We’ve had our Merry Thriftmas, now bring on the Happy Fru Year! All welcome as we Frugaleer our way into January 2018.

[Cagliostro]

A new thread in case we are too tipsy (or in my case, asleep on the sofa) to remember later.

This is a friendly group where we chat all things money related and all things everything else related. Everyone welcome so settle in and let’s make 2018 the year we save money!

Hello all. Soending Wednesday £9.57 in McDonalds for tea, £4.50 parking for panto.

Thursday £4 parking for panto. 30p for dinner (it was £20.30, but DH paid £20). I also travelled to London for work, £14.60 for parking, plus train/tube fares, but all reclaim able from work.

Friday NSD.

Tomorrow will be expensive . £4 parking for final panto shows. DD1 needs new school shoes. She had new one stir September from John Lewis (own brand) and she has destroyed them. Split stitching on the upper has left a big hole.i'm not impressed., left a poor review. I plan to send them pictures.

We will also be out for tea between shows, so probably around £20/£25 for that.

I can’t keep up!

Sorry to hear about your poor DS’s tribulations North. It’s a lot for a lad to put up with and sounds like it will be a bit of a slog to get to the end of it all

Also sorry about your DD’s friendship problems Girlie. I really sympathise, I have very strong memories of being that age and how much it all matters. I agree that it will get better, I think everyone finds their tribe in the end.

Sunny I lol’d at your DS’s handling of the tricky boy!

Need I’m winning because my spiraliser has been out of the box. Once

Another tricky day with DD because I cocked up her naps by having her in the buggy at the wrong times so she drifted off briefly and then couldn’t sleep when she really needed to. Sigh. It’s much easier just to stay at home but far too boring. £12 on Tesco top up and £6 today on coffee and cake with a nice school Mum. Just because.

Both of my two local nicest Mum friends are now back at work after mat leave so it’s a bit lonely. I’m getting on okay with a few of the mums at the school gate but I’m not in with the ‘in crowd’. It’s striking to me how much the school gate dynamics is just like school itself! 🙄. I should go to more baby things with DD but I don’t actually find endless nursery rhymes too exciting and am knackered!

Tomorrow will be spendy - it’s our annual dinner and karaoke night out with my lovely close group of friends from uni. One of them, who was DH’s best man, is on his uppers so we are paying for him (very subtly as he had a recent birthday 😉) so it will be even more expensive than usual! But we’d hate him not to be there. My lovely dsises are babysitting for my high-maintenance children for the price of a takeaway (in fact they planned to pay for their own Takeaway after paying for petrol to get here but we won’t hear of that!). One is staying over as we’ll probably be out very late.

Quite a heavy spending day today. £75 in Sainsburies, bought meat etc to make home made ready meals. I buy those takeaway foil containers with card lids, and the dinners are a godsend when you get in from work tired and hungry. Also stops me stopping off at Marks on impulse en route home. Then £5 at Tesco for sausages, leeks and mushrooms. Sausages much nicer, bigger, cheaper and less fat, from Farm shop.

Frugaleers, one thing to mention and one to ask if that's ok.
I got my first fake £2 coin the other day, do check your change. Felt quite angry. Have binned it so no one else gets taken in.

The thing to ask is frugaleers who go to Costco, what are your favourites? We buy tissues, water bottles, loo roll, lacto free milk, tinned tomatoes, washing powder, bin bags, dish washer tabs, facewipes, loo wipes, household wipes, bacon, ham, cheese, buffalo mozzarella, fruit and potatoes. Also some wine. Any recomendations would be appreciated. We also make the odd impulse purchase such as an xl Stanley flask the other week which will be a godsend on trips out this year as we won't need to buy any tea out at all. I did notice that they were selling Contigo travel mugs in packs of two very reasonably for around £16 if memory serves.

Am really enjoying being a frugaleers and reading the posts so thanks all.

£18.50 in tesco. £14 of that was for my daughter which she has paid me back out of her Xmas money.

I bought painkillers (£2), 4 bottles of flavoured water (£) and a gingerbread milkshake (50p).

I have also copied an idea from upthread (can't remember who, sorry!) to 'sweep' any odd amounts from current account. So £2.76 has gone into my isa.

