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

Aw thank you @NessaSmith for divulging your health to us . I am so sorry you have this awful illness . At least mine held off till my 60's. You sound so much younger than me bless you 💐
Fwiw go for that holiday life is too short ☺️
@Needastrongone thank you so much that's brilliant. l will listen to it asap .
Spends Morrisons £17
They tried to overcharge me £7.80 and if l hadn't checked my receipt l would not have realised.
There was a huge queue of us getting refunds for being overcharged at customer services this morning 🙄
I always check my receipt now .

Morrisons are a pain for that I find
£23 dd theory test
no other spends but my fridge is also looking bare. Will get sandwich stuff when I post my parcels

About 45 minutes away north in the wilds of East Lancs so v easy to get to and they have great bands and atmosphere, tickets are only ever about £15-£20 compared with current shenanigans 😊🤘. I've been a lurker for years on these threads so picked up your (I think) footie affiliation ⚽️.
NSD yesterday finally but only because I felt too awful to leave the house 😢

today will mostly be spent trying to get black sabbath tickets

Hope you feel better soon MrsW

Thanks life do feel better today, we decided not to even bother!

@pistachiosanscream "Whenever you're tempted to buy something unnecessary put the money in there instead." this is such a simple but genius idea! I've been keeping a list of the things I wanted to buy but stopped myself for the last month. I could definitely make a new pot and add the money to it that I was going to use to buy something- thanks for this brilliant idea.

No tickets today. Try Friday

Posting here while procrastinating on French prep. Tonight will be the halfway mark of the whole course, and I am struggling to maintain motivation. But press on. Will definitely devote future learning budget to funding speaking tuition/practice, I am totally over doing grammar.

Opera and ballet night at the Linbury, in the basement of the Royal Opera House, was brilliant. We had great (free) seats, but I checked out the sightlines on the cheap seats, and they are all good, so would certainly go back on a budget. Very pretty theatre, and we had a chance to poke around the glamorous bits of the ROH. Disappointed that most people appeared to have made very little effort sartorially though. Now, I know it's winter, and I really wasn't expecting full evening fig, but is it necessary to turn up looking like you're going to the garden centre? Puffa jackets, backpacks, grubby walking shoes??! I ask you! A few people were delightfully suited and booted, and good for them!

Ddog rather smelly and shaggy, have booked him in for a haircut, £74, on Friday. My Valentine to him! Have also (after havering for some time) decided to splash out on a Substack subscription, £7 per month. Have a horrible feeling it will become another opportunity to scroll and procrastinate, but give it a go.

Roasted a chicken (£9, from the butcher) and roasted the sweet potato and cauliflower to accompany it. Should generate sufficient leftovers for the next day or two.

NSD for me but DH bought a yellow stickered leg of lamb half price in Tescos for £17 and razer blades for £2. Have put the lamb in the freezer for Easter Sunday .
Good luck to your Dd @lifelongfrugaleer 🍀🤞
Think you are right, Morrisons must make a lot of money doing that🙄
@MrsW glad you are feeling better 💐
Great idea for saving money @pistachiosanscream
@Ness will have to have a look at trying that 😁
@BigSkies l am loving the sound of the ROH , it's sounds just wonderful
It's freezing here today 🥶

I agree @MaryGreenhill it's freezing. I'm glad I've got the excuse of having to keep DH warm to have the house warm in truth. Well done on the lamb.

Your night out sounds lovely @BigSkies2022.

Get well soon @TheOnlyMrsW, sorry you feel crappy.

Been a tad spendy.
£13 oat milk bulk buy. We seem to get through loads at the minute due to DD and her overnight chia oats...
£27 Bottle of gin for DH.
£40 odds and sods food wise, a couple of cards, small valentines gift for DH.
£40 two pairs of jogging bottoms for DH, we can only have elasticated waists now, his old ones were looking scruffy and bobbly and he hates joggers at the best of times, never mind scruffy ones.

@needastrongoneagain it's been a really cold month .
Just looked at our electric and gas for the past month £106 more than December to January.
Unbelievable but it's been so cold .
Glad l pay by monthly direct debit 😱

It's absolutely crazy how easy it is to spend a fortune especially these days on absolutely nothing!

