Frugal Friends Fearlessly Facing February.

[needastrongoneagain]

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

North l hear you re Eurovision 🤣
I hope your calf is better lovely 💐
I did a lot of research re fridges and freezers as mine went kaput a few weeks back, we ended up paying more for a Samsung model because the energy rating was a C instead of an F . I figured the cost of the electricity now it would pay to buy a more complete efficient one . So far we are very happy with it , no water drops ☺️
Curls that's a nuisance losing 2 days pay but at least you were safe in the house you might have come a cropper walking on that snow and ice 🏠⛄❄️
Happier that's a good price for your will , well done on doing that 👏
Girlie glad your Dd enjoyed Crufts , bless her re the stall holder pressure, it's not at all nice having that happen , at least doggy has lovely new stuff ☺️
Wolf well done re the baking that sounds delicious 😋
Life that's a bugger re the boiler 🙄
Decaff hope your engineer can mend your washing machine, l hate ours , it only has 1 low energy cycle and a 1200 spin , l have to spin things twice 🙄 and l can't wait to get a new one 😉
Em AHH bless him ❤️
Weight well done on being so frugal, that zero waste initiative sounds brilliant 👏
Need the Chase account sounds a great idea thanks for the heads up 😊
Spends today Tesco £61 groceries, Home Bargains £48.
Have a lovely Sunday Everyone 😊

Just spent £105 in Aldi <cries> how can food be so expensive?!

Also spent £10 on the cats medication.

Dd is out with the boyfriend and I'm chilling for a bit, have put a chicken in the oven which is going to feed me all week...

Evening.

Pile of 💩 re the boiler @lifelongfrugaleer. Hate expenses like that.

@Decafflatteplease you might be pleasantly surprised that the cost of washing machines seems less than it used to be if it can't be fixed.

Seen the recipe for the dhal @Wolfcub, looks good.

Love flowers in a milk bottle @WeightoftheWorld!

Lovely friends paid for pizza last night and one of them drove so I've a fridge full of wine, a fuller purse than I imagined and lots of food in. And a lovely night was had by the most supportive people.

Todays spending was about £9 on milk, bread, coffee, kidney beans and staples from the local shop.

It was tasty Need and it's made loads. Even though I'm not a sweetcorn fan but I think it really added to it, a bit of crunch and sweetness. I love kale so that was always going to be a welcome edition

£3.80 pint on my afternoon dog walk.

Hope you enjoyed the rugby Tayto it was a fantastic match. Everything crossed now that Ringrose is ok

Feel like I've accomplished stuff today. Can't say I feel rested and I'm a bit sore after a fall in the snow at the end of the week.

Looks like the third thing will be the fence as it’s not liking the storms
so that’s car windscreen boiler fence
sheesh

@lifelongfrugaleer oh no! Not what you need!!

@Wolfcub safe work trip. Xx

@needastrongoneagain hope everything is ok with you and DH

@northender hope toure doing ok xx

and everyone else - happy Monday hope we’re all well xx

this week the board chat about pay rises etc. so I’ll either find something out on Friday. Or on Monday (payday is Tuesday).

@lifelongfrugaleer thats a pain about the boiler. Have you had a quote for the repair yet? I guess it’s a toss up between pay the repair and keep it going for a while longer so you can save up for the new boiler. Or go with the interest free credit option.

@needastrongoneagain sounds like you’ve got some lovely friends there.

@Wolfcub sorry to hear you fell, hope you’re not too sore.

Im now coming into week 3 of being ill. It’s just all in my throat which in turn makes me cough horribly. Had a PT session this morning, first one in 2 weeks and I could only manage to do 40 mins of the hour. Bored of feeling rubbish now!

Ystd was a nsd (I think!)

Today £7.25 on the pilates, think I will join the gym as do seem to be using it a fair bit so will work out cheaper.

Under my kitchen sink is leaking and there's an issue with the upstairs loo so the plumbers coming out tomorrow, praying it won't be too expensive....

Have managed to keep the heating off Ystd and today (so far!!)

We are on the repair list so wait and see
cars windscreen £75 excess
fence hanging by a thread
decking collapsed after recent snow

urge to punch people- high 😂

Steer clear of punching people don't want to add bail to your list of expenses
Mon Tues NSD's! Might buy eggs tomo €6 I'll see

spends today:

£5 coffee and (don’t judge me) kale crisps. The local cafe does these amazing (I know?!) kale crisps. I wanted to know what seasoning was on them. So bought a pot and ta da. They listed the incredients. Not the quantities. But. Yum. I think the seasoning would work on carrots too. Mmm.

£20 toy shop on two craft kits for ds’ twin friends.

£8 baking shop - needed things for Easter cakes.

£60 local candle shop. Two huge candles. One for dm for Mother’s Day and one for dsis for her birthday. Extravagant. But lovely like them.

home. Made lunches. Had dinner. Kids bathed. And we’re in bed. DH is watching tv. I’m in bed with catface.

I have a seminar tomorrow morning to attend (includes breakfast - it’s at a naice hotel and they do the BEST breakfast buffets!) but the actual thing starts at 830. Colleague suggested we go and get breakfast together. Meeting at 745. Bus at 7….yikes.

Evening... I have been MIA again. No reason just busy with domestic crap.

I keep saying prayers to the boiler gods to get another year out of ours.

Hope you are all on the mend.

Fallen off the thread a bit too.

DH has started his new job, not sure if he is going to get paid from the new job this month, no one had put him on payroll 🤨

My week is dragging along slowly.