Oh and Laska it was me who bought a scooter to scoot with my DS. I can’t take it out too much as I often have the pram but if DH is around to push that I scoot. It’s ace. I can go quite a bit faster than DS. But must remember that I will heal a lot slower

I am also at the routine small plate use. Ours aren’t especially big but still

(Almost) NSD yesterday. I bought nothing but spent £4 on my community choir attendance. Today £13 in Sainsbury’s on fresh fish & avocados. Less than £10 in cheap local shop for fruit, veg, mustard (39p!) & a newspaper - my one splurge. There is no where nice locally to have coffee, so that helps me not to get tempted. I very occasionally buy a 50p coffee in Co-op. With this new initiative not to use disposable cups I should be even less tempted.
I had to put my 6 mo water & sewer bills on the 0% interest CC, as I have a tax bill to pay this month. I was trying to avoid this, but I need to manage my cash so that I make it til April. I think I can keep actual spending, (food, household items) under close control until April.
On the positive side I have business related travel for three days next week, which saves on food costs.
So frustrated dealing with incompetent professionals. Had a real go at my IFA who manages my pension, but he couldn’t get his act together to consolidate two pensions. It has been months! I threatened him with the ombudsman, which now seems to have worked. I wouldn’t actually take his advice on anything, it just happens the pension he recommended is performing well.
Another long running battle is getting overdue invoices paid by one of my clients - huge, well known company, but do they pay their bills? Ha! Have been chasing for months, spending hours on phone calls, emails, getting the run around. Finally passed it to lawyers - all invoices paid in 3 days! Funny how all the obstacles fall away when they are threatened with legal action. Successful day, but very wearing.

Moan I think I’m right in saying the bigger companies are known for doing that with suppliers. Next time I’d say pass it to lawyers after the first reminder.

I can’t keep up with the thread. Tomorrow I plan to get both DDs a flu vaccine. Late, but I’ve been waiting for 1 to recover from this long lasting cold that’s done the rounds. Will probably buy some veg too, plus eggs and sausages from the butcher.

I've woken up with still a headache and stomachache 3 days after 1 hours of LED exposure. This is getting really tedious.

On the plus side, it is now the weekend. Yay!

I'd like to join you again. I used to post years ago and have periodically lurked since then. I got a new kitchen last year which wiped out my savings. This year I've got a special holiday to pay for and want to get some work done in my garden. January has been cheap so far and I hope to not spend much this weekend.

Boo. Sore throat coming on here. Means another cancelled gym class FFS. LSD planned today £20 sainsbury budget for.

Today’s planned spends £27 Riding and probably around £30 petrol.

I have to pick up my boots order too - they’ve text to say it’s instore so hopefully it will be.

I need diesel and to do a top up shop. Will see how much it is as last week was the first week of doing a two week shop.

Welcome back olove.
North that sounds a mare for your DS. I am so pleased for your DD stepping up does wonders for their confidence.
Ann I had that problem. Hazelnuts go mouldy at the back of our cupboards apparently. 😮 I now have a bullet journal with a monthly shopping list page. Hopefully it reduces waste and popping to the shop for a top up.
The dutchess I have a couple of colleagues (young no kids & health conscious) who get those weekly meal plans. They come in really sturdy plastic trays. I am their recycling centre. Occasionally I bring one back to them with a meal in... They like my Thai curry.
Em our parcels get dropped off at the local post office / shop. Even the courier ones....it is an informal arrangement but so useful for everyone. We don't have to drive to pick it up, postie doesn't have to carry it about and the shop gets more sales. I suspect if the post office was aware it would be stopped.
Sunny We have had a new wrap around homelessness programme service open up in Manchester. I work in the sector and I still can't work out how to access the service. I make a point of talking to the homeless people who sleep in our carpark and between the station and the office. There are a few who are in a really bad way. They need urgent help but keep not quite meeting the eligibility criteria. It is so frustrating. Monday's task is to put in some high level calls to see if something can be done.

My DD is putting up her first ever exhibition. We have a couple of RA artists in the village who are coming to her "Opening". So she is super excited. I was just impressed that we managed to leave IKEA with nothing more than the frames we needed.
I have a weekend of filling in a job application -more senior and a move from delivery to policy. I don't think I will get an interview but I can't not try. It also keeps me otherwise occupied for the weekend.

Ocado delivery £124. Lots of formula and I’ve also bought lots of meat to batch cook spag Bol etc for freezer. That’s tomorrow’s job. I should be able to make at least 20 portions of freezer food plus the week’s meals.

I really have no idea how people shop for £40 for a week. We usually spend about £100 and still buy most fruit separately. We could defo cut back on meat /fish but there’s not much processed or convenience stuff in there as I usually cook from scratch. It’s the non-fresh food that seems to add up fastest though. DH has expensive cereal and we get through tonnes of things like tissues, wipes etc. I do prioritise food but need to get DH on board with cutting back a bit.

In emergency I can get it to£40 pw...but it isn't sustainable. It relies on having a fairly full store cupboard and lots of ramen noodles. Non food items will have to left off and there is no chance if the kids are doing good tech.

This week ive spent £67.69 on food and toileteries. Family of 6. Two adults, dc aged 9 8 4 and 1.

We didnt need any washing powder, wipes or nappies though.

