Is your March miserly or munificent? Join the frugaleers sharing news and tips.

[BigSkies2022]

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Enjoy the nice nails @PenniesButton. The psoriasis medications I’m taking are really improving my skin and hopefully my nails so I’m hoping I can schedule in a mani pedi soon before holidays.

@Imperfectpolly thats a bit of a blow about the childcare. At least you have the money saved and not looking at a hole in the purse.

the good weather has continued though a bit cooler and we did great work in the garden this weekend. Finally put out the solar lights I bought 2 years ago and also found some more cushions I’d ordered last year when they went on clearance. Delighted as I’d forgotten about them and DH did want me to get more.

yesterday spent €20 on the balance for swimming lessons and €60 for 2 days of camp over Easter for small child.

today spent €30 on a takeaway and €2.75 on chipsticks

Today was spendy-ish.
Bought three cinema tickets for later in the week for £22. Going to see The Penquin Lessons.
£27 on lunch for me and DD at a little Korean place we like.
£23.52 M&S. Got £1.50 off with work discount scheme. Did the same in Asda on Friday so I'm saving a £ or two here and there. Must remember to do that more often, even £5 per week will help!

Ooh, I want to see Penguin Lessons as well. Think it will be a nice outing for the three of us before DS goes back to university.

This week I have some spends coming up: Ddog's haircut; plumber coming to fix water hammer in pipes and talk to me about our kitchen; food shopping for Easter weekend.

Also need to look ahead for spends in May, June and July - personal trainer/fitness course; holiday balances due; going to DS' graduation show; going to DS' graduation. The second quarter of the year (April - June) is going to be spennier than the first, but should be doable.

@BigSkies2022 will report back after Thursday! It's me, DD and Dsis. DD is almost 14 and interested in history so hoping she will like that aspect of it and the penguin of course! 🐧

Morning all. Off to London again for the week. Radiotherapy sessions 3-8.

paid £300 yesterday to upgrade DH and my flights to business giving us additional baggage (because we want to do some shopping) and lounge access etc. cheaper to do a last minute upgrade than actually buy the seat in the first place. £300 for 2 people for 5 flights (over the course of the next 3 weeks) compared to £500 outright.

did I need it? No. Will it make a shit trip (for medical stuff) a bit better? Yes.

Good luck with the radiotherapy trip, em, and absolutely with you on the booking upgrades. I'm not au fait with upgrade bookings - in fact, haven't been on a flight since 2018 - so may come back to you with requests for deets! Hope the shopping goes well also.

Plumber cancelled today, coming tomorrow, so I am using today to work through a load of admin, washing, ironing, floor-cleaning and bed-changing. Also need to go to the supermarket and to Superdrug to buy one of those tanning moisturisers since it is getting towards time to get my legs out, and they are milky white.

The 52 micro-changes task for this week is - Set up a fun fund for guilt-free spending. Hurrah! She is targeting this at those FIRE types who struggle to spend, but I find it a useful tool to keep me on track (being very much someone who doesn't struggle to spend).

I have a travel fund (a Chase pot) and put money away in there each month.

Then I look at the other stuff I know I want to do, like courses/lessons, and I make provision for those each month in Guilt-Free spending (another pot in Chase). Haircuts, skincare, make-up, gifts get paid for out of guilt-free. Also trips out, events, dinners, the (very occasional) hotel night/rail fare, subscriptions - you know, Ents, as we used to call it in our student days. I try and put money aside for birthdays and Christmas here too, but am less successful at that, so Christmas usually means a very lean January/February for me!

I use PayPal pay in three/0% credit for 4 months where possible to fund clothes and extra bits for the house, like bedlinen. So that is another bit of guilt-free spending, but since it is a debt that must be repaid, it sits under fixed costs, and I just try and make sure the balance and monthly repayments stay down, and that I end each year at zero.

