Frugal Friends Forging Forward Toward February and Further Financial Freedom

[Wolfcub]

New fred

Afternoon all! Started today feeling a lot more productive and it seems to have stuck!. I’m about to start ordering the last bits and bobs, and gonna get a couple of personalised bits now I have a name planned!.

life wow 22 pints! I read it wrong at first and thought you said 22 a day😂. We do get through a lot of milk here too, Elijah loves it!.

mrs enjoy your day off!

Oh cross post!

Thank you adora it’s a game changer!

£90 next. got some hoody and jumpers for ds, as well as some thick long sleeved t-shirts/skinny jumpers and a couple f pairs of shoes for dd. got a refund on dh's pjs.

als £40 paperchase - birthday cards for the next 6 months valentines day cards, a just because card for dsis and a notebook and planner for dh.

and 6 eye masks at boots for dsis (to go in her just because card) but i used boots points for these.

now home and trying to warm up it is cold.

ooh and credit card balance is -£464 hoorah! will be able to hopefully pay this off on payday. wahooo.

Hello everyone. May I join your thread please? I've had different life periods of trying to be particularly frugal and now I'm getting a bit older, am firmly back there!

I'm Eileen, with 2 DC, DC1 is almost 3, DC2 is 9 months.
We're trying to be fairly frugal so we can do a few things on our house, and pay down the mortgage and our car loan.
Although I'm on maternity at the moment so we probably can't make many inroads until I'm back at work!

Made a huge chilli in the slow cooker yesterday which will do the children and me nicely for a few days and some for the freezer

I read this thread with interest for your tips

Feel free to tell me to go away if you want 🙈

@Eileen101

Hello everyone. May I join your thread please? I've had different life periods of trying to be particularly frugal and now I'm getting a bit older, am firmly back there!

I'm Eileen, with 2 DC, DC1 is almost 3, DC2 is 9 months.
We're trying to be fairly frugal so we can do a few things on our house, and pay down the mortgage and our car loan.
Although I'm on maternity at the moment so we probably can't make many inroads until I'm back at work!

Made a huge chilli in the slow cooker yesterday which will do the children and me nicely for a few days and some for the freezer

I read this thread with interest for your tips

Feel free to tell me to go away if you want 🙈

Eileen you're most welcome and no one has ever been told to go away on this thread

€13.07 on bunch of flowers for a friend, 20 laundry capsules, a Yorkie and can of monster for me yesterday. Had no calculator and the special offer on capsules wasn't as good as the full price bigger pack. 1.5c more per capsule, couldn't face going back in to change it, lesson learned though.

€30 replacing tank of gas that leaked away, hopefully landlady will compensate me for this.

€19 refund from dunnes for leggings for dd that were out of stock

6 litres a week here while dm was staying, cereal, tea etc. Since she left dc are at childminders three mornings and we're down to 1.5 litres. This will go back up when dc go back to school as ds takes milk as his drink.

Life I think you can scan it in and convert to pdf is that possible or take pic and convert to pdf!

Em those mini soreens are fab, have you tried their nom noms 75kcal of yumminess!

Unescorted gas for the cooker?

Tayto if you've library membership you just download the app and sign in with your membership number and pin, if you don't you can probably contact your local library by email. 5 books on reserve or loan at a time and same by Audio

Hello Eileen I am pretty new here and everyone seems very kind indeed!

Frugal things I have done over the last couple of years (I am saving hard for various goals, including paying for DS' university accommodation, if all goes well):

• switched my exercise regime to free instructions via YouTube (and lots of walking and, when energy and weather permits, bicycle)
• halved my contact lens consumption
• stopped drinking
• lost weight, so all my clothes fit - now I'm not tempted to buy more, and I try and make sure I wear my stuff and enjoy it
• shop at Aldi, apart from a few brands and bits that we really like and that you can't get there

-plan, plan, plan! I pay myself first (put money aside for savings, essential expenses, annual/occasional costs) and make the rest last. If that means I have a budget of £2.20 a day for non-essentials, as is the case this blessedly short month, then that is what I have and I find ways not to spend. -I do my tax return on 8 April, and I set up a budget payment plan to meet the bill bit by bit, so it's like being on PAYE.