6/12 NSD I spent £3.50 on a Too Good To Go Bag which contained crumpets, a chocolate pot dessert, a Kipling Sticky Cake, Sausage Muffin, large Egg and Cress Roll, Chilli Pasta Pot and a huge Butternut squash.
DH had the Sausage muffin with some chips, the chilli pasta pot and had the chocolate dessert for afters for his tea. I don't do chocolate so that was no great hardship while I had the Egg and Cress Roll. I will have a go making a butternut squash soup tomorrow to freeze and we can have the cake as a pudding with custard. The crumpets won't last long in this house especially if we have them for breakfast. Not bad for £3.50 at all.

Yes, you're right with the football connection MrsW. Does the pub in Blackpool have an Abba link in its name? DH has been there to see bands but not for a while. Totally with you on the price of tickets.

€50 for a new baby gift and €23 for a book for my mums birthday.

I’ve parceled out the last of the fresh bread, fruit and veg to make the child’s lunches for the next two days, my lunch tomorrow and dinners for the next 2 days.

really trying to avoid grocery shopping myself until the weekend. I’ll send DH for necessities as he will stick to the list

I've lost a few days but very busy week at work. Major event today, free parking, catered for, 13 hour day so straight home which resulted in NSD! Which is just as well as our grocery / non grocery monthly bill has crept up. I went out with a friend I call Spendy Friend last Saturday - that was £90. We do have great times though, luckily just half termly 😂

Pistachio cars are a money pit. We did get DH a newer car so that's savings depleted for a while.

Hack so sorry to hear about DH threat of redundancy. Rant away. I am 57 posts behind so hope things are better by the time I catch up with the thread 🙏

Will try to catch up now

Oh bugger I am now in the same position as hack. DP works for a charity and he came home today and said the funding for his job has gone and he is at risk of redundancy.
We can just pay our bills without his salary - leaves us with minimal spare cash for any emergencies and no holidays etc. We were just about to book a holiday but luckily I suppose we hadn’t 🙁
My worry is that he is 62 and has been trying for a while without success to get more work (he is PT, I am FT). And we will likely have 2 kids at uni from Sept and I need to find £500 more in my budget for DS2. It will be ok if DO gets more work, not ok if he doesn’t.

I'm so sorry, marthasmum. It's a ghastly position of vulnerability. Realising that you may be living on a margin with no room for "life happens" or unexpected bills.

It's horrible.

I'm still trying to get DH to do something practical and coherent rather than consider himself a victim of a cruel universe. I need actual details of finances. And, I need him to come out of the slough of despond and start looking for something else.

I can't bear the thought that we'll have to start living off the money we've put aside to pay off the mortgage. It's just a hostage to when it comes due.

I hope that you're aligned on the finances and how to manage them under the circumstances.

Good luck to you both.

Thank you hack that’s really kind. I realise I’ve just had a good old moan there and that’s very much looking on the negative side. Your situation is really tough I think because it sounds like your DH is really resistant to engaging with it - that must be so frustrating as well as frightening. My DP will certainly be on board with trying to get a job. I do wonder if this will give him a sense of urgency that perhaps he didn’t have before - he was looking for work alongside his existing hours and that reduced what he could do. So, we’ll see. It’s just so horrible, particularly as my job is so busy and hours are long (though I do like what I do).

Ah Martha I can see why the negative and it’s totally natural. Fingers crossed he finds some thing soon. My DH is waiting to see if his contract will be renewed in April.

Hack ❤️

Thank you life for your kind message and fingers crossed for your DH too. There’s a lot of financial uncertainty about isn’t there? I keep trying to tell myself we are lucky overall, we have our health, we don’t have a big mortgage. We have been very lucky to be insulated from a lot of the cost of living challenges so far.

same for us really but expensive teens and uni fees to look forward to

£141 Sainsbury’s fml. Food is jumping up

I was on some previous threads. Trying to pay off credit card debts here and get back on an even keel. Had an unexpected hefty dental bill at Christmas time whixh hasn't helped!
I do casual work, there are health reasons for this and I can't commit to anything more permanent.
Unfortunately, a cat sitting job, which would have been £200, got cancelled due to one of the people having an injury.
I am due pay from some invigilating later this month. I have a week of work after half term and another in March so that's some money in.
I had a very low spend week last week which was great. The weekend less so.
I feel like there's always something: car tax is due this month, boiler service and cats booster jab next month.
I'm trying hard to keep food costs down. I'm veggie and cook most of the weekday dinners so most of them are veggie.
Some friends are wanting to organise a weekend away but I know costs will spiral. The last one we had cost more than I'd hoped. One always wants to do activities and the others go along with it so that always adds up.

£350 on the dog having his teeth descaled under a general, this is what the council tax money has gone on this month, as planned. All went well, and I am glad to have had it done.