Thinking of you @ememem84 and l know you definitely did the right thing upgrading to Business class 💐
I got up very early and went to Aldis for the legs of lamb on offer .
Bought a few other things too, flowers for Easter for my Dad's grave and my Mum's room . A top for Dh .
Spends £83

Good luck @ememem84 and i hope its not too hard this week. Thats a great tip about business class. Not that ill be doing it anytime soon but i do love a good travel tip.

I've never used klarna or the paypal pay in 3 @BigSkies2022, im too afriad i will get sucked into debt. But when i do buy clothes etc i do it all at once so being able to spread out the costs is tempting.

Today i spent 6:95 on bread, bananas and buttermilk. First day of easter holidays and small girl was minded by my mother and spoilt rotten. TOmorrow we will do some baking and maybe a trip to the library.

Yeah, you have to be confident of your habits around using credit, I agree. But I've used 0% finance in different forms for years, to spread out costs so they're manageable and I don't miss out on holidays or whatever. My rule is that I could always pay down the balance from savings if something happened to my income to make monthly repayments tricky; and I always pay off within the 0% period.

I'm pretty much the same debt is used but only when I can put the money in an holding account and pay it off when due rather keep it in my account plus it acrews (pennies) a bit of interest in my savings.

Yeah I think the key part is having it in savings to cover if you need it. This might actually work for me if I do that. Might help mr manage my flood gate mentality

Oohhh the fun fund sounds like a great idea and I'm Def doing this tomorrow :)
NSD yesterday for me. We hit the park and made daisy chains and played on the swings.
Today was £10 for an hour family swim session and then we spent the afternoon hanging out at my mum's and cleaning my car so that was free.
Hoping for NSDs until Thursday which is payday. And even then I may take her back to the park instead the usual £6 play group as she really enjoyed it.
Good luck @ememem84 , brilliant idea for the flights, and definitely worth it too.

Good luck with the fun funds Bigskies

Hope the radiotherapy goes okay em and too right, go with the business class.

Pleased you got your leg of lamb Mary

Today was a spendy one.
Off work so I contacted a company about rubbish collection. It was too much to do tip runs - I cleared out 10 years worth of junk from the shed at the bottom of the garden plus the lean to behind the shed. He offered to take the lot today for £200. Said to DH I think that was a bit steep but he said skips are around £400 these days. It's a psychological tick to get that done and means we can progress with screening off the bordering property at the bottom of the garden as they chopped the trees down and are planning a car park (if the council ever grants permission!).

Other than that:
16.93 Lidl
£6.95 and £8.50 Amazon both essential spends
£6.75 coop
£47 out for lunch with DD and friends.

Hope next two days with be lower spend days as then we are out / away for Easter 🐣 which will be yet more 💰😂

£64 at dog groomer this morning, with £10 discount on loyalty cards. The discount means Ddog's haircut costs the same as mine! £5 in the bakery.

Need to go and do some food shopping, but now waiting in for the plumber who deferred his visit yesterday to 'mid-morning' today.

DH did some heroic planting in the garden yesterday - got all the new plants that we bought on Sunday into the ground, saving a few which will go into big pots. I had a small twinge of guilt as I looked at him labouring away while I ironed in front of the telly; but then I thought about the day spent jet-washing, and all the weeding and tidying I've already done, and the painting I will be doing over the next couple of months, and I thought, "Nah. Leave him to it."

I hope all goes well Em, I agree the flight upgrade will make it a less stressful trip.

Experiencing a rapid outflow of funds at the moment. £30 Petrol due to travel to visit family, £24.99 Dermatica - annoyingly they usually email to warn about upcoming deliveries but not this time, and I already have a tube full of tretinoin so it wasn't needed. My fault for not delaying the delivery but not money I had spare this month. And £120 for DDs prom dress, praying she likes it and it fits as we are fast approaching prom with not much rime to replace if she changes her mind.

Also losing out on income due to Easter holidays and have wedding anniversary to buy for early next month and no idea what to buy. Then a wedding to attend the month after and need an outfit, get hair done etc. Expensive few months ahead.

