The Friendly Frugaleers; joyfully saving through July

[Wolfcub]

New thread

£57 in Tesco including insect repellant, shorts for DD2, cakes for my last day at work tomorrow

Is anyone else being driven mad by flies? We had a very persistent fly which kept landing on us in the night

Could not find my very aging bottle of skin so soft so must've got rid of it. Must order some more!

Ahhh mammy . If DH is giving DS those drinks then he should be sleeping with him and dealing with the washing

I hope you get on your way to your holiday soon seacow

I've hopefully now jumped the last hoop for getting my new job from conditional offer to unconditional offer.

Are you sure they haven't just given you the pay rise wreck and forgotten the back pay?

curls no I’ve been back 3 months now not sure how that’s happened?! Also ds is 10 months old today. Again, where has that time gone...?!

So far nsd. But I’m off to the beauticians in a bit.

I took a fruit pot with me today and it was (if I do say so myself) delicious. Super sweet melon and pineapple. 🍈🍈🍉🍉🍍🍍

I thought I’d paid off my credit card. But have a balance of £66.88. Bloody annoying.

I've got DD1 to write a list of the things she wants to do in the summer holidays. I figured I could get her to do all the thinking of things to do for us

Now I just need to work out where she has put it!

Ooo, thanks, I will definitely set up a standing order. I had my last 'hey, move to us for 0% intrest' email this time last month so when I see it I will transfer. There will be a fee but I can deal with that. I haven't used it since the end of May. I was having to use it for the weekly shops and topping up my accounts. It was only a few hundred, now 3k... But it had to be done.

wreck that's really out even for a public sector pay calculator! Do you know if anyone else has had the same?

God, teenagers are so annoying! DD asked me a million questions about what she needs to pack for her jamboree (they put a list up on Facebook but DD's not on FB yet). Then she rejected all my suggestions. But she's finally packed although we've to somehow attach her sleeping bag to the rucksack. I'm sure I'll miss her when she's gone after a few days.

It should have been a NSD but I've to pick up some AAA batteries for her head torch. I assumed it took AA batteries and I've loads of those. Good thing I checked!

It rained last night so it was cooler this morning. It's 19 degrees atm and alternating between cloud and sunshine.

£24.50 beauticians for bikini and eyebrow wax. Ouch.

And £5.20 on lunch. Bad bad bad. I was going to make myself a sandwich but we had no bread. Sigh. Spicy chicken wrap, crisps and a Fanta.

Trying to cut bought lunches down to one a week. Then eventually to zero.

Also had a look in department store. I saw a post on Facebook for coach bags. There is a beautiful one. I went to check it out thinking if I had enough left on my birthday voucher I’d treat myself. It’s a lovely tan slouchy shoulder bag. But. It’s £315. I have £175 left on my voucher. So can’t justify the additional spend. So left it alone. Smug. The old me would have paid the balance on her credit card.....

I’ll use the voucher for lovely autumn clothes from warehouse, Reid’s or whistles when they get their new stock in. Or bras. Maybe bras.

I will just have to wait until I receive my pay slip.

Eugh. Friends have all gone to someone else's house after school and we weren't invited. I don't care so much but feel sorry for my dc as they really wanted to go

That's a shame Wreck. I know that feeling. It's all go today for the last day of term but I have sneaked home half way through the end of term church service as I'm really not over this virus and fit only to be comfortably parked at home. Holiday fun start in 28 minutes.

3 months Em?? How did that happen? It doesn't seem like that long.

I'm feeling very wobbly. I haven't eaten much today. I had the same lunch as the dcs and clearly I need a bit more. Just having a banana. I need some good snacks that will fill me up more.

About to melt. School run at 29 degrees is not pleasant

Yep snuggly 3 months. 😭

I’m on the hunt for snacks too. I tend to snack on crisps. Or chocolate. I have fruit in the mornings but tend to hit the 330/4pm sugar slump.

May have to make some flapjacks and kid myself that they’re actually healthy or some date bars or something. Or just eat more lunch.

I’ve asked dh to buy twiglets and a gigantic bar of dairy milk when he goes to the shop later. He said no. I don’t need the chocolate. Dark chocolates healthier. I’ve told him that whilst I agree, sometimes I need something sweet. So milk chocolate is the only thing that will do. Oh and bloody buy it. or I’ll have to sneak my emergency chocolate out from my desk and bring it home

Have had a very productive/unproductive afternoon. I’ve shredded 7 notebooks. All meeting notes have been taken out and scanned and will be shredded. But mostly these are my “scribble” books. So everything just goes in the shred. Desk drawer is much tidier now.

Wreck yeah happens to me too. Luckily I'm very unsociable. NHS pay roll can be very patchy.

Em there will be other tan bags.

Tayto Do a moonlight flit while she's gone.

