Summer savings support - be frugal

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Running out of space on the old thread so here’s the new one. Everyone welcome.

for background this is a slice to share your No spend days, your big spend days your savings your situation. We all help each other out with advice and tips etc. but it’s mostly for friendly accountability.

Evening everyone
We have been in the house very cool since half 1 , closed the curtains/blinds & the windows first thingthis morning popped up top tdo MUmbobs an dthe shopping by the time we come home we were veryhot but walked in to a lovely cool house . So it does work , we didn't even need the fan on which l can't quite believe !
Spends today 14 in Morrisons , ice cream and bits and 7 in Tesco which was mostly yellow stickers . Half price mashed potato l bought several containers , they are now in the freezer , Mumbob eats mash a lot due to their false teeth not fitting despite me taking them both to the dentist several times, apparently the gums lose bone after thye have been without teeth for many years and it;s difficult to get teh teeth to stick despite using Polygrip plus

decaff one of the best frugal things I’ve ever done is to look at Martin Lewis’s budget and realise what I actually spend on the kinds of things you’ve mentioned. I wrote out a list of all that kind of thing (car insurance and repairs, house insurance, Xmas, clothes, birthdays etc…) It came to £3600 at the time and think it’s more now. I am probably OTT about it but I have loads of little online savings accounts and save it then for separate things eg clothes, Xmas, insurance etc. it’s not foolproof as I often borrow from my pots (eg from the clothes one if I have a big car bill). But it was so instrumental in making me realise about all the ordinary expenses I was forgetting to budget for. And in fact made me realise I needed to earn more…which I know is tricky in your situation.

had a lovely day swimming in the river. Had to put £20 petrol in the car and £7.50 on cheesy chips for the DC. But worth it

Ooof hot one here today.

down the beach early though with the kids and home by 1230.

stayed indoors all afternoon but with the back doors open - we had a bit of a breeze here too.

chicken noodle salad for dinner which we ate on the beach.

ds has been a. Nightmare today. Refused to drink anything. Insisted on running about in the garden. Got himself too hot. Refused to drink anything to cook down. Then threw a tantrum when I asked him to. DH has to Chuck him in the bath fully clothed to cool him down.

Nsd
still really warm here trying to blow dry my hair infront of the fan which isn’t really working wouldn’t usually both but it’s dd graduation tomorrow. Liverpool John moores have cancelled there’s due to the heat wave but dd is still going ahead

graduation then a celebrity meal out in the evening so it’s going to be a Spendy busy and very hot day wish I had booked Tuesday off work as well as didn’t realise we had to be there for hours before the actual 45 minute ceremony

I think that's a great idea Martha, re having lots of pots. I do now for food and fuel, but am going to break it down further from next month.

Graduation day here too, can't believe it's still on as it's the same thing, as yours Alfie, standing around for ages outside for a shortish ceremony. No meal planned but I'm sure it'll be a day of spending. Will try take water etc.

Hope graduation goes well Alfie and Mines, I certainly wouldn't want to wear a gown and cap in this weather. Been out with the dog, washed the kitchen bin and steam mopped the floor. Load of washing just finishing which needs to go out and then I need to shut the windows, barren down the hatches and start work. Could be worse though I was supposed to be in London this week and would have been spending (at current line speeds) 6+ hours on a boiling train to get there. So thank heaven for small mercies

Assumingly it’s the same format as mine was all those years ago in that graduation ceremonies go on for a couple of days. I think when I did it my class were the 4th group to go through that day. Remember it being bloody hot then too.

I usually do the pots of savings. But rinsed them because of the building work. Sigh.

Ooo glad you are not travelling today wolf.
Take an undress for portable shade to the graduation. Good luck and have a good day
not over hot yet so windows open to cool house for now.
drain man coming today to see if I still need to spend ££££ on a drain. I fear yes
will also need petrol as dh visited pil yesterday to check on them but that will likely be wed

stay cool frugaleers

Quick check in before work.

have a lovely day at the graduations

great news about DD ditching the loser alfie

I think I may have been seeing things this morning, petrol price seems to be going down?! Saw 187.9.

Morning, going to be a hot one here we are in the red zone so highs of 39 today. School did say they would authorise any absences due to weather but ds2 has just left without complaint. Not sure if he’ll feel the same tomorrow.

