Savvy savers sashaying through September

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New thread. All welcome.

Welcome Granny! I love the Gower, so beautiful. What a lovely part of the world to live!

@HumbugWhale it is lovely albeit wet, cold and windy so far today

Waving at Grannycake

Longtime lurker here to, in Swansea. I dip in and out buy I have changed career! Great news for my work life balance but my bank balance not so much, I have dropped 200 pounds a month as I have gone half the hours. So if you lovely ladies will allow me back in to be accountable, I would really appreciate the support. Big wave to Mrsmadevans, still followed you on here even when I stopped posting

Hope everyone else is OK, nice to see all the familiar usernames.

granny it's been wet & windy all afternoon here too.
Feeling a bit flat today tbh. Not sure why. Fancied going out with DH tonight but weather putting me off. Really need to get stuff done.

Hi granny and fear
More house stuff bought today and clothes for dd = £50 so could be worse
Still need a food shop but busy busy

No wonder the heating quote was high. This house is chilly

Welcome back fear and nice to meet you granny

Loads of spends here yesterday. Clothes & mittens for DC, Christmas jumper for DH and new jeans for me.

Finally spent my Boots points which I had been saving since DD2 was a baby. They had 20% off the big bottle of perfume I wanted, plus used another 10% off code. Saved £20. So that felt frugal!

DH took a trip to the test site today, as has a cough. It probably is just a cold, should have result easily by Monday morning so we can go back to work.

Quiet day here, all worn out after a late night out at the fireworks. DC loved them, first time they have seen them so close.

Welcome granny and fear. I have lovely memories of Wales from holidays.
Fairly frugal here. I’ve spent another £500 on car (service and other bits) which makes £1000 total over last few weeks. Tbf it has been really reliable up til now. DD wants to buy a car with some savings and we have the chance to buy DMs old car which has been well looked after. DP not keen initially due to extra costs of running 2 cars driving lessons etc. I am because it will be great to have another driver in the house. DD can’t drive my car as it’s massive for a new driver (Ford galaxy) and my insurers won’t cover her til she’s 21. Anyway I found cover in DDs name as a learner, with me as an additional driver, for £240 - much cheaper than I thought. We are going to talk to DD about getting a job to help pay for costs. We haven’t pushed that at all til now as she had quite significant mental health issues in previous few years and we haven’t wanted to put pressure on her. But I think she’s ready for that now.
humbug and love glad you had a good time at the bonfire with the littlies
alfie glad you got a doctor that took you seriously
em a proper bed is a big step for DS!

Em they look so small when they move into a bed.

Martha who have you found that insurance with? We could do with getting DD and DS learner insurance on a small car. The insurance has put me off.

Hi Granny - thanks for de lurking and giving advice this last year. It was really appreciated.

Lovely to see you back fear

The weather is grim here too. We are looking after a beautiful Manchester Terrier - she has not got any fat on her so each time she goes out she looks as if she is going to shiver herself into a pile of bones. She is a diva & won't go to the toilet if she has her jacket on. I look like the meanest dog walker ever.

unescorted it came up on a search with moneysupermarket.com under their ‘young drivers’ section. I put her as the main driver and me as additional. It was Collingwood learners who I’ve never heard of, but lots of good reviews when I googled them. My insurer (ensure) said they wouldn’t touch her til she’s 18 so obviously variable. And a search with compare the market brought up a cheapest search of 550 (though that time I did it with me as main driver). So worth shopping around.

Morning all. Welcome back Granny and Fear
I need to get my arse in gear and get back on the budgeting bandwagon. Money is flowing out of my hands like water at the moment.
On the heating front whilst new windows and doors have been a massive expense this year I think I can already see a difference both in cutting out noise and in keeping the house warmer. I've set the thermostat at 16 degrees so it doesn't drop too cold and I'm just using the boost function on hive occasionally to keep it comfortable. The new graph function on hive seems quite handy for keeping track of this
We spent a fortune on holiday - all food, ds has expensive tastes and hollow legs

Bloody hive won’t connect to the app.
2 tip slots booked for a quick sweep of the garden and crap left behind

Morning all welcome granny and fear. Unescorted my periods have awful for a few years but have been getting worse recently shorter cycle and longer heavier periods and crappy pmt symptoms literally started again a week and a half after finishing a 2 weeks period. Need shares in sanitary products at the moment lol

Spends over the last few days £20 takeaway for me and ds on Friday night as couldn’t be arsed cooking £10 for ds to go to the bonfire with his friends last night glad he is old enough to go by himself now as the weather was miserable last night so i had a soak in the bath to ease my period pain did a hair mask face mask etc then watched a film with dh no idea what it was called but it was actually quite good

Need to do a food shop today and wash the bedding but the cat is asleep on mine already and I hate disturbing him Might wake ds up so I can do his bed first lol

Have a good day everyone

£95 matalan, £36 farm foods, £75 Aldi, £24 Iceland £50 Amazon never thought I’d buying a baby gate but stupid dog can go up but not downstairs

