Spending sparingly in early Spring - frugal friendly folk gather round.

[Justanothermile]

New 'fred

I’m dreading getting my scales TBH :o but I need to be less of an ostrich about my weight. I lost loads in 2017 but then stayed the same. And put a lot on at the end of last year, although that seems to have reduced again so I’m wondering if it was a side effect of the paroxetine.

Wreck that totally sucks. I think I’d cancel the tv related things until the money is paid back perhaps, then it’s a finite amount of time to do without them?

Wreck that is so shit, I know of two friends and colleagues it's happened to as well, one was over paid £3000!!! Unbelievable that payroll can cock it up so badly. Out of your list I would cancel all the tv and amazon stuff, keep swimming and see if you can get life insurance any cheaper. I'm sorry though that is shit news.

Would you be able to reduce swimming to every other week or would that mean you lost the place?

Swimming is already every other week. I can't get cheaper insurance I only just got mine and dh won't give up his vape habit for anyone 🙄 will cancel the movies and amazon. I never use prime anymore for delivery anyway because almost everything you want doesn't even have prime 🤔 plus amazon is often more expensive than other places

I’m with the others wreck that is shit.

I’d also cancel tv related things. Wouldn’t cancel any gym or swimming. As you might need your space/somewhere to let off steam and swimming is important.

I’d be trying to negotiate further I think.

Just got home. Dh and bill picked Ds up from nursery. I met them there. Then we went to dfriends place for a pancake party dinner. So. Much. Food.

Just put ds down for bed. A good hour and half after his usual bedtime. He did so well.
Sad to say goodbye to Bil though.

Well doneWolf!

Wreck that's rubbish. I'd be tempted to tell them to sod off though. It's their mistake not yours! I wonder what the law says about having to pay it back.

Eek Em! we actually pay significantly less than that for childcare for all 3 kids. That's nursery x 2 plus wraparound at school for older one.

Wreck, what a dreadful thing to happen - so sorry to hear about that and your less than supportive DP

Do you have an HR dept and/ or a union at your workplace? Many years ago my work completely cocked up my pension and I was faced with paying back about £2K in one go, which would have been beyond me. HR were pretty useless but the union (which I wasn't even a member of) were great, arranged a meeting with the pension company and an independent person (not HR as they were the ones who'd made the mistake!) and in the end I paid about £1200 back and the company made up the shortfall. Still not ideal but better than the original scenario.

If you go on to Now TV and hit 'cancel' they will usually reduce the cost for you - they put mine down to about £3 per month originally as an incentive - think it's about £6 now. Might help you a bit

em we were quoted around £100 per day to send both of ours to nursery..... I didn't earn that much and DP is self employed so if anything had happened to him/ his job we would have been stuck!! But I would definitely have gone back (part time) if I could - really wish I had - think I would appreciate both time with the DC and time at work in comparative peace and quiet much, much more.

Good luck at SW Christmas. I lost weight with them a few years ago despite my local group leader not being a great advert for their diet.....!

£11.10 spend today on some dairy free stuff, eggs, catfood and food bank bits at Sainsburys. I was planning to do a big Aldi shop next week but have an £8 off voucher to spend at Iceland online before Friday. We don't need masses of stuff from there but it feels like a waste not to use it when I can get lots of tinned/ frozen stuff which will last a long time!

I know snuggly but short term pain. That’s how I have to think about it. And we are fortunate that we can afford it. Which means I can continue working.

I had my appraisal today. Went well we talked about my progression which the boss says will have to involve some travel. I’ve said none this year as I’ll be too pregnant to fly soon. But next year once I’m back I’ll start small do a few days in London and see how we go.

Fingers crossed for a bonus and pay rise.

This is a good article wreck and has some good suggestions on how to negotiate the repayments. Are you in a union? If you are, then they should be able to support you. It's a while back now, but I was a union rep for a long time & I still feel really strongly about this sort of thing. I'd be happy to help from a distance if I could, PM me. I know none of that helps long term, but in the short term a low repayment would be better.

Are you due a pay rise in April wreck? Also the threshold for paying tax is going up to £12.5k too. May help a little bit towards the salary reduction?

I can’t believe you get 2 babies in nursery for less than that Snuggly - are they there 4 days pw? I seem to recall you work nearly full time but not quite. Twins must be crippling for childcare costs.

