January Jingles, Valentine Capers, Frugal Fun Shenanigans & Looking Forward to Spring!

[DirtyGertiefromno30]

Welcome to the New thread everyone 😊
Here's to everyone of us and hoping 2026 brings us all health happiness and frugal finances 🤗

She loved it @lifelongfrugaleer 😁
A birthday to remember 🙏❤️

Happy birthday to your mum @DirtyGertiefromno30 - hope you got a slice of that cake, Ds is 24 today, so just a little bit younger 😃

NSD today as planned, missed my gym class as my car was supposed to be picked up for a service, only for them to cancel!! Annoying!!

Out for dinner this evening to celebrate ds2 birthday, DH is paying so no money will be taken from my account , will be nice to have a night off from cooking.

Im still wrestling with finances, trying to workout how much I should allow each week/month for unexpected expenses 🤔

The weather has been fairly dull here today, although I’m certainly appreciative of the slightly longer days, I can’t wait for spring and some days where I can air the house out and leave the windows and doors open, I’ve put vases of daffodils out to try and cheer the days up a bit.

Hope everyone has had a good Monday.

Thank you so much @Johaanah, hope your Ds has had a lovely day! 🎂 Ah, 24 bless him 🎂🎀🎁🎈🤗
Annoying about the car service cancelling especially when you are geared up for it 🙄.
Glad you’re getting a night off from cooking though, dinner out sounds lovely 😋
Finances are always a juggle, especially the unexpected bits hope you manage to get a good system sorted and please let us know because it's something l struggle with too 🤗.
Dull weather here too, but Daffodils always help lift the spirits a bit, don’t they? Spring can’t come soon enough for me !

Afternoon.

I’ve lost track. Lost a post over the weekend. And DH is now calling…

Happy Birthday to your Mum @DirtyGertiefromno30, she still has lovely hair doesn’t she?

And Happy Birthday too to your DS @Johaanah, enjoy the meal tonight. Re unexpected expenses, I think this becomes easier if you’ve tracked for a few months or a year. I’m stabbing a bit in the dark with my ‘house’ pot - we can always review.

I like the sound of your spuds @Frugal25

I’ve cancelled a couple of subscriptions that DH accidentally signed up for, so about £8 per month saved. My dress from Unfolded is going back, so that’s £55 to be returned.

Spends
£15 Amazon on herbal tea.
£70 annual travel insurance for me for Europe and Uk.
£33 race entries, exciting to be racing again!

Baked ratatouille orzo for supper.

AHH thank you @needastrongoneagain, that's so lovely of you , yes she does still have lovely hair , no colour in it either bless her ❤️
Good job cancelling those subs, every little helps! Shame about the dress, but at least the money will be back 🤗. Sounds like a busy spendy day for you . Amazon tea, travel insurance sorted, and race entries, exciting times!
Your Ratatouille Orzo sounds delicious, hope it warms you up on this miserable day 😋

I love daffodils too and have a vase on the coffee table. dD (4) loved them so much she now has some in her room bless her.
Ratatouille orzo sounds delicious.
Happy birthday to your son!!!!! Enjoy the dinner 😀

A bit of spending today. Some eggs in Marks and Spencer on the gift card and £5.08 in Lidl. Annoyed with the 8p as I had left my purse behind and had to use a £10 note.

A bigger room for your mum sounds nice @DirtyGertiefromno30 and glad she had a nice birthday. Hope you’ve had a more restful day today.

That’s a conundrum @BigSkies2022. Hope you’ve manage to work out what’s going on.

Happy birthday to son of @Johaanah. Enjoy your dinner.

Uneventful day today. They are always welcome.

@Frugal25my Mum loves Daffodils too , l bought her a Daffodil duvet cover for her last year's birthday and she's got it on today !
@RumBananaSundae m&s eggs are a good price tbf .
Thank you so much re my Mum she's had a lovely day ❤️
And her room is fantastic 😍
Good to have a calm uneventful day sweetheart 🤗💐

Happy Birthday to @DirtyGertiefromno30 mum and @Johaanahs son. I hope they both enjoyed their days.

Today was bill day - so quite a bit has gone out of my account.
Additionally I did a small shop buying supermarket brand lemsip and ibuprofen, a birthday card and a pack of haribo for about £9.

So glad your day was uneventful @RumBananaSundaei was thinking of you this morning.
Ooohhh a daffodil duvet cover... I may have to have a Google search! Thank you.
How odd @BigSkies2022eso.when your so savvy..... Hope it becomes clear. I normally find it's when I've noted something down twice on the budget but you're probably not as blonde as me.

