Frugal February!

[Psychoticbreak]

I failed in January but definitely need to reign in Feb or my mortgage will not be paid. Best of luck to us all!

Had to buy some stamps my goodness arm and leg or what. Half way through the month not going to bad.

its £60 initially for quick payment or £100 after 14 days.

think I’ll just pay it & chalk it up as experience. Highly irritating though.

I agree, stamps are bloody extortionate. I bought socks, we live near an outlet. £4 for 5 pairs, obviously last year’s summer colours. I don’t care about the colours as I use them with jeans and boots.

Well done, everybody! I agree about the cost of stamps, they're so expensive now!

I've not done too bad so far this month, especially considering it was ds' birthday as well as my own, and Valentine's Day, too. DH got me lovely flowers and chocolates. I got him a Hotel Chocolat sampler which he is excited about.

And DH, being in general a rather practical soul (much like myself), bought me some much-needed new running shoes for my birthday. I never would have spent quite that much for them, or gone to the fancy running gear shop for advice/to check for pronation on the treadmill etc., so I feel very loved and well cared for. 😊

Two NSDs this week and hoping for another today. This weekend we need to go to the library, and either to the park on bikes or to soft play, depending on the weather.

Good luck everyone!

Well done, everyone. Unexpected things / fines pop up, but at least we're all being mindful and that's really important after all. No frivolous spending to be found here.
I've not spent much on myself this week (£5.50) on Wednesday - wine.
Yesterday £1.20 for a chocolate flapjack to conquer hangover.
Today, I'll spend £0, tomorrow I'm staying in as I'm looking after my youngest granddaughter.
Sunday, my sister has invited us to lunch, but dh said he'll get the wine and beers.
I get paid in 2 weeks which is going to look great in my savings so I'm concentrating on that.

DH has been paid early as the date falls over the weekend.

Trying again for the budget talk as we have some large items coming up like car insurance.

He needs to grasp several realities. One of which is that the savings aren't really available to us as they are our offset mortgage. If we spend them, not only does our monthly payment go up, we won't have the lump sum to pay it off at the end.

Belatedly checking in for February

Had a couple of large expenses - more school uniform plus car insurance - shopped around and got it for £20 more than last year, but am old enough to remember when your insurance should actually decrease in price if nothing had changed when your renewal was due!

Completely agree with the price of stamps; I remember posting things when I started my last job in 2008 and stamps were 27p each. Now they're 75p I posted a lot less Christmas cards this year not because the cards were expensive, but because I couldn't afford the stamps... surely this must be Royal Mail shooting themselves in the foot a bit?!

@2024Hackathon my DP doesn't grasp financial concepts either - he's always been a good earner but spends to match it, then wonders why we can't get savings together

Hope you had a lovely birthday @moimichme !!

Dh left the fridge open so everything has to go in the bin (it was 5 hours so can’t really keep anything) 😭I’m just going to replace the necessities for now (milk, cheese and butter) and wait until payday to refill.

Tell your DH to replace everything @Thehamsterthatcametotea

My DH left the freezer open and he bought to replace everything.

Today I bought PG Tips £5.49 in Tesco. Seemed to best price here.

@AdoraBell he’s away for a few weeks so won’t be able to. It will be okay.

Had a blow out take away and small Amazon buy so now have £6.43 till Tuesday. Have money in savings to transfer if need but trying stay in credit without dipping in.

It’s hard to find balance between spending on whatever I like and stuff you need plus all extra stuff that’s come along. It’s not like I’m ever splashing out on anything to outrageous either. But has to be a middle ground budget to actually save any money. It’s much more complicated than set a budget and stick to it.

Still if I wasn’t doing this I’d still be logging into my bank not knowing if I was £300 in credit or overdrawn, so it’s all an education.

Failure this week again, Thursdays seem to my downfall! DH and I had a fight and I did some emotional spending - takeaway and a bottle of wine. Then we both had to buy lunch on Friday as there were no leftovers from the dinner I was supposed to prepare.
On the other hand. As a result of the fight we skipped seeing our friends as planned last night, where we would have bought a takeaway and a bottle of wine. I cooked Thursday’s dinner last night so we’re technically on track.
NSD planned today and tomorrow.

Dinesh - Failure this week again, Thursdays seem to my downfall!

It's such a useful observation! Is there a set pattern that leads up to it? Anything you can usefully do something about?

And well done for getting back on track so quickly although I'm sorry if you'd been looking forward to seeing your friends.

NS day, I have run out of white bread, but I'm not going to the shop for just that. I will eat crackers or something.

Oops !
I spent £25 on wine and chocolate and £25 online.
I'm actually OK with both. I deserve a break after working all week and the £25 online was a present for my sister. I decided, after a glass or 2, that she's so good to me and I needed to buy her a present ❤️

Another February Monday sending resolution to all!

