Money-managing Masterfully into May - Frugaleers unite!

[needastrongone]

Thread continued for old faithfuls, new posters and anyone else that would like to contribute.

Financial talk, tips and discussion, with quite a lot of other stuff too.

We are a friendly bunch and there's lots of support for new and old.

[SunnyLikeThursday]

Our Easter holiday has also been quite expensive. We went to a park yesterday thinking it would be cheap and then spent £15 on food and parking. It was a nice day out though and we have very few proper outings like that. We even took the bikes on the back of the car.

Swimming was also expensive and so was lunch out after church, but we enjoyed them all, and that's worth a lot I reckon.

[Cagliostro]

I tend to think things like swimming especially are worth the money. I must go with the others once the school holidays are over (another week to go here). Need to see if my costume still fits! (I have lost half a stone though lately so yay).

Frugal win, DH got 4 bottles of Dove body wash for 9p :o not sure why but the gift set things were reduced. They smell nice and I am nearly out of my current stuff.

Need to collect some lunch things to share today as getting a train to my friend's house, haven't seen them for ages. Doctors appt too so will need at least one prescription (don't think the exemption cert comes through till later?).

[WreckTangled]

Just got ds' school place through 😭😭😭 so sad he's going to be at school!! Luckily I will have all the holidays off with them now.

[SnugglySnerd]

Was it the place you wanted, Wreck?

Just did a quick top up shop in Asda and went out for breakfast so a bit spendy today.

Looks like we're going to have a general election. Whatever next?!

[ChristmasSeacow]

Snap general election . This is going to be very interesting - the political parties will need to unite behind a Brexit position, which will overshadow other party political domestic issues somewhat. Gosh.

Awaiting school news here - apparently we find out after 5pm.

DS is off sick - he still has a fever. Perks up for an hour after cslpol but not really up to much. No going out for me!

[SunnyLikeThursday]

Does his fever go below 38 with calpol Christmas?

We're zooming round the garden with a neighbour. Frazzling, but ds looks cheerful.

[ChristmasSeacow]

Not sure Sunny, I didn't want to risk waking him in the night with the ear thingy. He felt much better to the touch though. I will check after the next dose.

[SunnyLikeThursday]

That's good. If it doesn't go below 38 then it needs antibiotics. I learned that the hard way with scarlet fever.

[scattyspice]

Eh? General election?
Hope school places are as desired for those waiting.
Spendy today: haircut & primark for DS plus lunch and bus fares = £75. At least DC had their own money for non essentials.
Hopefully won't need to go into town again for a while and summer clothes all bought (hopefully).

[Mummysh0rtlegs]

£24 in sainsbury, I did buy three bags of grated dairy free cheese, they don't sell it in aldi and various other bits. We are going on holiday in June (election week!) and I rang Monarch to book our seats, paid £120 for all of us to have extra leg room, Gabriel will be 20 months and doesn't get a seat so at least we will have some more space.

[Mummysh0rtlegs]

We got out place at school, walkable, fits in with the pre-school so Gabriel can start at Christmas, perfect.

[SunnyLikeThursday]

I just went through my tesco order carefully to see if I could move £40 of the things over to an ocado order, so as to be able to get some thing from ocado that I can't get from tesco.

It was really quite surprising to find that some things are radically different prices in Ocado and Tesco, even for the same brands.

For example:

6 eggs of the same brand £1.70 in Ocado and £1.20 in Tesco.

2 boxes of innocent smoothie cartons £3 in Tesco and £6 in Ocado.

Or 4 boxes of innocent smoothie cartons in Tesco £6 or 3 boxes for £7 in Ocado.

It makes my head spin to think about all the possible permutations if I comparison shopped my whole list in all the different supermarkets. :-)

[Loveabaconsandwich]

It's scary when you notice price differences sunny. I remember when buying newborn nappies in Tesco they were £3, in sainsburys the same pack was £6.

Just made the effort to update my details on a long lost bank account. A whole £1.31 in it! But scarily, the interest rate on that is better than where some of my savings are at the moment.

Also need to move ISAs but the interest rates are so minimal I'm not sure if it is worth the effort. But I must be good and do it. Also need to set up a junior isa and some kids regular savings accounts.

£189 on car service
Will buy cinema tickets for tomorrow later too
£50ish on Tesco delivery

[SunnyLikeThursday]

That is really odd isn't it Love? Given the amount of trouble I go to to comparison shop for other things. It's weird to have a 50% difference in the supermarket. Fortunately I'm already shopping at the cheaper one.

