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

[BigSkies2022]

New thread

£919 garden furniture. Saved for. Looking at pizza ovens now

LSD today as we didn’t go further than the garden. More garden work and painting done today.

had parents in law for dinner. Rib of beef, potato gratin, braised red cabbage and rhubarb crumble from the freezer, tender stem broccoli, carrots and potatoes from regular groceries and it was yummy.

spent €23 on garden edging to try and keep the mulch off the paths!

Delighted with my trip to dunnes to pick up something for todays dinner and tomorrows lunch saw a couple of tops on the way in so picked them up. Total €53.34 - I’d a shop and save voucher €5, reward vouchers €9, return vouchers €11.45 bringing my bill down to €27.89 my clothing alone was €28.

How’s everyone’s Monday going?

Not exactly traditional st Patrick’s day food but I’m having pulled pork loaded fries followed by chocolate mousse torte and then tomorrows lunch is poached salmon & salads from dunnes deli counter. Le Yum as Em would say

Some delicious meals on here today! I picked up a chicken which I'm roasting with red peppers, garlic and olives. One pot meal, very easy. Baked plums and cream afterwards. Bought some lovely bread from the farmers market yesterday, one loaf in the freezer, the other disappearing fast, £9, but nice.

Total AdBlock tried to charge me £119 for renewing my cover with them, so I squealed about it (no prior warning! no seeking of consent! we had this conversation last year!) and they've changed it to renewal at the same price of £35 for the year. Just as well.

Reported back to DParents with sofa researches today, and I think we have a decision...just waiting for the final thoughts on fabric, and then we're off to the races!

About to get changed into comfies and do a nice stretch workout in front of the latest episode of The White Lotus Hotel.

Morrisons £36 groceries for me 😊
@BigSkies2022
So glad you found the sofas for your Mum ☺️
Great clothes bargains @Happierwithouthim
Gorgeous meal @pistachiosanscream
@Mochi1fudge AHH bless your daughter , you have to reward them on occasion and it's nice to do it for them ❤️
@lifelongfrugaleer l bet it's lovely garden furniture 😊

I find dunnes great for clothing @Happierwithouthim. I’m in the in between seasons clothes place which I hate. Nothing seems quite right. I’m thinking of picking up a new pair of jeans and a jumper to tide me over. I’m a 99% dress person but black tights don’t go with spring!

lovely meals everyone. We had dinner at my mums, chicken, ham and roast veg. Followed by an apple sponge. Leftover beef sandwiches for tea.

today I spent €8.50 on top up groceries and €18 on 1000 brown sugar sachets for OHs coffee cos a spoon doesn’t cut it 🙄 it’s one of his very few quirks and he is a good egg so I’ll indulge this one.

Ooh pizza oven Life my dream to own one of those in my shed, which is also only a plan in my head but I will get there! Happy hunting and hopefully pizza making...

£4.98 Asda - heartburn tablets for DS.

Team Away Day so was fed there. Met my previous manager after work and she bought me a peppermint tea.

My dinner will bring down the classy vibes of your meals 😂 homemade cottage pie. Was lovely and comforting though 😊 late night and early start here today so hit the spot!

Mochi1fudge I love a homemade cottage pie! I made roast chicken with French baked potatoes and green beans and felt absolutely delighted with myself that I had managed it on a Monday night.
I’ve subscribed to Apple fitness which so far is really worth the money - I’ve been doing a short workout every morning and I’m starting to feel the difference! So I think I will keep that and cancel the subscription I already had to an online barre class.

Absolutely love cottage pie!!! I will be putting this on my menu this week as I've got a craving for that now.
Yay new sofas too for mum! Hope she and your dad enjoy them ☺️
Spent £15 on a toast rack in the hope my family will sit up at the table and eat breakfast and not all over the living room.
£5.75 on lunch yesterday in pret as it's the last time I'll see a colleague so we went out for a walk and grabbed lunch on way back. The lunch I took into work and didn't eat I'll have today instead.

Hello, I'm back again after a loooong while, perhaps with a different username, can't remember when I last changed it! I recognise quite a few of you still! Hope everyone's well. Sun is shining here which is taking the edge off the chronic exhaustion I have through sleep deprivation thanks to my 5mo!

Money wise things have been a bit tighter over the past few months. DH and I are both in pretty insecure positions with our jobs which could go either way really. The announced NHS cuts have the potential to affect both of us unfortunately.

Today will be probably quite spendy, heading into town after the school run. Cinema ticket I paid for last week though.

Afternoon.

Checking in. I'm in that 'week before I go away' mode at work, and also at home too. Being the main carer for DH means there's lots of practical stuff I do that others don't, so I'll have to impart that knowledge to others, plus organise other stuff like extra meds, appointments etc.

Sorry to hear about the job insecurity @LegoHouse274. Such an underlying and constant stress.

Money-wise we are doing well. There haven't been any major expenses that have been unexpected.

Hopefully I'll keep up now!

Spending today
£18 lemon gin for relative visiting who drinks this.
£60 food for said relatives visiting, including IPA beer and a bottle of wine.
£54 various supplements
£75 two birthday presents
£7 milk for work but that’s expenses.

