Remember remember it's frugal November

[LonelyOversharer]

Woo hoo! I've never done the new thread before!

I've had my Hunter wellies for well over 20 years. They are fab! I got them before they were trendy though for mucking out stables. Maybe they were better then.
I hated my Barber jacket though. I was always frozen in it and it was completely the wrong length first riding on very uncomfortable. I wouldn't spend the money on one now. My Northface waterproof is much better. It's accompany to many, many football matches and 2 trips to the wrong side of the Arctic Circle! It was half price at £90 and well worth every penny.

Morning all

Happy Anniversary Cag

Hope dd feels better soon Christmas and you get some sleep!!

Hope ds feels better soon Wreck

Hope all of you tired mummies have babies that sleep well soon, I have no idea how you do it as I feel knackered after 8 straight hours I did not cope that well when dd was a baby and waking up, I love my sleep!!

Its my day off today and am planning on doing some tidying this morning and then popping to town later. Meeting a friend for lunch and looking for some Christmas bits.....

I got my winter jacket from Mountain WareHouse, its a ski jacket and not the most stylish looking of coats but it is warm so I don't care

For those looking at coats There are some really nice parkas in our TKMaxx. Am wearing my Musto parka that i bought there (tkmaxx online) for first time today .. was really cold here this morning..

snugglyi think Hunter sold out and the 'new' ones are more fashion than practicality sadly.. i have v v old dubarrys which are still waterproof but they are so expensive now as trendy factor has hit them.

My parka is black btw

I wore the sole out of my hunters (pre trendy bought from a gentlemans outfitters!) digging my garden. Space corner went clean through. So I buy cheapy wellies now and change regularly. Garden use only.

But dd1 has weekly farm visits, and I was thinking of getting her some muck boots for christmas. Are these worth the £100+ price tag? And does anyone know how they size up? She's a slim adult 4, so I thought 5's with chunky socks? But if they size up huge then she'd need 4's.

Freezing in our shop today. 3rd coffee in hand, and wearing my bright handknit merino poncho from 2 years ago. It's so cosy. I might have slept in it last night. Massive issue leaving the house, dd2 declares she needed to be in early when we were already late like I could wind back time! For a quiet compliant mouse she can get very angry and loud.

Mountain Warehouse jackets here too girlie , and a new one waiting for christmas.

My Berghaus proper coat is 1. Two sizes too big now, 2. Seven years old and getting tatty and 3. Not as waterproof as it should be as big dog weed on it as a puppy (got loose in the car) so it had to be washed. I'm not quite ready to relegate it to a garden coat, twas half price at £200.

Morning! DD had a good night. Didn't wake between 11-8.30. Makes a change from the last couple of nights. She was very fussy all day yesterday too. Hoping the extra sleep means she's a bit better today. We're off to see Dsis and some other family today. Will pop to the shops for baby meds and food.

@Wreck and @Christmas hope your little ones are feeling better and you both and relax

@Cag hope the more frequent feeding is not too draining and you still get your rest

I have just a simple ASDA jacket I got whilst I was pregnant as I didn't know how long it would fit. All this talk is convincing me I might need an upgrade soon...

Hi everyone 👋🏼

I have a question about what you all do in regards to expensive luxuries...

The absolute one thing I spend a lot of money on is getting my hair dyed every 6-8 weeks which costs £120 (London). It’s a HUGE expense and a massive portion of our budget and I feel guilty when I go. I can’t do an at-home job as it would be a disaster as I go from very dark to light blonde and if I did it myself it would just go orange or yellow.

It’s the one thing that makes me feel good and “normal”, not a stupid pleb who has mad bad life choices and is now broke as fuck living on benefits with a baby on the way

Everything else in my life is shit, any new clothes I’ve bought recently has been supermarket stuff or rummaging through the Clearance section of TK Maxx (at 32 weeks pregnant I need to buy larger clothes!), most of my shoes have holes in the soles, I never wear make up because I can’t afford it anymore, I wax my own legs because I can’t afford to go to the beautician, I feel guilty if I go in to town because it means I’m spending money on my Oyster card, I’m stuck in the house most days because I’m too scared to go out and spend money... the list goes on.

Anyone else have one small luxury they spend money on? How do you justify it to yourself?

hamburgers have you tried this? . How long is your hair? I have been using this for some years and its great. My hair is much greyer these days but it is stil v dark in patches.. i find it really works for my white blonde pixie cut.. i also use blue shampoo and conditioner the first few times ..

Mines things for the house. Everyone's got a poisen.

The whole point of frugality is to skimp on boring things so you can afford luxuries. Also remember men never feel guilty treating themselves.

The Halifax reward account has a switch incentive of £125 again if anyone's not been with Halifax since 2012. They pay out in days too.

Mine is good quality clothes books food and decentish wine . However i am more than happy to eat veggie soup or stew 5 days a week and never buy lunches coffees etc . I walk most places( except to work which is too far) , also have very little in the way of technology dont subscribe to satellite gym etc and dont often go out.