• Whatever your budget, make room for something you really like. I'm quite goal oriented, a saver and a planner, so squirrelling money away for a specific project gives me a lot of pleasure in itself. But I also like spending on stuff like flowers for the house, or using up paint to tart up a cupboard, or buying a secondhand book or a cheap lipstick (got a shopping basket sitting with a few things in it on the e.l.f cosmetics website at the moment). Find your happy! and have a bit of splurge money that you can spend without guilt, even if it's a tiny amount, I suppose is what I'm saying.

@Eileen101

Hello everyone. May I join your thread please? I've had different life periods of trying to be particularly frugal and now I'm getting a bit older, am firmly back there!

I'm Eileen, with 2 DC, DC1 is almost 3, DC2 is 9 months.
We're trying to be fairly frugal so we can do a few things on our house, and pay down the mortgage and our car loan.
Although I'm on maternity at the moment so we probably can't make many inroads until I'm back at work!

Made a huge chilli in the slow cooker yesterday which will do the children and me nicely for a few days and some for the freezer

I read this thread with interest for your tips

Feel free to tell me to go away if you want 🙈

Hi Eileen - nice to "meet" you!

i love a slow cooker dinner. it was my best wedding present!

to start you off on some money saving tips (although these are fairly obvious):

• switch utilities providers if you can;
• downgrade phone contracts - if you're on maternity and in lockdown do you need a huge data or whatever? I have recently downgraded mine - wfh means im on wifi most of the time.
• any insurances coming up for renewal? can you reassess these and then lower?

SHould say I halved my contact lens sub by wearing my specs every other day, not by doubling up on contact lens wear!

Yes to shopping around on utilities and insurances - passive customers are profitable ones. Money Saving Expert keeps you up to date on good deals via their Cheap Energy club so sign up if you haven't already.

Make sure you're not paying too much for necessary debt, like a mortgage. Switch/overpay if you can. Switch any credit card balances to 0% if you can.

I joined TopCashBack and although I have only earned about £32 so far, it did reduce the cost of purchases I needed to make anyway. Takes a while to come through so don't make it a lynchpin of your cashflow planning, but still worth having.

ooh yes toipcashback. i use them for all online purchases. so far i've earned around £300 (in the few years i've been a member).

if you've got a lot of debt, and need to get it paid look up the Dave Ramsey debt snowball method, and the standing order trick. I paid off around £14k of debt (credit cards and student loans) this way.

essentially you order the debt ranking of interest rates from highest to lowest. then make minimum payments on all debts via standing order so you pay the same amount every month.

then the take the debt with the highest interest and make a payment (of whatever you can) and pay this against the highest interest debt and only this one.

once this one is cleared you then throw the amount you paid to your highest interest debtor plus the monthly minimum amount to the next highest.

paying minimum payments by standing order is important as it means you clear debts quicker as you pay off the minimum interest plus a little bit of capital.

@ememem84

ooh and credit card balance is -£464 hoorah! will be able to hopefully pay this off on payday. wahooo.

That is amazing well done Em

Welcome Eileen
Tight you have done really well lovely. l applaud you specially on the weight loss!
Happier have you got the RB DIGITAL app from your library as well, it has all the latest mags in it too
Peanut glad it has worked , it was a life saver for me l can tell you!
Thank you Adora She is fine thank God
Bought my washing machine, it is coming a week Friday, will do my washing up Mums till then otherwise they wanted to charge me 20 delivery . Bought a cheap and cheerful one a Beko 209 all in from Boots appliances , then l will get the points lol , only have had an expensive time lately with the car Insurance, MOT AND BRAKES as well now the washer & Dd1 birthday and Dh birthday on the horizon. I checked the price everywhere, 209 was the cheapset. Dh pulled the old one out and the mess under it was awful!! dirty dirty Mad!

I do but because I've no internet I'm not really using it at the moment

Ahhh am glad you got it only l find it excellent and frugally free!!

