Had a Spendy Summer? Join the Friendly Frugaleers as we Segue Smoothly into a Sensible September

[LivingInLaputa]

All welcome. Couldn’t see another thread!

Nsd. Woop.

Came home from swimming. Everyone napped. Well ds and Dd.

We had lunch. I pottered around the house.

This afternoon we took ds (and Dd) to see some of the painted gorillas. We also stopped in the park and dh tried to teach ds to roll down a hill. Unsuccessfully.

Dinner with dparents.

We took ds’ gigantic stuffed gorilla with us. Gorilla sat on the chair and held an empty bottle of wine. Ddad said “haha gorillas getting pissed”. Guess who repeated it,,,, 😂😂😂 oops.

I’m going riding tomorrow. I am excited!!! First time in a few months. Eeeek!!!

We went to an outdoor heated pool. It was chokka block but the DC requested it. £10 entry, £3.20 pop, £5.80 Ice cream, £17 Chinese, £13 co-op

Tired today as stayed up to watch peaky blinders.
£60 stables, £10 footy camp today. Need to for work in at some point too.

Enjoy riding em.

I'm in training for early starts next week so as one of the dts stirred just before 6am I decided to not snooze off again. Now if only I could put this time to good use rather than mn in bed.... 🤔!

Had a bit of a grump with dh about money last night. He says he's on board but then feels got upon for any conversation I start about financial planning. He went away this weekend (stag-do 🙄) and took a set amount of money with him and felt really pleased that he hadn't gone over that amount. He was then annoyed that I pointed out that the amount was a limit not a target - he literally spent per day on himself what we'd spend on a family holiday per day. Him being on board is a new thing (I've always taken the reins with joint finances) so I know it will take a while for reality to hit but I want him to step up and want to be interested beyond wondering if we can afford ab and c, he needs to realise the steps and sacrifices we have to put in place to afford ab and c.

On the tube. My make up has melted off my face already. It’s going to hit 32C here today. I am a little worried about DM as she is looking after the DC today and is wilting already.

Spent a fair bit on food this weekend (again) - losing signal soon so back later!

FFS after spending a fuckton of money on food my fridge is running at 12 degrees.

Nsd yesterday

Life that's very annoying, have you checked the fridge drain is clear of gunk (if there is a fridge drain). No-one left the door open overnight\nothing stuck in the seal

Enjoy riding Em!

Yip all checked. It's been making more noise than normal recently. Turned it right up now and there is not much different. £522 for a new one, coming Friday.

Eek Life, mine is also making more noise atm! Fingers crossed. Shame about the food though. Can anything be frozen (or is it a combined fridge-freezer)?

Stupidly I’d planned to have slow cooker pulled pork with jacket potatoes tonight. That means putting the oven on. I might just microwave them - not as nice but we really don’t need the extra heat!

I sustained an injury this weekend and I am blaming the frugaleers . I bought whole corn on the cob, husks and all, because they were loads cheaper than the preprepared ones (35p each instead of £1.50 for 2). However, in trying to cut one in half I sliced into the end of a finger. It literally bled for 7 hours. So that’s what being frugal did for me

NSD yesterday.
I also reduced the virgin bill, so pleased with that, did some more life admin, that I kept putting off, but is all sorted now, feeling good.
Out shopping soon for the dcs last school bits, wish me luck!

Ouch Sea, hope your finger is ok

I think a lot is past saving. I froze some chicken this morning before I realized. I'm thinking I may need to chuck it though. Fgs

£32 riding. We hacked out along the north coast in the sunshine. Glorious morning for it. Lovely clear views too - could clearly see guernsey and France.

£3 shop on cans of Coke Zero - needed to buy something to get £2 so I could give cash to riding instructor.

Home and dh has had a morning of it with dd. He hasn’t coped at all. He’s annoyed that she wouldn’t settle. He hasn’t been able to have a shower etc. He’s gone upstairs for a lie down. I’m snuggling Dd.
Suspect it’s a growth spurt/developmental leap.

Dropped ds an Nursery this morning. He cried 😭😭

Owwww sea 😭

I did yoga again today. Peaceful! Need a new swimsuit, it’s finally giving up the ghost but to be fair I’ve had it years and it’s seen me through being three stone heavier and also my third pregnancy! We have a decathlon in town but tbh I may have to bite the bullet and go to Brighton for Bravissimo (need bras anyway). Swimming once or twice a week now and they definitely need proper scaffolding 🙈🙈🙈

Thank you all for the kindness by the way ❤️💐 feeling a lot better than I did that day, just anxious to get the appointment ASAP!

