February Frugaleers United in Saving Money, Swapping Recipes & Supporting each other in finance, friendship & family life : )

[mammymammyIRL]

And so we continue ....

Haven't posted for ages but have been following thread. I'm still sticking to meal plan and hardly having to throw any food in the bin, so really pleased with that.

Went through finances yesterday and should have at least £500 a month left over to save, but don't do this and money seems to vanish I have only scratched the surface and still have loads of areas I could cut back in. Going to look at home and car insurances as they are due for renewal soon.

Glad that mostly everyone is feeling a bit better.

Well done Cag you will feel so much better for having done it.

Well done Cag!

Raining here too Wreck, it’s proper gloomy today.

Man has been. Sofa cannot be cleaned . Good news is he knew straight away and did just a spot check so I wasn’t charged for the dry cleaning. That saved me about £120, which I can put towards the new sofas we now need. Blimey, that was a very expensive incident . I’m going to look at the cost of getting the sofas recovered rather than replaced but it will depend. I love the fabric of these but that’s going anyway.... shape also good. But the seats are a bit narrower than we’d like for lounging so I don’t think we’d spend a lot of getting them reupholstered as it still won’t be a perfect sofa, iyswim.

Carpet in the other room came up pretty well but now I’ve moved the furniture I want to paint the walls just to freshen them up . I might do that before we go mad installing Trofast for the kids’ toys.

Oh that's a shame seacow. It's not worth getting another opinion maybe? Brill news about your DD. I know you'll have further disturbed nights, but this is really the beginning of the end iyswim of endless sleepless nights remember.

Well done cag on getting the lesson done. Hope the replace doesn't last too long. X

Keep going born, maybe aim to save £100 and see how that works out?

Welcome to the world on large male,appetites wrecked.

Just a fiver on a fitness class today re spends.

But he's so skinny need! Where do they put it?! At least he isn't fussy

Seacow are you sure you won't consider your house insurance?

So, I've got to the end of the month and it's payday Friday. I thought I'd look at the positives and negatives and think about next month.

Positives

• we've got money left over, about £250. I save more than this, but wanted to see if I could chuck a bit more away each month via frugal measures.
• I've got additional items this month. Sadly these are all for myself (some clothes, beauty treatments etc, but next month will be someone else's turn).
• I got some kitchen bar stools and bedding in addition.
• there's been no spends at all on sandwiches, coffees etc. One takeout but we've made our own pizza instead.
• used Aldi a lot, and not been in M&S at all.
• used the eco wash on every wash on washing machine and dishwasher. Takes a bit of planning but doable. Split tablets for DW in two, they are value tabs from Sainsbury's too.

Negatives

• food shopping is still too high, but I'm working on it, I'm liking the idea of just reducing the bill by a bit each month, rather than being dramatic. I'm going to try £30 next month.
• nothing else!

Next month

• buy supplies for the horse box new season.
• try to save extra again
• reduce food costs
• focus on maybe DS and buy him some gear, keep on top of his stuff.

Yep, wrecked, DS has a 28 inch waist. I have no idea where it all goes.

Great that it is done cag

Good news about the sleep seacow but sorry to hear about the sofa. Our new sofa with lovely deep seats is amazing so is worth shopping around and doing lots of sitting about!

Spendy morning.

Committed to £110 to fixing leaking gutter then clearing/cleaning gutters and fascias and windows. The side of the house has a big water mark from the leak.

Glad operation skip has started lonely . I think you will feel so good to get rid of all the stuff that needs shifting

£7.60 Asda
£15 Dorothy perkins (had £10 voucher)
£8.99 gap
£2 on a brownie and a free hot chicolate at Caffè Nero. DD2 ate most of the brownie
Collected prescriptions but resisted all the nice things in Boots

We got our three seat sofa recovered with sewn on covers (not removable) and new cushions. It was £1400. I think a new sofa would have been cheaper, but ours fits the space exactly and the newer styles really didn't so we decided to keep the same one and spend the money on it.

If you still have young kids, might it make sense to have removable covers made and use them for a few years until you get past the accident age? That would be a lot cheaper. I made removable covers for our sofa first and they lasted for a good while.

I'm having a day off and it's very nice. I also just started a new magazine subscription called "Moneywise" which is very interesting. I got it with my Tesco vouchers. I've learnt a ton of stuff already from the first issue. |I'll report back if there's anything useful for the frugalleering.

Yes Love, I wish we had got deep seats on these ones (it was a customisation option). I have an extra deep seat on the sofa in the other room, which we use as a family /playroom, and I find it much more comfy as I like to curl up on a sofa rather that sit upright. Where did you get your new sofa from?

Yes Wreck I would consider the house insurance. I checked and we do have accidental damage cover. I expect it would only replace one sofa not both though. I wouldn’t mind mismatched sofas if they complimented each other but I think we need to go for something completely different, maybe with washable covers. Though actually the children don’t go in the room much, it’s mostly used in the evenings after they go to bed as we live in the family room. Which now has a rather cleaner carpet, which the children can destroy again

I’ll talk to DH tonight. He’s been very nice about it all.

We got this one from Harveys seacow. It is huge though! But so comfy, and great for an afternoon nap Warm too as we had leather seats before.

That’s just the kind of sofa I’d like. Not a priority when we move sadly as we have plenty more things that we really need (rather than want to replace) but we agree next time we get a sofa, it will be a corner one assuming the next house has a bigger living room (not difficult compared to this one really 😂)

Thanks re teaching. Usually it’s piano and primary maths I do seacow but today was recorder, my lowest earner but I enjoy it! So glad I’ve got the first one done. It was easy as DH was still here but next time will be more of a test as he will be teaching sports club and I’ll have to manage baby myself. Eep.

