Friendly frugaleers as the leaves fall our bank balances will rise, hopefully!

[lifelongfrugaleer]

Couldn't see one so took the liberty of starting a new thread.

Welcome Rosey

Exciting Sea, a good tradesman who gives you confidence is worth his weight in gold and hopefully gets a discount at independent bathroom/plumbers merchants. We had the same one do my bathroom, dgms and dms. He also did dgm and dm a new boiler each he is very good but often very busy.

Going out today if I can remove ds from the sofa! Will no doubt be a bit spendy but midnight tomorrow is payday.

My BIL is diabetic (along with a few other health issues) but can't seem to resist sweet things or overeating either. We buy him diabetic chocolates every year for Christmas but I'm unsure if he even touches them! Does anyone know if they taste alright? Or have recommendations for nice ones? We're vegan so can't taste-test a lot of options.

Exciting times Sea - it'll make such a difference to have a nice kitchen. Good luck!

NSD yesterday and Saturday. Need another one this week I think, before payday, to make 12 in total this month - proud of myself on that, even if it is a long month!

Does anyone have an opinion on whether it's important to have a 'big' special gift from Santa, for an almost 3-year-old? He got a balance bike last year, and a scooter for his birthday (both of which he loves), but although I've bought him several great gifts for this year, they are all quite small. He's not likely to notice or care, though, right, as long as he's having fun?

In other news, my fav green jumper from last year has shrunk my middle may have expanded a bit, but my arms clearly haven't grown an inch since the spring. I can still get it on, so will try to stretch it that way...

Vegetable tofu lasagne tonight, can't wait.

Happy Tuesday all!

Oh and welcome to Rosey and other newbies!

Agree about good trades people - really don't mind spending when I feel confident with the outcome.

Holiday budget looking good! We decided not to have lunch out yesterday as we're doing a longer day trip today so will get lunch out today instead. This is a complete change in mindset as in the summer holidays we ate out most days, even if it was 'just' coffee and cake. We've £125 left of £200 budget.

Diabetic chocolate sucks. There's one you can get in Tesco called chocologic which is no added sugar and low carb. I have that or 85% chocolate.

I literally could not believe the diabetic couple on ewfl.

Slow day today. I’m still in bed. Dd has gone down for a nap. Catface is napping next to me. #maternityleave

I was planning on taking Dd out for a walk but it’s wet grey and cold. So may not bother.

Thanks for the welcome everyone.

I'm having a NSD today. And tomorrow too hopefully. It does help that I've just had groceries delivery!

I have visitors coming due to it being half term, and usually I would buy prepared food and blow £20.
But I'm making soup and bread instead, and thinking of the savings as I chop all the veg!

Just caught up now
Spends since Sat eve
€50 cash on drinks/snacks I have a few euro left in car
€20.90 on a round of drink Sun night
€17.75 on takeaway for myself & bf yesterday, which we dumped half of because we weren't properly hungry, so good for diet but not so good for wallet

£15.70 on 2 months supply of Wellman vitamins for him and 1 month for me (they were on 3 for 2 in superdrug and I'm a health & beauty club member so got free delivery) also bought a hot cloth cleanser mini kit just to try the radiance range, I always use vitamin E range.

€84.84 on groceries at Dunnes Stores yesterday utilising €20 off €100 spent, I got more stuff for party bags and oil for my friends deep fat fryer for ds's birthday in that too.

Dd reminded me that we need to buy Christmas pj's ahead of their Christmas photos being taken sun week also, think I'll get the late late ones in penneys as there's a contribution to charity from the sales and they're normally nice too.

We put up the Hallowe'en decorations today and I've made up 50 bags of goodies for the trick or treaters, so I'm all set for Thursday.

Having lasagne for dinner shortly and then I'm going to watch a Twilight movie with DD.

Sorry, never reported spends:-

€5.95 for coffee and scone (meet up with friend)
€75 for hair cut and colour
Approx. €5 for mince in local butcher's shop
€16.92 for groceries in local shop

Nsd today. Went to my friends for lunch and did pumpkins which she bought.

£2.90 park and ride
£15.50 lunch
£9 ice creams
£7 Christmas decoration
£25 on naiice tinted lip balm for me and an Xmas stocking filler for someone

Nsd. Woop.

Tomorrow I’m heading into town to meet a colleague for coffee. I need to pick up some bits for Dd in the next size up. She is 3 months old today. How did that happen?!?!

