The Friendly Frugaleers; joyfully saving through July

[Wolfcub]

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£60 annual boiler service.

He is taking ages and I am really hungry. em pass us a doughnut will you? Custard please. Ta.

Fluffy will pick up a 49p melon in Tesco soon. Will give the peaches and their furry skin a wide birth..eugh. Nectarines are king here.

Doughnuts are very reasonable there em
We would pay a lot more for that quantity here.

cag can I offer a wording for you letter too? My big brother is one of the people who receives letters like this and he says it really helps to keep them polite. He says the person (CEO or whoever) has feelings and will be able to help better if he does not feel personally blamed.

He said try it like this:

Dear CEO,

I wonder if I might ask for your help with a customer service issue your support staff have been unable to resolve? This problem is causing a lot of stress and disruption for my family, and I would be very glad of your assistance.

Briefly, the problem is that I had a large order of furniture booked to arrive on a given day, to coincide with my taking possession of a new house. The delivery has been delayed with minimal communication, and now my flitting is in chaos as a direct consequence. Ideally I would like [insert here what you would like to happen].

If it helps, I can also explain the details of what has gone wrong. [explain details here]

Thank you so much for taking the time to read this. I would really be most grateful for any help that you could give in swiftly correcting the situation.

Yours sincerely.

X

Brilliant letter Sunny, concise & eloquent. Yy to always being nice. You catch more bees with honey than vinegar.

So,
£1 powder.
70p on ktc chick peas. Due 90p cashback.
£3 sains
£14 aldi but I've had to revise the meal plan. I'm not eating pork now so the ham salad is now chicken tikka salad, so more chicken needed.
£2.50 Iceland for dhs preferred oven chips.

sainsburys had sold out of the organic milk on the clicksnap offer.

Vodafone are sending us a new hub tm. We have to give the old one to the driver.

New washing machine installed, fingers crossed this one won’t ruin our clothes.

Made some money today, managed to sell the roof rack from DHs old van for £230. The timing is perfect because I’ve got to pay some money off next years holiday next week.

DS1 went off on his school trip to London this morning. Gave him £60 to cover a couple of meals that aren’t included and anything else he needs.

Jeez I’m feeling so skint right now. I’d love to feel like we are ahead of ourselves for a change. Bigger picture, we are in a great position. Only 3 more years of mortgage repayments, car owned outright, have a 2 week holiday abroad each year, bills all paid. But there’s literally nothing left at the end of each month. Just the ups and downs of life I guess.

Thanks, Fluffy I'm glad that was okay. :-)

I just spent an hour trying to write down a tune that ds has written on the piano and I think i got it right. I'm chuffed about that. I find musical timing really challenging to get a grip of and this kind of worked. Phew. He needs it written down as he's to play it at music assembly, hopefully.

Ahem

DP got the job!!

I have no idea how we are all going to cope with 9 weeks of school holidays, all off together

He takes a pay cut as he is going to term time only, I take a pay rise with my new job which is also term time only. So I think we will be about the same amount of money coming in but with all this time off together

NSD

I really want a doughnut

Wow love that's amazing!!

Brilliant Love!

Blimey Love that’s ideal! Congratulations!

em definitely €2 per doughnut like that here, as part of multibuy offer, €2.50 each on their own. I won a box of 6 last year!

love that's absolutely fantastic news, well done to you both, same money but much better quality of life and no childcare bill

€5 parking at hospital today
€6.45 aldi on my snacks for next couple of days at work and sandwich for today
€75 grocery delivery this evening, as we're off on holidays in the early hours of Sat morning, possibly didn't need all this but nothing perishable, all can go in freezer so that we've got food when we get back too on Sat week, and then I can organise a delivery for the following Monday when I'm at home myself.

€15.50 on food for hens while we're gone.

Ordered more sterling. Some for H, some for me. Dc already have theirs and we've joint sterling too.

Fantastic news!

Thanks sunny I agree also, always go in polite. I am not a confrontational person TBH which is why writing this is so hard!

Plans taking shape for the next few days. Still plenty to do but I’m definitely feeling a bit less panicky as more stuff gets packed away and thrown out and I can see more space.

Out for dinner with a couple of home ed mums shortly, will be nice to have a break.

Great news Love!

Will catch up properly later. Bit stressed!

Butternut squash risotto for dinner. Only need half the squash so have frozen the other half and will use it for a curry next week.

Well done Love, do your kids really get 9 weeks off in the summer?.

Life I hope things are a bit easier for you today.

Great news @Love!

@ememem oooh that looks good....

Poundland bargains of a reed diffuser and box of chocs for ds2s teacher present. Also some travel coat hangers for when we go away, you never get enough hangers, do you?

Just looking to where we are financially by the end of the month. Was hoping to have £100 left over to syphon off to the savings but then I remembered it’s my mums birthday on Monday. And I’ve not got DS1 anything yet for his birthday either....

Actuallly I miscounted, schools get 13 weeks off fluffy. 6 in the summer, 2 at Easter, 2 at Christmas, plus 3 half term weeks. We both have to work two of the weeks (me two weeks in the summer, DPs sounds more flexible as he will do the odd weekend event)

But we will have to cram a lot into termtime. I'm still planning to do my one day at college plus studying, and four days at work. So I'll be out of the house full time, which I haven't done in seven years!

Evening ladies - I'm feeling good having biked to work and back and I haven't spent any money all day - is that what you mean when you say NSD

Yes that's a no spend day Sammy. Well done for biking in.

I might keep a little chart of how much I spend each day to see where I'm going wrong / right

Nsd today and yesterday. Will be tomorrow too. We have zero pennies until dh gets paid Friday. We also both have fuel lights on and no bread

sammy that’s what I did initially. Keep track of every spend and you can then work out where you’re moneys going. For it it was lunches for work and takeaway coffee.

And er that was some shocking spelling and grammar there.

Donuts were fresh baked mammy the boxes were still warm when I carried them to work.

Custard and chocolate ones were £1 each. Jam ones £0.75 I think.

They were enjoyed. And that was the main thing.

Nursery have told me chickenpox is doing the rounds. So that will be fun.....fingers crossed ds doesn’t get it. Or if he does, he sails through it.

Nails tomorrow £39.50. And then payday and Dentist on Friday. Whoop. Dentist is all paid for. The £4,000 I spent In January covers all my appointments, the aligners and also the whitening at the end. Hoorah!

Also on 4 August we should have got our mortgage down to under £110k. Whoop.