First Frugalling month of 2018 almost done , so Forging forward into Feb we go

[Laska5772]

...and here we go !
Welcome all!

moan* no not Bromley ..but ours isnt great either.. but quite a bit more than them

em arrggh how annoying.. hope DH likes the other house though.. it looks great ..

I'm in for food receipt monitoring this month .. being stuck home all week has made me realise I really do not need to keep the fridge stuffed ..

Am feeling a lot better today though (though i am now officially 'working at home' for the rest of the week rather than signed off ).. .. I still dont think they will want me sniffling all over them in the office

NSD.

Two tops dyed black. One coat currently in the navy dye.
One boden top being sent back. So £12 refund. One being kept.

Things I still need;
Shoe dye
A body brush
A white camisole.
Austrailian made sunscreen
Trainer socks.

I do food receipt monitoring and it does work well.

I have a page in my spreadsheet for each month, and a row for each day of the month.

I write down everything I spend on food in the "food" column of my spreadsheet and then average it to "spending per day so far" in the next column over.

It's usually more in winter and less in summer, but there's basically very little variation.

I get all my food delivered so at the end of the month I can look at all the shopping lists online and figure out where the money went.

Most of the money goes on meat for us.

Food is our biggest expenditure, but we do eat well. We like the food that we eat and we waste very little, so I think that's okay.

February is going to be a vey tight month for me. It's so depressing.

I think I'm going to try to keep a tally of what I spend on food, non food, pets etc. Somethings gotta give...

DH liked the house. But didn’t love it in the way I do. He is extremely excited about tomorrow’s viewing. So much so he’s taking an early lunch and is coming with me. He says if we like it we’re offering then and there.

On paper I don’t love it. It’s the sensible practical we can make it into the dream home house. But it doesn’t look as lovely as the one i loved. It’s £60k cheaper. So is absolutely the sensible choice.

I’m going in with the mindset of we may love it. And it’s £60k cheaper. So if we went for it, we’d have money to do renovations in time. And also money for me to get a car. I would suggest to dh I get a pony but car is more feasible. And practical.

I think ds is napping. Maybe. He’s been quiet in his room in the cot on the sheepskin for about 10 minutes.

Nsd so far.

That's a good idea Lonely. I do that all the time and it really quickly becomes obvious where the money goes. With us the food is one big regular chunk, and then the other huge chunk is "stuff". The stuff expenditure usually could be put off entirely for months if we wanted to and would bring the outgoings down hugely.

I find it really useful to record all this spending, especially because it exposes boredom spending and loneliness spending and makes it really easy to find alternative.

It also exposes clearly where retail therapy could be replaced by actually spending money to solve the problem. For example if I feel bad about my clothes being old, and buy computer gear to cheer myself up, it actually makes more sense just to buy new clothes and solve the problem. even though I hate buying clothes and would rather have the computer gear

Good luck with your recording. It really is fun once you get into it.

Keeping going is my problem. I start with great purpose, but then miss a day, and never catch up. I'm going to do it this month. Promise.

(Helps massivley that there are no birthdays this month, but half term looms, they are always expensive)

You will say no to dh if you don't love-love this next place won't you em? Only he seems to have no trouble saying no to you. Sensible option isn't quite enough when you're spending six hundred thousand pounds plus (seems even more written out long!).

LSD

£2.50 on a tea strainer.

Thought i’d treat myself and open the posh tea I got in a hamper. Didn’t consider the tea wouldn’t be in teabags

cag I found a 9-12 month mothercare swimsuit still with tags on it. Shall I add it to the nappy parcel?

Sorry DH didn’t love the house em . You will find one though!

I failed at no chocolate February already. But I can have a drink now January is over It appears I can do without booze but not chocolate.

lonely on paper it is the sensible option though and annoyingly i can see that. 3 double bedrooms, large kitchen large living room, south west facing garden. parking for 4. scope to extend up and out if we wanted to. garage linked. build in wardrobes. loft storage. nice area. near good schools (no primary school is bad here but the secondary school in that area is great and by the time ds gets there it will have been rebuilt all modern facilities etc..). on a decent frequent bus route. right near a branch of my gym and the track where i run (if i run). close to our fave beaches.

the house i loved had 3 double rooms, one en suite. parking for 3 (but awkwardly admittedly). no scope to extend. and is £60k more expensive.

i dont dislike "dh's" house. £550k is a lot to spend on something i don't love. but i don't dislike it. i can see the potential on paper, and can see that it could be lovely. but it doesn't look like a country cottage and thats what i want. i said this to dh earlier. but sadly to get the country cottage i really want - wed have to have a much much higher budget than we do.

so i'm going in open minded. i may love it when i get there tomorrow. and if i only like it and dh loves it, i can see it could be nice with some redecoration. i am going to suggest we go for it. lost nothing by offering.

and i'll need a car. a mini.

