Friendly Frugaleers Festive Preparations and Financial Accountability

[Wolfcub]

New Fred

Merry Christmas all!

Been so busy so I’ve not posted in aaaages. But I’m very chuffed to say Christmas came in on budget, I only spent about £70 that I hadn’t already saved throughout the year.

The boys got a really good amount of vouchers and cash that they are already planning how to spend. They also need new trainers, football tops etc, so I think we will be heading into town to do all that as well. It’s very rare this happen so we will make a day of it.

Happy crimbo lovelies. GWS all the poorly ones.xxx

I had my eye on that Lego too!

Lovely Christmas day, nobody was ill, nobody had a tantrum,dcs loved their presents and played nicely and ate their dinner. Perfect.

Merry Christmas all!
Didn't make it onto the thread yesterday, but looks like a good time was had. seacow hope you're feeling better & managed to enjoy the day.
We had a good day here. 77yo aunty got very drunk again which is always entertaining, she's currently sleeping it off in the loft. Ds kept appearing with different drinks in hand but seemed to be okay at the end of the day! Dinner was lovely & Gavin & Stacey enjoyed by all.
I'm booked on circuit training at 10 but not quite decided whether I'll do it or not! Nothing else planned. May take leftovers pack to dparents as they usually take some back with them but forgot.

Central Perk Lego 🤩!

We had a surprisingly non-tantrumy / good eating day too! Unfortunately topped off with an hour of getting the DTs to sleep meaning I missed Call the Midwife 😩

Driving home from DMs today and meeting friends for walk/pub so maybe a small spend

Merry Christmas all, I'm so glad to hear everyone had a wonderful day.

Sea I hope you are feeling a little better today and Happjer I hope the tank can be replaced quickly, thank goodness the weather is so mild

Party with friends today (where I must try not to get drunk and tired as early as last year) but blood donation to do first. Thinking tomorrow we will go to the nature reserve for a walk, we did walk the dog yesterday but I feel the need for a substantial amount of fresh air and open space

Dh bought me a new phone for Christmas. He is an absolute legend. He knew I needed one and was going to wait until Id saved a bit more after I went back to work.

I can apparently (according to envirophone) sell my old one for £50. So will get on that later on.

Today we are having a quiet one. Dh has picked up some sort of conjunctivitis. So I need to toddle off to boots to pick up some eye stuff for him. He won’t leave the house.

I’m also going to put things away and have a bit of a tidy up on the house and do some awesome playing with ds and Dd.

Ds so excited yesterday. Overwhelmed. Excited. Exhausted. But we had a lovely day.

I'll be the first to post some post Christmas spends £7.11 on replacement strap for my Fitbit. I held off in case I'd get one for Christmas or find the spare I think I have but neither happened. Ds inadvertently set me up for Amazon Prime so may as well get use out of it for the free month

I signed up for free 3 month trial of Spotify premium, it will work on ds's echo dot & DD's google home plus I'll use it too. €98.91 for rest of year so must add it to my ynab budget

Em great present & win on selling your own

Wolf I have heating but no running water so buckets for filling toilet cisterns is my first job today

Curls well done on coming in roughly on budget

North sounds amusing with auntie

I went to a friends last night but drank 7up zero in order to drive home, her 21 year old son who's in a long term relationship tried his luck with me

I am tempted by the 3 month Spotify trial but I know I'd forget to cancel it!

Love Boxing Day. Just chilling at home and playing with new things and grazing on chocolate and leftovers. No cooking or anything to do although I might stick some jacket potatoes in for the dcs later so they have a vaguely proper tea. They can have cold turkey and salad with them.

I've a reminder set snuggly but when we'll all use it I'm putting it down as entertainment so tv & Spotify comes to €22 approx monthly

Hello folks, hope I'm okay to join. Belated Merry Christmas too.

So for the first time in about 6 years, we should actually have about £450 left each month after all the usual is covered. For the first few of months, I saved an emergency fund of £2000, which I plan to use to cover us for genuine emergencies (rather than annual bills etc) such as appliances breaking. After that I have used the extra to pay for our summer 2020 holidays (x2 separate airBnB UK based breaks), but now want to thing about properly budgeting. Finally, last minute presents for Christmas were bought. We have x4 DC and the little ones were bought for throughout the year, mainly from charity shops/free facebook pages etc but bought gifts for teenagers and close relatives (e.g. theatre tickets).

