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

Spent £83.68 at Tesco and £48.44 at Aldi yesterday, that includes a £17 pair of shorts for DS. Those shops, along with Gousto coming on Monday need to keep us going for a while.

We're out for a meal tonight which will be spendy but we're celebrating something big for DS, so really looking forward to it! :)

Friday! filthy weather here, so I am inside, staying warm and doing French prep.

Yesterday was fun: DFriend managed to get £1 tickets for us both for St Paul's, and I bought lunch. £85 for two at Enoteca da Luca in Watling Street - lovely food, wine and service, will certainly go back, and recommend if you're in the area. Also, I managed over 11000 steps.

Another £9 in Sainsbury's - but we should have ample to get us through the weekend, if DH has enough in the house for his diet plan.

£240 for recent roof repairs - joint account can absorb it thankfully this month.

Talked to pension service: I will get a full statement of my pension 2 months before the birthday on which I want to start claiming it. If I am caught up in the McCloud remedy, I will get a letter telling me what I need to do before the end of March.

A buyer should be turning up this afternoon to take the chairs away. We'll see!

@Nellieinthebarn thats an awful pain. Did you plan to do work on the kitchen or is this an unwelcome surprise?

well done @BigSkies2022 thats some excellent planning and hopefully the buyer will turn up for the chairs. Great for the circular economy.

I emailed our work pension providers about setting up an AVC so hopefully they will get back to me soon.

NSD for me today but DH will pay the childminder €70. Ive had a little fridge and freezer stocktake. Shock Horror we have plenty of food! even some very nice treats like steak and duck and canapes. i knew they were there but seeing them this time gave me some immense satisfaction.

i think a shop local top up will be sufficient for next weeks needs. mostly lunch items for small child as i've menu planned for next week to use up what we have in the fridge. so hope to keep this around €20.

Spendy day. But the week has gone well, not totted up my weekly credit card spends (all grocery and non grocery) but much better than pre Christmas up until today! Will be taking my lunch to work again next week 👍

Today was spendy
£20.60 Yo Sushi lunch with friend
£15 eyebrow thread
£35 Boots makeup. Saved £6 on 3 for 2 and also got 600 points with various offers I had loaded up to the Boots points card.
£5.70 Holland and Barrett. DD wanting some Grenade protein bar which is a viral craze. Tried a bit, Lidl are better!

Then £200 deposit on a car for DH, the full amount is coming from savings which is painful. His is beyond economical repair and on eBay for spares so I think we've been as frugal as possible over this. Saved over 300 on road tax and insurance as much smaller car.

Hope you got your chairs collected bigskies

Great move on the AVC pistachio that's one of my goals by April 5th..

Had news of my biopsy today thank God it wasn't malignant just chronic active inflammation.
I feel like l could fly l am so relieved 😊
Spends today £26 Tesco
Hope everyone is ok and has good news on their health please God 💐.
Have a lovely weekend
Everyone 😁

@pistachiosanscream No I was perfectly happy with the kitchen, it was one of the reasons we bought the house, the kitchen was nice and didn't need work. 😂

@MaryGreenhill thats brilliant news! 😁

Ah that must be a weight off your mind Mary fab news

Have a lovely weekend all 😊

Been silent because DH has had his emotions and confidence knocked by being put at risk of redundancy.

I've been expecting this for some time so I'm not surprised. It does have substantial potential financial impacts, of course.

That's wonderful news @MaryGreenhill, so pleased for you.

@kessiebird Cars are such money pits aren't they. Needs must, but oh is it so annoying.

£130 Yesterday on sunglasses, Valentine's giff for DH, replaced the items SD took from the other kids, and collagen powder. I wasn't planning on getting sunglasses this month, but they were further reduced and had £20 cashback so I have switched spends around to cover it.

Hoping for a relatively calm month with no more surprises that will pull on my financial purse strings. There is alot of month left though, and I can resist everything but temptation!

Thank you so much @Nellieinthebarn @kessie and @psuedocream3 .
I am so relieved. l was petrified of having cancer tbh .
@hackathon so sorry to hear about your DH redundancy . Bless you both it's very worrying for you 💐
@psudocream3 that's a fabulous pressie for your Dh 😁
I thought l was being generous buying mine Emma Bridgewater plant pots from Marks 😁

No meal deals this week woop woop

Had a horrible day at work one day so took myself for a coffee at lunch time with my headphones for an hour £5 but worth it to regroup and come back with a more positive head.

Have upped my diet which is never cheap but it's essential and quite frankly medicinal in lots of ways.

