January Frugaleers thread brings no judgment just friendly banter & advice for like minded folk

[Happierwithouthim]

A place where all are welcome regardless of income, level of debt or reason for being in debt or debt free.

We're friendly, full of good advice and open to new ideas where to shave off expense and how to live your best life on the income you have.

Over the years we've celebrated debt payoffs, babies, leaving jobs, getting different jobs, bonuses, and we've been there for each other through difficult times.

New posters welcome always & I hope posters who have fallen off thread will rejoin too

True story happier

Feel like I'm going to be banished from the frugaleers thread as have not managed a single NSD this month! Our Electric toothbrushes have died - so we've had to replace those (cannot use manual as I end up brushing far too hard and the kids end up not brushing properly!). £235 Had to do a food top up 51.72, and the only really non- necessary spend was 3.20 on a latte while I was waiting to collect a child from their gym session.
frugal wins this week though are - took lunch in to work every day.... so I'm counting that as a win!
desperately need some new shoes. I hate shopping - but need to do it in person for shoes as I have oddly shaped feet and though I mainly wear trainer type shoes, some just don't fit right. I have a voucher for John Lewis though, so hoping that will cover a pair and can count that as non spend!
have a lovely weekend all.
edited to add my running total
732.88 😱

Wanted a NSD but Whistlefish had an 11 cards for £10 offer so I've stocked up for the year 🤣
Their cards are beautiful quality though and the price of cards are shooting up so this is a good deal for me.. you also get 20% offer for signing up to their newsletter x

I love whistelfish I always get lots of comments on how nice they are. And if they are on offer they are a great price!

We are haemorrhaging money this month with storm damage repair, new uniform for DC, dentist appointments, haircuts etc. ho hum such is life!

My bank does a weekly thing where it sends you how much you've spent this week - I'm happy to report I'm considerably down on where I am normally, can't actually remember how many NSD I did last week I know I did at least two.
Ideally I want today to cost me less than £10, so fingers crossed.

Spend yesterday, £79 foods foodshop which didn't seem to actually have much in it and need to go back as DH forgot to add cereal to the list 🤦‍♀️. £10 nails and £11.50 in the pub afterwards.
Today shouldn't be too bad, DH has a gig tonight so a couple of drinks there but nothing outrageous. Taking 2 bags to the charity shop today and have a pile of things to list on Vinted which should keep me out of the shops!
Still horrendously cold, absolutely dreading the meter readings next week.......

You won’t be kicked off. I never have nsd as there is always something

£41 petrol, £11 b&q, £32 Morrisons although they have stopped doing my big boxes of alcohol free cider.

First food shop of the year £21. Next planned shop the 20th.

Had a load of eggs and limes from an olio collection (I am a food waste hero) so have made lime curd. Also had a pot of olio thick cream so have made butter with it. Gone all Mary Berry.

ham you are doing amazingly!

hotchoc I feel your dishwasher pain. My bloke hasn’t showed up yet so I’ll have to ring back on Monday to see what’s going on. I should have chased it this week but I’m trying to put off the spend for a bit longer.

Would love to see some of the cross stitch results!

Evening.

It's still freezing here! Officially fed up of it now!

No banishing here @Captainladder. Life is expensive, there's always something it seems.

That's very creative re the food @forgotmyusername1

£20 spent today. £15 for a good bottle of wine, we were supposed to be going out tonight so it was a gift for the hosts, it's been rearranged until next week so I've left it in the car. £5 on some nice homemade bhajis and samosas as we are having leftover curry for tea now, so a sort of treat instead of a takeaway.

Nothing planned for tomorrow so that'll be it for the weekend.

I am happily perusing a curry recipe book that a very kind friend sent me, together with accompanying spices, so my menu plan this week will be predominantly vegetarian curry dishes! To follow...

Oh dear. £179 - coat from Zara. Not even in the sale! Justified on the grounds that I have nothing between smart, elegant, but not especially warm navy wool coat and dog-walking coats. This is a sort of dark brown, tweedy, wool-mix, with detachable matching scarf, and I have high hopes that it will work hard for me in combination with many outfits. Also, I was able to split the payments over 3 months using PayPal, no interest. Nevertheless, I am now £20 over budget this month, and have to hope my Prolific account comes good with lots of studies.

Frugal own goal: DH and I parked in a (hitherto free-to-park) spot that we've used many times before, and were so busy congratulating each other on finding the spot, and the deftness of my parallel park, that we failed to notice the new parking regulation sign, and returned to find a £40 penalty ticket. Bugger. I wanted to split the ticket, but DH insists on paying it. He is a treasure.

Bugger about the ticket big. The coat is totally justifiable if you have a lot of wear from it.

enjoy your perusing need. I’m officially sick of the cold too.

house jobs this afternoon. The stuff no one ever seems to see

Enjoy the coat Big. I find if I buy well, I wear a lot and it lasts and lasts. One expensive jumper springs to mind that is still worn and worn,

Menu plan.

