Jumping into July: Frugal Friends Financial Fun

[needastrongoneagain]

New 'Fred.

Very low spend couple of days.

£12 AdBlue but that's expenses.

Will be back to post fully later.

Great news for DD, Tayto. I'm impressed by her strategic approach at such a tender age.

My payday on Monday, and I have about a tenner left in the budget. So it's a weekend of home workouts, library book reading and, quite possibly, patio construction, depending on weather and materials. Lidl today, for fruit and veg.

Used McDonalds app for first time yesterday and got a McChicken with Mayo plus large fries for €5 total spend there was €18.60 on food for dd and I, football club paid for ds and his teammates.

Bf gave dc €10 each for their day out.

Bus was €15, turns out I don't travel well on a bus anymore, felt unwell most of the time and ended up napping in the stadium too.

Well done Taytodd enjoy week off

Afternoon everyone
Awful weather here overnight and today
Storm Antoni !
Just sorted out our mobile phones re our contracts , managed to get more data for the same amount of money with a bit of jiggery pokery
Spends today Tesco 15
Morrisons 22
Dunelm 20 for a pr of new curtains for Dd's room
They have a brilliant sale on if anyone needs anything in that dept!
Hope everyone is well as we are

Saturday greetings everyone.

Well done daughter of Tayto.

Kessie Thank you. I am relieved it’s the weekend and there’s no work. Sorry about your work politics. They are draining. How did the interview go?

Curls Well done on the last payment. Fingers crossed for your Sky money. I’m still waiting to hear from Virgin. As soon as that’s resolved I’ll be an ex-customer. I hope.

Happier That can’t have been pleasant with the bus. Hope you’re feeling much better today.

Rather wet here. Currently watching a storm. It’s far too dark for an August afternoon. Want to take a stroll to the river just because but I’m too lazy to get up. Booked next years holiday this morning. Now just have to pay for it.

Spending has been an accidental £20.50 in Marks and Spencer on cheese and £2 on two bottles of chlorhexidine mouthwash in Poundland. Very pleased with the latter. Bought some walking shoes on eBay. Will see what happens. Hope it doesn’t prove to be a mistake. I’m not an online shopping fan.

Urgh bus travel
Spending day

Tumble dryer broke today. Will order In the bh sales u less I crack before. Pissy weather

Can I join? I feel like I have found my people.

This thread has already prompted me to dig out the nectar card, and add it to my Google wallet so I can't forget it. Sainsburys is our closest supermarket and even though we don't do our main shop there we do often pop in for top ups.

Today's spends have been:
£10 DD haircut
£13.85 Sainsburys
£5.50 on wall plugs to put up some shelves next to DD'd bunk bed. I've now decided to try command strips instead to avoid drilling more holes in the walls. We shall see how they hold.

DH also ordered £60 new parts for the vacuum cleaner.

Frugal endeavors:

I measured DD's feet at home and bought her new school shoes on Vinted. Brand new with labels and box for £20 instead of £45. Now we just hope they fit.

Weather here in Yorkshire wet and windy so DH and DD have done some baking this afternoon while I was nap trapped under DS, and we're having leftover veg vegetable curry and homemade naan breads for dinner. It smells delicious!

Welcome Merry sounds like you'll fit in perfectly!
I just signed up for Nectar last night for similar reasons. I was ordering an outdoor storage box from Argos so got points straight away.
I keep falling off the thread, must do better!
Doing fairly well within budget at the moment, trying to use what food we already have & make sure we don't waste anything.
DH had an interview for the "too good to be true" job & it was. The interview was very tough & not what he expected & so wasn't surprised not to get it.
DD has tonsillitis so is feeling v sorry for herself.
DS gets back from his placement year in Somerset in 4 weeks so we are trying to get the loft room ready for him to have as his old room is v small. So a big clear out is happening. Not sure we can make any money from what we're throwing away but you never know.

DH is driving to Watford for football next Saturday so DD & I are going to hitch a ride & have the day in London. So any suggestions for places to go for free very welcome. It's meant to be hot I think so a park would be good but want to avoid the hordes so wondered about Battersea Park. I'd like to go to Borough market . Not bothered about Buck palace etc. Just too crowded.