Spendy day

£12 aldi, eggs, salad, fruit and cat food.

£2.50 wilko water bottle because I gave mine to dh for work. He will give me the £3.50 it cost.

£8.50 half price kitchen scales. 15 year guarantee so I've stored the receipt in an envelope. I only got 10 years out of the salter ones.

£18 raffle prize for work.

Fluffy my salter scales packed up quite quickly last time, and I phoned them. They said "just post them back and we'll send a replacement." I did, and they did. No receipt or anything. I was very surprised.

We are on the road, yay! There was a lovely hour when both DC were asleep. Now they are shouting again (but more cheerfully than earlier). We are stopping soon for dinner for them (lunch for me!). I normally do a picnic lunch and I have a spag Bol frozen in the picnic bag for dinner that I made at the weekend but the later start has messed that all up! Never mind, we can have that tomorrow. We are just so glad to be on our way - and more than halfway to our first stop, yay! Will read back later, makes me car sick.

Ooh exciting, there’s rain on the horizon! Loving the North, it’s nowhere near as sultry and airless as London, which is so grim right now

Well done Christmas. That's great that you got on the road.

It's still hot here, but the school holidays have started.

Cag everyone was told in no uncertain terms that ds was only drinking milk and orange juice from now on 

My bank confirmed I can withdraw payment I made to credit card & lodge to joint account without penalty. Not many banks to choose from in Ireland but I believe mine is the best Ptsb, think tayto banks with them too.

@Whereisthecoffee this is a rolling thread so joining at any time of month or year is fine, welcome

Snuggly mine are starting to sleep until approx 9 these holidays, it's brilliant they're 8 & 4 so mightn't be too far away for dd1 for you

Rained last night when we were in for the night last night & ds was so happy because it would be good for the plants

Em I did that with lunches out when I first started with ynab and then one month I looked back at what I'd spent and cut it back to once a month. This might change soon as my only female colleague is changing her hours and will only be there for lunch once a week so we'll have lots to catch up on, we're thinking once a fortnight to deli counter and alternate fortnight to village restaurant. So approx €20 on lunches a month but it's an investment in our friendship and a break from soccer talk for me

Wreck that's really not nice, is this the first time you've been excluded?

Yogurt with berries and a handful of cereal/granola makes a good snack em or Houmous and something to dip into it?

Sunny I've kept a salter scales in press that doesn't work anymore cos I need to figure out where guarantee is, might just email them & see what they say?

Seacow happy holidays

So far I've spent nothing today we brought a picnic, our buses & cruise were covered by ticket we bought yesterday & H paid for ice creams. Dinner will be joint money.

Refund came through & we've €290/£250 to spend

Cag I've been thinking. If you manage to use the deposit on the credit card then at £125 a month you've got exactly 6 more payments and its gone.

Then your £300 a month better off in rent and £125 in cc payments.

Evening all. It’s hot as hell here but I am so glad I’m somewhere with aircon and not in the UK so at least there’s relief. €25 pot of tea, juice and cakes mostly because I am murderous if I don’t get a cup of decent tea and 2 ds was being a knob and needed diverting. €5 beach towel which I will bin at the end of the holiday - actually a frugal move as it would cost more for the non refundable deposit for a hotel towel. Ds bought his own ice cream after a discussion about not having bottomless holiday funds.

Mammy h can sleep with ds if he carries that on. As a previous poster said it would soon stop the knobbishness

Sea have a fantastic time

Frugal holiday tips a la casa Wolf - free museums to look at bad taxidermy.

RSPB reserves £3 Parking often free activities

Meerkat movies/blue light card cinema discount or other discount

Picnics everywhere (I bloody loathe picnincs by about week 2)

Use Nando’s points or similar for lunch out

School shoe shopping always followed by ice cream and waffles (because mum needs sugar by then)

Parks but not The ones near home - an hour drive is worth it for mor exciting parks

All those places you go where you one time entry lasts a year - revisit

Make the most of national trust, rhs or English heritage membership if you have them

Visit home bargains or wilkos. But lots of sweets. Make pic and mix. Watch a dvd - we do this repeatedly

Mammy I don't know the other mum whose they went to so it's not intentional.

Don't forget Buy a gift for days out, English heritage membership or meals out. You can get 25% off coupons online.

Teach them to cook from a kids cook book. However many meals your sanity can take.

Hello folks hope you are all coping in this heat. Our electricity will probably be through the roof having fans on at night but our bedrooms are so hot!

I'm going to see an advisor from work this week about my workplace pension and have had some good food for though (over in money matters) about whether or not it's worth having a separate LISA or whether I'd be better off paying extra into my existing pension...it all sounds very sensible - I need to write a little list down about all the things I want to know before I forget (love a list)

*thought

Wreck challenge pay dept/ shared services in case there is a mistake. You may get an imprest to cover the shortfall