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Advancing into April - Frugal Friends still being, er, Frugal.

1000 replies

needastrongoneagain · 02/04/2023 09:29

New thread.

All welcome.

OP posts:
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74
WeightoftheWorld · 10/04/2023 16:25

NSD for me today. Had a frugal trip to museum which just cost the tiny bit of petrol there and back. Took water for us all and fruit for DCs and resisted the urge to go to the cafe!

Feeling cold and not looking forward to a long, wet, windy week we have ahead of us here. Nor the huge backlog of work I will be lumbered with due to not working today, sigh.

RumBananaSundae · 10/04/2023 17:14

@BigSkies2022 You are inspiring me with your clear out. I have all sorts of ice cream in the freezer that I have been tempted to throw out but then think of how much it cost.

Today was a spend day. I spent about £25 buying adaptor plugs and sunscreen for my holidays. Then £160 on a ticket for some showjumping. I’m trying to have at least one thing to look forward to a month to help with things and that will be August.

@TheNewlmprovedMrsMadEvans the baby goat is beautiful.

ememem84 · 10/04/2023 18:37

Hey @Vibing welcome back. No idea if I “know” you or not - I struggle keeping up with name changes which is why I rarely do it.

@Happierwithouthim has it really been 5 years?!

today I’ve sold 2 things on fb and have made £210. A leather chair and a balance bike both of which will be picked up tomorrow. Woooo.

DH has obliterated the front garden. But it’s looking good. So that’s also a win.

frugal win. Dparents are on hols in France. Dm text me to go clear out their fridge. So we have a superb amount of fruit veg and cheese now. I have frozen our “almost on the turn” grapes to use as ice cubes in wine (doesn’t dilute it…. 😉) and also took the half bottle of tonic water from dms fridge for the same purpose. Made tonic cubes and bagged them up.

Happierwithouthim · 10/04/2023 19:31

Yup em Smile will be in our new home 2 years this June & divorced 2 years in July

Went to town with dc for runners practically lost the will to live ds is extremely fussy & dd is on her second period & liable to bite your head off or burst into tears at any minute

Spends
€10 car wash & I still need to clean bits machine missed
€1 lindor egg for me Wink
€12.50 Aldi sanitary pads for dd with wings (5 pairs of knicks currently on rinse & spin with salt in washing machine), nappy bags, pop tarts, drinking chocolate powder & a 225g mini eggs chunky bar to share with dc & dm after dinner
€41.46 in Tesco on two sandwich deals for dc plus ingredients for dinner
€30 lifestyle sports Nike runners for ds on sale
€16 elverys O’Neills shorts for ds
€98 runners & two pairs of leggings for dd in sports direct, she's in adult sizes now
€50 approx Penneys period underwear, regular underwear socks dd, hoody for ds, socks for me used €9.55 Perx card & €15 one for all
€15 card shop upcoming birthdays

I hate going to town it just drains me emotionally

CurlsandCurves · 10/04/2023 20:50

@Happierwithouthim i know what you mean about finding it draining. I’m not a natural shopper either. I really want to be but I never enjoy it.

Bit of a spendy weekend. My friends 40th party on Saturday, which was just the best night I’ve had in a long time, we danced, sang and drank all night. Am feeling the need to detox now.

Did the weekly shop today but apart from that have still been in holiday mode. Not looking forward to the alarm going off tomorrow morning.

Coffeecoffeeinmytummy · 10/04/2023 20:57

Welcome back @Vibing
Well done on the low spend outing to the museum @WeightoftheWorld I’m trying to do some of these myself!

A few fairly low spend days here followed by a spendy one today. Cafe trip with friends, a few reduced Easter decorations for next year, some unnecessary chocolate and Asda shop delivered but some of which was for DM who has injured her foot and can’t get to the shops. So I am now on errand duty for her! She’ll be out of action for 4-6 weeks bless her. Trying to think of some cheap ways to cheer her up. She’s not a great foodie so don’t think a cake would help much. Open to ideas!

lifelongfrugaleer · 11/04/2023 07:47

Oo thats sounds hellish happier.
and wow 5 years how time flies

how about flowers for DM, audiobook , puzzle book?

we are possibly off to the coast today so with petrol, parking and chipper it will not be cheap

BigSkies2022 · 11/04/2023 10:02

@RumBananaSundae - well, I lost 8kg (slowly) after giving up booze in autumn 2019, and was delighted to be able to get back into my nice clothes, and at all the savings being able to wear old friends again generated. I've been staying off the grog, but hitting the sugar - my intake has crept up, and up, and I'm now 2-3kg from where I really like being. So it seems a good trade off for me. However, with your user name, perhaps you have a better selection of ice-cream at home than my vanilla soft-scoop!

em - in awe of your sales. I have been making a half-hearted attempt to sell some stuff on We Buy Books but the market is so flooded (as I know from working at the charity bookshop, where we wade through donations) they are barely taking anything I have to offer. So I think I will be distributing to community bookshelves.