Just heading off to get the food shop done before it gets too hot. Hope they’ve managed to restock overnight. I went in yesterday for fresh burger buns and it was like Christmas Eve!

Morning all. I need to put some water out for the birds, but dog has been walked, windows opened for cool morning air (and closed again), curtains and blinds pulled down and fans switched on. I've cancelled work today, DS is not working today or tomorrow, DH is catching air-con train to air-con office, so we should be fine in the 39 degree heat we're forecast. Hope everyone else is OK.

Cash-wise, I have a budget of £6 per day for the remainder of the month (16 days for me), after all essentials accounted for. So, basically, I'm planning on NSD for the next 4-5 days in order to save my cash for our holiday. The joint account is there for groceries and petrol.

I’m sat in the middle room with the dog which is dark and cool. That’s us for the day

Morning all.

Not too hot here yet although our house is very old so generally cool in the summer anyway. And bloody freezing in the winter!

Sent DC to school with frozen water bottles aswell as regular ones. Teens do a long commute on bikes to school so they left early and I said take it v slowly.

Toddler and I are staying indoors today, may potter in the garden at some point for a play with the water table in the shade.

In good frugaleering news, DH and his department at work have decided to stop doing whip rounds for people's birthdays so that £50 a year for us saved.

I'm thinking about Christmas and seeing if family want to do secret Santa, don't know how well it will go down though. We usually buy for adults and children and budget around £10 each but I've just realised that not including our household that's 13 people so £130. Hmmm. Don't know how well secret Santa would work in practice though. I don't want to be a killjoy.

Secret Santa is a good idea or at least not buying for the adults

@Decafflatteplease my sister in law is from a big family and they moved over to secret Santa a few years ago. I reckon if you put the idea out there you might find other family members feel the same.

Ir if it doesn’t go down well, would suggesting just buying for the kids help?

@Decafflatteplease we buy for adults and kids with a budget of £60 pp. The kids get a gift from everyone, the adults get one gift between the family, basically it works out that one adult buys for another. In short, we end up paying out around £240 for wider family, this is before we've even brought for DC gifts. I suggested cutting this down last year and I got shot down by the whole wider family and moaned at big time. One year I worked overtime for 2 months just to pay for these gifts. I'm already putting money aside towards this cost.

We haven't exchanged Christmas gifts between adults for about 15 years and nothing bad has happened. The money still gets spent on visiting, food, booze, general conviviality so I don't think anyone has felt hard done by.

Can I join? I won’t post much, but love reading the updates.
Re Christmas gifts, one years before we had children, me and my DSis just said no more gifts other than parents. Then just for children once they were born.
If we did go out together shopping etc I would buy her a coffee then next time she would repay the favour.

Me and my friends spend time and do only kids presents

i now finally have safe electric at home but need the expensive drain work,
is it really bad I got excited about having a double oven again

The linen sheets in the La Redoute sale have proved extremely nice in the heatwave, btw.

Oh, and La Redoute also do an interest-free Pay in 3 option, so I have found budgeting for these new and necessary items easier! I am looking to start replacing towels this year too, so will check out their stock.

Double oven excitement?! No. Not bad at all. I have one. I get it.

currently sitting outside trying to cool down. Tempted to sleep out here but don’t want to get dark on me.

catface is chirruping at the noisy bird.

nsd for me. Had my scans today (insurance will sort this out) everything looks normal so that’s good.

Too hot for the dogs even now, we've had to do a quick plod to the field we back onto (they won't toilet in the garden). Literally a toilet stop and Ddog1 is panting.

Lovely graduation day, but SO hot. DD looks amazing and, in addition to graduating, won a departmental prize for the highest dissertation mark and has been nominated for two national awards. So proud, but incredibly sad that DH not there. Had a cry, in truth. DS was fantastic though.

Spends were £3.60 on a double rum and coke for DD to stop her stressing, and £2 for this haul from Too Good to Go Subway! We came home to eat and will have a glass of fizz tomorrow (already in, no spend) so much cheaper day than I imagined!

There was 7 cookies btw!

We've done kids only presents for years in truth, unless couple have no DC of course, so much cheaper and less waste.