Just seen the lidl magazine and they are doing a three course dinner with side and bubbles for about £12. May have to purchase and get the dining room table all pretty. We don't tend to go out since DD but a date night indoors will be fun

i am going to have to take a good look for sure. I think with DS back home ( and then his girlfriend being here too from time to time)our food bills have increased. And because I often shop as I go (partly to get my steps in) it’s easy to think you’re not spending much because it was only £10- £15-£20. Plus I have become fussier about food (bloody van Tullekens!), and upping lean protein, (bloody Gabrielle Lyons! ) so butcher bills creep up. Anyway, I’m going to get a handle on it.

@Shnoutaw thank you so much❤️. Mum had a wonderful time 😊
Not bad going all that for £9 TBF 😊.
I hope you are ok and not needing the lbuprofen and the Lemsip 💐
Omg@Frugal25£12 for a Valentine's meal with bubbly that's amazing , l must go and have a look at that! Thank you for the heads up 😋🤗
I bought Mums daffodil duvet cover from George a year ago now 😊
@BigSkies2022 you will sort it out l am sure , you are so good at your organising 🤗
Just got back from Picking up Dd2 from the station and Silent Witness is going on now!
Both episodes 😁

@DirtyGertiefromno30 Happy Birthday Nana Pumpkin! 🎉 🌺 Looks like a lovely day was had!

And happy birthday to your son @Johaanah

I've also been really busy, keep reading the thread and not replying! But I am still here.

Over the weekend I made progress with the finance planning. Opened a monzo account and have organised it into pots. Opened a Christmas saver account with Yorkshire Building Society which is 5% interest which I'll add to over the next few months. Made an appointment with an IFA week next week.

Today was £19 at Lidl. £2.90.coop..

Oh Jonah happy birthday to your DS too

yip rum all those things will push your bills up. We are in the same boat re protein & eating better

Hello, i Returned from my long soujourn but then haven’t posted again for ages. Been so busy and I lost a post last weekend, gah! But I have been reading and frugalling, thanks all for inspiring me.

I have signed up for the YNAB trial and gosh, I absolutely love it! It’s expensive and quite a learning curve at first but I will definitely subscribe as I think it will save me a lot of money being more organised and conscious. I wish I’d done it years ago. I remember there was a poster from RoI - Happier? - who swore by it, I should have listened as I honestly think we’d have a smaller mortgage now if I’d done that 10 years ago. Oh well, better late than never.

(I don’t think Happier is still on here with a name change, though I may be wrong, hope she is okay).

I have organised all my money into pots, made allowances for all sorts of irregular spends like annual bills, new glasses, garden spend, kids’ activities…. I am aiming to get a month ahead, we’re not far off to be honest because I get paid on 24th and usually haven’t spent ahead at that point but that last week of the month is what I am aiming to cover now with ‘last month’s money’. Then a clean slate. We are very lucky to have enough money for the month but I need to save a lot more, especially with my job not feeling very secure right now. And I am in my 50s and want the mortgage gone by 60.

our food bill is really high (I’m embarrassed to admit how high!) as we eat really well. I cook a lot and cook for other people a lot, so it adds up. I’d like to reduce that by £200pm. However, like an PP I am also very conscious of UPFs and trying to avoid wheeever possible - thanks van Tullekens here too! - though it’s harder getting kids and DH on board. I am also trying very hard to lose weight - spending much less on chocolate and junk, which helps, but more on prawns and whatnot! And spending a LOT of time cooking. I do enjoy it but not sure it’s sustainable 😳

i took lunch into the office every single day in January, feeling virtuous but also… the time commitment! Onwards….

Morning.

All good plans @Lockin26 and in truth, better to be doing that than posting on here in practical terms.

@BigSkies2022 - you know I like my health and longevity stuff. We probably spend more on food because of this fact, it really matters to me that we eat well for life than spending in other aspects of our lives. My pots and budgeting reflect this - maybe it’s more a question of jiggling a few pots. That said, I’ve barely been for a top up shop recently and am rather surprised to see how much of a difference this makes.

A good portion of my gardening pot was spent yesterday, although it has rolled over for 2/3 months given it’s that time of year and our gardener hadn’t been. He spent most of yesterday here yesterday tidying up and scarifying etc (£110) and has sent over his lawn treatment plan for the year, which is the best part of £500. The downside of having a huge garden.. It looks fab today though and all the clearing of the leaves mean you can see just how many spring bulbs are coming through.

