The Friendly Frugaleers - Furtively planning Christmas, as August arrives

[StoogingOn]

Welcome one and all!

You need a Budget That is blue

I can see the logic in having savings while trying to pay off debt blue. Especially if it's on a 0%> can you pay it all off before then or have you a reminder to move it?
YY to chucking everything you can at it.

Got woken up at 2 am by a house alarm. The people are away so dh had to go and turn it off. Then got the witching hour whirling mind do now tired. Can't lie in as DS friend is being picked up in a bit.

Got a drain man ringing me and hopefully coming today. I have a feeling it will be ££££ as a drain rebuild might be needed.

Sounds like we all had bad nights last night. Another reason to look forward to the autumn!

Blue. I have a dd age 10 and a DS aged 8. Dh and I both work full time and we live in the North East of England. I suppose I'm here cos I have been for ages, now in a better place but i like the chat. I'm also naturally tight as I have N Yorkshire heritage

girlie give your dd a hug from someone who been in the same boat. Mine changed when I became active in a youth org and got loads of friends.
Welcome blue i have 2 dds. One aged 4 and one aged 20 months.
Dh and me actually ended up sleeping in the living room. The girls took over the bed going to my great grandmother today to help with grocery shopping.

Oh and I live in Denmark so apologise in advance for any English spelling mistakes.
Our debt is only the mortgage but im here for the general day2day frugality.

scandi love Denmark!, such a beautiful country ..We have family there Mid/ north Jutland .

I'm here now to keep on track and chat,but I dont always post as much as I used to .. ( go in phases!). used to be in debt but not now, but I have just partially retired and DH still has to,. so we need to think about a whole new phase and way of managing out budget ..

Luckily now we are pretty ok for money but it wasnt always like that.. Our Dcs grown (but still sometimes need some ££ help)and we have small GDCs which is lovely.

Dcat back to vet today , just for follow up check. Now I no longer work Mondays its great..

Scandi where do you find a price matching site? That sounds good.

Laska I never could get to grips with YNAB, though I found the tutorials good. Is there any chance you could tell us more about how you use it?

Hot day pending here. We are battening down the hatches.

Welcome Blue !

What you are talking about is saving/ budgeting expenses -YY to this!

Different to long term saving while you have debt,although I always had a few £ saved as back up.
Work out your budget first-realistic, all food ,bills and petrol/travel.
Long hard look at anything you can cut.
Then look at how much Christmas,birthdays will cost and put aside a monthly sum etc
Take out food /petrol money in cash .
You get really adept at making it stretch -meal planning really helps.
I agree that the cycle of paying off/reborrowing is really demoralising plus you dont feel in control and before you know it you blow the budget .
Work out a plan that you will stick to.
Any unexpected cash goes straight into debt.
You will get there !

Sunny
I found YNAB baffling.
I ended up sitting there thinking Im just moving money around twice .
Maybe its the way my brain works but I know everything that goes in and out of my account/what day and to the penny.
Christmas/birthdays /rainy day savings goninto a separate account.
Long term savings also
I never overspend or buy anything unless I know Ive budgeted for it.
I never go shopping unless I have a plan.
Ironically I was rubbish at maths

Thanks all. Laska I actually have YNAB - I stupidly got out of the habit of using it regularly when we were having our money issues last year 😡 I’ve set up a fresh budget and am trying to keep on top of it this time as I know how much it helps, it was a godsend for me a few years ago when we were saving for our wedding.

Hoping for a really frugal day today. I tend to keep Mondays & Thursdays as quiet days and don’t plan activities or play dates often. We stay at home, go to the park/library, maybe run errands. Today we do need to go to Lidl to get cola for DH (Tesco have stopped selling their own brand full sugar stuff, I think it’s because of the sugar tax, DH won’t switch to diet 🙄) so I need to go to Lidl to get it as I refuse to pay for branded stuff. Then I think we will do some playing & maybe baking today as little monkey loves to bake. Walk to park if the weather improves (raining here in Glasgow!) and catch up on housework.

Thanks QuiteCleanBandit, that’s exactly how I feel re paying off debt but not accounting for planned spends & emergencies.

