Low spend/No spend February

[AlexFurbison]

Inspired by MikeRafone's January thread.

Does anyone fancy joining in with a low spend or no spend February?

I'm aiming for 10 no spend days and keeping spending very low on other days. No unnecessary purchases or meals out and keeping on top of the grocery spend.

The exception is DD's birthday. I've already bought her presents but we're going out for lunch at her favourite place so that will be a planned spend.

How is everyone doing? I’m finding Feb much harder than Jan for some reason.

I made slow cooker Mongolian beef last night and even my fussy teenage DD said she loved it so I thought I’d share the recipe:
https://therecipecritic.com/slow-cooker-mongolian-beef/

It would be an easy one to double or treble the recipe and freeze. .

We went to a wholesale warehouse last week to stock up on bulk buy meats/freezer food and household items.
Came to £115.00, but it'll last an age and no supermarket shop needed.

A weekend spent at home and the only trip planned for this week is one day as its my birthday, but as I have a yearly membership entry will be free for both DH and myself.

A £5 voucher will cover some of the coffee cost while there and I'll take food with us as I'm not one for one big meal and prefer to stop and graze while walking around.

Im not doing very well on the spending this month - but I have booked a holiday for 2 weeks in April and also needed to get some items for the holiday.

I have though still got nearly 3 weeks worth of meals in the freezer and consequently haven't been grocery shopping - thankfully

Eeking out the food cupboard until the end of the month. Pasta with garlic bread tonight, stir fry chicken and veg tomorrow, sausage and mash on Friday and then we're out for a family birthday on Saturday. Just about made it!

What meals have you got planned for the next couple of days?

I have to admit that I've relaxed a bit, so that my spending is more intentional and I'm giving myself a few planned treats.

What this thread has helped with is the impulse spending on take away coffees/teas, saving me £25 or so a week

That's good @BerfyTigot I think it's done the same for me. Feb spending has definitely been more relaxed than in Jan, but January did instil some good habits and stopped me buying 'stuff'. I paused by a cute rabbit decoration today (my daughter is planning an Easter sleepover thing with her friends) but told myself to step away and move on.

Same here....

When shopping either for food or when in shops that sell all things household I'm more aware and now question as to if I've already got 4 bottles of washing up liquid at home already do I really need another one and..

Do I really need that (insert item) to add to the others that I don't use or just want it because it looks nice...
Plus I do now think where am I going to put it.

Going into a home bargains for instance, popping items into my basket* *trolly that seem reasonably priced per item but once through the checkout and given the total amount spent leaves me thinking oops.

Decluttering a bit has also stopped me buying more junk for the house

Hi everyone hope you’re all doing ok.
We managed to have a pretty cheap half term in the end which was good.

I need to total up my spending as I’ve been a bit rubbish at updating.

We have a full fridge and cupboards at the moment but I do need to get a couple of bits for a party at the weekend. Just some dips and fruit though so hopefully not too expensive.

We had a cheap half term too. I picked a couple of vouchers up from Groupon so the DC did those. We also played some board games, read and had some play dates. Nothing super exciting but actually we quite liked the chill week.

I also told the family that I was only going to buy milk and that we'd be eating whatever was in the house. That worked really well and so for my first month we came about £100 under food budget. I might try again at Easter.

I'm still feeling motivated to achieve this. I have some big expenditure coming up and no real slack in my budget. I've switched energy suppliers, saving £25 per month and I've moved the whole family to Lebara mobile. We were already on a low tariff so it was hard to find something better, but this will save us another £5.50 per month. Here's my referral if anyone fancies doing the same, very quick, very easy to do https://aklam.io/tgrTahWs

Keep going everyone. Spring is on the way!

Ive still got 15 home made ready meals in the freezer - so next week & the week after is sorted, I have just pulled out 4 meals and popped in the fridge ready for this weekend.

It great as that means I can put away the money on pay day for the grocery shopping, but don't need to actually shop until 12th March. I need to eat what is in the freezer as going to be away from 2nd April until 22nd, so will replenish in March with fresh frozen meals - which will mean I won't have to shop for groceries in April ( bar some fruit, and will stock up on oat milk prior to leaving ) as can eat out of the freezer when we return

I have Caribbean curry, Ramen noodles, mushroom stroganoff, cottage pie and chars pork on the menu for March/April

I love how you always have so many great meals in the freezer @MikeRafone I am going to try and emulate you in March. Caribbean curry sounds lovely - do you have a recipe please?

I found the carrabbean curry on TikTok under Lauren Leyva
The ramen is Saturday kitchen
mushroom stroganoff the website for recipes delicious

I would really recommend the char Sui pork - it's like having a takeaway but as it's in my freezer frozen - its quicker than delivery! Its jades bites again TikTok and if you don't like pork use chicken - but pork is very economical and easy to prep

Im also going to try STEPH (tomato emoji)RECIPES TikTok lime and coconut chicken - looks yummy and of course can easily be frozen, plus it's an all in one dinner as rice and chicken is combined. Not for those that don't like coriander

many of these people can be found on instergram - my adult daughter follows many of them on that site - but I don't do instagram

AlexFurbison

ive just been onto chatgpt and put this in

give me a months meal plan to prep and put in the freezer, I don't like turnips and eat a lot of vegetables and fish, pork, chicken thighs, mince meat I want the diet to be healthy as im doing an endurance event. Also love one pot meals to make with rice already in the dish

I have got a menu plan, with a shopping list and all foods that I like and nothing ive made previously

its asking me about my endurance event and whether I want help with training - ive also asked for recipes using dates for during my training etc and its given me some great ideas

I don't know what I'm doing wrong with chat Gpt. Loads of people say it's great fro mela planning but I can't get it to work for me. I might give it another go. For dinner tonight we're having cauliflower nuggets instead of Quorn ones, as you can imagine, the children are thrilled 🤣 We've had them before and they're fine. I have a veg box delivered so have a cauliflower that needs using. I'm determined to come in under budget this month.