I also look for deals allthe time and hardly ever buy full price!!

If you're cutting back in other ways then I don't think you should feel bad TBH. We've often discussed on here how we are all frugal so we can spend on what matters to us. If for you that is keeping your hair good, which is a big confidence boost when you otherwise struggle, why the hell not?

Please don't go round with hole-y shoes though :( that will make you really uncomfortable especially in this weather and being pregnant too.

I should really get up and get dressed! Feel more human after a baby-free lie in

Thanks so much ladies! Here is my lovely hair that I love so much! @Laska5772 will have a look for the Live colours next time I’m in Superdrug but doubt I could ever recreate the niceness the hairdresser does.

@Fluffycloudland77 that’s amazing! I might do that later today. Could definitely use £125!!!! Thanks for the tip! I’m not at all loyal to Barclays.

@Cagliostro I’m lucky that my winter boots don’t have holes in them so I’ve been wearing those Recently got the zipper fixed on one of them but will ask the shoe guy how much it would cost to get them resoled if they become hole-y too.

Landlord making our lives difficult saying all housing benefit needs to be paid to them but if we do that then we have no money left over for bills and our gas/electricity/Internet/phones will be cut off. And weekly JSA covers our food shop and not much else. What do we say?!

I’m having a shit of a day

Boots are quite cheap to re-sole. I bet eBay or Amazon do kits.

The Halifax thing is easy. After you've done Halifax do first direct. It's also £125 but takes longer to pay.

You’re amazing @Fluffycloudland77 I think I love you!

Gorgeous hair!!!

That's horrendous about the landlords asking for your HB directly. We have never had that ourselves, we just get HB ourselves pay rent by standing order. Is there not any rule about that? :(

@Hamburgers I would absolutely not feel bad. I go to the hairdressers only twice a year but it's quite a costly experience. I know from the fact I couldn't have it done whilst pregnant that it's something I definitely could not live without it. It effected my self esteem and a took extra time out of my day when I couldn't have it done so I would say it was completely justified. You certainly look fabulous whatever it is you get done

@hamburgers re the luxury thing - mines horse riding and my gym membership. Gym is £425 a year and the riding is £27 a week. But. It’s amazing for my mental health. And fitness obviously. I re-started riding when I was really stressed in a previous job after a break from horses for almost 20 years.

I don’t smoke or go “out out” every weekend and we live a fairly frugal ish life (which is difficult to do here in jersey as everything is so expensive!) I’ve also slashed my shopping habit. I now really think about clothes shopping. I buy mostly what I need. But occasionally I treat myself.

Spends today £45 in boots - formula, moisturiser, deodorant, a couple of tshirts for ds and two boxes of paracetamol for Dm.

£35 in M&S a cost for ds and a top with puffins on it.

He screamed the whole way around town. Sigh. So I didn’t get a chance to look at boots for me! BAbies - curbing my emotional spending since 24/09/17 (I feel exhausted today and dh was zero help this morning....so it could have ended up being an Uber spendy day.

We were meant to have courgette meatballs for dinner. But I forgot to buy courgettes. So will flip the mealplan and have something else.

Lunch by the sea today!

Hamburgers your hair looks lovely. I don't really have a regular luxury thing, although i do like to take the kids out to eat once a week. Usually the Morrisons cafe though, so not that luxurious!

I'm just moving onto benefits after splitting up with my husband. When I went to claim housing benefit they asked if I wanted it paying to me or to the landlord. I do t know if the landlord can make you pay it straight to them though? I chose to get it paid to the landlord, but it's housing association (we ha e a shared ownership house, so I still have a mortgage to pay too) so at least it'll be done and one less thing to think about.

Random payment of £32.40 went into my bank account from the DWP today. I have no idea what it's for, it doesn't seem to correspond to any amounts on their website. Guess I'll have to wait till they send a letter!

Spent £7.60 on the buses today, £3.50ish in boots for a meal deal as I needed a quick lunch as had DS2's annual review for his EHCP at school. And £10 to give him some money for his community visit.

Now I guess I should pick him up.

cag our HB doesn't even cover the whole of our rent so if we give over everything we have no money to pay for our basic bills (which we're in arrears for too as we didn't even think of applying for benefits until a month ago when things got desperate). We pay the absolute maximum to the LL we can without having to resort to food banks and sitting in a dark house with no electricity.
We live in an expensive house which we used to be able to afford before everything went tits up with DH business, now we're literally broke and have been asking to leave our current property since July!! We want to move to a much much cheaper place but they won't release us from the tenancy so we're just going around in circles and accumulating debt

mywhat my parents used to take us all to McDonalds once a week as kids. It's a really fond memory I hold from my childhood I bet your kids will feel the same about Morrisons cafe when they're older :)

em I went to Jersey a couple of years ago... couldn't get over how expensive everything was

fluffy I just filled out my switch form re Halifax bank. Woo hoo!! :)