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.

£13 today. Bread,milk cheese and the all essential ice cream. Collie I remember your name mainly as I have one!

Quick post so I don't drop off the new thread already 😊

big your new dress sounds lovely, sounds a frugal win to me!

martha hope today is a better work day. I work in local authority and changes are always hard. At the moment it's disorganised carnage.

Hi collie I remember you from when I first joined.

Hello thestart

Wednesday was pretty spendy with a visit to the cinema with DD (her school on strike) being £25, Boots essentials £23 and Primark summer clothes. Still need a weekly food shop. Works just crazy, it should ease off when the schools break up. So yesterday was a LSD simply as I didn't have time to do anything but work and sleep 😴

We did get a good quote for DHs car which was not economical to repair after a crash (just bumper and headlight) so he's trying to buy it back to repair now as its 14 years old so worth more to keep on the road for two / three years. They offered an extra £125 yesterday as we didn't accept the first quote so happy with that. That'll buy a second hand headlight!

Been much better with stretching meals out and using the slow cooker this week, although I did put some chicken thighs in with curry sauce yesterday and fell asleep. Woke up at 11pm and they were falling apart. Hope it's not too dry as that's tea!

Sorry I've missed loads off as can only read this page. Happy Friday ☀

Morning :) school strikes today and I have an interview. Hoping a pay rise might help but we shall see!!

NSD today!
£15 tomorrow. Have budgeted for 3 pasties for after a sea swim 😂 easy camping dinner too.
NSD on Sunday!

I think I accidentally made it sound like I'm a teacher on strike. I'm not a teacher!

Morning.

Lovely to have you back @Colliewobbler23, sorry the COL is having such an affect. Good luck for the interview.

Absolutely agree about food out and about costs skies, eats into the budget hugely. We rarely indulge too. There's benefits to less characterful properties in terms of cost, upkeep, efficiency etc - guess it's a trade off eg?

Hope work settles down @marthasmum. I love Costco toilet roll!

Welcome @Thestartofsomethinggood. We will keep you on the straight and narrow financially.

Gosh @northender, scary stuff re the minibus!

Hope you're okay @Alfiemoon1

So spending
£45 Garden centre. Bird feeders and food, chutney, local honey, coffee in the cafe. Getting DH out of the house.
£20 spices online from Spice Kitchen.
£42 random boring shite from Amazon (think bin liners, vacuum cleaner filters, poo bags, etc).

Also ££££ on therapy for DH, I have a figure in my mind we can reach for this. Balancing how much good it's doing with in reality, what we can afford.

Apologies for typos etc, I'm multi tasking somewhat today!

Thanks my lovelies!! I cannot believe we are in the same position as we were in 2013. We earn more than double what we did so on paper it should be fine. But it isn't fine.

We're on a prepayment meter for electricity (thanks to previous owner!) and have noticed our daily usage has fallen back below £2 a day. We downsized to a 2 bed a few years ago after I had recurring nightmares about our mortgage getting higher and higher 😂 I'm not Mystic Meg, I swear!

We have a garden office we need to keep heated in autumn / winter and that can be expensive though! Trying to work out ways to keep it warm without costing too much.

I might make some draught excluders....

Ooh, nice sunny day again. This is a pretty good summer so far, eh? Have cleared garage in readiness for deliveries later today (DH has promised to spray against woodworm again, as they have become active in one small area, but hasn't done so yet and I am definitely leaving this one to him 😠) and picked up a few essentials from Sainsbury's (£23, though! included double pack of coffee, big bag of basmati, and most other items are price-matched to Aldi - Sainsbury's seem to be intent on stealing market share back from Aldi, one purchase at a time).

Any fans of Detectorists here? Just started watching it on iPlayer this week, and it's gorgeous!

Right, off to clear a path from front of house to garage.

I love Detectorists. Fabulous series

£58 Aldi in what wasn't a full week's shop. Lucky we had some essentials left from last week but I'd thought more like £40 than £58!

kessie even Aldi's going up. I see more and more customers with lists and putting stuff back on shelves.

I have seen the same with Aldi! It's so disheartening. I try and stick to Sainsburys now because the Nectar points stack up so quickly and I tend to stick with "Aldi price match" stuff.

Although there are things in Aldi which Sainsburys can never compete with like 69p mini Tortilla wraps!! And nice cheese and Aldi mini cheddars (just realised this is all packed lunch stuff) 😂

My interview was alright but not amazing (in terms of me being picky about who I work for!) So that's disappointing.