Ah sorry he didn't get the job North.

Hope he's not too disappointed north enjoy trip to London

€9 on starter in one restaurant while at a meeting, could be expensed but I forgot to get a receipt
€25 on dinner & dessert & fizzy drink with my friends after

€35.40 in Lidl today

My shower head & storage box for boot of car arrived from Amazon yesterday I'm delighted with both

He's okay thanks life & happier the job didn't seem to be as it was advertised. He's just feeling frustrated with the civil service & what to do next...

Hello everyone.

congratulations TaytoDD , will she be living away from home?

North borough market will be crowded! But good. I love a wander along the south bank too, starting at Waterloo-ish and heading East.

We’re now on holiday in God’s Own County. Not the holiday we’d planned but I don’t mind too much, if only the weather would improve! The holiday cottage is nicer than I’d imagined for something that was still available a week ago (and not too expensive!). But we need to ring them to find out how to put the heating on as we are freezing! Huge Tesco shop arrived last night, about £250 😳, but that included a lot of food for packed lunches, cooking at home, and booze (wine, gin, beer). We always overestimate the holiday spirit and end up taking booze home though 😂

I’m knackered after another relocation and planning to have a quiet easy day. DD is also in an awkward and tearful mood, i might hide upstairs for a bit later and let DH deal with her!

House update: the enormous electrics costs can’t be avoided 😭. We popped by yesterday en route from PILs and also found they’d put a dent in the front of our American fridge-freezer. Not a huge one but it was pristine before and it will be right in the middle of the new kitchen so I am really cross. There’s other damage around the house too, there will be a reckoning! Also a bit concerned that the downstairs loo (which has been moved to under the stairs) won’t be useable due to some bracing they’ve put in reducing the head height. And they’ve forgotten that one of her window voids needed to be made smaller. Honestly, it’s very frustrating. I am quite concerned about being away for the whole week, I can quite imagine having to get the train down next week at some stage. Definitely one of the most stressful things I’ve ever done, this build!

Enjoy your holiday half.
We are going to Scarborough water park tomorrow. ££but the kids we well doesn't matter if it rains well be in the water

Afternoon.

Another one to drop off the thread a touch this last week.

Sorry to hear about the job for your DH @northender. It sounds like he might possibly have dodged a bullet long term perhaps? Enjoy London. No suggestions sadly, I've been twice in my life!

The weather is going to improve next week @HalfWomanHalfChocolate.
I'm only speaking from my own experience last year of our extension, but our builder would absolutely not have put extra bracing etc in without consulting us first, in fact he did actually disagree with some of the architects drawings as the amount of steel needed to achieve the original design would have mean too low a ceiling. He still comes back for small snags a year later. I'd be making yours do the window void too. Not acceptable. Pah!

Welcome @MerryHen!

How was the interview @kessiebird?

Well done on the last payment @CurlsandCurves.

I think we've had a NS weekend! It's been very quiet and I've caught up on some stuff but not so much other stuff!

Friday spends
£90 Sainsbury's
£35 fuel (might have posted this already
£16 Amazon

I need to menu plan fully but tonight is Kimchi fried rice. Tomorrow Greek chicken and potatoes (one pot dish) and Tuesday we are having tea out. I've got a new recipe book using Greek food, so a bit obsessed!

Dsil has dropped off so many allotment vegetables and I plan on picking some blackberries this week, so can't imagine the shopping bill being enormous (she says, with 4 adults in the house eating all our meals from the stores....).

Sorry to hear about DH job north

Have a nice holiday half you might have the best week of the holidays weather wise!

Hello merryhen jump on board

I'll start looking for blackberries need I love cooking with them.

Thanks for asking about the interview. Its very likely a mutual no. I missed a few open goals. First interview for an embarrassingly long time so I'm pleased to have had some practice. I didn't get a good vibe and I've made mistakes in moving for extra money in the past and really regretted it. No regrets about going for it though.

