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

[Cagliostro]

Hello all :)

OK so The Locomotion by Kylie just came on the radio. It's in my head and I probably won't stop singing it for a whole week now.

That stir fry sounds wonderful Em! I want it!

Forgot I owe my dad £30 so going to withdraw the money from my savings today. I hate owing people

Going to do a super frugal meal plan later for next week. The budget will be £60 Inc nappies. Just because we've overspent since last Friday.

Morning.

Pretty much a No Spend Weekend as we were away, last competition of the season. DH spent £40 on bulbs and autumn related garden products.

NSD Monday and Tuesday.

Today, Ocado delivery £100 but beer and wine and bulk buys included. I've ordered 2 dresses from Hush, but might return. Free delivery over £65, therefore ordered both.

Made £10.80 on Ebay on a Joules blouse, and relisted a Leather Satchel Company bag.

Tomorrow I will pop to town and open another savings account with Santander paying high interest, and would be interested to know if Nationwide offer this rate on standalone accounts?

DS provisional license is through, so I will research lessons, based on quality/value.

Dsil's birthday Saturday, I have some SJP Lovely from Groupon for a tenner, which I will send.

Lasagne for tea, with salad. Mince was on offer.

DH has to book flights for long haul as he's going away next week for 2 weeks, I've instructed him to put them on the M&S card to accumulate points.

need book the flights via top cashback if you can.

I'll remind DH, thanks Em.

The Nationwide higher interest savings account is for those with a current account, which we don't. I'll stick with the M&S and Santander then.

We also chucked a fair chunk of savings at the mortgage last week, for long term gain.

need good job with the mortgage. I have a love hate relationship with doing that. Love that it'll be a benefit in the long term hate paying chunks of cash.

It does make you feel tetchy doesn't it, reducing the cash safety net. Fluffy clinched it though last week, when she suggested plugging the figures into the MSE mortgage overpayment calculator. Seeing interest saved and years and months mortgage reductions gives perspective.

DH has been putting in some long term planning for the business too, so it feels like we've made some good financial progress for the long term.

I know fluffy mentioned this before but I just came across it on my Amazon yesterday Link to get £7 free with £30 giftcards wonder can you purchases multiples?

electric we know you were only venting about your dh, it's human nature
My electricity company applied 6% discount to the unit rate last June, now they're applying an extra 5.5% across the board

I love steamfresh veg - that come in a portion pack but I bought the bags for doing myself in aldi recently so will test them out with a little salt inside & report back to you agenie

We would never eat hot meals if we didn't have a microwave I think!

That reminds me of "radler bag woman" on that spending program who wouldn't consider overpaying her mortgage as she saw it as them taking money off her, but really it would have saved her thousands over the years.

There's a system called "padding" no idea why it's called that where if you spend a voucher you pay the same amount on to your mortgage.

So, Tesco orchard sends you £5 off meat. Buy the meat, put £5 on the mortgage.

It works really well apparently. I saw it on moneysavingexpert.

Also an American blog said to live on one salary, they did & paid off a mortgage by 30yo and the wife became a sahm for their children.

Imagine how much disposable income you'd have if you didn't need to make a mortgage payment this month because you'd paid it off early.

I overpay £30 a month, when the sofa payment finishes in May 2017 I will put that £63 on the mortgage too. I will cancel the shepherds friendly plan this month and put that £30 onto our mortgage.

Each lot of £30 takes a year off our mortgage, so I should be able to knock 4 years off without really noticing.

*Radley

My dsd proclaimed one evening that you shouldn't get a mortgage unless you can afford to live and pay it on one person's salary and guess who's living in daddy's house rent free for past 8 years, my dh's house Imagine the difference it would make to our lives if we were renting that house and putting it against our own mortgage - we'd be making almost double payments per month once we'd have our other debt cleared.

Oh dear mammy, not an easy one. That link says I'm not eligible?

Padding sounds interesting. And probably very effective, chipping away at the mortgage.

In the post today I have received Boots discount and M&S too. So I am going to make sure I use them and get some Christmas shopping sorted frugally.

I think it's one Amazon £7 voucher per person.

Your Dh might qualify for one.

The early paying off of the mortgage is a great thing. We managed to get a mortgage that could be overpayed without penalty and it was really useful. The last thing we wanted was to be charged extra for paying off early.

Hi all, I boil or steam veggies, or stir fry or simply put them in the slow cooker with everything else.
I have just open a Nationwide savings account. It's internet only but it pays 5% on £2500. You have to pay in £1000 a month but I will just move it round.
Just been blackberrying again. Got 1lb and half. Many are still not ripe so will go back next week. Obviously a very late variety.

AGenie , can you tell us which is cheaper for cooking veggies...microwave or boiling? Thanks
I over pay £100 a month off my mortgage. It is hard to manage and save but I think it is worth it.

I've just checked the Amazon offer and I'm not eligible either. Perhaps it's only Amazon prime people

Our mortgage is set so we can overpay by 20% each month. We were doing this. But worked out financially we were better off saving up and paying a chunk off each year. Dh worked out we'd pay less interest overall doing it this way.

"Padding" is what I'm doing with my credit card I guess. Every time I save cash I throw it against it. Or every time I make cash via Facebook/eBay.

That would irritate me too mammy! When I moved back to my parents for a couple of years after uni, I still paid some rent.

The Amazon thing picks different people each time I think. I had one last year and haven't had another since.

Taking a lunch break to take off my gel nails. Rescheduled my appointment to next Friday. Do not want purple nails any more

Trying yes I'll have a go. I need to wait until the graph zeros as it's currently quite high from cooking my own lunch. I'll wait until everything's off and the graph's down and then do some broccoli science.

Ooh I like the idea of padding. We recently remortgaged. Monthly payments are only about £40 less but we'll save in the long run as the interest is lower and we've reduced the term by a few years. We were going to use the monthly saving to make overpayments but actually we need to save some up for mat leave so it might go in the bank to use next year.
How are all the poorly frugaleers today? Hope you are all on the mend.
I spent £69 on the shopping. I was hoping it would be less but we seem to spend a lot on fresh fruit and veg.
It's a beautiful sunny day here, we've been out collecting conkers, I love shiny conkers! Also have 2 loads of washing out on the line. Might make some cakes in a bit.

boobs

Ask them if you can paint over your current product if you remove it with non acetone polish remover.

You can with shellac, it's a good trick with brides. French manicure with vinylux for the wedding day then remove to wear bright colour for the honeymoon.

Sunggly I've still got the flu but I just phoned my dm and she says she had it too and it finished after two weeks exactly. That would be tomorrow for me, so I'm crossing my fingers. Thanks for asking.

Trying Here is a graph that shows the microwaving of brocolli and potatoes at 4am yesterday morning (I do that when I can't sleep). I'm a healthy eating kind of insomniac at least.

The black circle shows the little uptick in electricity usage from using the microwave. Against that backdrop of almost no other usage it looks very small, interestingly. The graph I showed previously showed a big uptick on using the microwave, so I wonder if there was something else going on then.

I'm currently boiling some brocolli on the hob, so should have some results in a couple of hours when the graph updates.