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

[Laska5772]

...and here we go !
Welcome all!

That's lovely news about dpony Need.

That is a bit of a tight turnaround Em but I'm sure you'll be fine.

Only spends this week are £63 supermarket, £15 on nephew's birthday present and a couple of quid on a coffee yesterday. Not bad! Today should be NSD.

Blinds done. Not an easy job but looks really nice. Such an improvement from the manky saggy aluminium wreck that was there before. Competency writing started with post it points, I’m feeling happier already

www.hotukdeals.com/deals/wuntu-free-cake-and-drink-at-patisserie-valerie-today-only-2nd-february-2887746

Free cake. It feels like a cake & coffee day.

cag parcel is on the way. Adding the swimming costume made it more worthwhile sending so don’t want anything for it.

£20.04 Tesco

Currently waiting for hygienist appointment. Urgh. My mum just now said to me she would rather give birth than go to the hygienist . Am going to say no to booking the next £96 appointment-let’s see if I can actually do it!!!

NSD! This thread is filling quick but i enjoy reading it...

Busy morning, got into town early and got the Paloma Faith tickets, am very excited will be my first concert in about 10 years 😮 £85 for two tickets. That worked out well with being a council tax free month!!

£24 in poundland, toiletries and party stuff.

£12 in hmv on 2 dvds for dd.

£7 primark new top.

£4 parking.

I'm an aunty again 😊 little boy born this morning 5 weeks early!!! 5lbs 11oz, can't wait to meet him.

£30 petrol.
£11 sains incl trainer socks.
£13 morrisons.
£12 Aldi.

I won loads of nectar. I got a 5000, 1000, 200, 200 and I had that 300 points boost they sent me. So about £33 in nectar points and I'll get last nights 1000 e reward points come through tonight.

The petrol station girls looked mightily pissed off, I wasn't the only one filling up in increments.

Girlie Congratulations on the new nephew.

www.hotukdeals.com/deals/february-half-term-easter-school-holidays-looking-for-cheap-free-days-out-activities-hope-these-help-2884412 Half term ideas.

Ive mislaid my nectar card (I hope - as it has a lot of points on it). Must ring them.

NSD so far but I’m off out to the pub tonight with some Reception mums.

Dd is not impressed with the vegetable pancakes I’ve made for her lunch. She was eyeing up my cheese toastie but it was too salty to share and anyway she stole half my breakfast bagel and then chucked it on the floor

I like the second house, lots of potential.

My phone contract is up and I am trying to decide what to do - go down to a cheaper tariff with EE or try giff gaff. What network does giff gaff use? I’ll go for the cheapest but subject to actually getting decent reception at home. It’s my phone, DH’s phone and a SIM card for the iPad (currently all on a data share contract rather than paid for separately Iyswim)

Hello all, please may I join?
We have had a tough time in the past few years financially, DH was made redundand a few years ago and struggled to find another job, in the end he started his own business making furniture, just to bring in a bit of money and also stay sane - the constant rejection letters were soul destroying. The business only ever made minimum profit and our family of 5 have been mainly living of my wages for the past few years so it has been a huge struggle and our debts have slowly started creeping up. Anyway, last November DH finally found another job - I can't tell you how ecstatic we were. And we are now finally, finally in a position to pay off our credit cards and stop living from payday to payday (and often not even managing that!). I feel that this is a huge turning point in our lives. Like we can finally take back control. To my shame though, I have to admit that before Christmas once DH was settled in his job I put a deposit down for a holiday this summer. Bar visiting my family (in a very boring european country) we have never taken our DCs abroad on a family holiday. The oldest is 17 now so there won't be many more opportunities for this sort of thing and even though I know I shouldn't have I refuse to feel bad about it. I'm far too excited about it anyway!!
So once we got paid at the end of last month we sat down and did a proper budget and according to this we should have £640 left at the end of this month. £640!! It seems a huge amount to me. Never, ever in my life have I been in a position where this much money was just "spare". I feel incredibly lucky. However, first of all I guess we need to get to the end of the month with this amount actually left untouched! If/when we do it will go straight towards the holiday, once that is paid off we'll tackle the credit cards/etc. I've not been brave enough to pay the "spare" cash towards the holiday straight away, I have left it in my account for now as my security blanket (and also to reduce overdraft fees). Being chronically skint for so long has left it's mark and I feel so much more at peace knowing if we had an emergency we would have the means to pay for it. On the other hand I'm not sure if the temptation of all that cash might not be too much... not so much because I would be tempted to just blow it, I am more worried that it will just "trickle" away - a takeaway, a coffee to go, "nice" dinner ingredients for a change... all these small things we have not been able to afford for a while. I think this may be difficult. Anyway, that's why I'm here now - hoping that this thread will encourage me to be super frugal and keep the end goal in sight!

Ah, welcome Smiling and glad things are looking up for you at last. Sounds as though your holiday is well deserved and will be a big happy milestone for you all.

DD is very smiley and gorgeous today. Just looking at her is making me really happy. (Might also be the effect of improved sleep )

Well after all the stress and 90 mins of driving I couldn't hack Aldi and went to Tesco. Spent so much. Then got fuel and a car wash and cheered myself up with a kfc. Meh. Hopefully next weeks shopping will only be £20 then I will still be within budget

Just Welcome.

First things first, are you on the cheapest utility tariffs?.

*Check moneysaving energy club first, then check your broadband/telecoms provider.

*Then google "free water saving devices" and check what your water supplier offers. Shower regulators, hippo water bags for the loo, it all adds up. Little savings repeated multiple times really add up.

