Frugal Friends Fearlessly Facing February.

[needastrongoneagain]

Thought I'd start the new thread. Been ages since I started a thread!

I bet girlie as least you had the emergency fund.

Hi decaffe good to get the all clear and I hope the up and down feelings settle soon 🤞

Cute chicks kooka

Thats not bad for fuel mrs I got some for 138.9p once and then it went back up 🙈

£14.87 Lidl. Had a £2 voucher at least. Scrimping, scraping and limping to pay day Tuesday.

Tomorrow getting the exhaust checked on the car so that creates expense of bus fare etc getting DD back from her ice skating lesson while they look at it and possibly having a slice of pizza in town (it's a market place takeaway we use so only £3 but...). Monday is MOT day which I dread as I have an old banger but once done, a psychological tick off my list of essential costs for the year.

hit me with your airfryer recommendations my Cosori one has been recalled for a refund- need a big one for 4 of us the current one in 5.5 l. Don’t need lots of features but bake would be nice

@lifelongfrugaleer l follow these ppl on YT they are recommending the
Ninja multi cooker. It does everything .
They have a Ninja air fryer too and a Cosari

Oh sorry @lifelongfrugaleer l just realized you don't want a fancy one . Have a look at this video they are showing how they clean theirs . The Ninja has 2 drawers in theirs. They do a lot of cooking in them and love them

They are cleaning the one you had l think 🤔 Life

Decaffe that is brilliant news l am thrilled for you love, what a relief 💐
Thank you Kessie 😊
I make note of if the prices of if fuel as we travel about , It's easy to spend a fiver more a time just by not going to the cheapest petrol station, that's £250 saving a year for us at least . Good luck with the MOT on Monday
@Order

Sorry l will start again
@OrderOfTheKookaburra thank you l didn't think of doing that
The Voddie sounds gorgeous as does your Banana cake yummy

decaf - so pleased your cancer scare has been resolved, hope you continue to recover well.

girlie - so great you had the emergency fund to borrow from.

kessie good luck with the MOT.

lifelong - I have a 10
Litre Mistral - not sure if you have that brand in the UK? I love it, but so far I have only down the basics in it.

Regarding fuel, if I put in "petrol station" into Google Maps it shows all the petrol stations around me and the price of their fuel. Worth having a look to see if your petrol stations do that? Most of mine are showing between $1.69 and $1.72 per litre for normal unleaded. If I click on the price instead of the marker it will show me the price of all the other fuels as well. I need the '95 for my car so always more expensive and not always showing on the advertising board.

Today should be a no spend day. Will have 2 keep warm mugs with tea in them to see me through DS1's cricket game (fingers crossed is on, heatwave broke and it rained for most of the night).

Making crepes for DS1's breakfast (triple batch all for him, he's a bottomless pit at the moment!)

DS2 is still asleep, when he emerges I'll likely either do pancakes (fluffy ones) or soft boiled eggs.

Chick update - mama is still sitting on them. She gets growly if I go anywhere near her. I think I hear an occasional little cheep but not entirely sure. Hatchery will buy back any that are roosters - not allowed to keep them here.

Just doubled checked and I don't think Google maps does that for the UK, but Confused.com claim to have 83% of petrol prices in the UK, so worth a look on their website.

I can live with fancy if that’s the best one

Yes that’s the one I have. I really like it

The ninja looks good and I can get 20% off after the weekend, don’t want your free apron I want my discount but still £100 more than my Cosori 🙁

Decaf** glad the result was good, I've just been referred to gynie as they found a growth ??polyp in my uterus and I'm trying not to get too worried about it 🙁

Cute chicks kessie, id love hens if I had the space. The vodka recipes sound amazing and I don't even drink 😋😂

Thanks re emergency fund, its all the savings I have and a lot lower than I'd like since getting the car but you're right it's better than nothing. I've taken more out than I've put in for the last 3 months though 🙁 which is not sustainable. Current savings balance stands at £1750.

In theory March and April should be quiet spend months so I'd like to get the savings up to £2000.

Planned spends for March:
Dog Agilty class £52 - this is for two months and is something dd and I enjoy doing (and the dog loves it obviously 😁)

Dds bus pass, praying it's not gone up since she turned 17, it's usually £50.

