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

Spent £58 on groceries at Tesco today

Afternoon tea sounds fab @Creditcardshame and a total bargain!

Glad you enjoyed afternoon tea with your friends Creditcardshame

NSD here

£3 on a coffee today

£35 on psyllium husk for the dog and a 5gallons of Saniflo descaler. The latter is horribly expensive, but it is what is recommended and it's a damn sight cheaper than a new Saniflo.

DH spent £8 on posh bread, some of which is in the freezer. I'm happy to eat the Aldi sourdough, but he likes the artisan stuff. Oh well.

£11 well spent on cinema tickets yesterday - the Almodovar film is fab!

Can I join please? Although we have a reasonable income, a series of unexpected costs over the last year has left us in scary debt.

There is currently 7 of us in the household and all bills have inevitably shot up. Plus with the hike in energy bills just round the corner, we need to watch every penny.

Will try for as many NSDs as I can and stick to no more than £100 pw on groceries.
Thankfully no birthdays or big events in Feb.

@BigSkies22 talk to me about saniflo descaler... we inherited a saniflo loo with our house and I generally just avoid it because the thought of something going wrong with it is too much to bear

Hi @ForAFriend123 welcome, that is one busy household!

NSD - although when ironing school uniform I noticed DS needs new PE joggers as he has gone through the knee on his. They are logo'd, £8 from the school shop - so that is tomorrow's spend. There's just always something isn't there?

Friday £4 on a bottle of alcohol free wine
Saturday £2.85 IKEA breakfast (not counting the furniture purchases as those were accounted for in family money!)
Sunday NSD.
Totals so far: £11.79 food/drink and £55 osteopath

Due very end of March and food is definitely my only pleasure right now, so there is likely to be a theme to my spends this month
We have everything ready for baby and have got some new house bits to make it more comfortable since I'm WFH now and will be on mat leave for a year. Mostly second hand and some free! Am also suffering pretty crap PGP so staying home mostly. So my £200 budget for personal spending should be plenty.

[quote Mykittensmittens]@ivykaty44 I’m using the ‘wallet’ app on my phone which allows me to put in an amount, then deduct spends. Prevents me from looking at my bank account where my small buffer of money is so I don’t get tempted to use it. Still check it for sanity and reality but the ‘wallet’ is like the digital pocket money.

I’m trying to make it so that the amount I have left in the bank is an aim to save goal not an amount to spend goal.[/quote]
What app do you use? Is it available on Android? I was going to go back to cash but then the pandemic happened and it is too easy to just swipe things without thinking.

I spent an insane amount in January between car MOT/ service and new exhaust and a vet visit.

My plan for Feb is one online grocery shop a week, petrol, my nephew's birthday present and nothing else.

Right. Well I didn't start too well. Weekend was Ds birthday and I still had a cold so too many takeaway coffees and food! Weight has gone a bit haywire too.

So my aim for this week is 5 no spend days apart from direct debits already coming out and an online food shop which I'll aim to keep under £70.

Today I'm working from home and apart from the school run have no reason to leave the house which is when I'm tempted to spend.

Oh, ds also managed to find his jacket he'd lost from school which I'd just replaced over the weekend

I've not been spending huge amounts, however, the pocket money I've given myself is running quite low! I'm not 'allowed' any more till the 15th and I only have £65 in my bank account! However, I've returned a dress which I will get refunded, hopefully soon, which will bring it closer to £100. £15 per week minimum on petrol as I have a medium sized commute by car three days a week... can it be done?? We will see!

(Also, some of this 'pocket money' has actually gone on groceries and petrol, so not all frivolous crap. Just anything other than bills and mortgage is under my pocket money umbrella)

Oh hang on, actually - that's completely fine isn't it? In my head, it was ages until the 15th, but it's a week tomorrow! That's a nice surprise. That is definitely doable!

@Creditcardshame - we also inherited the Saniflo setup - a lav and the shower/sink in the top bathroom. The lav we use only for peeing - the other one is a conventional flush and can manage everything! The shower and sink runs through one Saniflo (which we replaced last year - the other one was really, really ancient and roared like a wounded beast - used to drown out the radio!), the lav runs through another.

