Frugal Friends Facing Forward with Fortitude

[Happierwithouthim]

Here's a friendly space for new and existing frugal friends.

We have all different types of incomes and lifestyles but with a common goal of making the best of the money we have.

Many of us have experiences of becoming debt free or being in difficulty with money for one reason or another so there's no need for embarrassment, just join in, post as little or as often as you wish.

Some record daily spends, some record only spends that are unplanned, some don't record spends at all, the choice is yours!

Spends
£4 parking
£23 dress for dd
£12 gift for friends dd
£145 Aldi shop 😱 first massive shop I've done in ages though.

Spendy Sunday. But I've written a list and am going to stick to it! ✋️ brownie promise

Always feels a long morning on a Sunday with the girls up at 6 and then 3 and a half hours before we can get going.

Diy job 2 to do if there's no rain and usual cleaning/errands/never ending job list! Got a bit of catching up to do with the lurgy having set us back.

That’s very annoying about virgin

we’ll be checking if you stuck to the list chilli

the 18th party preparations sound fab girlie

£10 kfc for ds yesterday.
no other none planned spends. Or today

£40 in yesterday - sold some bar stools on fb. Hoorah.

today we’re going to the local national trust wetlands centre. Ds’ choice. I don’t think he realises it’s a place to sit and watch birds. But we’ve never been so well give it a go!

watched saltburn last night. Was expecting it to be way way worse than it actually was. With all the hype about it. Thought it was good.

£35 yesterday for course fees. Too a packed lunch no other spends.
Have cancelled next weeks shopping as we go away at the weekend so I will do shopping when we get there. This is not necessarily a saving overall though as we will eat out once a day most days. So for example evening meal out we will take a packed lunch, lunch out we will have toast or a snacky tea when we get back.

Oooh and my Amazon refund hit my account £81!

@lifelongfrugaleer thinking of you kept me on track - saw this lovely soft grey fleece for the eldest, but repeat after me 'it wasn't on the list!' 🤣

Good job on selling @ememem84 . I've given up with fb marketplace- too many people that didn't show up

Spends
£49 uniform
£33 food

Well done Chile!

DH has promised to sit down and tell me where we're spending money on subscriptions, gym, lunches, personal spends etc. I'm not holding my breath because I've heard this before. But I'm making encouraging noises and merge every so often to ask when he'll stop pottering and sit down to do this.

More spends
£15 card warehouse wrapping paper and bits for dds bday.
£16 primark clothes for dd
£20 Boots toiletries and vitamins, used my points so got some money off there.

Thanks @2024Hackathon . Hope it happens for you today.

I've been doing a bit of account shuffling and have decided to pay off acc1 completely and deplete the fixed term saver. This leaves me now with acc2 at -1635. But I think helps simplify things. I have another £70 to put towards acc2 but will do it at the end of the month to maximise rates. It was getting admin heavy moving odds and ends every day.

Starting to see why I never know what’s in the current account, or why it’s less than I hoped. Found expired tesco clubcard tokens, missed money off vouchers, and managed to miss out on an offer of five free months of apple+tv. Every year we pay penalties for not filing business taxes on time. It can’t go on like this. I’ve told him that every scrap of paper in this house is going to be filed, and I’m taking over the organising.

The paperwork is all collated in labelled piles. Anything about equity release or business-based loans is already binned. I burned some in the fireplace instead of shredding. It was very satisfying, and the warmest I’ve been all day so far.

Next move is the vehicles. All MOTs and insurance are up-to-date. Tax sometimes paid late, so that needs checking now that there are no tax discs. I wonder if things have been sliding while he was working away from home and not realising he was becoming unwell. He’s on the mend now, and seems happy that I take over. He’s also done a lot of online tax filing, so I need a copy of all of that.

Apart from all that, I’m making every effort to rein in the little treats that add up to a lot every month. Also curbing my browsing on amazon.

Well done chilli.

fingers crossed for the info hack and getting sorted elf.

NS weekend after the big shop on Friday.

We had h/m burgers with sweet potato fries on Friday and it felt like a proper treat, I have been craving a burger all week. Yesterday was a cheap meal, baked potatoes with tuna and a salad and today we had a roast chicken, with roasted potatoes, carrots, cabbage and some chestnut stuffing l found in the freezer from Christmas.

I should get two dinners, and a big pot of soup from the leftover chicken. It worked out cheaper per gram to buy a bigger one, a small one only does the two of us twice.

I made a berry and apple cobbler for pudding, the recipe served 6, so there is another two goes at that. I'm not completely convinced by it, I think it needs some improvement. It used some frozen berries, and was quite nice with some ice cream.

We went out for a walk. Had an adventure. Found what we think is a rabbit akull. Hand for scale.

@ShortFatShambolicHouseElf has it always been like this? Or is this recent due to dp illness?

@ememem84 perfect for an upcoming full moon ritual/sacrifice or a witchy 🧙‍♀️ ceremony? Perhaps the kids would enjoy mixing potions in ~~buckets~~ cauldrons?

Another ruddy diy job has been added to the list. Those last trades have overturned the tap so it needs resetting and new tape. Argh!
Diy job 2 not done - caught up on the laundry instead. Have done a bit of batch cooking too and now need to freeze portions.
Also need to find a new box to put in the too small uniform. I like to keep uniform separate to casual clothes.

Feeling the rate change already in PB - won nothing this month.

