Frugal Friends Fearlessly Facing February.

[needastrongoneagain]

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

0% transfer done
€5075 to be cleared within 12 months. Will like to have flights part of it cleared before we go €2775 leaving €2300 to be cleared.
Very achievable

€40 nails & brows
€10 petrol for garage car
€80 childminder ds was home sick one day

Just secured the girl who minded dc in our house last summer for Easter & Summer I'm so happy! They love her & it's trouble free for me.

Found out today DH got the job!

Only slight pain is, he told them he had four pre-booked holidays, and they are being funny about one of them possibly for a crap/unknown reason. I’m just concerned that this is a bit of a red flag that his holiday dates are going to be very restricted by the boss, they will already be restricted to school holidays only too.

He’s over the moon about the job though!

Thats brilliant! well done your DH!

Excellent news time, 3 out of 4 holidays is a fairly good amount, hopefully ye won't lose out on much if ye have to cancel.

I have my car back & they've fixed the leak hopefully & serviced it. Approx €200

Went to the attic to see why overflow keeps leaking out water, turns out ballcock is gone so bf will fix that hopefully at weekend. I'll get the replacement tomo at local hardware.

If we can’t move it to the other one suitable date for the family either, we might have to cancel or me and DC might go without him

Great news on the job, hope the holiday works out

Hi all, I'd love to join you. I'm 62, single and live alone. So just me earning money. But I do ok. Have been batch cooking and doing meal plans for quite a while, it definitely helps.

Frustrated** you've come to the right place

Congratulations to your DH Time 🤗
Welcome Frustrated ☺️

Congratulations to. DH time

Welcome frustrated

£15.32 coop yesterday. DD was off school ill so weekly food shop not planned, hoping to get that done today.

Checking in with a frugal fail.....
89.60 on an ocado order I forgot to cancel! Ooops. We had enough food in already, I just got distracted and didn't put it on the list of things to do.....
so I think this weekend will be a lot of meal prep and fill up the freezer!

At least you won’t have to shop next week

welcome new people

i need a meal plan and shop. Will do that today ish.

Morning. Busy few days here and I've gotten myself a bit knackered so I'm determined to not do jobs this weekend and try to chill a bit more.

Thank you for the birthday wishes. It was a strange day without DH here but his friend helped him organise a lovely bouquet of flowers to be sent which was fab. His car got picked up too so the bank account is healthy. It held 40% of its value, but had 86k miles on it at 4 years old so I didn't expect more.

@CurlsandCurves - I actually can't decide whether it's worse now it not being on the drive or not! Hated it at first as I kept thinking DH was home all the time when I pulled up, but then got used to it. Now, it not being there seems a bit of a reality check😢.

Lovely to have you back @Girliefriendlikespuppies. Sorry your DD has struggled, she does so well. How's the house and your Dad? I seem to recall he was such a great support unless I'm mistaken?

Brilliant news re DH @Timetoswitch. I don't think 3 out of 4 holidays is too bad, but then again I don't know the reasons given for the 4th. Glad he's pleased though.

Boo to the overspend but if it gets used then no harm done @Captainladder, done it myself before in the past!

Welcome @frustratedashell

Hooray for the childminding @Happierwithouthim

It's been a relatively quiet week spending wise - gotten some birthday money, spent £100 in Sainsbury's for shopping but including wine for friends over tonight for pizza which is my birthday 'do'.

Got a bit slack re recording spends though this week and needed to catch up, so got up early and did so!

Today will be pizza cost and accessible taxi cost for DH of £25.

Morning everyone. I'm working from home today. I have training in the morning and I'm hoping for a quiet afternoon. Work has been manic since I went back after Christmas and we're short-staffed (one vacancy and one staff member out sick) - feels like we're just lurching from one crisis to the next. And everyone keeps approaching me and asking me about work that the sick staff member usually does. The thing is, I'm not familiar with her work and how she does it. And even if I was, I'm very busy myself and I don't have the capacity to take on her work on top of my own.