Wrote a long post yesterday but had such terrible signal it crashed. Been away for the weekend with family, was a freebie stay in a caravan. Spends were
£20 towards a takeaway
£13. 49 sweet shop
£19.00 two birthday presents from a gift shop
Also £190 on tickets for Blackpool when we head there in a few weeks. Covers activities for three of us for three days. Leaving DS home alone for first time (he's 17.5).

Sorry likely missed updates off, only reading off this page on my phone.

Thank you for the welcomes 😊

@North- If you fancy venturing further down to South London then Crystal Palace park is nice, it has dinosaurs!

I hope you can enjoy your holiday without too much house worry @half. Hopefully you'll catch some good weather during the week.

@life can't fault that reasoning, enjoy the water park!

@need well done on the NSW. Keep us updated on the Greek cuisine.

Can't beat a good, frugal caravan holiday @kessie!

NSD from me today.
Junior parkrun with DD this morning, and the play park this afternoon.

Pasta and bean soup for tea with gingerbread for pudding. Gingerbread made by subbing stem ginger for ginger jam (an impulse buy at least two years ago), and baked in the bread machine. Delicious but a little dry so will reduce the cook time slightly next time, could just be the cube tin shape though.

Asda click and collect ordered for Tuesday morning.

DH almost had a NSD until his vacuum cleaner parts went to the wrong address. He phoned the Big Bitey Gish vacuum company customer support line who said they were being returned to the warehouse, he'd be refunded and to reorder when he was. He's reordered anyway, so another £60 spent but the original £60 should be refunded soon-ish.

DS and I have both have a cold, hoping he'll sleep so I can too 😆

Morning,

Food shop for me later today. We go on holiday on Saturday so I’m hoping not to spend too much and run the fridge contents right down. I will need to do another small shop before we go as ds1 isn’t coming with us so will need supplies.

BG have lowered our DD by £50 a month. But I’ve yet to submit this quarters meter readings so I’ll see if it stays that way before I celebrate!

Quite a spendy day yesterday. I needed some new hair care stuff from Amazon, underwear from M&S, body lotion from Beauty Pie.

Then I’ve got a list going on my phone of things I need from Superdrug and Poundland. We’ve run out of everything right before we go away!

Morning all. Sunshine at last here! More building work (skilled kind, not the sort I can do) scheduled for today. I'm going to do some gardening - moving plants, cleaning off stones for reuse in Le Grand Projet, ditching sorrowful box balls that have succumbed ineluctably to box caterpillar. I have started a wishlist on a garden supplier site as things occur to me for the garden rethink, but it's going to be the work of months.

Was reminded of the existence of The Library of Things this morning, so I have joined, and will be looking to borrow a jet wash thingy for when the work is done and we're ready to clean up. £15 per day. I also need to find a decent plasterer.

Pay day today, so I am about to do my favourite job of allocating payments to all their respective pots and balances, and then working out my budget for the month. Also have to build a shopping list for the hols, like Curls.

Half, the build sounds super-stressful. I hope you manage to decompress in Yorkshire somewhat.

Taking Ddad for an eye test this week, and will combine with a bit of an outing for lunch/spot of shopping for Dmum.

Sorry about the interview @kessiebird. I too can't remember the last time I was interviewed or even applied for a job, I'd absolutely have no clue!

Pasta and bean soup sounds fab @MerryHen. My kind of thing. Cheap and filling. My recipe book is a delight. I love cooking and running and am annoyingly enthusiastic about both, as regular posters will attest 🤣

Have you left DS before @CurlsandCurves?

Spends today
£2.50 on some sourdough fresh from the local shop. Used loads of change in my purse, which I don't 'count' as spending for some reason. I'm also obsessed with reducing UPF from our diet after listening to Ultra Processed People. The kids eye roll at this, as they reach for the biscuit supply.....and a loaf of standard bread would have been half the cost.

I've started my own sourdough starter too, bound to be a disaster. Any tips appreciated...

I'm at risk of being obsessed by that book.. Must get it from the library

££ day
Water park was fab. £6 pic nic supplement, £3.50 hot chocolate and £ on treats
Boys had an amazing time though
Much laughter

@needastrongoneagain in answer to your question, no I’ve never left him on his own before! Well, we left him and his brother for 3 days about a year ago. But my parents are literally a few streets away, they popped in regularly and it was over a weekend so no worries about ds2 getting to school, etc.