Oo how exciting em.

what only 3 dinners and a soup from your chicken. You clearly need to try harder with your chicken nelllie. According to MN that is

SIL staying - announced she was vegan, gluten free, no grains so we spent ages accommodating this, cooking after long days at work, today we took her for Sunday lunch and she ordered a huge cake with butter and normal flour and ate it all. I am fuming!! my DH said that’s not vegan or GF and she just laughed and ate it.
Crazy week coming up which will help pass the time til I hear back from the US 😄
love the skull em

some people may remember 2024Hack that I joined these threads under an old name in 2013ish as my now Ex H was so useless with money and had run up £17,000 of secret debt, spent on nothing just frittered away. He’s now an ex …

Ds is taking it to school tomorrow. DH is totally freaked out by it! Haha.

spends today £133 Waitrose on weeks food shop. But it included:

toasted sesame oil
olive oil
bakkng ingredients inc vanilla extract
24 eggs
three kinds of salt (table salt rock salt/sea salt for the grinder and salt flakes)

this afternoon I’ve made pizza dough (double batch so have about 24 balls of dough in the freezer now) peanut butter choc chip cookies (about 100000000 of these!) and crispy garlic chicken and smashed crispy new potatoes. Mmmm.

I'd have been exceptionally cross at that Gensola. And I'd have replaced any homemade dinner plans with ordering pizza

@Chile1978 He's always been unreliable with bills, but thankfully isn’t a spendthrift. He doesn’t ever seem able to stick with a system. And costs us by not keeping up with essential office work, or agreeing to any maintenance within the home. It’s been very tiring. Has rubbed off on me, as I feel paralysed by his inaction. I’m sorting what I can now. I never really feel secure.

I’d have been furious at that Gen.

definitely time to seize it hack. Hard as it is.

Manky monday!
We are still dealing with the lurgy - another day off work and at home. More washing to do. DDs seem to be passing it back and forth. Will call into work in half an hour or so.

Anyway should be a NSD at least.

@Gensola sorry 😞 good thing he's an ex now.

Acc2 -1525

Afternoon.

@Chile1978. In answer to your question from my last post, our financial advisor has been the same one since forever, even before I met DH he was his. He's been incredibly supportive these last two years. Manky Monday indeed!

@Gensola that would so piss me off too.

@Nellieinthebarn I try to do the big shop for the back end of the week, I've no time mid week to go to the supermarket and if the cupboards are full at the weekend I've no need to go then

You sound organised and sorted @ShortFatShambolicHouseElf and probably a lot more in control finance-wise for it.

Hope you have a lovely week away next week @Wolfcub, you absolutely deserve it.

@marthasmum - worth noting that any pension pots are exempt from inheritance tax. This makes a big difference for us as we've always utilised our pension allowance rather than take income out of the business. Make sure any expression of wish forms are completed though too, if relevant.

Boo re the Virgin debacle @RumBananaSundae. Flakey friend still being flakey I see!

Hooray re the washing @lifelongfrugaleer

Spends

£22 shopping (I really fancied a roast chicken after my long run Sunday)
£63 Amazon
£40 bi weekly fruit and veg box (we top up the fruit though).

Menu plan

Chicken broth - doing the same thing all of MN and eeking it out.
The rest of the chicken will be used in sandwiches and salads for lunches.
Aubergine and prawn curry.
Veggie shepherds pie.
Eating out - curry
Roast butternut squash dhal.

Sorry @marthasmum see you've got expression of wish forms,

Hope everyone is good. It's a Bank Holiday weekend here, so I'm off today. I've had a fairly quiet weekend. Just doing some housework today.

NSD yesterday and a LSD today. Just bought bread and milk.

I was going to pay my motor tax today, but I'll hold off until Thursday (pay day).

I should probably pay my TV licence also, even though it pains me to do so, given the revelations that one of our broadcasters was getting secret payments, which meant his declared salary was a lot less than he was actually receiving. And the resignation of the Director General of RTE shortly afterwards. Which (I think) means she's not obliged to answer any questions or appear at any public tribunal. Grrrrrr..... Anyway, I'd rather not face any fines so I should probably just pay up. Next time it comes up for renewal, I'll opt to pay it by direct debit at intervals throughout the year.

I've been invited to a confirmation on Thursday, so I need to pick up a card and take out money for the confirmation child. On a positive note, I don't have to bother cooking that evening because they're having food in the house.

Today's dinner will be ham, mashed potatoes and carrot/turnip mash. I cooked it all yesterday and I'm having leftovers today. I've loads of ham left so I'll chop it into pieces later and bag it all up for the freezer. I found a recipe for chicken and ham pie, so I'll make that some weekend.

Need to have a chat with DD later about doing more housework. In fairness, DD is in college four days and works three days. So she has no days off. I have two days off (weekends). I do the vast majority of the housework and I have no issue with that. I don't expect DD to do much other than empty the dishwasher on the odd occasion or clean out the cats' litter trays. But DD had the whole month of January off for exams (she only had something like three exams over that month). So there were a few days where she was off and never bothered emptying the dishwasher/wiping down the counters or cleaning out the cats' litter trays etc. And a few times lately she's got herself a takeaway and left the packaging (including leftovers) lying out for me to clear away. So I come home late on a Friday evening to find that DD's gone to her Dad's for the weekend, but left a mess behind her. I can't leave it for her to clean up because she won't be back until Monday. So I've no option but to clean it up and seethe. Or she'll take my clothes off the airer, dump them on a chair and hang up her clothes. But not bother to put my clean clothes away. So they end up in a crumpled pile on the chair. A lot of little things like that. Anyway, I'm perfectly calm right now, so it will be a frank but calm discussion.

Right, I'm off to hoover the dining room. That's my last job of the day.