Significant Summer Saving, significantly less spending, super (non) splurging. Frugal folk continue being frugal here. All welcome.

[needastrongoneagain]

Making a new thread!

Please check in regular posters and welcome new people.

This is a super friendly thread to contribute to. We are all wanting to be as efficient as possible re spending but all have different budgets and priorities. No judgement here.

NSD (no spend day) for me.

Thank you for the new thread @needastrongoneagain

@lifelongfrugaleer Happy Birthday! Hope you have some lovely plans to celebrate.

@PearlsPearl Sounds like you are doing really well with the weightloss, well done, 6lbs is brilliant.

Car insurance quote day, pleasantly surprised that my quote is £100 less than I was quoted a few weeks back, with a very low compulsory excess. The £100 will be moved back into my account to cover overspending from last month.

Only spending has been birthday presents for DD, spent £32 with various reductions and codes, she's obsessed with the ty beanie boo unicorns so I'm trying to find a reasonably priced bundle to finish off her gifts. Next sent me a £20 of £25 spend code which will be the start of present buying for DS.

Besides that I need to do an ocado order for Father's Day, and a Whistlefish order to stock up on cards in the next few days, budgeted for though.

So im stuck in the hotel with my daughter today she unfortunately has picked up a tummy bug might go for a wonder later on when husband pops back but a restful one for me!
Can't stand most of the other wives though so I'm ok with it!
Promise I didn't feed my daughter anything bad purposefully 😆

Your secret is safe with us chip 😉

not quite 60 need though some data i feel
it
pleased the cinema worked out but it’s bonkers money

great weight loss going on tbere

spendy on DD as we went to Brahman horse event today. Do like the XC

Happy birthday @lifelongfrugaleer hope you have lovely plans!

@ChipshopPickledEgg enjoy your wander maybe you could "catch" the bug and avoid the wives a little longer

LSD here. £2 for parking and £5.90 on tea and crisps as a pot stop at the park we went to.

Dishwasher finally fitted by OH and managed to get a refund from Currys due to the men not fitting it when we paid them to.

LSD for me today £7 Aldi's on crushed chillies on a jar , 600g punnet of strawberries and wraps .
Happy birthday ,@lifelongfrugaleer 😁💐🍾🥂

£46.94 in Home Bargains and £26.98 in Lidl on stuff for holiday including cat litter, cat food and treats as our neighbour is looking after the cat while we are away. Not too much needed food wise as living off the freezer but did need more bread and baking potatoes to supplement and see us through next week.
Really need to get other suitcase out of the loft and get sorting holiday gear out - check in has been done, documents and paperwork printed off. Getting currency next week - still on school and nursery runs next week along with an overnight for two GCs and school performance to squeeze in. Gonna need that holiday by the time it gets here. 😎

Tis the plan 😆

The magical recovery as we leave tomorrow I think.

Took husbands credit card on the walk treated myself to fancy snacks and a new dress 😆

£67 on shopping today split between Lidl and Tesco (no lamb in Lidl and my son and his gf are coming for lunch tomorrow so a much more expensive shop than usual - but worth it 😊)

Also spent .99 on a kindle book offer.

Had a spontaneous sort out of my kitchen cupboards this afternoon (so I could put the shopping away…) and OMG I am embarrassed at the amount of food I have. Really need to plan my meals for the rest of the month around what I’ve already got and probably just top up on meat and veg/salads 😳

Checked my credit card and the refund from the cruise company has finally arrived!

Hi. I'm new.
Really trying this month because we seem to be over spending and dipping in to savings every month atvthe moment.
Yesterday was a NSD so I'll celebrate that.
Today not so good.
Started well with a free toddler music session at the library, then a nice family walk. Unfortunately this ended in a cafe and 3 drinks and a punnet of strawberries late 9 € was spent. Double unfortunately 2 of the drinks were rosé which led to slightly tipsy me buying a chrome cast on Vinted.
Then this evening a new vitamin c serum (argh who knew thry expire after 3 months!) plus a mosquito net for the kitchen window, saw me finish the say with over €70 spent.
Aiming for a NSD tomorrow.

@Vacuummyblub your message made me laugh! Nothing like a slightly tipsy Vinted purchase.

Spendy weekend for me. We were hosting 3 other couples and as we are doing a lot of hosting this June I did a lot of Waitrose entertaining. £97 for a half a salmon which was delicious plus 3 salads. Also spent £150 or so in Tesco on nice bread and new potatoes to go with it plus cream and strawberries for pudding. Oh, and 6 bottles of wine. Although it was expensive it saved me so much time and effort. Tons of leftovers for the week ahead and none of the wine was drunk. Have the same again next weekend so am doing another shop.

Should be a NSD today as just church and a chilled weekend in the garden.

Morning.

We've mostly all done a tipsy/bored/unthinking Amazon or Vinted purchase @Vacuummyblub, never fear!

