Springing into the New Year with the 2017 Frugaleers

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Just setting up the new thread for the chatty Frugaleers.

By popular request - copied from an old thread grin

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/other_subjects/1324074-For-those-who-cant-afford-to-use-central-heating-this-year-How-are-you-going-to-cope

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/credit_crunch/1543785-your-top-tips-for-money-saving-and-a-more-frugal-life

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/credit_crunch/1600030-Small-money-saving-habits-petty-even

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/credit_crunch/1628874-Gas-Elec-Bills-monthly-and-SKY-so-angry

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/mumsnet_classics/1911061-NO-MORE-COLD-MUMSNETTERS

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/_chat/2209167-Slow-Cookers-are-shit

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/_chat/2224969-saving-money

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/legal_money_matters/2258202-Debt-mutual-support-thread-number-6-start-the-new-year-with-a-clear-purpose-and-keep-moving-forwards-even-by-tiny-steps?

orchard.tesco.com/ Sign up to this.

www.topcashback.co.uk/home And this.

www.quidco.com/home/ And this

www.moneysavingexpert.com/ And this

www.moneysavingexpert.com/cheapenergyclub ditto.

www.checkoutsmart.com/ Plus this.

www.hotukdeals.com/all/deals/new?page=3 Check this daily.

Trying I still haven't got any further because I have to watch house before it goes off of now tv. We have three episodes to go I will do it this afternoon...

Nsd planned. I'm off to work and we don't have any money anyway although we need ham but I have change in my purse I can use for that. Dc off to my mums so I have to drive twenty minutes in the opposite direction before starting work at 6:45 😴

Nsd planned.

I am up and having breakfast! Catface is most confused.

Today's balances

Joint ac £1884 (service charge tv licence and phone bill have come out)
My ac £210
Cc £583.69. Yippee.

Back to work today and fantastically I have a sore throat. One of those hurts to swallow sore throats. Excellent. Always nice to have 10 days off then get sick right when you're meant to be rested etc. Ah well.

Probably won't be going to the gym tonight.

I lied. I need to buy a bottle of water today for my desk. I can't drink out of glasses while at work - i have spilled far too many times so keep a bottle on my desk and drink from that then refil and repurchase maybe every month/6 weeks.

So probably £1.50 on water.

Newbie over here *waves hello

Nsd planned today

Massive amounts of recycling out for the bin men.
Might do a tip r run but might just leave it in a heap for the weekend.

Phone screen is playing up so may not post as much

Back to work too.

Should be a LSD, just popping to M&S for fresh fruit and veg.

Still using DH's cash though, so it's not my money.

Em if you can buy a refillable bottle somewhere at lunch as plastic bottles are meant to leach chemicals into your water if reused. I can't use glasses at work for same reason as you

Joint account €1207.27
Personal acc 98.82
CC 1 373.67
CC 2 1473.46
Cash I'm not sure

My personal account will take a further hit today when I go to doctor, I loaned joint account quite a lot of money in past month but did it that way so I could budget correctly for next year rather than just pay for stuff myself. I will take some back when joint account can afford to give it to me/in Feb when I want my savings to pay for laser hair removal

CC 2 is 0% interest & this runs out in Feb so I need to repay it by then.
Plan is to balance transfer CC1 to a 0% card supplied by my own bank & pay that off too.

I'm also going to start contributing to my pension this month too.

Mind yourself with sore throat em

I hope to catch up on emmerdale a bit while I'm sick, quite a few episodes disappeared off app without me getting to watch them & app wouldn't work for me yesterday

Thanks for the thought on the jigasaw Need but I'm okay thanks.

I'm having three days with ds here while dh is back at work and we're really struggling to battle our way through the silence. Think ds will be glad to be back at school talking about poo with his friends. I've mised about 1000 posts, but am trying to catch up.

Yes Bébé have 50% off children's clothing & 20% off toys going to see if I can encourage dc to spend their Christmas money there rather than Smyths

Welcome mama
Trying dh is gone back to work today but my dsis is here to help me out so I'll get rest today

Welcome moggiek

Love the Vegan rant Em. I went for dinner with a vegan person once and just felt so sorry for him after he'd eaten nothing all evening. Maybe a good idea to get that sore throat swabbed at the GP. Swallowing ones sometimes are tonsilitis.

Welcome mamabluestar

Ooo! I got to the end of the posts I've missed. Phew!

We bought some plants to do up the school flower bed so that's our mission today. Hoping that will get us some sunshine and get ds hardened off a bit before the shock of going back to school. Hope we don't freeze in the process.

Oh! and I got crackers and some new decorations half price at the garden centre so we will have nice crackers next year, and I have already started my Christmas page in my budget spreadsheet. Woohoo!

Excellent work cathode

Am facing a few days of dd at home with the pox it will be hard due to schools going back. But at least its a sunny day.
I took some shoes back on new years eve...but the refund hasn't gone into my acct yet, should I be worried?
We did a food shop yesterday and that leaves us with £100 until the 21st when dh gets paid. I hope we can last, but doubt it.
I'm on a no buying clothes for a year (who wants to join me! I think I will write about it in my blog)
Aim for this year is to pay cc off.
I have a pile of washing to put away, wish me luck.

