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

😂, that observation re HRT did make me smile Big! How long did it take for you to start to feel a little better do you recall? I've held off seeing the GP, as the last 3 years have been extraordinarily stressful, and so I wasn't sure whether my symptoms were trauma related or hormone, but I'm going to give HRT a go and I'll find out soon enough I guess.

No more spends today.

Been to Costco for Mums birthday cake and a few bits £89
Then home bargains ££75
Lots of dupes in , White Company , Zara, drowned elephant , Charlotte Tilbury and Jo Malone . Candles, diffusers and skincare treatments.

@Em Forgot to say how sorry l am that your Grandmother has to give up her home bless her .💐
Mum's cake 🎂

Ah the doghouse sounds fab happier

ill let you know on the bottle need 😉 hope the HRT helps. I started feeling better almost straight away but takes a while
for fill effectiveness .
never looked at testosterone though.

my review app has been pushed back due to sickness so going to have to try and get an on the day

£16 Sainsbury’s as the locusts raided the fridge. Aka teenagers

Big 😂 hrt helping you then 😂

€16 payday lunch but also because I stayed awake too late last night & was stuck to the bed this morning
€5.10 at bakery
€3 parking
€100 voucher

Wow, to that cake, Mary - did you make that???

The beginning of HRT was quite a while ago for me, need, pretty much a decade, so I can't recall very well. But I also stopped drinking, started exercising more, left the crap job, lost a bit of weight, took up my studies again, embraced frugal and happier living, all around the same time, so a lot of variables were at play, all of which contributed to my better health. HRT will not remove the stress of having a stroppy adolescent boy, highly resistant to school though, I can attest to that. My libido fell through the floor, hence the addition of testosterone about 3 years ago. All is well now all fronts!

nessa - is your journal of stuff you didn't buy helping? are you looking at them now and thinking well of your decisions?

£23 Aldi, £29 Sainsbury's.

Love those financial mantras 🤣🤣

No l didn't 🤣
I buy all my birthday cakes from Costco. You order online or in-store as long as they have 48 hours notice you can pick it up at 1pm on the day you go to pick it up . It was £16.49 all in . It's huge . A joint membership is £33.99 a year and that is for two cards so you could share the membership fee with a second person making it £17 each .
I love Costco it's like a day out for us tbh 🤣 their cafe is phenomenal l don't know how they can do the prices that they do . A pic of the Christmas cake l bought for my Mum's residential home . Same price 😁

Amazing cake 🎂

@HamAndMustardSandwich thats a great January. How did you fare eating down the freezer. Did you have a menu plan or were you just very disciplined?

im trying to eat down my stores more as they are a bit ridiculous and we are only 3 people!

@MaryGreenhill those cakes look fab and such a good price.

@Happierwithouthim im sure your doggy will be very happy in his new home.

@NessaSmith are you me? I’m still randomly browsing for crap I don’t need but can still justify! I’m not buying it yet though!

today was a NSD and used a chilli from the freezer for dinner. DH and I had soup from the freezer for lunch so a good frugal use it up day. One thing I implemented in the last year was to prep fresh fruit and veg and place in glass containers in the fridge. It really helps with the “we have no food” feelings. We had plenty of food they were just in ingredient form.

Ah thank you @pistachiosanscream & @Happierwithouthim the residents and staff love them .
😁

em sorry to hear about dgm. Loving the sound of the jam dish.

Stationary addict here too. I got a lovely notepad from TK Maxx recently. Perfect for work notes. I need new pens at the moment.

Good news about the life and critical illness cover ham

Love the cake Mary I keep meaning to join Costco. Visited with a friend before Christmas and got the best ever Mac and Cheese for Christmas Eve. Was about £12 and better than a takeout. Know what you mean about a day out. Plus we use £70 per week in fuel so that's got to be a saving if we fill up there!

Another LSD - will tot up at the end of the week. Hope everyone is well. Last day of January tomorrow and no council tax or water bill to pay for two months as we do 10 monthly billing 🎉

I wish Costco was nearer for me.

I've seen on insta that fruit will last up to a week like this is that true?

@Mary the cake is fabulous, I love costco cakes, taste great and such good value! I also love Costco, I struggle not to spend a fortune though but nothing beats a slice of pizza after a good wander around.

Really feeling focused on if I'm going to spend money, I want it to be on experiences not things. On my 'things I wanted to buy but didn't' list around £180 worth of things that I just would've pressed click without thinking before, and that's in a week! So I bought us tickets to see Six, which were £60 with the free carer ticket, and I'm still thinking I've 'saved' £120 and got something to look forward to later in the year instead.

Got a holiday with DS coming up for 2 weeks end of Feb, going to be mega expensive so I'm aiming to not spend a penny except on food until he comes on the 17th.

And new job starts March 3rd! It's a relief to know I'll have money coming in again, despite my massive anxieties at going back.

I would say it depends on your fridge. My current fridge is a Bosch and it keeps food fresh for ages. other fridges i had wouldn't have been as good.