I usually get nappies and wipes through amazon subscribe and save. Last night i realised nappies were now 5p per nappy more this way than buying a load at tesco where they are now half price. So i cancelled the amazon order. Also realised by changing to a different sized box of wipes from amazon i could save another 10p per pack. So i did that too. Every little helps!

Tax credits have been reduced dramatically, i think they are taking back for an overpayment and hopefully my payments will increase again come april but still waiting on a letter.

Trying to make more effort to save leftovers instead of throwing food away.

If you are organised you can do the added value bits eg marinading your own olives, garlic bread from part baked baguettes, oven dry cherry Tomatoes, salt lemons, make your own spice mixes, own beer nuts, make gravalax in place of smoked salmon. Making bacon is really easy and saves a huge amount. But these things all take time.

lonely is yours the Morphy Richards? it has v mixed reviews ,, are you finding it ok for things like beetroot and potatoes also ?

Christmas tree is outside. Dh was meant to take it outside by 9am. But he didn’t. So I’ve dragged my full of cold self out of bed showered and have dragged tree down the stairs and left is by the outside door. Sigh.

Dh is now sulking and said I should have asked him to do it. I did. Yesterday.

Now have to hoover the floors. Bloody Christmas tree needles. This is why I hate real trees. Ours hasn’t dropped any needles at all in the 3 weeks we had it. Except for today. It’s parting shot.

Brioche toast and tea for breakfast. Mmm. With strawberry and pink champagne jam from a hamper we were given. Really tasty. There’s not much left of it which is a shame. Luckily we’ve got jars of black butter to use up. This is my absolute favourite. It’s like an apply cinnamon jam/preserve. Only made here I think. It’s delicious.

Lonely I'm looking forward to getting the GTech home, the house won't know what's hit it
Duchess I use all sorts of different containers for freezing HM meals. It means you don't end up resorting to takeaways.
Unescorted I didn't know or had forgotten you're in the NW. Well done to your dd on her exhibition, how exciting.
Seacow have a fabulous night out and every credit to you for helping out your friend too.
Creme glad to hear you got your boiler sorted, not the time of year for no heating.

All okay here, no other spends yesterday. Today will be more spendy, dh needs some new trainers and then will be going to the pub to meet friends before the football (football ticket already paid for). Dsil & bil are hosting tonight so no additional spends. Planning to set off home at 10ish tomorrow so we are home for mid afternoon in time for dd to get ready for back to school on Monday. Not sure whether ds will go back or not yet, will wait and see

Taking Ds for a back to school haircut this morning £15 plus tip 🙄. Dh has requested I return with something for breakfast - I have pointed out various items in the cupboard!

I think the trick to getting the food bill is to eat bigger main meals. I eat huge meals but we don't routinely buy cakes/biscuits. If I do want a cake I do a vegan sponge. Very cheap to make as its store cupboard food.

I cook from scratch too. Home made roasties with lard really fill you up. Same for home made sage & onion stuffing. Processed food doesn't seem to keep you full for long.

That's how we do it anyway.

I can't keep up with this thread at all!
We've had a very LS week, just £34 on petrol for my car and £3 on birthday cards so I'm reasonably happy.
I'm waiting for DH to get out of bed (it's his turn for a lie in) then we're heading off for a swim and breakfast somewhere. It's our treat for getting through my first week back at work and DS's first week at nursery. I also need to order next week's food so it'll be a bit of a spendy day!

Just had an enjoyable hour catching up on the thread. Wedding was really good caught up with two of my very best friends & one of their husbands danced the feet off me! My dbro collected me so no spend on taxi.
€25 makeup
€15 hair
€7 car wash
€100 card
€62.40 on alcohol
I have no voice at all today & two very swollen glands, if there's no paracetamol in my dbro's house I will have to spend on that but otherwise only spends today will be a few euro on soda water & lime tonight as today is the day I give up alcohol for the rest of the year

We only need milk and plain yoghurt today. Dp is popping out to meet a customer later, so he can bring them back. I'm going to plod on here.

Good news is my work is back open (they have a very nice christmas holiday shutdown), so I can pick up work on monday.

I do a nice filling from scratch evening meal, I only have a smaller portion as I run to fat as I graze too. My dc eat a lot less between meals than me. I think £40/week shopping does rely on a full store cupboard, and as unescorted says is unsustainable long term. Plus it's usually only 2 adults and a few small dc. With dc aged 15 (very almost), 11.5, 10 (almost) and 5.5 year old it's a a lot more food required.

In 2017 my average weekly supermarket spend was £161. This includes food, toiletries, any clothes, odd presents and all cat and most of the dog food. I'm going to see each week as I go on this year, and try to be under it. But we will eat the same, as will the pets. (My average spend per week in shops, not supermarkets was £193, which I was a bit suprised about, but there was quite a bit of building materials, £400 in glasses, and the cash downpayment for orthadontics included). Lots of areas to find savings in there!