Aww Eileen nobody's going to tell you to go away! I haven't been on this thread long but it's already my favourite. My tip is don't be a shopaholic. I read an article on Zen habits and how learning to be content with what you have stops you from emotional spending. Another thing is figure out your budget for the month to be paid by card and take out the remainder that's spare in cash, once it's gone it's gone.

I did quite well in the supermarket today. Didn't forget anything or buy anything unnecessary. Treated myself to a few books on special offer and one of those craft making magazines which came with a pile of extra bits to add to what I've already got, plus some pencils and pens. Spent £25.82 on that lot but it'll keep me busy for hours so I don't mind. It should work out at less than £1/hr for entertainment value, which seems very reasonable.

Mrsmad I've had 3 beko washing machines and been happy with them all. I've never worn one out actually, I sold them when I moved.

Congratulations on clearing all that debt em that's impressive. The snowball method sounds good.

Tight I love flowers too. I buy whatever is cheap in the supermarket and it makes such a difference to my mood to be reminded that I'm worth buying flowers for.

Welcome Eileen. My top frugal tips, when money comes in pay yourself first, don't do a monthly budget do an annual one and make sure thats accounted for in your monthly outgoings so annual expenses are effectively spread over the year. Make sure every penny has a job to do, that includes allocating money for fun spends

Dinner is left over curry from a couple of weeks ago

Tomorrow's shopping order is expensive again. Doesn't seem like there is much in the basket although £25 of it is on a knife and there's also two lots of wrapping paper in there and that's not cheap either

Happier I miss flowers, what a lovely thing to do for your friend

Em well done on the cc, you reminded me to pay the balance off on mine

Bloody washing machine Mrs, not what you needed

Unescorted hope you've had a better day at work

Definitely not needed Wolf but n'eer mind got to be done! My tumble is sounding very unhappy too and the dishwasher is sulking oh well l will have to wash the dishes and dry the clothes myself if they go now as well as for flowers my Dh bought me some on Sun, he is a sweetheart and since then l have done nothing but sneeze, talk about ungrateful lol
Amber thank you for the vote of confidance that i sgreat going for Beko yay! I have done something right

Welcome has anyone said go through your regular payments and make sure they are either needed and on the best rate.

I use RB digital to feed my cooker magazine addiction.

More frugal tips from me:

• dry laundry outside whenever possible
• bbc sounds has free audiobooks or podcasts if that’s your thing. There is literally a ton of content on there.
• buy a water jug for the fridge - so you’re not using the tap every time you want a drink
• reuseable coffee cup - most coffee shops give discounts for eco cups (or just scrap the takeaway coffee altogether)
• batch cook
• meal plan and use everything up - I’ve started keeping a “use it up” box in the fridge for all the things that need to be used first.
• you can basically freeze anything
• frozen berries and fruits are the way forwards for breakfasts
• ditto veggies.
• ditto herbs - I discovered frozen garlic ginger chilis parsley coriander and basil. Game changer.
• slow cooker is everyone’s friend.
• check direct debits and cancel all that you absolutely don’t need
• if your account does it toggle save the change on (lloyds definetly do this not sure about others - Hsbc U.K. might but I know Hsbc ci and iom don’t) or just round up yourself to the nearest £1 every little helps.
• use club card points - tesco boots nectar. Use them when you can. I used to keep all my boots ones. Then never use. I’ve started using them now.
• use up what you have toiletries wise before buying new.

£240 back to my cc from jet2

Life I feel like I should have waited but I think my final payment was before the end of jan.

Sorry I'm completely failing at keeping up this week... I always lose the plot in the last week of term 😂. Hopefully il be more present next week 🤞🤞

February:
NSDs: 6/28
Groceries: £135.96/390
Everything else: £139.54/£350

It's the roll of the dice wolf. No guarantee waiting would have meant a refund

NSD...even copped for some free stationary for DC's GCSE courses....
Mrs - sorry to hear about your Mum and your washing machine, I love your attitude to life though, good for you! Swansea is very, very cold today....