Frugaleers -Marching March-wards Making Money Matter

[Wolfcub]

New fred ready for March

Am jealous of all the bird varieties, we get magpies, starlings, sparrows, pigeons & crows
Had a lovely seafront walk in the sun today. Spent £20 on fruit & veg & bought the Pinch of nom books (2&3)

Love the birdie talk. We have a resident blackbird who i will miss when we move.
Did I say happy st David day. I said it so many times sorry if I didn't.
Couple of£ on bread products yesterday
Probably will need a prescription today or some otc.

I love that you keep a list Snuggly. I'm missing being able to go out and photograph birds

Undercoated we used to have nightjars in the forest where we camped at weekends when I was a kid. They are fascinating. Hoping my bird box gets some viewings from prospective residents today.

I have wrens and long tailed tits, wood pigeon, collared dove, Robin, blue and great tit, sparrow, thrush, blackbird, and occasionally pied and yellow wagtails visiting the garden. We have starlings in the tree behind the house and swifts in the field edges when the timing is right

We have:

Robins
Two beautiful magpies
A big ass wood pigeon
What I believe to be a collard dove
Starlings
And I think a kestrel (which sits on the tree and surveys the building site behind our house).

Catface goes mad when all the birds are in her garden and she’s indoors. She chatters at the window then bursts through the cat flap to try and get them. Subtle and stealthy she is not.

spends today:

• 28 jojo manan for wellies for dd. she has outgrown hers and i hadn't realised. annoyingly shoe zone didnt have any in her size. gr. i even got dh to check the ones we have in the loft for but they'd all be too big... so frugal thoughts.

£39.50 nails - had £10.50 gift voucher to use up so only paid £29. yay

and £4 something in coop for butter. bought the naice lurpack stuff and a flora. and did self service and paid with my coins. i used nothing bigger than a 10p. smug. purse is a lot lighter now!

I'm a birdwatcher too. Mostly jackdaws in my garden and the resident pair of blackbirds. Also sometimes see wood pigeon and sparrow picking berries off the bush, magpies starting arguments with the jackdaws and terrorising the pigeon, seagulls in the sky but not the garden, blue tits in the apple tree outside my bedroom window and the occasional robin or long tailed tit. Where I sometimes walk there's flocks of starlings, greenfinches, goldfinches, sparrows, a few buzzards, mallards everywhere, lots of moorhens, some coots, a few swans, a heron and a kingfisher. When I was young there were lots of starlings and sparrows in my garden at that home and I never really appreciated their beauty because they were always there, so felt ordinary to me. I miss them now. NSD again.

Aww catface 😍 she's adorable em. Good to see she has a great home now. The way some people treat animals is despicable.

Wolf evil colleagues are the pits aren't they.

North sounds fab. I would love a trip to the sea right now.

I have kept a list since we moved into our house of birds and other interesting wildlife we have seen in the garden and this year I have started listing what we see out and about. I'm surprised how much we have spotted within a small radius of our house actually! Lots of garden birds but also various types of ducks and geese in the local parks. Lately the great crested grebes have been doing thei courtship dance. I have seen a sparrow hawk and buzzards nearby too and I heard an owl early on Sunday morning but couldn't spot it. I haven't seen any this year yet but I have previously seen kingfishers along the canal. Not bad for an urban area!

@northender

Am jealous of all the bird varieties, we get magpies, starlings, sparrows, pigeons & crows Had a lovely seafront walk in the sun today. Spent £20 on fruit & veg & bought the Pinch of nom books (2&3)

That is all we ever get no matter what we feed them and as for the Sparrow population being in mortal danger they ought to come to our house it is packed to the gunnels with them! Not that l mind l love all birds

Em l used a lot of coins in Tesco today
l know the wellies were more than you wanted to pay but l bet they are really gorgeous
39 in Tesco bought Dd2 a leopard print lounge suit for 12 instead of 30, l was going to buy it her for Christmas so bought it for her today when l saw it at that price.
Costco 35
Lidl's again today 11
Snuggly we have Sparrow Hawks try their luck here but there is no hope for them, the Sparrows are far too quick and clever for them
Loving the birdy speak too , they are so beautiful

£3 on wood polish - the glamorous life here
Navigated my hell day at work but am too tired now to exercise so just slumped on sofa waiting for DH to bring me food.