I have decided to try matched betting, I'm following oddsmknkey and have paid them £15 for their calculators and stuff, I should make that back this week. I'm a bit nervous of it all, but I'm aiming to make £1500 this year as one of my New Years goals by any means necessary. This should help if I get the predicted returns.

I'm hoping for a NSD and a no driving day, but the kids are climbing the walls and I might crack and take them out.

all loads of stuff hasn't hit my account yet from New Year's Eve and he Day before. Everything will be delayed and refunds can take up to a week I think.

Planning to sit down with DH and go through CC accounts and bank accounts, cancel some direct debits etc, make a tight budget and pay a big whack off the CC. He's resisting in a quiet way but I'm insisting.

Have enough food for about 10 days. Free lunch at work is a big plus... DH gets it too but often doesn't take it and then ends up faint with hunger and buying food on way home this needs to stop.

I've bought birthday presents up until April, saving a fair bit in the January sales. My budget for the rest of this month is £50 a week! Should be ok, as there is still lots of food in the freezer and cupboards from Christmas, I will meal plan later. I've been given £100 by dm for Christmas, I was going to buy boots but am thinking of buying a bread maker instead. I used to have one and it got used a lot until it gave up the ghost.

I'm getting the year off to a weird financial start. I just bought some shares for the first time, which could be good or bad. Then I booked roofers to come and fix some holes in our roof, and to blow a massive gaping hole in my January budget. Going to be interesting.

I still haven't quite caught up with the thread but I also enjoyed your rant about the vegan lady Em :o now obviously I am somewhat in favour of home ed but not when it's to shelter a child from the outside world. HE done right is the opposite - you are out in the real world all the time (not least because you have more time to be) and have lots of outside influences, it isn't about only knowing what your parents let you know IYSWIM? At least it shouldn't be. Re: the curriculum, nope in the U.K. at least there is no requirement at all to follow anything. Lots of people do by choice, many more (I'd say most in my experience) take a vague inspiration from it but don't fret over what to do when. That's working well for us - I follow the Caglets' interests mostly and that sometimes follows the NC, other times not. For example they could explain blood components, the clotting process and phagocytosis at 5 and 7, they wouldn't have done that at school at that age but they were interested so why not. That was a 'home ed is working' moment for me. :) It's more about learning how to learn, and loving learning, than learning particular things at set times. Most families I know do a semi structured approach so will have 'lessons' for core subjects but follow the child for other stuff, go on trips and do projects etc. There is also 'unschooling' which is basically zero influence from the parents as it is entirely child led, so unless the child wants to specifically do maths etc they don't. The idea is that they will learn what they need to from everyday life. But I don't personally get on with that approach as I think actually stuff like maths does need daily practice and reinforcement (especially DD who unlike me does not have a maths brain at all!). But each to their own and all that.

I have waffled for too long but always happy to talk HE. :o

2 runs to the tip, all the recycling collected .
£1.84 in aldi
Continued clean of the house today
I need a new shredder and think the hoover is burning out.

I've spent quite a lot today BUT a lot less than normal and I only got what was necessary, normally by now I'm looking at the bank after all the bills go on the first and worrying about how little is left but not this time!

So today I have spent,

£80 final payment on DS2 school residential.

£2 on school pens/pencils for DS1 (pound land)
£9 school shoes for DS2, I've discovered wether I spend £50 or £5 he destroys them in a couple of months so now r always gets cheap ones.
£22.50 on 3 haircuts for the kids.
£11 on an amazing Fred's World snow suit for DD, I stupidly left hers in Orlando airport and it's -3 here today, normally. I would have picked up several 'bargain' LGR bits too but she doesn't new them so they didn't go in the basket.

Nothing else to spend today or tomorrow. Next thing will be fuel later in the week.

cag I know a few home edders who do it your way. There kids are more advanced than those at school because from what I've seen they're more interested iyswim?

Cousins little one isn't allowed outside because of rapists and paedos. And was terrified of the beach because of tsunamis. And won't travel because of terrorists. Cousin is very much a "I watch the news all the time" sort of person and a "we speak to child as if she's a grown up" person. No time for sillyness. No time for being a child.

Have taken lemsip and nurofem stuff for cold/flu. But is not touching throat. may have to make appointment with dr. Am annoyed as I was going to go next week to speak to lady doc. Maybe it'll be ok tomorrow. Told dh that I'd give it a few days and make an appt on thurs if I felt no better. I don't think it's tonsillitis. Have had that before and it was absolute agony. But I'm not a gp so.....

Spends £1.50 on a bottle of water. Will get round to buying a proper water bottle at some point...

£16 in boots on tissues throat lozenges paracetamols and pre pregnancy vitamins and a packet of crisps.

Good journey down last night. Off for a woodland walk today & then family stuff later on. Should be low or no spend

Spends today:
€11 Aldi
€20 TK Maxx
€9 lunch

Are you tracking ovulation em? I've just ordered a reusable ovulation tester thingy from Amazon. It hasn't arrived yet so I can't vouch for its usefulness but it should be a more frugal option than buying an ovulation tester kit every month.