[Loveabaconsandwich]

Shopping around can definitely be time consuming but is definitely worth the savings. Food is a difficult one- when I'm shopping in person you end up paying the extra eg one shop charges 20p more for bread but you need it. But if I ever gave up work it'd easily become my new part time job going to each shop for the cheaper items

MIL thinks I'm some kind of hard negotiator when I told her I rung up and said I wanted to cancel sky in order to get a better deal. I thought everyone did it- she's in the minority!

[Girliefriendlikesflowers]

Hello all, its been a spendy day here, right here goes...

£3.90 hospital parking, dd had her routine ENT appointment which was o.kay although her hearing has gone down slightly again.
£4 on tea and cake after the appointment.
£2 Parking in town
£8 Wilkos on a random selection of bits and pieces!
£23 Primark got dd some new clothes and picked up a new picnic blanket, previous one completely fell to bits.
£9 Subway for lunch (me and dd)
£17 Superdrug, bought a load of vitamins for dd as they were on offer 3 for 2, also bought a calpol plug in thingy as a friend recommended them for helping at night while dd is still coughing loads.

Also spent £13 on the treatment for the leatherjacket bugs, still feel sick whenever I think about them!!

Have taken dd to the Drs as her cough has been going on for over a week, last night was another bad night with dd coughing till gone midnight. She has got a chest infection, was surprised as she hasn't had much of a temp but the Dr said they could hear crackles on both sides. Have kept her off school today and will keep her off tomos, am meant to be working but have told them I won't be in. Hoping with a couple of days of antibiotics she might be o.kay for Thursday...

[lifelongfrugaleer]

I shop in sainsbury and aldi with to up at Morrison's. I buy in bulk from aldi as once fuel is factored in its not a huge saving. Food is fluctuating greatly at the minute imo.
£36 in b&m
Will be £6 tonight as going to fitness with a friend and she does pay as you go classes

[lifelongfrugaleer]

Hope the antibiotics help girlie.

[Taytocrisps]

DD takes a cereal bar into school for her lunch (as well as a sandwich and fruit etc.). I couldn't find them on the Tesco website so I was buying them from my local (expensive) small supermarket. Eventually I discovered that Tesco do stock them but they're saved as raison bakes instead of raisin bakes smile. That's one disadvantage of shopping online. Also, trying to figure out what things are called. For example, I make chicken fajitas but couldn't find the wraps - after a lot of searching I discovered that they're tortillas.

Girlie hope the antibiotics work - DD's had that cough for a while now.

[Loveabaconsandwich]

tayto the Tesco app has a scan barcode function. I found that was the only way to find Tesco own fruit pouches for little DD. Otherwise I was having to buy the expensive baby version. You just have to remember to scan before throwing away the packaging!

Hope DD feels better soon girlie. We tried the plug in calpol thing- not entirely convinced, but it smelt like it should help so will definitely use again

[MeadowHay]

We do most of our shopping online, mostly because we don't have a car. I alternate between Iceland, Sainsbury's and Asda depending on what we need or what I fancy. I agree Tayto it can be hard to find the things you want sometimes online though or to find the best price for a product because often the websites are not very user-friendly. I think the Sainsbury's website is the best.

Spends today:
£2.80 in the card shop on birthday cards for relatives.
£3 in the Boots on a pack of baby wipes.
£1 in WHSmith on two packs of 180 stickers that were in the sale, for my refugee kids.

One of our refugee ladies had a baby boy yesterday ! Our little cousin's mum has said she has some baby clothes and toys we can take back for her mum and baby, which is kind.

DH and DGPigs are on the train on their way up north now. Excited to see them all.

To those who asked about my exam anxiety - yes I have generalised anxiety disorder anyways so it's just like, extra bad for me at the moment . Today has been better than yesterday though. Probably because I know I will see DH and my little fluffs later. No I am not getting any therapy at the moment but I tried a few months ago at uni and I couldn't make the appointments consistently enough to make it worth it - my anxiety often stops me leaving the house. I have diazepam for when I'm really, really struggling though and I'm well-versed in self-help strategies. I find distraction useful and also breathing and stretching. And cuddles with DH and/or DGPigs .

First sunny day here in the whole week I've been here!

Good luck to everyone wrt school places!

[Taytocrisps]

Oh that's useful to know Love

[Fluffycloudland77]

If you put your shop into mysupermarket it will tell you the cheapest shop and link you straight through to them to process the order.

£10 petrol
£3 milk and rum and cokes.
£1.50 work stuff.

[AdoraBell]

£4 on art knives for school work
£90 ish on grocery delivery.
DH then paid £400 odd to kennels. We'd booked dogs in for 3 weeks, couldn't cancel last minute without paying. Days out during school hols rather than going away. Kinder need summer clothes for holiday booked before money dried up.

[CremeEggThief]

Eh? A general election?