Will get dd a train card, her new boyfriend lives a train ride away so she's using the trains more now. Looked online and young person rail card is £30 which will give her £50% off fares.

£50 garden budget, I want to paint the garden fences as they look tatty, also need compost to start my seeds off. If I can do it for less than that I will.

Reading glasses 🤓 I have a voucher but think they will still cost around £40.

girlie if you have any Tesco club card vouchers you can swop £1 for £3 towards a railcard.

aww at the little chicks!

Good news that it was benign decaff, but the recovery sounds tough

fingers crossed for you girlie that it’s nothing worrying with gynie

I’m hoping for a low spend March, to get our joint account more healthy. DH starts his new job soon, but as it’s mid month who knows what he’ll get paid at the end of the March. I’m suspecting he might get put on basic rate tax until it’s correct in April. I once changed job in mid March, paid too little tax and then they finally reclaimed it 2 years later!

Morning everyone.

It's a nice, bright, sunny day here. I woke at 8 to drop DD to her bus for work. Made such a difference when I opened my curtains to see daylight outside. Just a few short weeks now until the clocks go forward.

DD got paid today but it was a lot less than she'd expected. I had a series of ranty texts from her. I suspect it's due to either :- (1) she started in the middle of the monthly cycle (she gets paid monthly) or (2) she's paying emergency tax. I told her I'll have a look at her payslip later. It's a company with a good reputation so I've no reason to believe they're doing anything underhand.

My friend's Mam passed away during the week so I'm taking a day off work next week to go to the funeral. It's a fair distance so I'll need to budget extra money for petrol. And maybe money for a coffee stop along the way, so I can avail of a toilet. She's a close friend and I'd feel bad if I missed it.

Confession time. After I did my shopping this morning, I went into a department store and bought a really nice top for an event I have coming up. I could have worn something old but I just wanted to treat myself. It's been a long, grey winter and sometimes I feel like I work really hard for my salary and spend it all on my mortgage, bills, college fees, insurances of one kind or another DCats etc. Anyway, I'm over my pity party now and back on the straight and narrow.

I got my Dad an Easter egg today. Feels weird buying an Easter egg in February but there will probably be none left when Easter rolls around. Anyway, it was a 'large' Roses egg but considerably smaller than previous years.

I bought Easter eggs today as spotted them on offer
don’t blame you for the treat, that’s one advantage of being frugal

New to this. I’m slightly gutted as I thought I was doing well. Paid on the 25th and once I’ve paid off cc, covered the Dd bills. I had a whopping £1200 to get through the month then I’ve had to pay to replace washing machine (not worked since end of Jan), top up the oil tank and a small plumber bill I’ve spent £890 quid and now I have £310 left. Petrol is £400, food £500 so will probably have at least £600 on the cc at the end of the month depending on if anything else goes wrong.

I’d really like to get to a point where I can cover costs over the month rather than putting everything on cc.

Afternoon.

Brill and such relieving news @Decafflatteplease . Such a weight lifted I'm sure.

Welcome bad. Sorry to hear about the extra bills. Can you apply for an interest free card for a few months until it's paid off? Martin Lewis has recommendations.

We've an Instant Pot Vortex Plus @lifelongfrugaleer, I love it.

The top sounds lovely @Taytocrisps and you deserve it. Sorry re your DD's salary.

Chicks news sounds positive @OrderOfTheKookaburra

Payday was yesterday and it's been a good month, so I'll fill my various pots and add one for dog expenses too. Food, grooming etc (vets covered already on a scheme).

Quiet weekend here. Needs to get some sorting done for DH's coming home. Freezer raid for tea.

Oh for northern folk near Leeds - Surplus to Purpose is now delivering. I've ordered a large fruit and veg box, so will see what I get for £10.

I'm closer to Durham and Newcastle need but that sounds really good.

Hi bad you are in the right place to try to reduce those costs.

New top sounds nice tayto we all need a treat now and then.