That's annoying re the sofa sea but good he was upfront about it i guess. Def look into home insurance.

I'm sat in the garden in the sunshine 🌞 😮 it feels properly warm, have got two loads of washing on the line!!

Have had a busy morning cleaning and sorting, dds stuff is now back in her room. It's all looking good, hoping she approves when she sees it later. Have more stuff to take to the charity shop so might do that later.

its been a spendy one.

I needed to pop into town today to get a birthday present for my cousins little boy. we're going out for birthday tea later and i can't turn up empty handed.

he's 6. i bought him s monster fart slime making kit. she won't thank me for this

I picked up my prescription from boots - another 6 month no babies! hooray!! and while in there i also noticed that Tommy Girl perfume was on a special deal - this is my back up perfume and i can never find it, so bought that £21. I also wanted to get my sister a house warming gift (although she's not moved just now owns her place on her own!) and knew she had a rotten day at work yesterday. so got her a touché éclat pen (this is my go-to gift for her for when she's feeling sad etc) and while at he YSL counter in boots they told me that if i bought another YSL product id get £10 worth of points. so i got myself a plum coloured mascara. and a shed ton of points. yippee.

Also had a look at the next size up car seats (bloody hell they're spendy! - although they do last until ds is 4 - or at the rate he's growing...next week!)

and saw a pair of boots in next i liked. red. suede. ankle boots with a western heel. so cute. have just ordered these online via top cash back. £48.

am home now, and have thrown washing in, have opened up all the windows and am enjoying a cup of tea while i catch up with emails etc. ds fell asleep in the car so I've left him in his car seat in the living room for now. he's due a bottle in a bit but am not waking him up.

had him weighed yesterday. 19lb. chunk.

Em we have a joie stages for ds. It's rear facing until age four and then forward facing until 7. It was only about £100 I think.

Thanks wreck I think I looked at that one I. Mothercare today. Not sure where else to buy from over here as were limited.

Ideally I want one that swivels so I don’t have to lean over...but no idea of the brand.

Just thought sea it's worth keeping an eye out on the buy and sell fb pages/eBay for sofas, you can pick up some decent ones as some people seem to replace their sofas every couple of years!

I've taken stuff to the tip and had a look in the reuse shop, picked up some small pots for dds cactus collection £2. They had a nice desk down there but it's quite big and would need sanding/painting so will have a think.

Flowers ordered for mum’s birthday as I’m away £35.

Card bought £7 - mums birthday and friend’s
Booked mother’s day Sunday lunch at the pub to save mum feeling like she had to cook (which she will) that makes it our shout so will be £100 plus but we’ve taken advantage of a lot of free childcare because of work commitments lately so feels like the least we can do.

Rescued a lost dog in the park (free) and bought ds a pasty 1.60

Sea you've got DD to get through toddlerhood, a bit of menstrual blood might pale into insignificance after that. There's a lot to be said for a throw that's machine washable.

Wolf Put £500 into an instant access account on payday. If your immediately low on funds psychologically it might stop you spending.

89p on bread.

Aunt Bessie's apple pie & ambrosia custard is on topcashback groceries, you can get both for under a £1. Good store cupboard/freezer pud.

Not caught up but skimmed the thread from Sunday to now as I had to update my YNAB for cash spends! My memory served me correctly though. Just got to check what's in my wallet now to see if it balances. Will catch up tonight with you guys

Em This place is very good if they will ship to you: incarsafetycentre.co.uk/

My ds was very tall like your lad and we found this one very good:

incarsafetycentre.co.uk/product/2-way-elite-cosmos-black/

My ds went into it at 6 months because he was so tall that his shoulders were getting wedged in the narrow part at the top of the baby car seat. This new seat was great though, and good as forward facing too, later on, right up until quite recently (aged 7).

btw, after the bra size discussion I tried wearing a nursing bra that is just a stretchy affair in size "medium", and it made very little difference. Do you think that bra size is maybe less important in people like me who do not have architecture-grade chests? I was starting to wonder if I was missing something, not having been measured, but maybe I'm not.

Have you measured yourself sunny? It's dead easy and saves the lingerie assistant gauntlet. They try on a few sizes either way

I like some support and I'm a tiny DD, plenty of women my size would just wear a vest.

£4.25 wilko online, rinse aid, wood pegs, ultra clumping cat litter. I spent that much just on litter in sains.

Free mini eggs on quidco clicksnap.

I've done my 2 week shop. Tbh I was looking for things to buy, as my list didn't seem enough. I need to work on this! Anyway, all in £172, 74% was food, 4% dog food, 7% stuff I did not need (party plates for dd3 and a water bottle for dd1), and the remaining 15% on non food. Lots of big bottles of branded cleaners on good offer in asda.

The house is heaving with food. The only thing I could not buy was a british half lamb leg. Will try again before sunday. I picked up the uniform order (without spending any money in sainsburys!), everything fits except dd3's shorts. I got her age 10, and they do not zip up. At all. Will return.

When I got home, I put crap in the skip, while dp took the chainsaw to the jungle gym. The wood which looked all green and slimy was still perfect inside, so will reuse as much of it as I can (it wasn't small). The garden looks very odd without it. Dd3 hasn't noticed yet, but she will be hysterical when she does. She dislikes change and things going missing.

Just spilled a whole cup of coffee down the side of my bed, under a pile of soggy knitting patterns I found 8 new hanks of malabrigo worsted in indigo. When the jeff did I buy this?? Ffs. It's like £8 a hank or something.

Shit, it's £8.49 a hank. Did I buy it in my sleep? How could I not know it was there?