Our rates must be similar to Em’s (London here). We pay £630 ish per month for just 2 days pw at nursery for DD. Then we also pay my mum for 2 days. The main problem is that I can’t find wraparound care for DS, so while I have to pay the full whack for DD to have a long day in nursery twice a week, I can only actually work short days on those days because of having to look after DS outside school hours. That makes it very inefficient. Luckily i can earn enough to make it worthwhile, since we also can’t afford for me NOT to work! Childcare costs are such a huge burden.

Slimming World wasn’t as bad as I feared (which makes me wonder what has possessed my bathroom scales!) but still had a gain of 2.5lbs. I deserve worse and might still get it when today’s chocolate and pancakes catch up with me . Annoyingly I missed out on the ‘biggest loser award’ for my group over the last year by just 1lb - I’d have won it if I hadn’t had a badly timed holiday gain . Ruby I lol’d at your description of your group leader. Our current lady is very polished but the one before wasn’t at all what you’d expect

Made soup for work lunches with hm chicken stock and leftover chicken scraps and veg. Smells lush.

Thanks north will have a look later may well pm you. I don't know the exact amount yet as payroll haven't contacted me. Love yes a pay rise and incremental rise. It definitely won't cover it though I'm not in a union.

I've got to do this. Money just runs out of my hands. I had a big promotion last year and still manage to spend to the penny almost monthly! Quite please with myself this weekend - raised £50 selling DS's outgrown clothes and spent £25.

Dh just keeps saying 'just wait and see what happens in april' he reckons with the tax free amount going up he's going to have more money. A) it equates to about £200 a year and b) I'm taking back my married tax allowance from him so in actual fact he will be in exactly the same position. He told me I'm always being so negative. No, I'm being factual. Nob.

I do 3 days Christmas. Plus remember I work in a school so I don't have to pay for holiday childcare. Taking the holidays into account it averages at around £1k per month but bearing in mind that I only get paid part time too that is actually most of my salary. Like Em said, it means that I can still work and it's short-term.

Today should be an NSD

Morning all.
I'm off work today with a stomach bug, so have caught up.
Hello to newbies, Duds, Ruby, Lament and Greyhound.

Cag that is awful about your DHs phone, hope you can find a cheap replacement.
Wolf, well done on passing your exam! Also good to hear that you will be getting a new freezer, which will you go for?
Wreck, that is shitty about the pay, your DH should be supporting you

Get well soon curvy

Missing all the posters who've left & if ye're lurking please come back!

Thanks Happier, and I second that, please all come back!

Need to join as want to pay off a 1500 credit card debt and put 1800 into savings. Should get 500 of that from a job soon so will do that and then start to look where we can cut. Gas has gone down by 16 per month and we're looking at leaving Sky and going with either Freesat or Freeview. No childcare as we're home ed but I am self-employed so it's often difficult and unpredictable.

I need to find a way of budgeting that tracks what I spend. Biggest battle is with quality of food as DH is from abroad and will not eat a lot of the bread here - only the expensive Waitrose stuff, the only other option is baking my own perhaps.

Need to find a way of maximising the income we have!

Welcome to all the new posters.

Yesterday was NSD.
Today should be an NSD too; I'm off work with a bad cold/sore throat I didn't want to inflict on everyone in the office, caught up on sleep this morning, hoping to do some sorting/tidying/decluttering this afternoon.

Nsd today.

Think I'm going to have to get rid of my car. There's a £700 termination fee. Will try and increase our current loan to get a cheap car, pay termination fee and pay damage fees (scratches on the car) then we might actually be able to keep our heads above water.

Oh no wreck would you manage without though? For work and stuff, you live quite rurally don’t you? I know the Wrecklets get school bus though don’t they.

Oh I just reread it and see you’d get a cheap one. 🤦‍♀️ Ignore the above sorry

wreck - aside from all the advice you've been given, and I'm terribly sorry about your news yesterday - the section on here called Employment Issues is brilliant. There's some employment lawyers and HR experts that post. Why don't you post on there about the best way to approach paying the monies incrementally. As an employer that had made the mistake - I'd be standing the money myself personally but that's just us.

Just had to do a disciplinary - pah, hate them.

£6 Aldi as no bread and DH has just told me DBIL is staying over, so got sausages and bacon too.

Jam I've read all the policies etc there's really nothing I can do. The longest time they'll allow you to repay is 9 months and add that to my pay reductions and car payments it's just not going to work. Bottom line is there was a mistake, I didn't notice and now I have to pay it back. 🤷🏽‍♀️ if we were debt free we would be ok but we're not and we've no one to blame but ourselves. The dc will be gutted to see the car go, I'll probably cry when I tell them because it just shows how shit I am.