Also she laughed. Like proper giggled. I’d forgotten how lovely that was.

Am currently trying to relax in a very hot bath. Dd is with dh. Ds is in bed. Fingers crossed he sleeps through. I don’t think I can cope with him in our bed again.

It’s rained all day here today and is cold. Heating went on. 😕 needs must

Eek! I've failed on the first day - had to buy some stamps, had forgotten that I had run out.

£4.20 on 6 1st class stamps

But that's all, so quite an achievement for me!

Rosey I would definitely class that as a Low Spend Day! Well done!

We spent about £70 yesterday - £20 swimming, £40 lunch and £10 top-up shop. We have £50 left in holiday budget and aren't planning much today... a rainy beach visit, pumpkin carving and catching up on Bake-Off.

If we can make our diesel stretch til Friday, and no unexpected spends, we'll have finished Month 2 of not having to 'borrow' from savings pots.

Welcome rosey was there a reason the stamps had to be 1st class? 😉 Ime 2nd class get there just as quick.

We had a nice couple of days in Devon, it was so so cold though! We ate out Monday night which came to £30 for both of us and was a nice meal.

Ystd spent around £8 on parking in two different locations!! And about £18 on hot drinks and food.

Was nice to get away and the little Airbnb place was fine, comfy bed, private bathroom and a good breakfast for £43.

Today the plan is to go into town as dd needs a new coat and some new casual shoes or boots. She could do with some warmer trousers and bras although I'm not holding my breath we can find anything she finds acceptable!

Hello all, have moved into the new place, it was a bit of a disaster as quite a lot of our upstairs furniture wouldn’t fit up the narrow stairs. DP wanted to keep a lot of it as it is old nice stuff he inherited so we have ended up with an expensive storage unit which I am not too happy about but hopefully only for 12 months until we are able to buy a house which will take all our things. We now need to buy a flat pack bed and chest of drawers but the new place is lovely and so peaceful. My commute has gone from 1.5 hour each way to 20 mins! DP has been amazing unpacking and sorting stuff while I e been at work and he has his interview on Friday so has been preparing for that too.
I’ve used back holiday pay from my last job to pay £500 off my credit card, taking it to £2,700 which is great. It’s my only debt and is on 0% so goal is to clear it ASAP.
We are due a large expenses rebate from his work too which I’ll use to pay back my ExH later this month.
Today is my busiest day so I won’t have a chance to spend money
Any tips on where we could get cheap but warm curtains? We need three sets for small windows and one for the front door which is n the living room and lets in cold air terribly.

Plancina congrats on the move, a 20 min commute is great. Try wilkos for curtains

£6.70 booking cinema for later using my meerkat codes before they expire in a week. We will take our own sweets/coffee.

Pay day at midnight cannot come fast enough it has been a bloomin expensive month with ds's birthday and half term but even then I think I've spent more than I planned/budgeted.

Decree nisi comes through in a few days and then need to look to hire a solicitor to do the rest of it

£1.80 on four pints of milk from the local shop. But saved fuel and would have spent more in Tesco. Plus the dc got a free bag of sweets each for entering their pumpkins in the competition.

Does anyone remember me ordering a printer from very with a cash back offer plus an account credit as I had a code? Anyway the account credit hasn't shown up so I've messaged them asking about it and they're saying they can't help me without the code which I obviously haven't got because it was two months ago now surely they must be able to see the code I used? And if it hasn't applied they must know which code was being sent out to customers in August?

Can you search you emails for the order email Wreck? Sometimes codes show on the receipt

There wasn't anything on the emails or order history. I managed to speak to someone helpful in the end and it'll show end of November which will be good for Christmas.

We're having a really lazy day today. The dc are on the sofa watching tv and haven't moved since we got back from the shop. I don't mind though as tomorrow we're going to London so there'll be lots of walking etc.

Spendy.

£7 something in coffee shop on coffee and a panini.

£53 George - body suits/vests for Dd and a couple of pairs of trousers for ds.

£100 in M&S for aleepsuits for Dd, more bodysuits a cardigan and two T-shirt’s for dh.

£4.99 WHSmith on a box file. I have a mountain of paperwork I need to organise. Usually I’d nick an old one of these from work....

Today I’ve also done one load of laundry, made a chicken curry in the instant pot, done the dishwasher, cleaned out and refilled catfaces litter box.

Good going Em. I managed a load of laundry but not much else

The Giver of Stars is finished. A really good read, few tears shed in places mind you