Hosting is SO expensive isn't it @WhitegreeNcandle, we've cut back a bit - although I quite enjoy it, it was pushing up the expenses. We now mainly have family over and they are happy with extras of whatever we are cooking anyway (larger lasagna/chilli/curry etc).

Hooray re the cruise refund @chimichangaz

Getting sorted for holidays are pretty stressful I find @Rainbow1901

Spends yesterday/today
£75 dog food (I have a 'pot' for this). Hoping the groomers and food expense in one week now means I can go a month with no extra 'dog spends'
£10 subscription for a year to an app I use. I've cancelled another subscription that's much more expensive and now unnecessary.

Spending on food until payday needs to be a bit tighter than it has been but DD is away for nearly a week so hopefully this will help.

Nothing planned today re spending or indeed doing much, apart from my morning run.

Have a lovely Sunday folk.

Morning everyone! Very spendy day yesterday as took the teen to a Pokemon convention- he loved every minute but my card did not! He's been waiting nearly a year for it though and was so happy, so money well spent. Today we're off to a lego show which could also be pricey, but lego is DWs only 'thing' so she deserves a few treats.

Will have a quiet fortnight after this before my mum arrives to stay! She's quite expensive to host because I so rarely see her now we're in Scotland that I like to spoil her and go here, there and everywhere. Thank goodness I am now part time at work.

Hi all I’m back from holidays and I’ve just caught up with all the posts. Thanks @needastrongoneagain for the new thread!

holiday spending came in at €1000 which is the same as the past 2 years though we were away for 8 nights rather than 10. It was slightly more expensive as my mum came too and while she paid her own way it meant we had a couple of dates nights which were more expensive than we would normally do. We also covered some of the more expensive meals and let her pick up the cheque for less expensive ones. Overall I’m happy with this level of spending but will definitely do 10 nights next year as i find it such a whirlwind that having a couple of extra chill nights is great. It doesn’t add hugely to the cost as we would eat in a couple of nights cheaply.

yesterday Tesco came and cost €130 but stocked up on meat from their 3 for €10 specials. I’ll need to menu plan today for the week. Picked our first courgette from the garden and it’s massive so will use that somehow

Hurrah, new thread, thank you need.

Applause for WLI success Pearls - have you been advised to up your resistance/weight training exercise in order to maintain muscle? Like other consumers of health podcasts and content, I've heard a bit about WLI -absolutely brilliant breakthrough in treatment for obesity. I'd use them. in a heartbeat, if I struggled to lose significant amounts weight by diet/exercise alone, so well done for committing to your health.

Cheers for DH and his dishwasher installation skills too Frugal.

£74 on dog grooming - Ddog looks very handsome. My new make-up has arrived and it is very nice to use lovely new items and clear out the skanky stuff from my drawer! My Skims underwear finally arrived and I can tell you that the pants are lovely, would buy again. The bras are OK, but not as good, for me, as the M&S ones I would normally buy.

£22 in butcher, £10 in Lidl and bakery, food going OK with in laws installed in an AirB&B and coming and going rather than staying under our roof! DH has been buying wine and posh ice-cream to give guests (and me! my food plan is all over the place the last few days) and I think has just been paying for that out of his own pocket.

Situation with Ddad and DM still very demanding and stressful, with no clear way forward as yet. On the plus side, we (well, DH) has now paid the balance of our French trip and we have 16 nights away to look forward to!

Aiming to walk plenty and do a workout today, and try not to stress-eat all the carbs and stress-drink all the wine! DS' birthday tomorrow, and I have done exactly nothing to prepare for it, beyond offering him a shopping trip to buy something he'd like.

Hopefully a NSD for me .
Have a lovely day everyone 😊

Hi everyone. I’ve dipped in and out of reading these in the past for inspiration, but am joining this month as we had a lovely holiday over half-term, but spent more money than planned, so need to be frugal for the next few months! Plus I always feel like I should have more money each month than I actually do - where does it all go? My credit card balance has been rising too :(

I’m going to focus on my money in June and move onto the household costs in future months. My pay after tax etc was £1,691, and these are my fixed costs for the month:

• £750 to joint account for my share of the mortgage and bills
• £50 to my savings account
• £115 to my credit card to cover charges for May (including interest) - this is on top of my monthly payment
• £55 holiday costs (a tour on our last day there)
• £12 monthly prescription charge
• £11 monthly charity donation
• £55 mobile phone contract (I know this is stupidly high)

Total: £1,048 leaving £643 to cover:

• £300 main grocery shop for the month (top-ups come from the joint account)
• £120 for commute/ travel (est. £30 per week) to be in the office two or three days a week)
• £20 for coffee at work (£5 per week to treat myself to a coffee per day; after that it’s tea from the tea club)
• £50-60 for credit card payment

Total: £500 leaving £143 for any treats/ extra expenses.

That was eye-opening in terms of seeing where all my money goes. Now to think on how to improve things.

You're in the right place @EllieQ and welcome!

I can't remember the last day I posted, likely Thursday

Friday was
£2.89 Coop
£5.99 Amazon.

Nearly got a takeaway but made nachos instead so polished my halo there.

