New year frugalling commences. Save those pennies for January

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New Fred.

My IKEA spend offset by using up lots of fish from the freezer bought in autumn, the spuds from Christmas which were a bit sprouted, and the last of the single cream and made 3 fish pies for the freezer.

Packed away Xmas and now have a HUGE tip and charity shop run to do tomorrow.

In the interests bog decluttering I have now finished the Bailey's before the recycling goes tomorrow 😆

Lsd, 2.49 in local shop, card and cake for a friends visit. Happy days. Thanks for the warm welcome back.
Eating as much as possible attempting low to no food waste. Nice walk this morning...

It must be the evening for decluttering as I've filled 3 massive bags to go to the dump/charity shop! I ummed and ahhed about whether any of it was worth selling but tbh most of the clothes and shoes were well worn or damaged so not worth it.

I saw some pictures of me running. Jeez! I am in desperate need of some new running gear. £56 later, there goes my NSD :(

Late sign in, you are all so chatty!

Welcome to even more newbies 👋

Had to take the cat to the vet today for an operation. He had a skin tag, but he is ok, just a bit sleepy.

NSD yesterday.
Today however,
Travel £4.50
Haircut and new hair wax for me £30.45
Haircut for dd2 £8
New book £6.49 (I would really like to get into reading again, too)
Budget planner £3.50
Wilkos £17, on some new baskets for the bathroom, a container for the cats food and a new mop
Morrisons £14.15 on some cleaning supplies, a new bucket and a bit of food.
Take out £13.40

Unescorted, thanks for the podcast, I will have a listen, maybe tomorrow when I'm doing more decluttering. Hope your run was good?
Laneboy, do you have a link for the laundry bag please? That tree is cool!
nocuts, my eldest dd is now 22 and my youngest is 9, it can be so hard for girls, they have no control over how quickly their bodies will grow. I echo what Girlie said, just be there and work through it with her.
Em, no way that your dd has a toof!
I'm also after a better solution for storage at the bottom of the stairs, and I like that shelf, hopefully you will get it. Think I will have a look on Amazon.

Hi Fearofawelshplanet, I'm really hoping to stick to my resolutions!

Curvy different seller but it was like this
www.ebay.co.uk/itm/143233808626

Yesterday was also NSD but only really because not yet back into normal routine

Gosh I can't keep up already. .

Whoever has debt pay that first. Have a slush fund for emergency but you need to clear debt.

Spendy yesterday
£15 sale jumper, £3.50 breakfast, £23 budget book and calipers, £35 child care, £56 horse event tickets, 80p lemons

Today will be £75 X2 hair,

Not planning a full food shop as don't need it. Will get what we have run out of.

On way to visit my best friend who emigrated to the Netherlands - I booked the flights about 4 months ago and am staying with her so a frugal mini break. She is heavily pregnant with her second baby atm so will be a relaxing and chilled few days with no rushing about.
Does anyone here do bullet journal? If so I would love to hear if it works for you. I am tempted, but I am also a stationery addict looking for an excuse to buy more

Ds has a haircut today so £16.50 for that
Paid my friend money for some tickets yesterday £113 (in the annual budget)
Regular saver matured today giving £81.50 interest. I will need to close the account later today and move the balance (minus £700 remaining to pay for my hols) to my ISA as the bank have stopped doing a regular saver and the new account interest rate is crap

Need to think of somewhere to go for a walk too. Had a rotten nights sleep, or rather not-sleep and have woken with sore throat and ear ache

curvy yep! Toof! It’s just poking through now. She’s very proud of it. Likes chewing on everything.

plan have a lovely trip! I’ve tried bullet journaling before but actually spent more of my time making the notebook look pretty than actually organising myself.

We have a shared calendar on our phones and I’ve finally set up reminders etc on there so they’re always with me.

Today might be Spendy. I’m off to garden centre with the kiddos. Meeting dparents for coffee then want to get some new orchids and some plants for the rest of the house. If they have any outdoor lights on sale I’m going to get them for next year.

wolf I don’t know which bank you’re with but my bank (hsbc) do a regular saver - pay in £250 a month and get 5% after a year.

My lloyds account gives me 1.10% but that’s on the basis of 0-1 withdrawals a year.

No spend so far for 2020 (as per my Sunday - Thursday agreement with DP) but as today is Friday I have loosened the purse strings this morning to...

• buy some dairy milk for visiting grandparents' tea and some fresh bread (£2.64)
• buy a compost bin from Facebook marketplace (£5)
• donate to the Australian Red Cross after seeing the horrifying footage of what is happening there ($10)

Today is housework and gardening catch up so fairly confident I won't be spending anything else for the next 24 hours or so - slow cooker curry is on to use up some of the rogue veg before we go to the greengrocers tomorrow.

plan I do, but have transferred all of my doings into One Note... There is less temptation to be decorating. It is in essence a long To Do, tracker, recipe and goals collector, general musings and a bit of idle doodling ( work gave us new tablets which are ace for drawing..... ). I went paperless about a month ago, which is quite liberating.