World Book Day is next week, I'm feeling a little smug as I shopped for it on Vinted ages ago so didn't spend a fortune and have got a nice outfit. This weekends task is to build Lego kits to sell on Vinted.

I would, I can be sensible and frugal but the rest of my family can't! X

My weekend task is - to not spend any money!!

I get paid on Tuesday so the purse is bare, but all the bills are paid and my savings topped up again. The credit card has had some spares paid in to drop it a bit after I paid for the holiday.

walk and coffee tomorrow, ride on Sunday and its my turn to pay for coffee and plan a route - so at least I get to pick a better cafe than last week!

Thanks! I have Instagram but not TikTok. I've got the Good Food app but will hit up social media and ChatGPT for some more ideas. Enjoy your ride!

We've got a big family birthday this weekend so going out for a nice lunch. Won't be cheap but it's budgeted for so I can just relax and enjoy it.

@LondonCheesecake your smugness sounds well-deserved. We're past the book week dress-up stage now but I remember a few last minute panics. My favourite ever was when my son went as the BFG complete with cardboard ears.

@Chinsupmeloves it's really hard if the family isn't on board. I'm the financial controller in my house which helps.

Currently decluttering as well @BerfyTigot which helps focus the mind. You look around at all the stuff and remember that it used to be money.

I have just opened up acardo, as mums net have an offer. The acado shop online gives 25% off with a minimum spend of £60 and maximum discount of £20

So I have put my shop in for next month - ready for the 12th of March, and the cost is £131 (so no different really to Sainsbury) and the advantage of shopping with acado is you can see on the screen the price per 100g of everything - so easier to make savings. Plus I get £20 off so the shop for next month is coming in at £111 also free delivery

I guess I could cut the shop in half and put it into two shopping baskets as its free delivery and mums net have a code for 30% mumsnet30

which would mean id get 2 x £65 shops with at least £20 of each shop, would that work?

The car is broken, so I'm actually doing rather well on this no spend because it's a PIA to get to the shops!
I have decided that if I only shop what I can carry I'll be quids in AND slimmer!
(I have declined to use online supermarket shopping because I hate substutions)

I’ve done the opposite with WBD this year @LondonCheesecake. This is the first year that the school have said they can dress up as their favourite book character instead of imposing a theme and they both wanted to be Harry Potter. I’ve never bought a costume before and always insisted we make one out of what we have but this year I thought sod it and went to asda 😳. Not really in the spirit of the thread but this may be their only chance to dress up as the character they actually want so I decided to let them have the ‘proper’ costume rather than a cobbled together homemade not quite right one. Of course school announced this too late for me to shop vinted and guarantee it arriving in time.

leswe I think you can be forgiven this time. I've never heard of a school picking a theme for WBD. I thought the idea was to promote a love of books and generate discussion, can't do that when everyone is forced into celebrating the same book. I hope your DC have a lovely day

Alex I used to curse when the WBD letters came out but I was actually sad when my youngest had their last one at primary school. Like you we've had some great costumes over the years. My Vinted purchase is actually for me- I'm staff and needed something new for the day

Mike you need to read the t&c carefully. You might only get discount on your first purchase

February spending:
Health and beauty £13.76
Kids stuff £41.83
Pet stuff £53.46 - shouldn’t need food for 6 months now though.
Groceries £479.85 - this works out at £3.42 pp/per day. Not bad considering there were also some toiletries in there and we hosted two parties!
Gifts/cards £42.50
Household stuff £97.97 One not-quite-impulse impulse purchase included 🤦🏻‍♀️
Food/drink out £40

Also paid £174 for a planned activity next month.

£943.37 all in. Hopefully March will be cheaper as won’t need pet food and no birthdays!

Is anyone continuing into March? I will try to be better at posting if so.

That’s pretty good @Ieswe, especially for groceries.

off to check out Ocado now - thanks Mike!

@LondonCheesecake I really miss those days too. I hope you enjoy your WBD outfit. 😊

@Ariela sorry about your car, that must be a challenge. You can select ‘no substitutions’ on your supermarket shop. That’s what I do as I once got some truly random stuff!

I’m keen to keep going in March @Ieswe It will be an expensive month in terms of planned spending as I have a birthday party (and the actual birthday present) for my son and I’m treating my daughter and her friends to lunch instead of a party (she’s 15) as she had a recent birthday too. So being frugal/mindful in other areas would really help.

leswe I will be continuing all year. My oldest DC starts university in September (hopefully!) and will only get minimum maintenance loan so we have a lot to top up so they can live. I also have a big holiday coming up so that needs paying for. It's not actually that big, just a few steps up from our usual Euro camp trips. I'm really looking forward to it but again, need to keep a close eye on spends to pay for it

As it's the start of the month, most of the bills have come out and I've put some money aside for the things mentioned above. I've placed an Ocado shop for Wednesday, but more than I would usually spend but I had a 20% off voucher and they stock some stuff that the local supermarkets don't so I like to stock up when I can.