My cottage pie was Iceland made as mil rejected it 😂 she won’t turn her oven on now she has a air fryer
£12 home bargain, £2.95 greggs
happy holidays when you get there need
welcome back Lego

I too love a cottage pie but having a child who is still learning to eat mixed foods means I rarely make it.

hi again @LegoHouse274 sorry to hear about the job uncertainty.

today I spent €5 on a bag of bagels, €2 on tea at work and €30 on a deposit for a summer camp.

im a week away from payday and fingers crossed the joint account will have extra money this month. It’s a minor miracle as we had €400 of car expenses that we put through the joint this month. We save for these annual expenses separately in a sinking fund but can keep this intact now.

I'm feeling the love for the cottage pie 😊

Today has been
£3.60 Boots meal deal
£23 Lidl for a fridge top up

Hi Lego and sorry to hear about job insecurity. That kind of thing does affect things until resolved.

NSD for me thankfully 😁

Hope you all enjoyed the nice weather over the weekend, and happy St Patricks day to those who celebrated. Your dinners sound divine! We had vegan burgers, not very fancy.

Cheap weekend, went to a family party in London. Used vouchers to buy shampoo and vitamins, so a no spend weekend.

Yesterday was spendy. £185 emergency dentist, and although a massive financial inconvenience, I am grateful the local dentist could fit me in between appointments as a walk in. It am grateful I have an emergency fund to pay for things like this, what could have been a stressful event is more of an inconvenience than anything else.

Hopefully a no spend week ahead.

What a beautiful day today! Gorgeous sunshine here, shame I have to work through it!
What was meant to be a NSD yesterday turned into not, my other half had the car seat so we went to the park by bus (not expensive but the car park was free) although little one absolutely loved the bus ride. Bus back, the bus was late, my three year old kicked off so I took her to a charity shop and she chose a toy for £1.75 to keep her amused whilst we waited.
I get paid tomorrow and I have money leftover and I didn't touch overdraft (this has never happened to me before so I'm a little excited about it) I've put the leftover money into my emergency fund.
Hope youre feeling better now psuedocream?

Great job @Frugal25😁
Hope you are feeling better now @psuedocream3
Beautiful day here 😁 so we went to Hereford, we had to go to either Newport or Hereford it's our nearest bank , spent £10 Marks and Spencer
£26 Tesco all on groceries.
Petrol much cheaper 128.7 a lt in Asda.

Lovely sunny day here too. Unfortunately I've not been able to enjoy it as I'm feeling lousy and am off work sick. Not ideal in my third week of the new job but hey ho.
We had a great few days away last week and it was spendy but within budget. We never got a parking fine for our Keswick weekend and last week we got a £66 refund on the accommodation after lodging a complaint.
Need to keep to budget for the rest of the month now & need to meal plan now but just have no energy. Freezer is well stocked from before we went away so it should be a fairly easy plan.

No spend day here.
Unfortunately appears my hob has broken over night so we're going to have an expense in the near future.

Thanks Frugal and Mary, luckily only cosmetic and not a result of an injury thankfully.

@Frugal25 sounds like you and your little one had a lovely day out, my youngest os fascinated with buses but has yet to ride one. Fantastic result with money, not going into overdraft. I bet you are very pleased.

@MaryGreenhill Yes beautiful weather, spring is in the air. Oh that is good for petrol, I think ours is still at 138p but my tank is 3/4 full so I am willing to hold out for those lower price before refilling.

@northender Feel better soon, glad you had a lovely break and a few nice wins for avoiding a ticket and refund. It goes to show it's worth speaking up if your not fully happy with the service/experience.

NSD. Hopefully one of many ahead. I need to start some meal planning too, more for my sanity if anything

Feel better soon @northender lousy timing for you.

thats a pain @ChipshopPickledEgg . Was it giving trouble or did it just die?

my urge to spend is back. €83 on 2 jumpers and a pair of jeans. I also want new runners. I’ve no casual ones. But I’ll wait and try them on before buying online.

I’ve a night away this weekend which will include visiting a town with some nice shops so might find some nice bits then. The night away is covered by a fund I have with my sisters.

I did burn something on it cooking on Saturday night 😆 but other than that it's been behaving itself is about 11 years old since we brought the house though so owes me nothing just a bit annoying!

A bit spendy on Monday and Tuesday as we were out for a show and night away so had a meal out and breakfast too!
NSD today - but completed a survey and got an Iceland E-voucher for £10 I was spoilt for choice with the e-voucher selection but decided to be practical! 😇
Spent time in the garden yesterday planting up some potatoes and doing more pruning and tidying up.
Dinner tonight was a joint effort with DH - I prepared the shepherd's pie meaty /veg bit and DH topped it with mashed potatoes and cheese. He had it cooked and ready to eat for when I came home from GCs pick up from school/nursery duties/swimming lessons!!
The outside freezer is running really low now so need to do an audit of both freezers and then think about a meat delivery and Iceland shop for next week. Off the top of my head - can remember that we have casserole veg/green beans/3 x chicken breasts outside and maybe another pack of mince beef. Still another 4 meals there plus whatever is in the kitchen freezer. So could in theory avoid shopping until the end of March.