*Then check your hot water tank or boiler thermostat isn't set above 55c, most are factory set to 60c. One place we rented was set to 70c!. There's no point heating water to 60 when bacteria mostly dies at 52c (most life forms die at 52c).

It's easier to save when your essential bills aren't more than they need to be. It's a very passive way of saving money. If you don't have led lightbulbs ikea & Aldi do them cheap. I put them in this house before we exchanged & the bills always been super low. Plus they last years, I've not changed a bulb in years.

Are you signed up to the following;

Topcashback
Checkoutsmart
Green Jinn
Media cell app.
Shopmium
Clicksnap
Wuntu
Hot uk deals
E Rewards (you'll need to sign up via the nectar website for these but the surveys pay out in nectar points you can buy fuel, use them on eBay, Argos & it's well worth it)
Kidstart do Amazon & John Lewis cashback.

£2.30 coffee after car park stint, bloody cold here.

Will spend £2 ish in Holland and Barrat to get change for Big Issue lady.

Girlie congrats 😊 hope all is well with mother and baby.

Lunch with friend instead of coffee 12. Ordered vitamins from amazon, went to the local health food shop as I prefer to buy local but the same thing was £5 more expensive per bottle there and the lady was rude so Amazon it is.

Thanks for the welcome
Oooh fluffy thank you, doing some of these already but lots I hadn't thought of so lots of good tips there!

Welcome smiley, sounds like you've had a tough few years. We have a business, albeit it's pretty successful after a hard slog. Halved our income initially on start up. I think being money efficient stays with you to a certain extent, even when things get easier.

So Fluffy, I've done the Nectar Boost too. I split my £40 spend into 3 and got 1000, 500 and 200 vouchers. One spend was a £20 jumper (really lovely actually, cable knit mustard colour with bell sleeves) but I had a previous voucher for 8p off a litre of fuel if I spent £20 on TU items, hence this spend. This voucher I shall utilise though in one sale but to fill the horse box, which can cost up to £110, so 8p off a litre of fuel represents best value here.

Sounds like you ALL needed your sleep Seacow, including DD. I use Giffgaff for the DC's contracts. It's O2 as far as I recall. If you have a working phone it's great value, you can choose your package and swap about as required, no contract. Think I pay £12 pcm for the DC, with a decent amount of data on that though, there's cheaper tariff's available. I'm a fan of Giff Gaff.

Congratulations on the birth of your nephew Girlie and on the tickets. We save in other areas for nice stuff like this.

Thank you for the good wishes re dpony. He's completely fine now thanks Life, and raring to go!

Spends
£40 on Sainsburys items, not much food actually, a couple of home items and a jumper.
£75 cleaner but I owed for last week (no change) and they did extra to clean all my internal windows and lights etc.
£6 car wash.

Had a super walk with the dogs earlier, sunny, dry and spring like, for once!! And done an evil track session.

DH doesn't get home from Germany until Saturday pm, and has phoned to say he's going to Scotland on Sunday. Ho hum.

Roast chicken for dinner. It was reduced and will make another meal tomorrow. Not sure what you need to sort my meal plan.

My maths says you'd be £2 better off doing it in 10 transactions & it gives you 10 chances of picking up a 5000 point voucher. But you've got to have plenty of time & chutzpah to do it like that. I was getting pointed stares for doing it at 11.30 this morning.

You can do two transactions on one pump if you put the nozzle down inbetween fills & hit the £10 preset button.

I saw the yellow stuff too. I'm waiting for the coloured jeggings to land, I've been saving up points. The pale blue bag with a huge bow caught my eye too.

I've had £60 in nectar points since new year. I'm hoping Dh will put fuel in his car tm. By hoping I mean nagging & shameless persuasion.

Pleased because after joining the 'use your nice stuff rather than keeping it in the MNdrawer' thread I finally galvanised myself into finding someone to mend my Mulberry bag DH that gave me (and that has been sitting sadly squashed up under our hall stand for at least the last 8 years -yes really) . So sent that off for £6.25 recorded ( just the strap ) and hopefully in a couple of weeks ill have a useable lovely designer bag again . She has quoted £90 and it will be worth it .

Then £20 .20 in the co op again ( the pot office is n the co op) . I really shouldnt go shopping when I am hungry .. I have bought nibbles ( all the good kind as I am still on the diet) - olives , hummus cold meats etc etc but didnt really need them . This is where my food budget goes...

I'm not sure I've got the patience for £2, but kudos to you for doing so. Dd wants me to grab her the same jumper, so I feel it's a winner if a 16 year old will wear it! £60 is great going. I'm loving the massive boost each month when the Sainsbury's credit card points are added. I need to now figure out the best way to spend the points.

So, menu plan

• vegeree.
• squash and cauliflower soup with sage.
• veggie enchiladas
• tomato dhal.
• celery and pear soup.
• veggie shepherds pie.
• easy tea with jacket spuds, eggs, beans sausages or something similar.

Also for lunches I'm going to have a go at some more hummus, some carrot and apricot bars, and some rooty Bircher.

Just www.mumsnet.com/Talk/credit_crunch/a2270347-Frugal-January-everyone-welcome?msgid=51923238#51923238 There's a lot of useful threads in the op of this thread. They will take some reading but it's all useful to know. The chat links are dead.

Good idea Laska, it makes sense to repair it.

That's a POST office thats in the Co op. NOT a handy place to get a Spliff!

Wonder how em got on. Assuming I haven't missed a post!

Yeah you've got to have patience to do it and not mind the massive queue forming behind you.

Nectar boost? Worth 2 X the value on taste the difference wines, homewares & clothes. I think the wines the most popular though judging by the sharp elbowed blue eyeliner brigade in the wine aisle.