Payday today, so have spent a satisfying session paying bills, organising cash into savings pots, and setting budget for the month. I have been listening to Women & Money Café, a podcast, - episode 42 'DIY A Financial Plan' - it's got downloads and everything in the show notes! I've been making notes and filling out the plan - it's worth a listen. In fact, I'm on my second listen.

ememem84 · 11/04/2023 11:10

i've also been dealing with a scammer today - my first one! apparently i have to click on link to make a payment to fedex for insurance so that the person who wants to buy something (that has already been collected - and i've told them its not available) can send a fedex courier round with my money and they will take the item for me.

luckily i knew it was a scam. and not even a good one - the email they sent me (i played along for a bit) was so unconvincing....

ememem84 · 11/04/2023 18:24

£200 in the bank. Woo. And chair gone.

lifelongfrugaleer · 11/04/2023 20:11

Great news on the sale em

spends day at the beach

lifelongfrugaleer · 11/04/2023 20:13

they got my antibiotics prescription wrong, gave me 136 instead of 21, I realized before I left the chemist and got it sorted

Unescorted · 11/04/2023 20:27

Life you could sell them on the open market...

I am at a loss to how people have ice-cream to throw away. The idea of it lasting more than a week is alien.

I am scratching my head Vibe..... 2boys similar age to my fleas. In the meantime welcome back. I haven't seen the word threads in a while btw.

Big - not drinking made a huge difference to my weight loss. And fitting into old clothes is amazing. DD is returning some of my dresses that she had borrowed.

lifelongfrugaleer · 11/04/2023 21:06

Yah thrown out one ice cream, in theory yes but I wish I could.

i know but profiteering felt wrong.

bloody rain

Unescorted · 11/04/2023 21:54

Mr Rhubarb is loving the rain.... I will be harvesting soon.

ememem84 · 12/04/2023 07:05

Unescorted · 11/04/2023 20:27

Life you could sell them on the open market...

I am at a loss to how people have ice-cream to throw away. The idea of it lasting more than a week is alien.

I am scratching my head Vibe..... 2boys similar age to my fleas. In the meantime welcome back. I haven't seen the word threads in a while btw.

Big - not drinking made a huge difference to my weight loss. And fitting into old clothes is amazing. DD is returning some of my dresses that she had borrowed.

It’s a similar thing in my house with “leftover” wine. I see “hacks” online for leftover wine. Who has that?! 🤣 certainly not me!

windy as here today. And wet. Catface not impressed.

I’ve been up since 545. Done a “calm” meditation and had a cup of tea. Was going to go for a walk/run but the aforementioned weather.

lifelongfrugaleer · 12/04/2023 08:33

The weather is hideous . I’m sorely tempted to convert some of my leave to sick so I can be off later when the weather is nice

ememem84 · 12/04/2023 09:08

If you can @lifelongfrugaleer and it won’t skew your sick record do it.

Happierwithouthim · 12/04/2023 12:07

€14.34 in Lidl yesterday on 3 packs of summer bulbs, my favourite seeded bread from their bakery, toilet paper, yogurts and wraps. Had I known we were low on milk I would also have bought that Grin
Dm treated me to takeaway €19 for a kebab, burger & chips and portion of popcorn chicken.

I've gotten two tickets to a musical tonight through my volunteer job so myself & bf are taking advantage of dm staying with me to go to that, we will go for dinner too I expect. Usually we go walking on a Wednesday eve one of my two child free 2.5 hours a week, but the weather is atrocious here today. Not quite a storm just an orange warning!

CurlsandCurves · 12/04/2023 13:22

Weathers been ok here, got a PT session done outside this morning. But I think it’s going to take a downturn very soon.

HalfWomanHalfChocolate · 12/04/2023 16:13

Hello, dropped off the thread again but been reading. Welcome to the new people and lovely to have kept up with the regulars too.

well, not frugal here at all. Building tenders came back absolutely crazy high - almost 50% over the top estimate of our project manager, making our long-awaited house refurbishment completely unaffordable. I was gutted - I had expected to do some value engineering and trimming, but this is well out of reach of that. We are waiting for tender queries and amendments to be processed to see what effect that has but we are trying to work out what we will do, and how deep to dig. We won’t borrow more from the bank but will have to decide whether to clean out every penny we have, even with reducing the scope, or completely rethink (there’s not really another plan that makes sense though, taking into account DM being here half the week, plus home working). I am anxious about not having savings because I never know whether I might need to take a career break due to DC, and our rate of replacing savings is much reduced now thanks to CoL. But also, if we delay then I don’t think we can save faster than costs will go up so it’s now or never. Sigh.