Costco monthly run for us today £132 , petrol 125.9 a litre so we filled up too .
£48 weather taken a turn for the worse unfortunately ,
Cold and wet 🙄
Thank you @Mochil was very happy with my lamb 😁

Hi everyone!
Back from our weekend away, we probably spent about £200 on food between the 4 of us …. But than included a sainsburys shop, 2 x takeaways and ice creams. Didn’t really buy much else tbh. And it was all money we had put aside from selling dd’s bike last year, so counting it as a nsweekend!

I did order myself a budget diary and some collagen powder on Sunday came to £40.32!

Today;
£40 towards the credit card.
£6.50 on some ‘magic’ cream ready for dd’s blood test on Thursday.
£32.50 asda on some school shorts and school shoes.

Was hoping for a nsd today but it was all essential!

Seem to walk into Aldi or any other supermarket and buy hardly anything and come out £30 lighter at the minute I remember when £30 was a half decent shop!

I remember that too @ChipshopPickledEgg !

Garden centre lunch with a friend £11.75

Hope the radiotherapy goes well Em - the flight upgrade sounds like money well spent.

I had a spendy Sunday as I booked that cruise I was thinking of…..but it’s my last big spend while I’m still working, will be pulling the reins in after my last payday!

Popped into Aldi after work to get some toner - they didn’t have it but I walked out £12 lighter due to buying a bathroom cleaning pad, cheese, ritz crackers, an Easter egg (for me!) and skinny bars.

Have sourced some toner at Boots so will get that tomorrow and might use points to pay.

Considering I wanted a NSD I spent £71. Ahem. Two Easter eggs for friends, I didn't think we were doing them but they both gave me eggs so had to return the favour. Treated OH and DD to lunch today. And then bought my exfoliator in superdrug. Maybe tomorrow will be a NSD. Will have to transfer funds from savings to cover today but im grateful to have the savings to cover it and not go overdrawn.
How cheap is Costco petrol?! I thought mine at Sainsbury's was cheap at 144!

Had a NSD yesterday and on course for another one today (fingers crossed) Also had a couple of small sales on Vinted so £6 due to come my way. Also checked Topcashback and after settling the holiday balance have £80 to come too. Makes a change to be incoming instead of outgoing!! 😎

LSD here!
£2.20 on the hospital car park!
£12.50 on a dress from vinted, £16.73 including postage!

£101 in Sainsbury's. Could have made some savings by splitting my shop between there and ALDI, but in the event, I CBA, and did everything under the one roof. Just the meat to collect on GF morning, (more spends) and maybe a bit of greengrocer shopping. I am swerving Easter chocolates this year, (we still have a box from Christmas, they will be just fine) and will spend on much more delicious cardamom buns to share with Fam on Good Friday. More Fam for dinner on Saturday evening, then meeting a friend, possibly for dinner, maybe just a walk and tea, on Sunday. Hoping to fit Penguin movie in at some point.

More excitingly, we bought Eurotunnel tickets last night for France trip in August/September - £294 for us, plus Ddog. The balance on accommodation is due on June 7, about £2800, and I'm on target to meet it. Then there will be £350 for additional accommodation for one night on the way there and again back. And getting spends together.

Ddog will need an animal health certificate, which costs around £250 this side, and very much less on the French side. It has to be done every single time - thank you Brexit. C'mon UK-EU trade negotiators, sort out the return of the pet passport!

£77 Lidl. Will need to pop back Friday morning before we head to stay in a caravan on the Northumberland coast.
£66 boat trip to see puffins and sea lions. Me DD and her friend.
£2.28 Asda

I think I've paid for most Easter weekend plans up front by now🤞 🤞 keep dipping into savings but like said up thread at least it's there to take from!

That does sound a faff for poor DDog bigskies but exciting costs for France!

Good news on the incomings rather than outgoings rainbow

Edited to say I forgot £79.99 for some posts to screen the garden border off from a neighbouring property (it's an empty commercial unit at the moment)