New year frugalling commences. Save those pennies for January

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New Fred.

Joining in. I'll try and keep up with posting.
I love spending, we should have more extra money than we do. We do spend a lot of money on the many things we love to do.

But as a good start, we have remortgaged and will save £75 a month and took a 5 year fixed rate.
I also changed our house insurance and cut it in half to £20 a month

We have credit cards, but they are up to date and we don't have any store cards. My car was paid off last year and hoping it will last a good few years yet.

I need to keep to my food shop list and not put anything extra in.
I do love charity shops, so most of our clothes come from there. I make my 3.5y olds clothes. My 11y old only gets clothes a needed.

I'm with Life on the fake tree. £40 per year for a real one or we got a spanking bargain at £110 in a garden centre sale, it's the frugal thing to do, and it too looks real enough, it just doesn't smell right.

I think we’re doing a garden centre sale shop on Friday. I want some lights for our outside tree.

Tomorrow I’m taking the Christmas tree down and am going to sort our room. And do a ton of laundry.

Wolf Life we have a fake one - I thought it had been donated to the school, but it is busy collecting dust in the attic. It hasn't seen the light of day for about 3 years. For the Christmas smell just get some Crimbo candles and dot them about.

I have achieved my 2020 New Years resolution to get out of bed before I was benighted - I have even managed to go to a party and return ( no alcohol consumed). Bed is not far away....

My real NY resolutions
ride my bike more
save for my camper - realistically I would like it before this time next year.
Be a more engaged friend - be the person who suggests activities rather than the one that fails to turn up
Lose weight - I have done a

They have loads of reduced trees and lights in Argos, Tesco and Wilkinsons. I used to have a real tree every year but l didn't like cutting the tree down and it dying. I think about things like that it's a curse .

Have you ever tried these for the tree smell they are lovely .
Have a smell to see which one you like they have lots of different frangrances.
www.therange.co.uk/christmas/christmas-decorations/candles-holders-and-incense/scentsicles-scented-ornaments#910232

I feel like that about the tree too Mrs! I hate watching it die.

I am going to look at fake trees. DH is against it but he doesn’t do all the work of getting the real one, trimming the trunk, hoovering needles, cleaning after we take it out (huge mess of dead tree!) . Smell: the needle fast trees don’t smell as much anyway. I can only smell my reed diffuser.

Aside from non-essential tree decisions, I also need to choose a bathroom suite and, more importantly, tiles, by the weekend. Bathroom work is meant to start on Monday but only if I can choose tiles. I am feeling under pressure already! I sense a lot if internet surfing while DH watches Dr Who...

For those interested in decluttering here are 3 of the 4 weeks recommendations on house & home insta page. I'm going to do my best to achieve them.

Didn't do a wardrobe today but did the two shoe cabinets dc shoes are in, they've now got a lot less but so much more room & dm can take to charity shop she volunteers in

Happy 2020 one and all!

We will start looking at remortgaging this time next year and are going to be trying to get down to 90% LTV by overpaying a significant chunk of our fun money each month and I want to clear a personal loan of around £8k too so lots of thinking the last few days about how. So far we've agreed...

• NSDs Sunday - Thursday (except holidays/special occasions)
• Whole food plant based meal plan (no pricey vegan replacements)
• More commitment to growing our own
• Borrowing/reparing/recycling/reusing/repurposing before buying new

It will be tough but would like to pay off the mortgage by 2030 so we're on a mission.

Personal goals for this year is to stick with these healthy habits...

• eat 5 a day
• drink 2L water
• 10000 steps a day
• take 30 mins everyday for self care

Feeling motivated...for now

People - I have just found this Life Coach Podcasts via link in an article in the Guardian. It is in the article about why the person didn't do self help books and now does.... I figured there might be something of use in it.

I have just listened to the first one & it seems quite good.

Real frugaling/dieting/resolutions will not start here until Monday 6th... all good intentions start on Mondays (she says whilst drinking a rather large Baileys 😜)

Good job as well as spent £95 on lunch out today. I spent this morning transferring all of the little bits and bobs of accrued interest from my savings accounts into current account which just about covers this - phew!

My resolution is to listen to The Archers every day 😂. I dip in and out too often, but when I am listening to it daily, it represents being organised, healthy and having time for myself, as I only listen to it if I get up early enough to catch up before the kids wake up whilst I potter around drinking tea and emptying the dishwasher. My day is always good when it starts this way. If I'm not listening to it, I know I've probably overslept and am running around shouting for everyone to hurry up and planning to stop at Greggs on my way to work rather than preparing a nutritious breakfast 😂!

Thanks for those Happier. It's mail I really need to sort. Months of it in a big pile on the kitchen counter. Keep putting it off. Most can probably be bunned by now!