Happier exciting to hear about your plans for a Canadian holiday. Am I right in thinking you have family there? Will they be able to put you up? Good news about your holiday childminder.

Time good news about your DH's job also - hopefully they can work around his holiday plans.

frustrated welcome on board.

kessie hope your DD feels better soon.

Girlie lovely to see you again. I've seen your name pop up on other threads and I wondered how you and your DD were doing. Can't believe she's almost 17! You were asking about gas and electric bills. No gas here so I use home heating oil which has to be paid for in advance. It's almost €1,200 for a full tank of home heating oil! You don't have to pay for a full tank - you can buy it in smaller volumes. But it works out cheaper per litre if you order a large volume. The government gave us financial assistance with our last three electricity bills - €200 per bill. My last bill was €289 but only €89 with the credit. That's for two months. So we've been somewhat shielded from the true cost there. I'll need to budget for a much higher bill in March. Like everyone else, I've been trying to reduce my heating costs and looking at alternative ways of staying warm. I got DD an electric blanket before Christmas and I'll pick one up for me in the autumn (they've been out of stock everywhere since Christmas). I have an oil filled radiator so I plug that in and keep my sitting room warm without having to heat the entire house. We snuggle under blankets on the sofa when we're watching TV. DCats also like our snuggly blankets .

need I'm sure you have mixed emotions about the sale of the car. And obviously sad to spend your birthday without your DH. Enjoy your birthday celebration tonight. xx

Morning all! So lovely to hear from you Girlie! I can’t believe your DD is old enough to drive, I remember when she was in single figures. How’s work going these days?

happy birthday Need, hope you enjoy the pizza

I’ve been hit by a stinky cold, which peaked on the two days I had to go into work. By Day 2 I was feeling very sorry for myself and indulged in some Pret favourites for lunch - gosh, that has got very expensive indeed! I need to get organised about taking lunch in but it is really hard - I’m out of the house 7am-7pm on office days, and when I get home I have to start cooking adult dinner (DH being incapable, and also working till similar time and then we juggle DC bedtimes). We eat quite late, and at the moment I have other jobs in the evening to do afterwards (sometimes more work, or lots of house renovation project stuff, and also school chair of gov stuff, with headteacher recruitment apparently my job!) so tbh, for the next 6 months or so I will do well just to survive without a nervous breakdown! I’m also trying to find a SEN secondary for my DS. Some shortcuts will have to happen.

I’ve meal planned for next week with really quick and easy stuff on my office days, otherwise it doesn’t happen.

Still need to do meter readings, should have done them at the beginning of the month 🙄.

today I finished my (Christmas special) jar of M&S clementine curd. It was heavenly. They do not sell it any more. I am bereft 😭

Hope you enjoy your birthday need I can imagine a mixed bag of feelings over the car.

Hope you feel better soon half alot on your plate there. The clementine curd sounds heavenly. 😋

Tayto that's interesting to read about your energy bill. Mine was £270 in Dec but £203 with the government grant here, and looks the same for Jan on the smart meter. We have gas and electric but also a log burner. Cold snaps have not been unknown where we live (NE) in Feb, March and even April. Hope not this year! This time last year I was on a direct debit of £114 per month 😬

DD back to school today, too much gossip to miss out on I reckon!

£70 shop at Aldi 😳 well over budget. £12 can come from savings as I got 2 nice garden cushions. But still £58 with no meat as we had plenty in freezer . That's going to have to last two weeks if I can. Will be cooking a lot from scratch this weekend and getting a bag of lentils out 😊

I'm in the office but grabbed a portion of left over curry and sticky rice before I left the house and a salted caramel dark chocolate bar from an Aldi pack. So I saved on being tempted by lunch in town at least!

Hi need and tayto lovely to see so many familiar names are still here 😊 no my dads not that helpful need (although he does what he can) my mum is my main support.

Tayto I'm only putting the heating on for an hour in the evening, I layer up and put my oodie on during the day! The oodie was £16 from primark and is brilliant, so warm.