You're not supposed to use bleach or acidic cleaners (I quite like to mix citric acid powder and bicarb for cleaning in bathrooms, but that's not recommended here) because they bugger up the seals. Hence the Saniflo cleaner, which I don't use as often as recommended in a hardwater area, because cost. I do use a plunger to swish through the shower and sink drains, because I'm not convinced the macerator on the Saniflo is really up to dealing with hair - from time to time we just get slow draining water and I pump away and up comes a big lump of hair. Which is gross but sort of satisfying.

Oh gosh spending is out of control here

Saturday: £26 on football kit for DS to stay adequately warm and dry!
Sunday: £30 on moisture wicking jogging bottoms for DH for when we watch DS play football in the heavy rain!

He wore chinos to the match yesterday and the rain was so bad DH ended up soaked through and had heavy legs 😂 I laughed so much because I wore my moisture wicking running bottoms and wellies and dried off quickly.

And today I need to spend another £10 on a new school jumper for DS.

I’m not spending anything anymore this week and my food shop has a strict £70 budget.

I just submitted my gas meter readings and we’ve used a fair bit so cutting down on that too.

Argh! I feel slightly stressed about it all.

@FrugalFrancine I Always think Feb is a nice surprise as it's so short!!

I spent £6.96 in Lidl yesterday. I'm being very frugal as:
I've got visitors coming for a long weekend this week so will be an expensive week for food.
March is 2 birthdays, DH and DC, so I need to put some money aside for presents.
I suddenly realised my car needs MOT done in March.

So March is going to be a bit of a disaster, I'm hoping the MOT isn't too bad.

I just did my online food shop at Sainsbury’s and it’s so infuriating. It happens every week. I choose my delivery slot first. Then I do my weekly shop. And at the very end of the checkout process it says that half my trolley is unavailable. Fair enough but 2 things piss me off

1. there’s no option to remove that item without having to go back into your trolley. Which is a long process if 15 items are unavailable and I need to get them from Tesco…
2. if there’s an alternative they always recommend a branded option that’s about £1.50+ more than the original even though there’s a midway alternative (usually Sainsbury’s branded)

Grrrrrrrr it’s triggered so much anxiety. Took half hour more than usual and they never listen to their feedback.

Anyway, I’m stressed and grumpy now

Thanks for letting me vent 😂 going to have a cup of tea and listen to Fleetwood Mac to calm down….

I've had that same problem with Sainsbury's @Woodlandarchitect! Very annoying.

Spent £10.50 in Aldi today (kids snacks and some more toiletries)
£1.50 on carparking today too

ive been shopping today, mostly frozen bits for long term use over the month and washing powder

£21 in Sainsbury
£7 in Starbucks

spent £20 in aldi Saturday

so £48 in 7 days

Had a low spend weekend, went for a day trip on Saturday to see DMIL, spent £5 on flowers for her as she was treating us to lunch. Zero spend on snacks and coffees as I was militant about packing our own.
Looks like our main expense will be travel this month, we have been invited to lunch next Saturday and the train tickets will cost £24 return, thank goodness for our rail card!
It is looking highly likely that we will be relocating this year, my main goal is to put enough into savings for a rental deposit and all the moving costs

I just submitted my gas meter readings and we’ve used a fair bit so cutting down on that too.

I do mine weekly, that way Im not in for any surprises and know how much we should be using.

Oh my gosh, £350 on a boiler part.

In the interests of full accountability we went out for dinner on Saturday which was £38 something. HOWEVER we were given the money to do this last April and have only just managed to do it so we didn’t technically pay for it.
We also went to buy dd some birthday presents on Sunday, spent £63 but £50 of that was from extended family so only £13 of our own money.

No spend day today!

So Sky have offered me a deal, less than 50% of what I've been paying. Makes me feel ripped off that we have been paying so much. Don't think I should mention it to DH.

I bought DS's joggers and renewed DD's passport.
I also had to get DS an oyster zip card, DH is taking him into London during half term and he will get cheaper travel this way - £10 admin fee. Total spent £67.

The light switch has gone in the kitchen neither me or DH are very handy but I think from looking at you tube that I should be able to fix it. Not too sure about messing about with electrics though. Anyone know if they are easy to change or is it dangerous?

I have fished out sausages from the freezer for dinner tonight. I have decided instead of food shopping twice a week I will only go about every 10 days with a bread and milk pick up on between.