Not been spendy this week, can’t remember if I confessed up to buying a new coat last week. I was feeling a bit guilty, as although my coat is looking tatty I still think if it as fairly new. Found the old order email, and I bought the current coat in 2016!

I hope everyone with leaky, broken house stuff get small bills with the repairs 🤞

Some late nights at work and a bit poorly over the weekend but some nice things too. My Mum is staying with us at the moment, she feels a bit wintersome and lonely so asked if she could come. It’s nice to have her. I was off work yesterday and we finished and sent the last of my wedding invitations and cooked a roast beef dinner. I hadn’t coped much with food over the weekend so this was eaten with gusto. Mum found some gin and tonic and finished up with liquorice allsorts!

Spends, apart from the ordinary, 2 Marks vouchers £25 and £20 , one for a neighbour of Mum’s who has retired and one for a colleague of mine who helped me save a much loved dress I thought was ruined. It had bicycle oil stains on from an unfortunate encounter on a train and she saved the day with Fairy liquid. I also bought a kicker toy for her kitten. I also purchased a fleece throw from the Cats Protection shop round rhe corner from us for our puss
. They have been closed for some time due to a water leak on the premises and I was worried they would not manage to re open so that was nice.

Ha ha no happier I won’t. I went and had a giggle doing belly dancing.

lsd yesterday someone called cake so we had a spontaneous team cake stop

£75 windscreen excess

Eugh I think my ear piercing I got before Christmas isn’t quite right. Feels hard and was bleeding. Sigh. so the bar has come out and I’m letting it do it’s thing and hopefully heal up nicely so I’m able to put jewellery back in.

gettinf the bus in a bit.

looks like it’s going to be a glorious day. Sky is a sort of pink purple. So pretty.

Can I join you all? I've been told we need to move as our landlord is selling so got to save every penny towards moving costs.

Ive been trying to consciously spend less since January but need to get it even lower now. We are eating from the cupboards/freezer and Ive cancelled Netflix, Disney, Spotify and my contact lenses. We are cutting down on the bus fares too, only twice a week coming home rather than the 4 times i was doing!

SootspriteSearcher all are welcome here the more the merrier, sounds like you've got a good handle on reducing costs already. Could you print out your bank statements and scrutinise them to see if there's anything else there you can tighten up on? Is everyone in the house on board with the money saving?

em hope you made it to the lovely breakfast and that it was worth the early start

There'll be no eggs purchased today as I won't be meeting bf for walk in town this evening which is where the egg stand will be. Postage for dm's mothers day card will be it. Dd didn't attend guides yesterday so €5 saved there too.

happierwithouthim I think so. We've always had a pretty tight budget so dds are happy with cheap days out and eat pretty much anything so meals can be cheap! DH is harder to convince but he is trying to cut down on smoking and fizzy drinks and is walking to work rather than catching the train.

I did go through my bank statements and all direct debits are as low as possible. So pretty confident there!

I havent been able to get eggs for ages.... assuming you mean the chicken kind not chocolate ones 🤣

Definitely chicken kind, we haven't been hit by the shortage in ROI like ye have in UK. Although supplier did say his hens were more productive this week than his chickens.

I'm attempting to lose weight so the chocolate variety is off the menu this year.

If dh is still drinking fizzy drinks I find buying cans by the slab while on offer more cost effective than buying single servings when out and about.

I'm trying to lose weight too, but it isnt going to well. I am definitely a stress eater and I'm really stressed right now! That's good you can still get them, I'm going to a community kitchen thing tomorrow and sometimes they have eggs so fingers crossed. I want to do some baking for the girls to save on buying puddings/lunch box treats. Thankfully I won't be able to eat my baking efforts as I'm gluten and dairy free!

DH has bought fizzy in bulk, unfortunately the more there is in the house the more likely he is to drink them. So better to buy less as and when he fancies one.

I'm on a vinted selling mission today, one giant ikea bag listed... 3 more to go 😔 really hope some of it sells, ive priced quite low.

If you are on Instagram there are loads of budgeting/bargain pages in the UK too
Ya I get ya the more that's there the more temptation there is.

Nsd although the plumbers been out so will get a bill for that (probably £60 ish.)

Have worked 6 hours overtime to go towards the London/holiday fund.

Seminar was super interesting. Breakfast was tasty. Coffee good. Win win win.

yoga at lunchtime.

now waiting for Pilates class. Which is too much along with the yoga. But nice.

Fell off again. Hope you're all ok. Em hope your piercing heals ok?

Coming down with a cold I think. Probs caught it from DD as she's just recovered from one. Literally we are lucky to get a week where nobody in the house is ill before someone gets something. Relentless. Ive not been ill since Christmas myself though.

DH and I had our date day together. Last one was in September so it was much needed. We had sushi lunch and then went to the theatre. Lovely day. Spendy day but he paid for it all so an NSD for me hah.

Called broker back for life insurance but he wasn't in office yet and then I forgot to ring back again. So need to call tomorrow. Bad news is that the prices quoted have jumped up 50 per cent for me because of my mental health history and it would be excluded from income protection. I can understand to some extent. Otoh 50 per cent increase is huge, and I have never taken any time off work for mental health reasons before. Broker said he has some more questions for me though before he can finalise the quotes.

Land registry finally updated the title deeds of the house after we bought it over 3 months ago! Glad that we now have proof we actually own the house! I wonder what happens if someone wants to move house before the deeds have been updated, is that just not possible? Just something that I pondered.