Got to reorder my mounjaro today but it's budgeted for so that's fine.

Taking my little girl to soft play later but will pack own snacks.

Treated husband to breckfast yesterday morning which was spendy £34 but it was nice and we cleared a few topics up that needed discussing which was good.

Morning.

Wonderful news @MaryGreenhill. I bet you feel on top of the world. So pleased. What's active inflammation, if you don't mind me asking?

Hope the chair purchaser turned up @BigSkies2022

@ChipshopPickledEgg couldn't agree more about investing in your own health, be it diet or exercise or anything else. I want life in my years rather than years of my life, so it's absolutely priority for me, particularly after DH's stroke.

I'm so sorry to hear about your DH's job threat @2025Hackathon. Fingers crossed for the best outcome.

Spends
£200 Ocado (including some items for family over tomorrow). We pretty much spend absolutely nothing on food or drink outside of the home, for 4 adults, so I can live with a larger food shop, it's our only spend.
£25 poo bags (a years supply, two spaniels!). Glamorous 🤣

Chair purchaser came! Chairs gone, and we are richer in space, and slightly richer in money (not really: instantly goes against the roof repair costs). Very nice man, would be a lovely neighbour. Married his partner after 31 years together on midsummer day last year. So romantic!

Now I want to clear out more stuff.

Will it ever stop raining? DH has taken Ddog out, my end of the bargain is to run errands and wash muddy dog on their return. Yuck. Will then spend the afternoon cleaning the bathroom and the floors. Also, French practice and a Pilates workout.

Have been enjoying Amandaland (I Player) and Hacks (Now TV) if anyone is looking for something fun to watch.

Mary - great news for you, what a relief.

Good luck to you and DH, Hack. I think you've struggled to get him to be realistic and straightforward about finances, am I remembering right? So I hope this promotes more openness between you.

Thank you all for the good wishes. It's a blow after finally getting out from the debt and having enough to pay off the mortgage.

I'm going to vent for a moment. DH's acting out. On Friday, I had a meeting that I had to attend (virtually) and he was constantly asking me for things although he knows I'm not to be interrupted (completely confidential proceedings) and I was already going to him at each break.

Today, he was looking for something and instead of asking me has left my office looking like a local whirlwind hit.

Do I know what the redundancy offer is? No.

Has he spoken to anyone about whether we'd be expected to treat our mortgage like savings and live off them long-term so he definitely wouldn't be eligible for anything like UC in the future? No. (I suspect having a working spouse would put the lid on that anyway.)

Has he thought of anything else he might want to train for if he thinks it's unlikely he'd get another job in the industry? No.

Will he talk about a budget even now? No.

He's been through this process so many times and he always goes into this wretched slough of despond and refuses to face up to reality.

NSD today ☺️
@BigSkirs and @needastrongoneagain
Thank you so much it's so kind of you both . I am greatly relieved l can tell you .
Of course l don't mind asking , it's chronic active inflammation aka Lichen Sclerosis. It's an auto immune disease that is linked with Hypothyroidism which l have had for 35 years .
It's not pleasant and very embarrassing tbh but hey ho it is what it is . It can turn cancerous in about 5% of cases so l have to treat it with Hydromol and a strong steroid cream and go for check ups every 3 months ATM . It's a right pita .l can't have sex with my poor DH , he's a darling and it's sore, itching and a constant source of worry .
I said to my GP l just hate the thought of becoming an old woman and having other ppl having to see to my downstairs 😳
She said don't worry you might be dead by then 😂
I have a great relationship with my Gp thank God.
I was so scared l would have to have it all removed it's such a relief.

Sorry if it's TMI . I am just
Glad to get it out there for others to know .
So if anyone is sore and itching and it's not thrush or an STD my advice is to go to see your Go and get it checked out.

Great news Mary
gutted for you hack. You are doing so well too
yeah for the chairs going.
sorted dd room and put another load on vinted. Only for small amount but sold a load more. I figure it gets it away from me, I get a bit of money and someone else is happy £2.90 on envelopes like ad run out of free ones

Thank you @llifelongfrugaleer
😁
Well done on getting your DD stuff onto Vintage . It is helping others and yourself, what's not to like 😁

Vent away hack. Safe space here

£150 on food this week. Fml but did need lots of chicken £ soap powder. £25 petrol £4.85 Parkrun snacks )6 Chinese

i have a lower eye infection I think there is w cyst brewing. No doubt there will be a prescription soon

Haven't caught up with the thread today I'll go back and read in a bit

@lifelongfrugaleer I love vinted! I sell a few things a week and then just spend the money back on there tbh! Years ago when we were newly married etc and DC were younger we had to buy everything second hand even my (beautiful!) wedding dress was from the charity shops. Now DH is on a better wage etc (I'm a sahm) we can afford to buy new but I still prefer second hand better for our wallet and better for the environment. I like setting myself little challenges to see if I can only buy second hand for a while but often the teens like brand new although they are happy with Primark!