None curry related -
Fish pie (family round next weekend).
Smoky chicken, bean and kale stew (BBC Good Food).
Baked lemon garlic salmon.

Curry related.
Saag Aloo.
Rajma Masala
Aloo gobi
Bengali mustard curry
Mixed veg curry ( that'll use the odds and ends up).
Moghul egg curry.

The last 2 days have turned out to be spendier than anticipated....
Yesterday I bought some nice food to make for mum's lunch (£10). She is very thin and has a poor appetite so it was lovely to see her eat a small but nutritious, calorie dense and protein rich meal. While buying salmon for our lunch, I bought more for me for today! In my defence, dh is away until tomorrow night so I will eat fish while I'm on myown, he hates it.
Today's fail was watching Saturday Kitchen & seeing a recipe that I really wanted to make, but needed a few ingredients that I didn't have. I now have them, have spent more than planned but nothing will be wasted. Then lunch with my best friend which was lovely, then was dragged against my will into Seasalt & ordered a coat in the sale reduced from £150 to £62 and then down to £50 with loyalty points. It will be worn lots and is really comfy & practical.
So, no wasteful spending but just not what I was expecting.
Dh has met ds in London for the football. Each season they pick one game to do an overnight trip to & they have picked a great one this time. Their team caused a pretty big upset in the FA cup so they will be buzzing! The trip is budgeted for, he took breakfast and a flask of coffee to have on the train and they found a pub before the game which was cheaper than our local pub in Lancashire so he is on message so far. At least now ds pays his way as he is working, that helps!

Does anyone have the "Roasting Tin" cookbook and if so, do you like it? I hadn't heard of it but have now ordered it from the library to try before I buy.

I’ve not tried that one north but have heard good things

@northender I love seasalt coats I have 4 😱

Love all things seasalt actually and get lots of it from vinted.

We are having cheese and wine this evening...still ploughing our way through the Christmas cheese!

Small, nutritious meals sounds the way forward for older folk with small appetites north. I know which football upset you mean as I love my footie. Bet DH and DS made up!

We have 3 Roasting Tin books. I don't get on with them in truth, but we all like pretty spicy and strong flavours, with more sauce than these recipes generally suggest. Everyone is different and agree, most reviews are very favourable. Happy to post to you if you do enjoy.

Spent €6 today at the cinema for snacks. But will get €18 back from my sister so overall a net gain.

later home than usual which is always a danger time for a takeaway but I raided the groaning freezers for beef pies and mash. Win win. No extra money spent and food out of the freezer

7/11 NSDs so far. Used my Lidl £10 coupon against my shopping which saved me £10.45 so total spend £13.10 😊But also had KFC for tea £17.10 and also spent £13.20 on drinks before the Panto today and a meal deal to take into work this morning and a paper to read. So a bit spendy but at least didn't waste my Lidl coupon which was on its last day!!

Had a wonderful but incredibly expensive day out celebrating my new job in Edinburgh today. Worth every penny though, I think life would not be very fun for me if we couldn't have lovely days like this.

With that said, we were very retrained and on days like this would usually have dropped a fortune on 'things' all of which we avoided today. Our mentality has definitely changed and I don't feel like I've missed out on anything by not buying yet another Neom candle!

Having had good days, I spent money today. £20 in home bargains on cleaning bits.
£13 in Greggs on lunch treats
£7 on drinks in McDonald's
£100 Morrisons delivery

The £13 in Greggs was so unnecessary but I didn't even think about it.

I haven't been on Amazon though, so that's a win.

And then I caught up with the thread and bought cards from a website I've never of 😂

Went shopping for new shoes which I desperately needed yesterday. I only had 4 pairs - 3 of which were knackered and falling apart, the last pair being my dog walking boots which I can't wear to work! Ended up buying 3 pairs of new shoes - £264 .... my frugal win here was that I used my voucher I had to bring the total down to 149 and 2 pairs were in the sale.... but I do still need to spend on some shoe protector spray, to make sure they last!
Hopefully that's me done with shoe shopping for at least this year.
DH has signed up for a trial of YNAB which is interesting.... although we've managed to keep our heads up and our debt is limited to a mortgage and a car payment, we generally manage to stay within our salaries with a tiny bit left over. It will be interesting to go through that and see where all our money goes. The process of logging my spends here is helping with understanding where we are actually spending money.

Running total 881.8

That’s great for shoes that will last you.

well deserved day out nessa

i have a couple of sea salt cooats. One has been relegated to the farm now and is super warm. I just have to watch the length.

Morning!

Another one that has indulged in the card offer from Whistlefish @FurForksSake 🤣.

That being said, I'm am disorganised re cards and end up having no card at all to send and it being too late, or popping into the supermarket to buy one and spending £30. This will help re both. In fact, this quiet weekend has resulted in me being very organised at least.

£16 present for new baby.

So not a NSD as anticipated, but a 'stitch in time spend' and a present spend, both of which can come out of my presents pot.