In the past, I would say I have been very thrifty, but that has been to cover the essentials like bills, car insurance etc. Now I need to think about how I want to save/ use this extra money. My plan is to overpay our mortgage by at least £200 and use the rest in an envelope type system for things like summer holiday spending, Christmas next year, birthdays. I have already covered a 'slush fund'of £80 per week in my new budget for all extras that come up, it sounds like a lot but it really isn't as covers things like school trips, wedding/birthday gifts, days out with kids etc.

It has been a long slog to get to this point, but we have no credit card debt and don't owe family money (we borrowed our house deposit and have spent 6 years repaying it). But it feels really good and a privilege (though one we have worked hard and made big sacrifices for) to be here.

Following along for tips and accountability.

Welcome me

Welcome Me!

Thank you

Welcome Me

Afternoon all..... finally back home. No arguments (except the pretend one to keep up tradition) no food poisoning, presents happily received and lots of wine drunk. All in all a good Christmas.

Welcome me

Today is a taxing one of going to the pub to see friends - hard life!

Welcome me that's an inspiring story & sounds like you've your head screwed on

Welcome me. Some great achievements there

Bag of stuff for the food bank. Each year I say don't buy us food gifts each year we get Jams and biscuits and tons of chocolate. I know I sound ungrateful but we really won't eat it all.
Will drop it in the supermarket on Saturday

Lifelong- we are the same with recipe books, I have about 10 I use on a reasonably regular basis, but there are so many on the net now that I really don't need (or want to store) more paper copies.

NSD today other than milk and bread, however have finally succumbed to the reality we need a new TV; I rarely watch it (normally kids just use it), but realised over Christmas that screen is so dark you can barely see anything other than brightly coloured TV shows. The TV is actually 13 years old and was a £260 ex display model from John Lewis. I have zero interest with tech stuff, but hubby and I have agreed £300 seems a sensible amount for a replacement.

I thought that too Me as I have hundreds of recipe books. However, dh got me a really good one this time called MOB Veggie. Apparently MOB Kitchen is A Thing on the internet but I'm too old to have heard of it. Book however is fabulous and I can't wait to start making things from it.

I'm the same as that with recipe books and have them boxed away now for house move anyhow. I just google whatever recipe I want now. Used to subscribe to easy food magazine too & have them all filed into a couple of lever arches.

Spent €24.48 on 2 pivot led motion detector lamps on groupon that are run on batteries. Some of my outdoor lights aren't working & this is a cheaper solution than getting an electrician to fix them plus I can take them with me when I move too.

Today there's a sale in a lovely shoe shop in a nearby town & my mother gave me €70 to spend on myself for Christmas I'm going to buy two pairs of boots with it.

Plumber is coming today to fix tank too & I'm paying balance on hotel & going to ring restaurant for tomorrow night & prepay dinner too otherwise bf will pay & I want this weekend to be my treat.

I have loads of recipe books too but will always welcome a new one.

We got DS a 32"TV for £230 and a decent make so depending on size £300 is fine

Nsd yesterday. I had to pop to boots to get dh some stuff for his gammy eye but used points on my card to pay for it.

I’ve got over £200 worth of points now. If I could use them for formula I would but can’t until Dd is 6m and on the follow on milk. I tend to pick up a box of formula every time I go in so we always have some. Not that I’m concerned about brexit but more because the weather here’s been awful and if the boats done come in we won’t get stock for shops.

Anyway. No idea what we’re doing today. Dh suggetsed apparently to friends that they come up. But hasn’t agreed a time with them or even if they’re coming. So it could be a day of sitting about and waiting.

I'm the same with cook books I've got them down to a shelf of special/often-used ones and a part shelf of scrap books of magazine recipes. The rest I google now as I have a real cookbook addiction.

Em can you text them and say we'll be out until x feel free to come anytime after? Or you go out with ds and dd and let dh stay home and wait?

Welcome Me

£10 spent yesterday in the pub. Nearly twitched on a budget book on amazon yesterday but got a grip on myself.

Next years house insurance paperwork arrived by email on Christmas Eve. It has gone up grr. Monthly it's only a few pounds but it adds up over the year. We've had trouble getting insurance in the past as we are near, but not in, a flood plain and after the big floods about 10 years ago no one would touch us