Bad morning in frugal terms. Quote of £800 to replace exhaust before the MOT on Monday. That was from Kwikfit who can be £££. The car is likely not worth that so I didn't get it fixed. Have been advised to see what it fails the MOT on and then weigh up whether it's worth fixing or selling for spares and repairs. Meh. Will just have to see how the MOT goes, I have a v good, cheap mechanic but he hates exhausts!

Other than that £10 on bus fares and Greggs (essential purchase bearing in mind car woes). Getting PJs on now and not going back out. It's freezing here! ❄️

Tayto don't feel bad re the too, we all need to treat ourselves every now and then.

Badbudget that's a shame re all the additional spends, it's so hard to get to the point where you can save for those unexpected costs.

I've had an unexpected NSD, didn't make it to Aldi and didn't get to the train station in time to sort dds train pass.

I have sat with my mum and sorted out the trip to London we're doing in May. Mum agreed I can pay her back £50 a month to cover the cost of the shows and hotel. I'm really excited as we're going to see Phantom and the ABBA show Voyage 😁 it will be so good. Total cost (not including travel) around £250.

Dd and dh went to Newcastle today shopping as dd wants clothes £100 which isn’t bad letting a teen lose in the toon

I’ve got ninja and vortex on my shortlist, imagine Amazon will give me account credit so will get whichever is cheaper. Missing my airfryer already

Evening all - may I join you.
I used to post on these budget threads a long time ago under an old username and I've been trying to get a handle on my finances unsuccessfully since then and beyond.

I am in the fortunate position to have two decent wages coming in and low cost debts and on paper we should have an okay amount to live off, but I don't track spending, am very impulsive, don't save and keep running up credit card debts as I put annual and unexpected costs.

So my aim is to stop frittering and wasting money and to build up some savings.
A few weeks ago I read an article about zero based budgeting and decided that would work for me so I've been honing my budget since I was paid on 15th Feb.

DH gets paid at the end of the month so his wage pays the monthly bills and I paid the first snowball payment of £241 to our credit card which was £2800.
I've also got an 18-month 0% credit card so once that arrives I will do a balance transfer and we can have the CC paid off in 12 months instead of 14.
All being well, fingers crossed etc…

I have a chase bank account which I will transfer £400 groceries, £100 petrol and £110 dog food budget and have opened 7 savings accounts: Household maintenance / Annual Bills / My personal spends / holidays / monthly stuff / Everything else and Leftover Budget.

All accounts have some money in it (apart from leftover budget as my month runs to 14th March) and the Household maintenance which I will owe my everything else budget £11 when DH gets paid as I had £114 in there and was being all smug about the new organised me and I kid you not in the space of three days our security light fell off the wall, and DH blew the lawnmower up so they needed replacing and fixing which came to £125 but if I hadn't have done the budget, the lawnmower would have been put on a credit card or purchased from Very.

I haven't decided what the Leftover Budget money will be but at the moment but I think it will just be separate from the groceries/dog-food/petrol budget and be there to swallow up any overspends. DH often uses petrol for work expenses which he's never very fast at claiming back and it irritates the heck out of me, so I guess at least it will cover that.

Frugal wise, I am able to shop at the Company Shop supermarket where I go, buy something to make a main evening meal, and then do top up shops from other supermarkets around us.

I've also started using Too Good to Go, and was quite lucky with Morrisons this week and spent £5.98 on two food boxes.
The first one was full of sausages and hash-browns which did us an evening meal each, a breakfast each, and 1 portion of lunch.
The second one was full of sandwiches (8 sandwiches) which did us a couple of lunches each too (3 adults).

Even the dog is economising - Instead of buying from Amazon which was coming in at around £120 a month, I got it from Aldi and swapped him from tins to kibble and I've saved £21 so far.

Sorry it's so long but first post....I'll keep popping in and out and I do read all the messages but sometimes I'm just too busy to join in..

Hello Scarlett good to hear about the TGTG at Morrisons, I am trying a new one every few weeks. Good the dog is joining in with the frugal spirit!

Thats not bad for a teen life especially in Newcastle. My DD still loves Primark but I fear that will change when she turns into a teen!

I've finally left BT and saved £32 per month on broadband. Gone to Now TV Broadband for 12 months - just hope the signal is okay. Next stop is saving £10 per month on TV package once that ends in two weeks. That's £500 per year 💰