Curvy yes it was, but not what I had planned. I was supposed to be meeting friends, but they set off without me. I think I have gained a reputation for flaking at the last moment. So I just took myself off for a poootle. Today is HIIT, followed by my first ever Park run on Saturday.

Other excitement in my life - clearing the room of doom aka DS's bedroom. Which should mean it is a nsd.

Thanks Lane, I think that may be useful for ds2, who really is a lazy bugger!
Aww em, so cute!
Plan, enjoy the time with your friend.
Unescorted, that was a bit mean of your friends! I'm glad you still did it though, I need to up my game on the exercise front.

unescorted in my last job I had a Microsoft surface and pen which was v cool and was just getting into one note when I changed jobs in Sept 2019, I miss it but there’s no way I can afford one just for home use. My new work is BYOD so I have reverted to a grumpy 4 year old MacBook.

em part of my worry is that I have messy handwriting and I’m not crafty so I think mine will be very ugly compared to the beautiful ones on Pinterest etc.

I am pondering a radical hair change - ive pretty much always had very long, dark straight hair (below back bra strap atm, sometimes as long as bottom of back!) but now I’m 60% or more grey (only 34 as well!) and dyeing it is getting boring. I have an appt on 16th to have all colour stripped and then hairdresser is going to dye it mid brown with a lot of blonde/caramels.
I had intended keeping it the same length but now I am thinking of having it cut in the Netherlands as there’s a really good Salon near where my friend lives and then having the dye job as planned. I like the look of the attached hair style 😁

That's a lovely cut Plancina. I went from bum length to that length and am now quite a bit shorter than that. I've never regretted it but then I have very thick hair which I wash daily so the time saved on drying is a real boon

I would love hair like that Plancina. Mine had a mind of it's own!

Ocado order put in for Monday £41 so far but may add a few bits. Meal plan done. Next couple of days will be Mac and cheese, chickpea Curry etc

Wow I can't keep up!

Yesterday we had the panto so went to Wagamamas for food first which was £36.00 and then parking which was £3.60. Brought own snacks though which saved us a bit. Trying for a nsd today but need to see if i can last one more day before a big shop

Curvy to be fair they didn't know I was turning up. I didn't want the stress of having to be there if I didn't want to be there.

Plan yes they have given me the Surface Pro and pen.... the peeps who chose the laptop are uber jealous.

Loving the hair choice..... I need to get my done but it is at the back of a list of things that need doing.

Plan, that's a great cut.

Unescorted ahh I see, maybe next time?

Today should be a NSD, lots of decluttering still to do, so must get on!

plan do it!!!

£71 at garden centre. Two new orchids. Two smaller pots. A gingerbread decoration with dds correct name on it this time. And a wreath for the front door. Wreath was a bargain at £15.

No lights on sale. So didn’t bother with them.

Home now. Dd is napping. I’ve emptied my wardrobe and am slowly putting everything back tidily.

Did 40 mins yoga today! Thats a start to the new years resolutions!
Council tax 144.00
Water 44.00

£7 pillows (reduced from £10)
£3 cupboard essentials (breakfasts, crisp, flapjacks)
£15 fake cheese plant (reduced from £35)
£4 gold plant pot (reduced from £5)
Sounds indulgent but last year all the fake plants/trees were expensive. Love this thread, builds a more frugal mindset!

@Unescorted, we’ve decided to give it a couple of months and see how it goes. Though sometimes it’s unpredictable if I need to get to hospital.

@ChristmasSeacow, just over half my wages was going on bills and the rest was paying off the CCs as quickly as I could and some was allocated to house deposit, savings for FiL birthday and we have my parents with a big birthday the following year so were planning a family get together.

The reality was my DH earned £22k and I was on nearly the same. I am getting PIP and we’ve been awarded tax credits now ( first lot have hit the bank) which means the shortfall is a lot less than at first feared. It’s going to be tight but not as tight.

Just rung the CU to check on the savings and loan and we are at
Loan £128
Savings £401
So I asked for the loan to be paid off with savings so we are at
Loan £0
Savings £280
Now the £30 will just go straight into savings so should build up nicely. They’ve said that at any time I need a loan I can borrow up to 3x savings.

I’ve set up a thing with my bank account where if I use my bank card they round it up and put the pennies into a savings account. I’ll check my account each night an see if I can also take any odd pennies into the account. Then once a month I will transfer the money into the ISA.

Yesterday’s spend was £5 lunch for DH and £14 for Iceland for milk,bread and ready meals.

Today is looking like a NSD atm.