Payday today!

Spends
£50 back to savings that I borrowed to make it through January.
£50 to my mum that I owed her.
£38 Amazon on a couple of bits for dds bday that she wants.

Hopefully no more spends today, the weekend is likely to to be spendy as cupboards are bare and the pets need food as well. Also need to buy reading glasses (according to last optician appointment 🙄) and pay for dds provisional license.

Hello to everyone new and returning :)

It's been a no spend week so far except for petrol and the main food shop (both budgeted for so I don't count them, food shop £20 under budget at £70 but will need to spend about £10 on some bits Aldi didn't have!).

Feel like I am being quite frugal since Christmas. Still trying to squirrel away money for a new kitchen floor. Hoping to have enough to do this by the end of March. Did a long shift Wednesday so overtime pending which can go straight into the floor account.

Aside from the kitchen floor I'm also aiming to save up an emergency fund of about £1200 this year. I've opened a savings account in a separate bank and set up a monthly standing order, the idea being that if I can't see the money when I log into my normal banking app I will forget about it! To some this probably doesn't sound like much, but apart from our sinking funds (for bdays, Christmas, holidays etc) we've always done a poor job of saving... as we've been renovating for the last two years it has always been a pattern of save, spend, save, spend and never actually building up any contingency funds. So we're working on it this year starting with just a small emergency fund.

Couldn't do the training this morning 'cos Zoom wasn't picking up my camera. Will talk to IT next week and try to get the issue sorted. The training course is on again next week.

I cashed in my birthday scratch cards. I won €22. Will lodge that in the Credit Union with my next payment. I also found a card with €50 in it from Christmas, so that's in my CU book for lodgement. I've caught the saving bug better late than never.

Spoke to my Dad just now. He said his gas bill was €772! That's for two months in a 3 bed terraced house. He uses gas to heat his home and also has a gas cooker. He can afford to pay it (he has a good pension) but he wasn't happy about it. He sounded a bit fed up generally - said he can't wait to see the back of January. I'm calling over on Sunday and we're going out for dinner. Just a carvery - nothing too expensive. And I'll be driving so I won't order alcohol - I'll stick with water. I'll pick up some nice cakes and we'll have them for dessert back at Dad's house afterwards with a cuppa.

Get well soon Half. My office days are similar to yours, so I try to cook extra at weekends and also on the days I work from home. I'll do a big lasagne or big pot of curry or stew and make enough for two days. It means when I get home from work, I just have to dish it up and bung it in the microwave. Otherwise I'd be eating at 9 or 10 p.m. Saves on cleaning those days too. Would that help? I don't bring a packed lunch because I'm up so early and it doesn't taste very nice after a long commute. But I pop into Tesco at lunchtime on the first working day of the week and I pick up milk, a bread roll and lunch ingredients. Then I make lunch for myself in the work kitchen. I use the same ingredients all week (we've a fridge in the office). I keep a jar of coffee on my desk. Someone nicked my egg mayonnaise on Thursday/Friday .

kessie I'm in Ireland so cold snaps aren't unknown even in the summer months!

The jet lag struggle is real. eugh.

£100 at beauticians today. Nails (including two extensions because mine broke!) sugaring (bikini) and eyebrow wax and tint.

NSD for me. I was annoyed yesterday though, because seller on vinted sent me wrong item, swears she posted what I bought and now I have to pay return fees anyway. I swear to god, I will not buy anymore from someone who has less than 50 feedbacks. She was 5 stars, but only few ratings. It's only £2.50, so I don't care, I'm annoyed at her lying. She tries to blame inpost, but seriously how on earth would I get another item of clothing if it was their fault? Could have been anything like mobile phone or plant pot someone bought on ebay etc., but it was boy's cardigan, so something you'd most likely buy on vinted.

Needless to say when I reported an issue, she hid all her auctions and said it's weird because she doesn't have a child. I remember she had baby/children clothes posted for sale. What a liar. She can stick this cardigan where sun doesn't shine.