Lovely to hear a bit more about everyone’s backgrounds 🙂

laska i live on Funen. But love Jylland, we often go there for attractions.

sunny its called pricerunner. I use the Danish site bit the uk site is www.pricerunner.co.uk/?source=google&gclid=EAIaIQobChMImfW9n-3X3AIVWKWaCh0OCAhtEAAYASAAEgJjrfD_BwE

Oh sorry for the bad link

Yay, found you all.
Thanks for the new thread sunny.
Welcome blue.
Very warm here in Basildon today, we are all going to Southend today, me, my mum, my 2 youngest DC, my sister and her two DSs. Will be a lovely but spendy day.

It's got to be hot again here too. I only just woke up (sorry snuggly) the dc have just gone downstairs so I might follow them in a second.

No plans today really dd has a physio appointment this afternoon.

Please can I join?
I have 2 ds’s 11 and 16. They get so expensive the older they get.
I’ve been working part time since my first ds was born but now my youngest will be starting secondary school I need to find full time work. The time seems right.
Plus I’m a lone parent. I do have a lovely dp but we don’t live together so all my household bills etc are my responsibility.
The summer holidays are an expensive time too!
Ds16 is looking for a weekend job and has no luck so far but has an interview on Tuesday! He’s very good at not asking me for money too often - he knows things are tight.
My ds11 is away at scout camp this week - it’s so wonderful that leaders give up a week of their annual leave. While he’s away I’m decorating his bedroom - I’ve been planning this since February so have been buying bits and pieces each month to eek out the cost.
This seems like a lovely friendly thread.

Welcome blue and commiserations to everyone that had poor nights sleep. I was in bed early & went to sleep pretty quickly except for toilet trips slept all night until my alarm went off, it's a bank holiday here so I was not impressed that I forgot to switch it off

Also recommend ynab I actually have a referral link but won't be able to post it until tomorrow though when I'm at work. Having updated mine in 3 weeks & feel totally out of control, week before holiday, holiday and week since I came back. Since using ynab I've not missed a direct debit & it keeps my spending under control. Actually is going to be really handy now as I've to do a budget for mediation and can look back on last number of years for regular & irregular expenses.

Girly day today with dd at her request so H has taken ds with him begrudgingly. She tried to trick ds the other evening in order to get time alone with me and it's most unlike her as they're great friends so need to give her the time.

Usually get groceries delivered but think today I will go to the shops myself.
My predictions for what h bought yesterday were correct too

Hi blue I'm just down the road in the tippy northest bit of Cumbria. I am the threads unwilling queen of credit card debt It is many tens of thousands. I am tentativley looking at a dmp (I think it's called) as a last ditch plan. Just one thing after another and very little income (I now have full time hours). 4dc here, now older - 15.5, 12, 10, 6.

Sorry guys, but we had a much cooler night here. My house is still sleeping, but dh and ds will have to drop me at work. Hoping our lovely local garage have a spare courtesy car while mine is in though.

scandi that pic is brilliant! Many a night here spent like that too.

em your wee boy is sooo squeezy cute.

Cross posted chocolate welcome
Will you be able to get full time hours where you currently work or seek a different job?

Blue great to see you've revived ynab, watch the videos again if you've time they're great. In the name of cc I put when the 0% ends as a reminder & set everything up as recurring so I can easily look at my accounts page and see what's due to come out this week. I get paid weekly but check in on my ynab most days.

Welcome Chocolate.

I'm just making cup of tea #3. I need it. I've been very impatient with dd1 this morning. She is now colouring astronaut dinosaurs and the dts are playing with the train set. Not as an actual train set of course, they have dismantled it and are banging all the bits of track together. Anyway they are all content so I'm having a brew and cleaning the kitchen.

£492 plumber bill. On call out list now for a leaky toilets. FML.

Thanks Scandi.

I have ventured into the garden, and it is cool on the feet.

Welcome chocolate.

I sleepover guest gone. Another still here but they are no bother. DS going to a friend's later, just round the corner

Forecast to be 23 degrees here today.

Welcome chocolate and blue

Lifelong £492??? What happened? Curious as DH is a plumber.

Horrible hot sticky night here. Can not wait till Wednesday when it’s meant to cool down. Appointment with a mortgage advisor today. It’ll be interesting to see what’s out there, especially with the interest rate rise the other day.