To help with the decision I have reworked our monthly budget and worked out what we could be saving, if we really pare back, and I need to enforce that somehow. So we’ll chuck that into the mix when we get a final costing. Fingers firmly crossed.

In the meantime, I have realised we have quite a problem with mould in our built-in wardrobes in the main bedroom. They are against an external wall and quite cold, so it must be the effect of condensation that has built up over time. The wardrobe is huge but was so stuffed with clothes in 3 different sizes that I can’t fit into that I couldn’t actually see the back! Now I have noticed it I have emptied everything out, thrown /chazzered half of it to declutter and I am washing everything with vinegar. I’ve scrubbed the wardrobes with vinegar, sprayed the woodwork and am going to repaint everything inside and out. We’ve not decorated our bedroom ever and have been here 14 years so it’s about time anyway 😂. Luckily I’m off work this week, though I was hoping to relax a bit more. Anyway, it’ll be a job done. I’ve bought various cleaning and decorating supplies and a dehumidifier to run every morning to prevent a recurrence… spent about £300 so far. But worth it. In the meantime i smell like a chip shop.

Other than that, we’re still up and down on the food costs but otherwise been pretty frugal. We will take the DC for a proper day out over the weekend when the forecast is better, otherwise we’ve just been pottering about locally.

Off to do some woodwork sanding now! Need to think of a storecupboard dinner as I’ve not done any shopping recently.

Girliefriendlikespuppies · 12/04/2023 18:25

We're holed up in the caravan in Devon ☔️ the weather has actually been unbelievable in how bad it's been!! Have ended to spending money on kids activities to keep the girls entertained. They both went to a tie dye activity this morning which they enjoyed but cost £24 for both of them (they did get a nice t.shirt out of it though!)

Also paid for a swim activity called ocean explorers which they loved, that was £15 for both of them.

It has finally stopped raining but is still very blowy, might brave the beach for a walk before bed...

RumBananaSundae · 12/04/2023 18:38

@needastrongoneagain thank you for the recipes. I will try them out.

I had never thought of my username that way @BigSkies2022 . I’m not all that much of a fan of ice cream so I’ve bought it when I’ve felt like some and the rest of the tub never gets touched. Then I find the tubs from last year and the year before.

Spent about £10 yesterday at an unexpected visit to a coffee shop with my sibling and mother. Bit irritated by that.

Today I spent £1.50 on some chocolate milk to help get over yesterday and just under £18 in the Post Office posting three letters and buying some stamps. My first with King Charles III. The physio was today and I paid my credit card. Writing that all down seems like today was quite a big spend day.

Nothing scheduled for tomorrow except a trip to Lidl as it’s flavour of the week Dutch and Belgian.

Taytocrisps · 12/04/2023 19:01

Hi everyone,

enjoying my week off although the weather is awful. It's been really windy and wet.

Yesterday I dropped Dad home after his weekend here. On the way back, I stopped off at a big garden centre/lifestyle store. I may have spent €€ on plants and a container and cute hedgehog and bird decorative poles. I was hoping to plant the new plants today but that's not going to happen. They're sitting in the sink in my utility room and I'm keeping them well watered until the rain eases off.

Brought DCats to the vet this morning for their annual vaccinations and to stock up on flea/worm treatments/eyedrops etc. That was €178 iirc. Then I met a retired colleague for lunch. I had garlic bread, lasagne and a cappuccino. No alcohol and we asked for tap water instead of bottled water.

Tomorrow we're going to the castle/llamas place (weather permitting). It will be €8 entry. DD can pay for herself. I'll bring baguettes and a flask. Last time I brought a flask, I brought the flask and milk but left the coffee granules at home! I'll double check I have everything packed this time around. I'm low on petrol also, so I'll need to top up.

I just checked and SUSI (college grants scheme) opens for applications tomorrow, so I might sit down with DD tomorrow and put in an application. Hopefully the process isn't too onerous. I'm not sure to what extent I'll be eligible for funding (the fact that I'm separated is a complication) but it's worth a try. They can only say no.

Half that's really disappointing about the building tenders. There's a very popular TV programme here called 'Room to Improve' (families or couples who embark on home renovation projects). One series featured projects which started before Covid but then had to be put on hold due to Covid (must have been an absolute nightmare for the families concerned). When the projects recommenced, the building costs had increased significantly and the families had to increase their budgets. To be fair, that seems to happen irrespective of Covid - all of the families seem to have access to a magic pot of money that they can draw from when the inevitable problems/delays emerge. It's a difficult decision to make.

Weight well done on the frugal museum trip.

em good work on the sales.

Happier that sounds like a very unpleasant shopping experience.

Curls glad you had a fun night out for your friend's 40th.

Coffee sorry to hear about your Mum's foot. What does she like to do? Would she do a jigsaw puzzle? Is she a member of a library - could you pick up some books for her? A cheap bunch of supermarket flowers?

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