Business trip next week. Work hasn't confirmed my travel or accommodation arrangements but I'm not bailing them out by booking myself. I'm not going to be left waiting for months for my expenses. There was a point last year where I was waiting for more than £4.8K.

£5K is almost £30 per month on a mortgage payment. Absence of that money to offset the mortgage probably cost @ £200.

I can't avoid the per diem subsistence expenses but I refuse to cover the large ones.

@2024Hackathon i would be furious at being delayed expenses like that. We are very lucky that once we submit we have them back within max 10 days.

February is going well. My month ends on Friday when i'll get paid, should be sunday but bank doesn't work on sundays so we get paid earlier.

It looks like for the first time in a long time we are in the black on the joint account! Usually we have to add more to it before the month ends.

Personal spending has been down for me too. I paid for my portion of the accommodation for a minibreak and have bought some easter cushion covers for my covered porch and some trim for a lampshade i recovered. I'm really proud of this as i was previously very trigger happy with the online shopping.

The TV which died has not fully died. We were lucky to be able to borrow a TV and are investigating trying to get this one working reliably again. It works sometimes but not others. Beginning to think its a faulty power cable and a replacement one of those is about €10 so fingers crossed thats whats causing he problem.

I'm also planning the garden bits i want to get. We did a lot of big work on the garden last year (trees down, New lawn, Raised bed area) so this year is about the smaller things. I'm planning to get some summer bulbs to layer in pots so i can have flowers all summer and disguise a very ackwardly located septic tank

Also need to plant up a large bed at the back of the house and will need topsoil for it. probably about 2 tonne bags of it (it runs most of the length of the house) We have a lot of ground elder in the garden so re-using our own isnt an option. So these are planned expenses but still once offs. i budget €200 a month for these but its not enough so i will be hoping to offset this with a smaller grocery spend.

Hey everyone, wishing us all luck for the week ahead.

Last week I spent £41.00, planned spending. I have also put the money back into my account for all present shopping this year so far, so my account is back where it should be.

No planned spends for the week, but Mother's day is creeping up, I have a card but need a gift. And then Easter eggs for the end of March but no hurry on those - I have a tesco gift card to cover it.

I need to start putting some money aside for car insurance due in June, shouldn't take long. Then I can start saving for deorating the house... we moved in siz months ago and still haven't done much with it but I want it just right by the end of the year,

Excellent question. Mon & Tues I’m
off work so usually easy to keep on track. Wed I’m in the office - opportunity for temptation, but usually resolve is high. Thurs I’m WFH or offsite somewhere, and it’s starting to feel like the weekend, so if a drink is offered, or I pass a nice coffeeshop, it’s hard to resist… Very interesting and useful observation and I will build it into next month’s plans.
NSD on Saturday, spent £10 yesterday as I did meet up with friends sans DH in the end, all big shops were closed though so had to go to corner shop. £10 for wine and a cake, I was happy with that actually and the wine and cake were both actually tasty.
Also spent £10 on Amazon for some bits for our trip. I’ve bought new laces and clothes dye to brighten up a pair of boots and jeans instead of buying new clothes etc.

Just managed crack my toilet seat didn’t half pinch my ass! Another £20 will have to pay, I know they last years but it’s annoying.

@Akire 🤣🤣

Akire You poor thing! But definitely an essential spend to replace that!

According to my finance app (Emma), I spent £38 last week (not including direct debits). I'm not sure that's true, but if so, it's amazing! This accountability here really seems to help. Even if we are all internet strangers. 😊

Both yesterday and today were NSDs. I brought lunch and coffee both days. Feeling proud of myself.

And after asking a company - several times - for them to send me an item that I bought before Christmas and which went missing, they have decided to refund me the cost, so that's a welcome £24 extra in my account today! I could use that money to try again, but I think I'll skip it. It was a 'nice to have', not necessary in any way.

Good work everyone - not long now until the end of the month - we can do it!

I keep finding new bills not in my forecast budget it’s depressing! Better to know than just spent away like no tomorrow but it is sobering. It’s such pain when DD dates are always changing too. Can’t assume can spend X because depending on weekends something may or not come out in any 4 day space.

Would you recommend the Emma app @moimichme? I really struggle with budgeting (hence my constant presence on here!!), anything that could assist me would be great... well done on your NSDs by the way!

No NSD here as I did a big Tesco click & collect order. Had to be done though - not just food but cleaning products etc - I also collected some free pastries via Olio, which will be really handy for DTS1's breakfast. I find Olio really useful and give away stuff whenever I can too.

I was also hoping to pick up a cheap breadmaker and give it a try whilst DP's away so he can't moan that it's a waste of money and whilst I'm sure you used to be able to get them second hand for £10 or so, I can't find any for less than £40 at the moment, which it isn't really worth me paying!