Lonely yes holidays always cost a bomb here too. I have a column labelled "fun/ds/education" and one labelled "outings" and I put that spending in those columns. I also have a column to average the fun spending over the days of the month so far. That really helps I find.

For example if I spend almost nothing on fun for 29 days in the month and then blow £50 at the end of the month then I would have felt bad about that £50 in the past and felt powerless to change my terrible spending habits.

However, if I look at the averaging column I see that that is only £1.72 per day in that month, which isn't so bad really (on our budget).

Conversely if I go on a long guilt-trip and try never do anything nice with ds and just spend tiny dribs and drabs and achieve nothing then it could still very easily turn out to be £1.72 per day over a month, and we might both be thoroughly cheesed off.

Definitely the averaging thing helps I find. Once the numbers turn out not to be too awful, it's then quite easy to keep going with writing it all down. I just stuff all my receipts in my jeans pocket and fill in the numbers when I next am at my computer on mumsnet.

Good luck with it.

also lonely i would feel very spiteful saying no to dh just because he's said no to me. if i truly hate it i will let him know. but if he loves it and i like it i'll need free reign/rein to redecorate. straight away.

Today was payday other than usual transfers €10 cc payments to cc waiting on a refund
€3.18 on milk
€10 on layers pellets for the hens
Em decision has to be unanimous for house but good that you've got an open mind about it

What is this 'no chocolate February?' Not.going.to.happen. (although i dont eat much)

I have made a spreadsheet for food in Feb. I managed dry Jan and keeping it up for Feb if i can

Just went out to post back the Hush thing i didn't keep (kept one thing) and spent £29.11 in co op , but fridge was pretty empty . That should do us though as long as Dh doesnt want to go mad over weekend.

Already i can see a dairy trend ( or maybe it was just that the fridge was bare!.. I have been making my own Kefir though over the last few months. You need whole milk for that ..I buy the local farm milk and eggs also and also meat and veg where i can . So we dont stint on food. But then I am only feeding 2 at weekends mostly and just me all week at the moment . and the cat of course £7.89 of todays spend was on his food

Tonight I am still frugally on the pheasant and veg soup! ( it made a lot! ) but that's it now..

Oh and pleasant surprise DS has paid me back the £60 i lent him last month ! (without reminding)

-Ordered a skirt from Boden also. Its ok I wont like it when it comes Boden is quite often disappointing in RL

Enem Could you not make the affordable one your own? If the layout is good, you can give it a facelift. I did this, turning a bungalow into a country cottage: changed porch & front door & window, inserted brick & flints into front wall, then planted front garden cottage style.
Sunny I agree re food. The point of budgeting is to spend money on things you like & use, & not on stuff you throw out (I am thinking of 2jars of olives in my cupboard, one of which is years old). So I buy my pricey bread, but we eat it.

Thanks Moan. It's good to know that you agree. I couldn't go to bed hungry to save a quid really, not when we have the money.

laska That's brilliant of your ds. I remember you said he'd a had a hard time. Well done him.

Well done to your ds laska

Linkey to the house?.

Money management is like dieting, one bad incident leads to abandonment. The key is not to let it.

www.troysjersey.com/property.php?id=28510

moan yes. We could. In time it could be lovely. I know this.

I’m just sulking because I think dh is right. Ha!

Yeah you can do stuff to that ..kitchen is pretty good, but what is that lounge flooring?. I like the other better . (I like Grouville better also ..) .

I like the interior and garden em, it looks like a much bigger house than the link you showed us yesterday, definitely room to make it your own. The rooms in other house looked narrow. Hope viewing goes well for ye

I do think you have to have the love for somewhere also even if it is a bit tatty. When i offered on my last house ( the ex-council one which had been squatted) I could see that it was actually going to be really good and had something about it under all the shite .. and i liked the area