Spent £5 in B&M on a loo roll holder which broke as soon as we got home and DH never grabbed a receipt.

Place marking. I'm on holidays & have been reading but not posting. Leaving tomorrow eve & home Sunday.

Sainsbury's really are a good competition for Aldi at the minute

life is it my imagination or are they adding more lines? It could be that our specific store is stocking more.

I always wonder what we miss out on down in Cornwall

Frugal wins:

sold a coat on Vinted for £12 which I posted earlier. Very pleased!

Upcycled a skanky internal door. Sanded it down and painted it white. Looks okay even after just one coat. We already had the white wood paint. Tomorrow we'll paint it again and it'll look lovely compared to before. I priced up a similar sized door in Wickes yesterday which was £85 for the door and £15 for the handle. So I consider that £100 saved!

I'm on a mission to make home as lovely as possible for free...

Are you in a tourist area @Colliewobbler23 . I live in Somerset and have an elderly mum in Devon who I visit every weekend. I hate the m5 in summer.
yesterday £8 on 3 ice creams out. 2 human and 1 dog.

I think they are adding more Collie.
Lots is the basic range Hubbard? Which I haven't tried much of. Between that and nectar it's a decent shop. Though nectar now takes prices to last year full price IMO.
We have a mid size Sainsbury's

@Thestartofsomethinggood I'm so envious of you living in Somerset. We used to live there and intend of moving back one day. We live in the middle of Cornwall so we need the A30 to get anywhere (including to the coast!) and it's horrible. But they're fixing it and I'm confident it'll get better after all the roadworks.

I've taken advantage of some Nectar competitions where you watch a video on the app. I won £20 worth of points! Which has happened twice for me now. Different videos / tasks.

I've woken up feeling weak and wobbly so I hope it isn't a migraine on its way. We were due to go camping nearby but the forecast isn't good for tomorrow. So staying put and I won't have a pasty because they technically hurt my stomach but they're so darn tasty it's hard to say no 😋

LSD

Thanks for the new thread need

Not sure really if we are being frugal here or not really 🤣 Another couple of family birthdays this week which always adds to the spending.

Weren't you thinking of moving Collie. Is that off now

£44 indoor activities for teen sleepover as forecast stops outdoor fun

Martha ugg for the work changes. I hope things settle in a positive way for you.

Big second the comments on things being a treat that used to be the norm. I like meeting up with friends but the prices make me wince. And other than the RoH I’ve yet to buy cake that I like. I’m off to van Gogh but not until November. Looking forward to it. Good luck with the garden renovations.

Collie greetings. Feeling the same about time passing. Definitely in a worst position now even though I’m earning more. Seems rather fruitless. Sorry about the interview.

Spending hasn’t been too bad. Thursday was no spend. Yesterday all in was £4.78 in Lidl and Asda - mostly on vinegar and baking soda to clean a pot but then I washed it and it was fine. Also got a tin of mandarin segments for a things from the cupboard trifle. Did buy some laughing cow blue cheese triangles too. Today has been £6.77 in Marks and Spencer and Aldi. That includes a birthday card for a friend next week.

Someone please tell me I don’t need red trainers even if they are from eBay.

@lifelongfrugaleer Yeh we desperately tried to move away but with 2 jobs, schools and a house to buy & sell - it was just too expensive / difficult to do ☹️ but we're happy enough here for a few more years.

I expect it'll be 7 more years until we relocate. (When we're finished worrying about school!)

@RumBananaSundae it's just so deflating, isn't it? We were doing "well" for about 6 months before COL

Today is final day of my holidays & I've stayed within the money I saved for spending money while here & in the meantime been paid twice at home so my bank balance has gone back up to where I like it to be 😁 however I've childcare to pay for the summer so this will keep me under pressure for the next two months. In Sept dd will no longer need paid childcare or private school bus so this will help. Focus will be on repaying 0% cc before it ends.

Collie nice to see you back on the thread

Afternoon.

@RumBananaSundae you don't need the red trainers 🤣

Spends today
£24 Boots. Annoyed as I had some cash in my purse that I'd already accounted for and the cash self service tills weren't working. New tooth brush heads, some bits for DD, shampoo for me. All essential at least.

Meal plan
Beef and aubergine curry with dark honey.
Broken beans
Senegalese 7 veg one pot rice
'man tea' for DH and Ds, omelette or similar for me.
Courgette and haloumi fritters.
Orange, yoghurt and cardamom loaf cake
Kimchi fried rice with fried eggs.
Honey hong shao rou.

I've been productive on the domestic chores front and gotten a very wet run in too!