Morning all!
A bit of a grey day here. Fits my mood a little as I've come down with a hideous cold and my head is in the fizzy bubble if you know what I mean.
I've done a bit of cleaning and made another batch of laundry detergent. It's working out that I'm making it about every three weeks and costs about £0.90 roughly. Plus my time of about 15 mins. Worth it I think as it does clean very well.

Going to drug myself up after this cuppa and pick up DD from pre school at lunch and take her on the bus to the library. I don't really want to, I want to curl up in bed but I promised we would go and her books are due today. Also gets us out of the house for an hour.
I won't go to yoga session tonight so that's £10 saved. Although knowing me I'll probably treat me and DD to something in the charity shop next to the bus stop!

I'm another one who is reducing the UPF in the house and the food prices have gone up accordingly. Although at the mo I'm keeping food to around £45 a week to get a handle on my credit card debt, I do still try and make most things from scratch, just very cheaply.

Hope everyone is all ok.

OH surprised me last night when I proudly showed him the Lidl valentine's deal, by saying we could go out. Just us. On a date for valentine's day. Since having DD four years ago we stopped dates. We just don't do them as he refuses to leave her with anyone. So this is a huge deal. I think it probably has something to do with his best mates marriage falling apart and it's worried him enough to think we need to actually be a couple as well as parents bless him. I now have 2 weeks to lose 10 stone to look decent enough for a dinner 😂

Money well spent on nice food and garden Need! My garden is a right mess - it took a beating when we did building work a couple of years ago and were not here all summer (and builders chucked their rubbish around). We need to spend time and money on it this year. I have not provided enough for that in my pots but will treat this year as a one-off from savings. I’d love a gardener but in London the cost is astronomical! And it’s not even very big, as you can imagine (though decent for London).

I was a bit impulsive at the weekend and booked a holiday let for October half term. Just in the uk, an area we’ve never been to with the kids and with a few attractions they’ll like, so we can drag the kids on lots of days out in the drizzle. We already have other trips booked this year but we had some loyalty points so got money off and it was pretty good value. And I’m trimming elsewhere so it will be fine. It’s nice to have things to look forward to, with DS’s disability we live quite a restricted life day-to-day so try to make the most of what we can do together and with him.

10 Stone Frugal25! 😂 I think you’ll be fine, he obviously loves you the way you are. But time together is important if you can do it.

Is there still a. Frugaleers weight loss thread? There used to be, so we don’t bore everyone on here.

Our garden is waterlogged and very uninviting at present. Time enough to get stuck in when it’s drier.

Right I have done a calculation for February and after our regular bills and anticipated spends on pet food, plus another one-off for a repair, we should have in the region of £800 to feed ourselves and keep clean.

£200 a week. I must be able to manage on that!

£46 in ALDI this morning. So £154 left until next Tuesday.

The hospital I work at have a Costa coffee and breakfast bap deal. I get It roughly weekly. It started at £2, went to £2.50, but today when I went to get it has gone up to £3.60. so not really a good deal anymore so I didn't buy it .. guess it's saving me money. Plus I can make nice coffee at home. But at work I had an instant coffee instead and no bap, which is good for my diet I suppose...Parking is a pain due to building work so I fancied it after a stressful drive in. But I do now park next to Greg's and they have a cheeper deal...

@Frugal25 my DH is the same with not liking babysitters. But now youngest is 3 is changing his tone, but just family looking after him in the evenings. He never had a babysitter when he was little, I always had various different babysitters. Mostly teenagers.

Just posting to keep track: £10 in butcher, £144 left in budget until 10feb.
book group £3.50 on a hot chocolate. Needed today!

I’m trying to figure your previous username @ArmDimples , you must have been around a while if you remember Happier. The gardener is a necessity since DH had his stroke, he used to do it all himself before then. Holiday sounds good! Hope your DS is okay.

£5 postage sending original certificates to a company re DF
£6 cold tablets.

Get the Greggs app and yes much nicer than Costa

£20 DS hair cut today
make a uni list for DD. We are starting early as she wants to get as much as possible from the chazzer.

yes it was happier with ynab. I too am lost with the name change

you got this big. £200 pw sounds doable

Love a Greg's. Much nicer than Costa. Sorry it's gone up for you @Alwayslearning25thats so cheeky .
Yes we are going to have my brother or mum for babysitting duties. OH wouldn't trust anyone else. Although like you I had teenagers look after me when I was little. And then I did it too when I was a teenager!

£6 in charity shop. Tried five before finding some tat for 50p for DD and I had to buy a top as they didn't accept card under £5. It's a nice top though so all ok.
£2 on buses to the library.