight. So quick & easy and the dc love it too.

My lunch was €4.30 - soup, buttered roll & bottle of water.
Diesel €50 - supposed to do 630 miles so will see how it fares out.

em sunday is ages away, hopefully you'll be well rested by then.
agenie if it's something he'd play with regularly it'd be worth spending money on but otherwise, try steer him away from it.

welcome thisisplanetearth ask questions if you want

Genie I would say 'no' simple! If he puts it on his Christmas wish list then would probably get it for him for Christmas but at that cost it would be his main present! Not sure re Iceland but my guess is some bits would be fine others not so much.....

Collie sorry to hear things are still tough with your ds, thats rubbish. Don't put yourself down though, any company/job would be lucky to have you

Am back from town so here are my spends.

£6 on some school jogging bottoms for dd.
£6 in Poundland on kids books, reckon on getting 3 gifts out of these for various bdays and Christmas.
£11 in Wikos, got some more bits for the Christmas stash, a bday gift for one of my brothers and some household bits for that.
£6 in Debenhams on half price jewellery to cover 2 bdays.
£12 on 2kg of cat biscuits.

£3.50 on lunch in Greggs and £3.30 parking.

Also took some tops back to Sainsburys so thats an extra £10 in the pot.

Hello, may I join you. Money is quite tight here at the moment as I am no longer working due to ill health and Dh is retired (he is quite a bit older than me). We are getting CTC for ds3 and are waiting for school meals to be sorted out so being frugal has become essential.

I made a list of everything in the freezer yesterday (1 1/2 sides of A4) so I am determined to use that up before I buy anything else. I had a NSD yesterday and am going to make a meal plan and go to Lidl tonight whilst DS is at his activity and only buy the essentials that are on my list.

Caglio Hello fellow aspie! Yes I have some other stuff going on healthwise too, mental health problems mainly (although recovering! slowly) and I've got a dodgey/weak back as well after a car accident a few years ago.

Today DH and I went to my campus for freshers' fair, got some freebies and coupons and stuff and I joined some societies for this year. We spent £10 on three big posters at the poster sale to brighten up our flat a bit. There's too many white walls here and we're not allowed to put in hooks or anything for pictures so posters is about all we can do.

DH is still unwell, bless him. I see a few other people on here are sick too! I'm hoping I don't get it, I start lectures again on Thursday and don't want to be ill right at the start of term. Managed to get all my textbooks out of the library so I don't have to buy them right now but probably will have to eventually as the loans are only 8 weeks and if someone puts a hold on one it will only be 4 weeks and they only have like 10 copies of each textbook for about 300-odd students which is ridiculous.

Oh and welcome to new people, and wrt Iceland, my mam has done most of her food shopping from there for years, I grew up eating Iceland food haha. It's mostly pretty good, we may start shopping there sometime as you get free home delivery and price-wise they're ace.

Thanks Girlie. Ds is very persuasive and had the broken record technique honed to perfection, but I'm explaining to him that the toy makers are trying to fleece him. I suggested instead that he should bulk buy robot parts and sell robots to other children for profit at school fairs, just like the toy makers do. He's considering that.

Collie for you and your DS. Don't put yourself down though. x

Welcome ThisIs, lots of tips here.

Genie, I just go with No. Works for me. He's 6, you are the boss!

I spent £45 on the farrier and spent some lovely nuzzly time with Dpony. I like snuggles with my boy.

Then £60 on Aldi, again lots for the cost. Plus socks and reed diffusers and candles etc. The dogs are getting wet every walk and I am paranoid on damp dog smell. 6 tins of Heinz beans. Piles of fruit and veg. Tampons. Face wipes. 4 toothbrushes. Toothpaste. Love Aldi for value.

£10 on dog perfume from Amazon.

£65 fuel, budgeted for already.

Having a lovely, quiet day. Rice salad from Ocado was lovely. Will run for an hour in a minute then cook tea, spicy roast chicken with wraps.

Boo to poorly folk.

Welcome too Eva. Your list sounds like a good start, as does a freezer list. I badly need to do this.

:)

I deserve a for managing not to throw my printer out the window today! After an hour on tech support chat they decided it's because the paper sensor is faulty and they're sending me a new one (bought in April so under warranty).

Re: Christmas tat, the Caglets know that Santa mainly brings surprises, so they don't do lists and all that stuff. They do get an expensive thing generally so they get the wow factor but it's not something they've asked for, and it's something that is good quality like Playmobil. This year it's a wooden marble run :o the Caglets see a lot of advertising now as they like TinyPop but it's provided a lot of opportunity to pick apart adverts and media manipulation etc. We've read Amazon reviews and that sort of thing which really helps.

Thanks need how do I work out how much to leave in the ISA? We don't have a lot. Under £2k now.

I signed up for a nectar card.

We had marble run! Ha, that takes me back.

Gosh, I'm not sure Cag. I did wonder about you putting half your extra £70 into the debt. So you do feel better off for your extra work, but you are chipping away at the debt? Any merit in that?

LOL! Need as usual I'm with Cag on the parenting style here. I don't do plain No, I always go with an explanation. We're also picking apart advertisements and talking about the whys and wherefores of spending choices. Thanks anyway though.

I see there's a 2% ISA with the Ipswich Building Soc for those in this geographical region. I'm not sure if anyone else is though?

Just booked to give blood. You can book online and we have a centre very close. I've never done it before and not great with injections, but it's a good thing right?!