Not so frugal here today, DH out for dinner and drinks with friends so I'd thought id treat me and the DC to a takeaway...£40 😱 pieces have shot up recently. When i put it on the table I honestly thought they'd missed something off it looked such a small amount for £40. Kids enjoyed it though and saves me faffing around cooking on my own and trying to look after little ones

Saturday spends
£10 on soft play hell
£15 boots topping up daughters boots brand Calpol etc
£30 in supermarket - daughter saw a jumper for £8 and looked so cute when she asked for it. Luckily she needed a new one!

hack absolutely vent here, sorry to hear about the redundancy.
Chipshop absolutely the right thing to prioritise your health through diet if you can.
Mary glad you had a positive outcome.
I've sold a few things on vinted but not bought anything yet. Ds is looking to buy a suit on there at the moment.
We are away for the weekend with friends. We do a pub quiz most weeks and put any winnings (we are a decent team) throughout the year towards a weekend away. So we've only had to pay £30 a couple for the house, one couple don't do the quiz very often so they provided Friday's tea, then yesterday found out they'd had a substantial premium bond win, so paid for yesterday's meal out for all of us! So it's been a very frugal weekend & such great fun, I haven't laughed so much in ages.
Back to reality today, once home I need to plan, plan, plan as I've now only got 8 days left in this job & more than 8 days work to do to leave it in a position I'm happy with...

Had a small pension payment backdated so a bit like saving.
Had a 20% voucher from Lakeland and used it against an already reduced coffee machine with milk steamer. Ended up costing £100 with free postage.
I was going to update my terrible wardrobe but I’m crap at buying clothes that both suit me and I like. Destined to be a scruffbag forever.

Hack - that sounds incredibly stressful for you. When you say 'he's been through this process so many times,' do you mean redundancy? It sounds a very challenging industry/sector if so, but can you lever previous times when things did work out OK, and what happened to make it so? e.g. how the package was used, how he got employed again, etc. Were this a relationship board, posters would be advising divorce, because you sound so very unsupported. But vent away, and perhaps we can help with ways of talking about finances.

Buyer sent nice pics of the chairs in their new home, which was very sweet. I am keen to keep decluttering/editing. I have been shedding books recently, as I want to keep a lively relationship with the objects around me, and books that aren't going to be reread, or which are old editions that either bear the embarrassing traces of my undergraduate engagement with them (incomprehensible marginal notes) or have since been eclipsed by much better translations/editions are gradually going. I figure I'm never going to be so short of money that I can't go and buy a replacement if I suddenly become interested again in a writer.

Chipped tableware, cruddy cooking utensils, excess glasses, bed linen/towels that are too worn also in my sights. Some things will need replacing, some won't.

This week's micro-action is: install a 7 day delay in your purchasing decisions. TBH, I don't struggle too much with impulse buying, but it's a good restraint. I am trying to find a replacement for a vintage/out of production martini glass at the moment, and am reeling at the price. So that is going firmly in a 'save for later, much later' bin!

DH and I are cautiously beginning to plan a trip to Japan for a big birthday (mine!) I have found good price accommodation, in the form of 'updated capsule' hotels, which look great. And low cost travel is available with a regional rail pass. Flights are currently under £900 apiece, and DH has taken out AMEX cards for us both for points. He has a bunch of business travel coming up and a training budget to spend, and his employer will let him keep the points (not the case when he was in the civil service). So my task this month is to switch all joint account payments over to the card, and set up a DD to clear the balance each month. Does anyone do this?

Thats great news @MaryGreenhill, that must be such a relief.

@2025Hackathon Sorry to hear about your dh's job. It's horrible being in that situation, especially the being in limbo bit while waiting to hear one way or the other. People automatically have sympathy for the person at risk but it's bloody hard for the partners too. You still have to worry about impact of the loss of income but you also have to deal with the reaction/stress/acting out of the person at risk all while trying to be supportive.

@BigSkies2022 Nice job with getting rid of the chairs.

I seriously need to get on Vinted and get rid of some stuff

£20 yesterday on naughties (sweets and biscuits) at the coop yesterday but NSD so far today.

Just realised Feb and March are No Council Tax DD months so that money will go straight to savings this month.