Hi you lot, not really looked back at this thread for 3 weeks since I told you about the birth of DS but hi again! Almost every day since has been an NSD for me , today included. It's been a tough few weeks, I haven't had a good recovery, already been back to the hospital twice. Just finished my third course of ABs and only been off pain relief a few days but have a new pain today ffs which I am apprehensively going to get DH to check later (he is a HCP so can give a decent opinion as to what might be going on). Worried about it as he goes back to work on Fri and each time so far I've had a new pain it has been Something That Needed Treatment and took a week or so to resolve only for the next issue to arise . On the plus side DM's MRI scan was clear of cancer anywhere else and she had her lymph node removal op on Fri and is doing really well so far. She's in hospital but hopefully can go home tomorrow. I'm hoping that will be the end of it but I'm not sure if they will recommend adjuvant treatment anyway as a precaution possibly. Hope not tbh, she's already been through a fair bit with 3 ops so far.

Wolf We really need a new front door too. We have ever since we moved in hah but never sorted it as we weren't sure how long we'd be living here for tbh but now we know we will be here for the foreseeable we need to get it sorted. My DF is still our LL and I'd be happy for us to sort but I think he may get some sort of tax relief as a LL? So might make more sense for him to sort it really if it would work out cheaper (he'd be happy to).

Welcome granny and fear!

Alfie Have you seen your GP about the periods? There are usually loads of things you can try medication wise that might help. I have awfully heavy and long periods naturally, I always take either tranexemic acid or the combined pill as both really help make them lighter.

DS has been napping on me on and off for past 45 mins but can guarantee when I try to put him down in a min to eat dinner he will wake!

@lifelongfrugaleer

No wonder the heating quote was high. This house is chilly

We have bought 3 x electric oil heaters , one for the front room and one for each of the Dds bedrooms .They don't cost a lot to heat , approx 11p an hour , our gas boiler cost 1.40 an hour so at its worst it is 33p an hour instead of 1.40. At least l hope l have gotten my sums right. They were 2 x 20, & 1 x 23, so combined 63 . I think we have saved that much already, so they have paid for themselves . I don't know if it is a solution for anyone but we seem to be able to manage with them for the moment .

Meadow that sounds grim. It is hard enough without complications. I hope you feel better soon.

Alfie does your son know where he sits in the family picking order?

I have managed to spend a grand total of £25 on food and £10 on the Grand Prix (treat for DS) all weekend.

Morning all!
DH is most annoyed because I’m beating him on the MOVEmber challenge we’re doing. He only wears his Fitbit when he exercises whereas I wear my tracker all the time. 😂

Working 5 days this week instead of my usual 4 so it’s going to be a long week for me.

Yesterday bought some stacking boxes for cupboard so I can use for spare cosmetics etc. need to clear space under the bed.

Also found some old jewellery which I don’t wear anymore so am going to see if a local jewellers will take it and give me the cash value for the gold.

I keep meaning to do that with some old jewellery Em but never get round to it. It would be a good excuse for a look round the Jewellery Quarter though!

Not surprised you haven't been posting Meadow. Tale care of yourself and I hope you begin to feel better soon. Good news about your mum.

£71 weekly shop yesterday. Made soup for lunch and defrosted some veggie Bolognese for a lasagne for dinner which all felt quite healthy and frugal. I am still managing to dry washing on the line too which is good for this time of year.

Just £29 spent yesterday at Tesco for last bits for retirement party. We had a great time and it was nice for the whole family to be together since the start of the pandemic. 7 adults, 2 GC and 3 dogs so it was a bit of a squash as I live in a small(ish) cottage. Sent them all home with boxes of leftovers - I'm turning into my MIL. Should be a NSD today

Also found half of a pair of very first earrings. So when I go to get my piercing checked on Thursday I’m going to see if I can get another hold punched in my ear with a view to wearing the one earring.

My grandparents gave me these (small gold swallows) when I was 10. I had ears pierced on my 10th birthday and then was allowed to change from the “piercing” jewellery to others. Wore the birds all the time until I stopped wearing them and subsequently lost one.

£11 for the jewellery. I checked at other shop too with view of having it melted down but they charge for that. It’s less than I wanted. But it was all silver not white gold as I thought and silver is cheap at the moment. But it’s gone.

Oh em- that’s disappointing, I thought it would be more than that!
meadow lovely to hear from you and sending hugs. As unescorted says it’s tough enough without complications. I hope the latest scare hasn’t turned out to be anything big.
Here’s a frugal dilemma. DS1 has dropped his phone in the bath and not working. DS2 has left his on the bus! Both iPhone 7s, one still in contract (🤬) one was a refurbished one. Can claim on insurance but total £150 in excess and would mean 2 claims. We already have one from a burglary. Would get about £700 towards cost of phones though.
So would you do this, or would you suck it up and buy them both refurbished ones again (about £250 for two?) insurance broker advises it’s probably not worth the claim.