No spend or low spend February

[ivykaty44]

Here is a thread to keep check of spends in February

the idea is to have No Spends Days, weeks or clusters of days

im also going to be keeping my supermarket shopping low, eating what I have in the cupboards, to keep febs spends low.

Would anyone like to pledge an amount? and see if they can keep under that amount of money for the 28 days?

I pledge £200 for fuel, shopping and spending

@ivykaty44 Can I pledge £300 for the month but ignore my expenses yesterday as I don't want to add up what I spent. Coward that I am.

I did the money saver budget linked. Absolutely everything aside from food and drinks out for the family, which since covid is almost never. Grim reading. Just a couple of thousand a year in the green. Some debt payments will be gone soon though

I'll join you! Been doing lowish spend January and managed to put away savings last month which is great.

I spend £60 / month on fuel and I've just spent £30 on toiletries today. Will probably spend £100 on groceries, so that would take me to £200ish.

I have to pay for a training course next month and I'm also moving to a new job with fewer hours to retrain, so money will be tight! Need to be super frugal (hence my username)

Updating for today with a copy and paste job…

Saturday £10 farm shop
Sunday no spend
Monday no spend
Tuesday £6 Lidl
Weds no spend
Thurs no spend planned (am determined!)
Friday Frugal Food shop planned (am very determined!!)

Everyone can pledge what they want, as long as it’s less than they can afford 😊

@ivykaty44

Everyone can pledge what they want, as long as it’s less than they can afford 😊

Good point.

I've just been through my Sainsbury's order for tomorrow and knocked nearly £10 off which is good but I noticed a few price increased, one item was up 30% and one 20%. I'm only thankful that i can't remember the cost of every item or I'd probably have a heart attack.

I am pledging £300. I may be able to do less than that, but couldn't swear to it

I'm having a cheap February too. DH, me DAS and DFS. No council tax to pay this month so that will save a chunk. DH doing a shop this evening. I am staying home and cooking dinner from freezer. Usually we both go then takeaway on way home so that has saved us £40. We usually go for a meal out for Valentine's but has decided that DH will make us all a delicious home made pizza which is his speciality. Saving another £75. I have got 4 portions of turkey curry in freezer so that will do one dinner Thursday or Friday. I am going I to batch cooking mode over weekend so need to make the freezer space.

ancientgran Have a look on Amazon for regular items you can buy in bulk

@caringcarer I forgot this was no council tax month. Works great for me as the house insurance is due for renewal so no extra expense to cover that.

Found you all!

@ancientgran that sounds tough, I would ignore the spending too

@ivykaty44 well done on the frugal meals, I just end up making soups with leftovers - everyone is thoroughly fed up of soup now!

I pledge £400 on food and misc spending and £100 on personal spending.
I did do a big shop at the weekend for £120 though so we have enough in until next week bar milk.
We have 4 birthdays this month plus two birthday parties for DC's friends - I try to keep a stock of presents for DC's friends so I don't need to buy those. I also bulk buy age cards from card factory at the beginning of the school year so I have cards too.
Might need wrapping paper but I might get a big roll of brown paper and let the kids "decorate" it.
4 family birthdays we have budgeted £200 but this includes taking MIL out for afternoon tea (nowhere fancy!).

£294 on osteopath for a series of treatment. Stings but necessary. Have paid it from a savings account and will repay £25 a month into the savings for the remainder of the year.
No other spends!

@ivykaty44

ancientgran Have a look on Amazon for regular items you can buy in bulk

That is really strange. I was sitting here thinking should I use the money I saved last month plus the 2 months with not council tax to bulk buy some stuff. I hadn't thought of Amazon though which could be useful as I do have Amazon Prime.

It is nice to see some money in the savings account but with virtually no interest and prices rising I think a bit of bulk buying might be very useful. I suppose storage would be my big issue.

I'm going to have another think, but thanks for the input.

@CreditCardShame, thank you.

I love homemade soup but my family are the same. Ungrateful lot.

ancientgran

Make sure it is actually cheaper, I looked yesterday at washing powder & it was looking cheaper to buy two smaller boxes than one larger box- which is ridiculous but true

I use no crap big roll as it works out far cheaper than Aldi or Lidl due the one roll equating to 3 rolls of Aldi special as the cardboard insert is far smaller and each roll packed right and bigger. One box of 48 rolls has just last us 4.5 months

Hair cut and colour this morning - was expecting it to be more, but had omitted the rebooking discount so it was £87. Frugal by accident! Spent £2.95 on a slice of millionaire's shortbread which I will have with a cup of tea this afternoon after the Aldi run.

I was so pleased with my price on the train to Devon in March, until DH gently pointed out that I have booked to be away when he has tickets for us to see Hannah Gadsby. What a wally! Oh well, can't be helped. DH will just have to take someone else.

Logging my spend so far:

£13.69 on a stupid subscription service I thought I'd cancelled . Such a waste!

£15.35 petrol

£29.09 toiletries from Superdrug (moisturiser, cleanser, body wash, body lotion & razors - all fairly essential stuff and I mainly got own brand things)

So that's £58.13 of my £300 gone already

£51 in Aldi - included items like olive oil, dishwasher tablets. I have stuffed extra bits and pieces (nuts, biscuits) into odd corners so that they remain hidden a bit longer. I think the dairy items - well, blocks of cheese - are getting smaller!

£18 in B&Q on a roller extension pole. Will get to the ceiling this weekend.

No spend day today
Yesterday purchased coffee pods £45 but saves on coffee out & ultimately it’s 28p a coffee & I have a great milk frothed for latte

@ivykaty44 are they nespresso pods? I signed up to Amazon repeat order and cancelled after 3 goes. I’m fairly sure I worked it out to being 12p per capsule which I’m happy with. We only have one per day each.

I’ve made a lovely soup tonight using two tins of toms, some leftover pesto from the fridge, drizzle of cream leftover from the weekend, aldi part baked dinner rolls £1 for 8 and odds and ends of cheeses on a board with grapes and cherry tomatoes.I reckon it would feed 6 easily.
Soup recipe here I have adapted slightly but just delicious www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/rich-tomato-soup-pesto

Hello, can I be late to the February no spend party please. I like to have January and June as super frugal months each year but 2022 seemed to come at me like a train with Covid and colds so I'm started afresh for Feb!!

£70 today on a Tesco delivery. Normally it's around £100 but I have a freezer full I'm trying to eat down. Food budget for the month is £433 but I'm hoping to come in at under £300.

Also booked swimming lessons for the kids at half term £70 gone.

I don't have a "spends" budget as such as I have categories in YNAB. I'm just going to aim to spend as little as possible from each category.

@ancientgran you sound like an amazing friend.

I need to do this. January is DH’s birthday so usually I don’t spend in February. Yesterday I bought something completely unnecessary for next Christmas 🤦‍♀️.

@flowerycurtain Thank you.

Mykittensmittens No, tassimo and I can only buy them on Amazon as supermarket don’t sell the decafe I drink and I can’t stand the tassimo latte as they sweeten everything

I’m hooked on coffee so get through a few a day