This time round it’s just ds1 on his own for a week. But he’ll be at work for 5 days out of the 7 so early starts as usual.

He has his driving test again today so keeping everything crossed for him.

Fingers crossed for driving

V happy. Managed to reserve a book and find the free magazines from the library again

Fallen off the thread a bit, a fairly low spend wend though just £12 in a cafe.

Ystd filled the car up £45 and a few bits in the co op £10.

Dd got her college bursary so I'm really pleased with that. That covers her travel, trips and lunches so saves me a lot of money.

Bank holiday weekend here, didn't get up to much.

Spends
Sat already posted
Sun NSD
Mon €50 Diesel and €10 on bulbs for my car as they blew on Sun
Tues €55 NCT (MOT in UK) Debating whether to put it in and then get anything that they highlight fixed vs taking it to garage first

Didn't do a lot over weekend, washed tent on Sat and waterproofed it on Sun, it rained last night and was watertight this morning Phew had read a few facebook posts lately about tents letting in water after waterproofing so I was nervous.

That's great news girlie takes a lot of pressure off you.

half hope ye got the heating sorted, horrible to be needing heating on holiday in August. I don't blame you being cross about fridge, my fridge has a couple of dents in it but I put them there myself so I can imagine how you feel about some one else being responsible.

north wow London only twice? I've been more often and I don't live in UK

kessie better luck next time you interview. I still remember fluffing an interview in 2005 for a job in recruitment,

merryhen you're very welcome, you'll fit right in

bigskies I looked outside this morning and thought there's a need for a powerwasher here, it's on my list of things to buy, they don't hire them out around here & bf has one but his is diesel run so massive and not moveable really.

need there's a few here that can advise on sourdough starter, I'm not one of them. I do have a dormant one in my fridge, it took me 3 attempts during lockdown to get it going and finally after a 100 mile trip in warm weather with it in my boot it took off, my friend has one that's far livelier than mine though. I would just eat and eat it, so I no longer make sourdough. Interestingly my brother and his partner barely eat bread at all.

I got a visual of what size my utility will be when its built yesterday, bf and I walked it out and then compared it to a room in his house! I must ring builder and find out if he's any better to see if it'll happen in 23 at all.

Life Boo to the tumble dryer.

Merry Welcome and get well soon wishes to your son.

North Hope your daughter is feeling a bit better. Brough Market is always busy and you spend more than you anticipated. There are lots of good things there though.

Half Sorry the electric costs can’t be avoided and boo to the fridge dent. It all sounds rather troublesome. Hope you’re relaxing a bit on holiday.

Spending wise it’s been so much that I stopped counting. Am at the office tomorrow. Hopefully I won’t have time to spend. Will try to go on a scouting mission to the outdoor shops in town on my way back. There is a sample sale next month that I’m interested in so want to see what their sizing is like.

My eBay shoes arrived. I’ve tried them on but not been out in them. Happy so far.

I started a sourdough a couple of months ago @need, and bought a bread machine, for the same reason. No advice but it has been good fun, I've enjoyed experimenting with different discard recipes too.

@happier my sourdough enjoyed a recent car trip too 🤣 I have also temporarily fridged mine because the quantity of sourdough we were eating was getting a bit out of hand.

Hope your son's driving test went well @curl

Had a NSD yesterday. DS and I went to rhyme time at the library and hopefully we'll make it to story time tomorrow. Nice, cheap and local, and one of the few baby activities still running over the summer holidays. DD is taking part in the summer reading challenge there too and so far has been awarded several stickers and a mini frisbee! One v.pleased DD. I'm sure we just collected stamps when I was younger.

Today's spends were:
£91 Asda shop
£2.50 car parking

The Asda shop should see us through until we go away at the end of next week, with a milk and fruit top up.

Tea tonight was enchiladas using chilli from the freezer and a piece of the bread machine ginger cake- even sticker and tastier a couple of days on! Saag aloo has been prepped for tomorrow which we'll have with naans that went into the freezer the other day.