Saturday was £71 Lidl, £20 butchers and £40 B&M. Found some lovely summer dining plates and bowls in B&M for £3.50 each. Bought four of each. So that was more than expected but we do scratch around for crockery when eating outdoors. I looked at one plate in M&S last week and nearly dropped it as it was £57!

Nothing so far today but headed to the local nursery for plants with DD (I have vouchers so may be low spend) and hunting down some pool floats in Lidl. Take them in cases and blow them up there 😂

I’ve been meaning to say for the last week - Rebel Finance School started its latest 10 week free course on all aspects of managing your money last week. It won’t be too late to join if anyone is interested-
https://rebeldonegans.com/finance/rfs/Rebel Finance School - Rebel Donegans

I watched last weeks live but you can catch up on YouTube afterwards I think (I think you might have to be signed up?). It’s every Monday night at 8pm and they do a Q & A session live each Thursday.

Welcome @EllieQ . Could you do a 0% balance transfer on the credit card and then pay it off. The interest charged on them is crazy and makes it so hard to actually pay it off.

@Mochi1fudge are you going abroad for holidays? We are just back and bought the pool floats out there and found them reasonable. Bonus they were already blown up.

todays been a batch cooking day. Made granola and dehydrated citrus fruit slices while I’d the oven on. Chilli, bolognaise and a lasagne. Meal prepped small child’s school lunches. Need to finish putting away the holiday laundry and menu plan for the week.

spent €65 in Lidl this morning. Yes the day after Tesco came! I only went for extra fruit. Need to now organise the pantry properly again so I don’t do another mindless shop like this.

@pistachiosanscream Italy in August so I'm prepared for the heat and it being v busy. And likely quite expensive 😕 (Amalfi Coast). Got them in Lidl for £7.99 each in the shapes of fruit and ice cream cones before I read this. I have a little electric air pump which I got for paddling pools at home. Will be taking that too, as last year blowing up was an effort and that was Turkey in May!

@chimichangaz thanks for the link. I need something like that!

Lidl £33.55.
New Look £24 very rare I buy new clothes, as sell and buy on Vinted. But the wide leg Gap jeans from Vinted came and I treated myself to a top to go with them for a few nights out / weekend away I have coming up.
Postponed nursery trip for plants to next weekend as DD and I both tired.

Hear what you are saying about organizing the pantry to shop efficiently. In my case the fridge! I honestly think a bigger fridge freezer will save me money. I have a bog standard fridge / freezer but it's too small to organize or bulk buy. That's on the list for Autumn.

Hope everyone had a nice weekend. Back to work tomorrow - frugal lunch all packed 😇

That sounds worth a look @chimichangaz . Thank you!

I bought dd a pair of trainers for £75
today. The most expensive pair she’s had so not frugal - although they were reduced from £100. She loves them. I definitely can’t claim they were totally necessary - but I did use allocated funds for to pay for them. Anyway now I’ve confessed I need to draw a line under the slightly frivolous purchase and get back to being more frugal!

I’m busy trying to bring my spending under control, money is leaking away with far too many bits here and there. Today I spent:

£4 at the laundrette
£8.30 catching up with a couple of friends at a cafe
£5.70 in Aldi on the way home

The laundrette is a very occasional cost, I had a lot of washing and due to some house renovations no way to do it during the week & no space to dry it in. I got up early to get it all washed, and then it was £4 well spent to get it dried. I took a flask of coffee with me rather than going to the cafe next door while I waited, so £3 ish saved.

I knew that I’d be seeing these friends and going out for something to eat, so that £8.30 came out of my personal spending envelope.

£5.70 at Aldi on the way home though… not a huge amount, but £1.10 for some raspberries that I actually wanted and then £4.60 on assorted junk food on the way to the till. Not good for my purse, not good for my body!

Oh the amalfi coast sounds fabulous @Mochi1fudge. I actually did get the big fridge and separate freezer when we bought our house. Tall larder fridge and separate chest freezer. It’s great but I do sometimes have to give my head a wobble and remember that when it looks half empty that it’s actually full for a normal sized fridge. I also got lots of fridge organisers as it the space is hard to use efficiently

Shall take a look at this @chimichangaz thank you.
NSD here. Sold three more things on vinted too.

Getting slightly annoyed/down that, where I'm paying debt off and still have 1 year and 1 month to go, things are very tight for me. I know it will be worth it. By the time the debt is cleared I'll have £450 a month more and also an emergency fund but at the mo it feels like a slog. Esp as OH is having to pay for things that we need and I can't help at the mo. Very much looking forward to being like all of you and having pots for spending. I shall get there.

But lunches are packed for myself and DD tomorrow and it will be another NSD :)

We were in sorrento at Easter if you want to know anything pistachios

you will get there frugal. A year and a month isn’t long. Is your debt fixed? Can you reduce the payments slightly to free up a bit more now?

£30 Iceland yesterday
i have a small chest in the garage. A built in fridge and a big fridge freezer I brought from my old house