Today's sighting - a dipper by the river. I had to look it up b/c I have never seen one before. I am not very good with British birds. Probably because I have never looked out for them.

Today was a better day - I have got to the bottom of my results never being the same as the historic ones. The old ones were wrong - my critics have been silenced. For the time being at least.

I have invited the poor lass in trending over to the thread. She was getting grief for wanting to keep her house (the mortgage is less than rent) and lots of equity release suggestions.

I love a dipper Unescorted! Believe it or not I've seen one of those quite near my house too, also a grey wagtail. They were both by the stream that runs through the local park, both birds like fast flowing water. Only other place I have seen either of them is the Peak District.

In that case I will keep my eyes peeled for the grey wagtail

You are a good un Unescorted she is in a bit of a pickle bless her, hope she comes over to us

Hello from the other side... house move complete 🏡! Sorry I have missed SO much... will go back and catch up tonight but needed to tot up my horrendous overspending

February:
NSDs: 17/28
Groceries: £426.98/£390
Everything else: £371.94/£350

Actually, not as bad as I thought and as I'd underspent on 'everything else' in January, il keep my budgets the same for March. However March groceries is already 😳 because we ate down the freezer, cupboards, fridge etc before the move and have already done a huge shop.

March:
NSDs: 0/31
Groceries: £104.97/£390
Everything else: £24.82/£350

Right, now to catch up and jump back in to frugality!

Congratulations on the house Madden!

Mrs I am going to try that because that quiche is a firm favourite in my house. It's thepizza and cinnamon roll from lidl, oh and dont even get me started on the toffee yum yum.
Leftover stir fry from tea yesterday for tea today and chocolate banana cake which I made tons of yesterday to use up eggs and past best bananas. NSD....

Congratulations on the house move Madden !
Fear you won't regret it ! We also love the BBQ chicken wings and their Piri Piri Spatchcock chicken too !

mrs fear if you like quiche and onions try jamie Oliver’s onion tart tatin. It is to die for.

Also Nadia Hussain’s cheese and pickle pies. Yummmm

We have stuff here called black butter which is appley and cinamony and yum. Dh mixes it with onions to go on burgers. Man it’s good.

Great news about the house move madden

I didn't get much done today. 3hr round trip to collect DPs eBay purchase, got it home and cleaned up to find it's not the same as the one in the photos. Stern words were had with the seller so its being returned tomorrow for a refund. It tires me out just thinking about it.

And you're all making me want quiche now 🥮🤤 but I'll have to settle for toast for my midnight snack.

Amber that is awful. I assume they are not paying you for travel costs.

Madden great news about the move. Wishing you many happy years in your new house.

It is so foggy this morning. - the Met office and Netweather both say we are in for mildly sunny day. The BBC have us down for thunder & lightning.

I am nearly half way through the week YaY!

Morning y’all

Only up once with dd last night still knackered though

Am off to the office again today as have my appraisal.

O

I started looking at that thread. Bless her.
Yeah on the house move.
Misty here too

How annoying Amber I'd be asking for petrol
Money

Yay on the house move Madden

Hope the appraisal goes well Em

I am feeling rotten, I've been feeling off for a few days but the last 18 hours or so I've been feeling really grim. Hope it lifts today

I'm also depressed because I looked at pension stuff yesterday. I've always planned on retiring at 60 as that was the cap limit for the original pension plan. I've been reading FIRE and thinking about savings and avcs (post divorce of course) to make sure retirement is comfortable. They've upped the paying in period on the pensions to cap at 45 years service. If I take my pension at 60 it's effectively worth half per year of what it is at 65 and that's without buying a lump sum. Bollocks!!!