Frugality completely out the window

£8 Sainsbury’s
£5 wilko
£2.50 Greggs
£10 lottery

Quite a sad day today, we visited my Nain in the residential care home she's living in, she now only speaks in Welsh because she can't remember any English really, if she does it's only a little and then she starts talking in Welsh and looks very confused.(I'm not a Welsh speaker and neither is my Dad) we only stayed a little while because she was very tired and said she needed to sleep, my dad said this is because she can't remember the conversation she's lost loads of weight and is now very frail.

Spent too much again today, we went to Weatherspoons for lunch, spent £20 in Poundland on inflatables for the beach (£5 each) and some snacks, also got some fudge for Ds2 back at home and paid £25 for a lovely picture that dd1 chose.

Can't remember who was asking about podcasts. When I went to Edinburgh, I saw Amy Annette, she and guests talk about "What women want", (not the film), and some really interesting topics come up. I enjoyed her show and have listened to her first podcast about women and independence, it was good.

Spends today
£55 asda, for dd, school shoes, pe kit and a new coat, new coat wasn't budgeted for, but I got her to try on her one from winter just gone, well she has grown a lot more than I thought. She is 9 and I had to get her a size 11-12 coat, and size 4 shoes!
£18 for ds for his shoes in shoe zone.
£13.15 lunch
£7.11 in morrisons on more fruit

Ouch Sea! Did it need stitches? Hope it gets better quickly.

Riding sounds perfect Em.

Nsd. Hooray!

No stitches, but I think I should probably have gone to a minor injuries place and got it glued or steri-stripped. The edges wouldn’t stay together which is why it bled so much . Anyway, much better now, though it’s still covered and I’m not looking at it 🙈

Lap sorry things are still tough but glad the nhs is listening now. And if they are treating it as a breach at least they are not restarting the clock from your re-referral date.

Camden so sorry about your nan. It’s really hard to see a loved one lose herself

It’s been a draining day in the London heat. So glad it’s going to be cooler tomorrow! LSD, just a cup of tea when I was in a different office this morning

Ouch snug.
Sorry to hear about your nan Camden.

Spendy day today. Shoes, trainers, pants, skate lesson, lunch out,. Presents for someone going to uni. No idea on that one.

Anyone know how colour fast new look denim is? I've seen a black shirt dress I want to try.

Ah Camden that's tough. The hardest thing I found with seeing my nan in care was the weight loss and how frail she became - such a physical sign of age.

We had a NSD too yesterday! Explored a new park, times between meals, and took a bottle of squash and sharing bag of crisps to ward off snack-attacks! There was at least one request for ice-cream but we just said no.

Also cleaned the car myself yesterday rather than taking it somewhere but have unfortunately lost one of the keys (a quick google says £250 to replace 😫)

Picnic-ing at a place we have membership for today. Although it is around 40 miles away so fuel costs but other than that hoping for another NSD

Hi, I’m back after an awesome holiday.

Very spendy day yesterday as I ran everything down before we left so food shop was about £50 more than normal. DH was shocked but he is clueless about how much food costs these days.
In spite of price increases my food budget has stayed the same for as long as I can remember.

Back to frugality now. DS2 will hopefully be ok for school clothes, just need another pack of polo shirts but that’s not much. His shoes will be fine for now and if his shorts are too small I’ve got some that my friend passed on to me in the next size up. Winter coat was deliberately bought in a big size last year because it was such a bargain £100 down to £30.

Only other thing coming up is DS1 is starting gcse photography and there’s a list of stuff he needs for that (which he has lost already 🙄). Obviously a camera is on there and he’s getting that as a combined Christmas and birthday present. But I’m dreading to think what else is needed, hopefully it won’t all be needed at once.

My nan has dementia for over ten years - pm you love later
For those of you on the thread a while you'll know my ex-h isn't great for money, nothing towards last christmas,€50 towards dd's communion dress and nothing towards the day itself, and now we've come to back to school. He asked me to keep track of what I'd spent and to let him know the total, which I did yesterday and dd came home yesterday with his share

In other news I've done my balance transfers to 4 credit cards including the annual fee payable on closing. Going to close 3 immediately and keep one for house move if I need to get surveys done on next potential house. 12 months interest free €5766.26, limit was €16k and I reduced it to €6.5k and will reduce it every time I hit a €1000 marker on the way down. Lady said you know it mightn't be possible to increase limit again, I said I hope it's not!

€480.52 a month is not achievable for me to pay back but house sale should go through within this timeframe and if it doesn't I'll transfer to another 0% before the 12 months is up. Feel a weight has been lifted.