*binned

So far I've found five cookbooks that are going to the charity shop tomorrow

I’ve gathered together(in my mind) a load of techy stuff to sell at CEX once the kids are back at school. They know about it, but I’d rather go without them because it takes ages. Getting rid of their Xbox360 plus controllers and games. A portable DVD player I found (we definitely had 2 so no idea where the other one has gone!), and an iphone5 from an upgrade a few years ago.
This should pay for the trip into town tomorrow. DS1 is in desperate need of new trainers (non uniform school so he wears them every day). And being non uniform if there’s any T-shirt’s on offer we will grab them too.

DS2 has vouchers for his football team that he wants to spend, but there’s not enough for a full kit so I’ll make up the difference. He’s absolutely football obsessed and it’s so nice to see him finally get really into something. He plays every week, he watches, knows all the players, where everyone is on the leagues etc. So I’m happy to encourage it.

Wow, busy day on the thread!
Welcome all newbies, great to see people joining and great to see you back laska
Had a good day here. Weather was lovely this morning so went out for a walk with dd, then football this afternoon, dinner at dparents tonight. In between all that have applied for a current account switch from M&S to HSBC with £175 cash back within a month. It's a joint account which my salary is paid into. I have a couple of DDs set up from it so that it qualifies for the switching benefits, but is definitely our secondary account so ideal to switch. We also have a joint account with nationwide which dh's salary goes into & all the rest of the DDs are linked to that. Essentially it's money for nothing.

Thought I'd reached my limit for photos today but it seems not

I am going to sort out my Dh sock draw this week come hell or high water

Almost an NSD but £13.56 two laundry bags on eBay. They come with hooks to hang over the door so they’ll save space.

Hia, can I join in! I make no promises that I will stay, but I do promise to try my hardest to remember I joined in!
Main aims this year are to pay off cc and save £2000.
It isn't going to be easy, but really want to try.
Any tips always well received!

Happy new year all!

We have a fake tree, DH's relly bought it for herself in the sales a few years ago, put it away in the loft and promptly forgot about it and bought another, bigger one. So a few years ago they found it and gave it to us. It is over 6 foot but a slim line one which works well for us as obviously never lived anywhere with loads of space for one anyway. We didn't put it up this year though as figured DD would just wreck it so wasn't worth the hassle. She hasn't been too bad with DM's but this afternoon she made a game of taking baubles off, throwing them and then retrieving them and asking me to put it back on the tree. Then choose another bauble and continue...

NSD today. Which seems rare these days... my bank balance of my main acc is now starting to dwindle, I think we night be spending more than is coming in but I do have another account as well, I think that balance is slowly going up as I don't use that ACC as often. But really I need to take a deeper look at our finances. DH has finished his course, he just has some more exams and should be able to start work in March-ish. I'm not totally sure what effect that will have on us as he will be earning double what I do but then I assume we will lose our tax credits entitlement which atm is pretty generous. So not sure how much better off we will be in practice. I would also really like to reduce my working hours but need to figure out the implications of that too...basically figure out what the best working patterns for us both would be that maximises the income we will get out of it. You would think that would be straightforward but taking into account taxes, student loan repayments (DH will be earning over the threshold, me nowhere near...), and benefits, it's complicated!

sorted out dds clothes today, dd1 is struggling with her body changing. She asked me today why she had to grow up and when her favourite tops didnt fit told me she just wants to be flat up and down. then said shes not even a teenager yet so doesnt want to grow up. She's only 11 and very childlike in so many ways, she's not ready for puberty yet but it's fast approaching 😣 has anyone else had this? I don't know what to do or say for the best. I wish I could slow it all down for her.

I need to join you. (Again. I've been on these threads before several name changes ago, I can't remember who I was!)

New year. No money.

I have meal planned this week. Takeaways are my downfall. If I don't meal plan and buy the food I sit around in the evenings wondering what to have till it's too late and I buy takeaway. There's 6 of us, so it's really not affordable. I need to keep on with the weekly shop, I have no excuse not to.

Money spent today - £85. £30 on petrol - should last a couple of weeks. £55 on two pairs of walking boots for my twins. They do Explorers and wrecked theirs last summer so desperately needed some.

Not had a chance to read/catch up, but just dropping by to say HNY and will have a proper read at the w/end when things less hectic.

Morning all. I’m with whoever said good intentions start on Mondays!

We’re starting our vegan month on Monday. Would have started yesterday but Dm made fishy pie. Hairy bikers luxury fishy pie from their pie book. So could not miss out on that. 😂

I’m tempted to charity shop some cookbooks too. There are some we hardly ever use.

Things that I need to do this month before I return to work:

• sell bed frame in dds room.
• sell tv unit in living room
• replace tv unit with something else
• convince dh he wants a tall bookcase in living/dining room (like this)
• appeal planning decision Re development behind our house

Today i need to:

• crack on with laundry
• make a list for food shop
• do food shop later
• de christmas the house (I’ve a couple of boxes around the house so will use these and then can get dh to go in the loft and get the boxes down and can sort through!)

Book beauticians do waxing and nails are done before I return to work.