But i'd say easily 5 days. I've spinach chopped for over a week and while a little wilted now its not slimy and still would be fine to eat. Peppers tend not to last that long (5 days normally) and carrots and cucumbers dry out a little but are still fine.

I usually have the following, which feature in childs lunch box regularly or we eat for lunch .
Strawberries
Raspberies
Grapes (taken off the vine)
Melon ( i only chop half the melon at a time) child would eat a lot of melon
Cucumber
Peppers
Carrots
Spinach
Letuce goes brown after a few days, still crispy but not as nice to look at.

Sometimes i also chop chorizo and grate cheese for omelettes or scrambled eggs.

I find it realy helps with the 5 year olds constant demands for snacks. I can easily make a plate without dirtying the whole kitchen

thank god it's Friday! I have had a fairly low spend week just because I have a fridge/freezer full of food (more praise for Costco here) and I've resisted the midday walks to the shops so 2 days out of 5 has not been too bad. Next week the next bunch of bills come out of my account, I might look to try and change any direct debits to being on pay day for me so once that day is done, the remainder is mine.

Have found the podcast mentioned upthread so going to start listening to it later - once work has finished for the day.

Thanks all, FF25

A spendy day today but too bad considering I've had quite a few NSDs this month. In total I spent £113.52 that was for the -
Dentist 😬
Car Parking 🚗
Eyebrow Threading (Needed doing I was starting to look like Groucho Marx!)
Service Wash at Launderette for King size bed cover which DHs son slept in over Christmas - instead of removing it off the bed and using the duvet underneath!! 👹DH's only comment was it might have been cheaper to buy a new one!! He's probably not wrong there! 🙄That was £15
And four other shops to pick up cat litter, seedling compost (to start this years' hopeful veg harvest 🍆🍓🌶) bird food plus odds and ends of food which needed replacing. That included topping up the GCs snack box for after school with choc bars and the like.
On the plus side following a freezer audit - we still have potentially 3 weeks worth of meat meals in the freezers - just need to menu plan. I say meat meals but I do also cook veggie meals - so the potential is there to avoid doing a big shop in February (famous last words!!)
Will need to do an order on Amazon for Magnesium tablets and have been shuffling money around various accounts to cover bills etc. Quite a productive day!! 🌞

How do I go in Sainsbury's for a few things and come out £41 looser? So annoying. I don't feel like I got hardly anything either, just one bag. That's why I never shop there but there was a few branded things I needed.

Got an unnecessary giant tub of Lenor Boosters for £10, but I LOVE the smell and it was very good value. We didn't need another just yet though.

@NessaSmith i'm the exact same. Its why i now need to use my stockpile. Ive changed my shopping list too. i had a master shopping list on my phone and whenever i went and did a big shop i always stocked up on those items. now i'm just trying to buy what i plan to use in the next week or so.

Well i havent spent any money today but joint expenses paid by DH were
€90 for childminder
€15 on treats
€51.95 in the pharmacy stocking up on OTC meds and supplements

We also met with a financial advisor who was able to model out our retirement trajectory ( not for many many years). Some tweaking but overall our long term is setup well. Will send on options for medium term savings and its been the kick we need to look at our joint savings. We don't save jointly and generally manage our money as mine, his and ours. The ours is for running our family but we have never saved for the family together.

I'm also going to try and focus on paying my car loan early, its a variable rate so the quicker i pay the less it costs me. more of an incentive to spend less and throw every penny at it. Will be interesting to see if i have any "leftover" money this month

Dinner will be homemade pizza and i'm going to double the dough and experiment with making my own frozen pizzas.

First week of the financial month hasn't gone too bad so far.
Slightly spendier day today
Been ordering my daughter a few clothes for our upcoming holiday, some fantastic bargains from Zara kids which will look lovely, spendy but within the planned budget I put to one side for it so happy with that.
Also brought myself an accessorize scarf for £7 which will freshen up a coat I already own.
We're going to have an Indian on the sofa tonight and a rest.
Hopefully will be a low cost rest of the weekend will take daughter to the pet shop for a wonder round and library tomorrow I think.
Happy weekends to all.

Payday Friday
£15 gerbil food £23 Iceland )77 Aldi £12.60 boots, £16 Holland and Barrett

I'm also debating hrt @needastrongoneagain and @BigSkies2022 . I'm a little young I think but after my cancer scare a few years ago when I lost one ovary and both fallopian tubes the night sweats are something else!

We had to switch to a wool duvet and pure cotton bedding (not very frugal!) and they are manageable now but I still wake up sweating. Poor dh is freezing as I fling the duvet off. I've had 2 lots of blood tests 6 months apart but the doctors say I'm not in perimenopause yet so in stuck! I don't know much about hrt anyway, not sure if I can even have it due to family history of breast cancer.

Blood tests are notoriously inaccurate as hormones fluctuate during your cycle. You could ask to see the results and see how normal they are
my surgery have a gp & nurse who are hrt trained

also track your symptoms. The balance app is good and gives you an evidence base got a consultation