1 mortgage, 2 babies, 3 years to be MF, 4 goodness sake!- weezl's diary

knithappens

ooh aproved food have tilda basmati - brown for 99p a kg bag end date is the end of feb, but rice will stay good

In_Search_Of_Me

Did mr weezl like the proposed pressie for next weezle baby?!!

always29

weezl74 wrote: »

I miss your swimming avatar:D

thought I'd better show Thomas outside rather than in now! trying an 8pm bedtime but not much luck so far, DP upstairs, better go and take over!

But before I do MIL has a friend who is always going to costco - I went with them once and don;t remember thinking that much of it. Could you give an idea (apart from milk!) of the things you buy there? For example do you know how much rice / pasta type things are?

Am going to really try and track our grocery/toiletries spend this month - we have a reasonable amount in but do need a fresh things shop this weekend. Thank god we are getting on ok with the reusable nappies, that should help things a lot. But then there's the whole washing cost...that's for thinking about another day!

hornetgirl

We've always blown a bit hot and cold with Costco. I've always tracked our expenditure to make sure we actually recovered the cost of the membership. We didn't renew in March last year as we'd only saved about £9 over the year - and that was only because we bought a toilet roll mountain, which we're still using!
Now DH needs 4 new tyres and can't find a decent deal anywhere locally, so is thinking maybe we should join again.

weezl74

always29 wrote: »

thought I'd better show Thomas outside rather than in now! trying an 8pm bedtime but not much luck so far, DP upstairs, better go and take over!

But before I do MIL has a friend who is always going to costco - I went with them once and don;t remember thinking that much of it. Could you give an idea (apart from milk!) of the things you buy there? For example do you know how much rice / pasta type things are?

[FONT=&quot]
Rice/pasta didn't beat asda smartprice on price, but if you wanted posher rice, then large containers of basmati are cheaper than basmati at asda/tesco.

So, things that for us work out as cost effective: Eggs, milk, enormous tins of tomatoes x 6, 1kg tubs of plain onken bio pot yoghurt. Huge jars of mellita sundried tomatoes.

If you were fond of a particular brand, like johnsons baby or pampers or persil, then there are definitely savings to be had at costco, but I tend to go with the value range, so I haven't been able to make savings there.

The voucher books almost always have a hidden gem, like a whole chicken for £1.33. [/FONT]

always29 wrote: »

Am going to really try and track our grocery/toiletries spend this month - we have a reasonable amount in but do need a fresh things shop this weekend. Thank god we are getting on ok with the reusable nappies, that should help things a lot. But then there's the whole washing cost...that's for thinking about another day!

[FONT=&quot]
Our quick wash 40 degree cycle costs just under 4p. If it was entirely full of nappies I guess that would be a whole week's worth, but we always washed other things with them. So I guess in our case I'd be happy guestimating the cost per use of nappy at 1/20th of 4p+3.5p for detergent. ie 0.4p a time

HTH! xxx[/FONT]

hornetgirl wrote: »

We've always blown a bit hot and cold with Costco. I've always tracked our expenditure to make sure we actually recovered the cost of the membership. We didn't renew in March last year as we'd only saved about £9 over the year - and that was only because we bought a toilet roll mountain, which we're still using!
Now DH needs 4 new tyres and can't find a decent deal anywhere locally, so is thinking maybe we should join again.

[FONT=&quot]I've heard they are great value for tyres. Someone else makes back her whole membership purely on contact lenses and solution, so all food is a bonus. I think it probably varies from household to household as to how beneficial it is. If it tempted me to buy more expensive meat, pizzas and gigantic tiramisu we'd probably stop going:rotfl:.

Costco is also good if you are trying to wean a child onto a varied diet! Fergie has about 6 new tastes everytime we go... taramasalata, beef, tuna steak and mango were last times offerings. [/FONT]

SusanC_2

weezl74 wrote: »

TPA have you looked at ebico? they are a non-profit energy supplier and therefore work out better for a lot of people

I got the tip from susanC who I think uses them?

Indeed I do. I got a shock on a comparison site in the summer as I thought it was telling me that everyone else was cheaper than what we had already but then I realised that the savings figures were actually all negative because they were all more expensive.

always29 wrote: »

Starting with buying an energy usage meter I think...will catch up on rest of thread baby permitting later!

I don't know whether they have them all over (or whether they would still have any left) but Lidl has energy monitors for £6.99 this week.

mark88man wrote: »

Also I thought I was doing well for eggs at Lidl 10p each , but Sainsbury had 6 large eggs for 40p (caged hens not free range) which is only marginally higher than costco eggs at 6p

I wonder what bought that on - they had a huge pile of them

I've always been puzzled about that too - I buy free range and sainsbury's is cheapest for them. (Or was last time I checked.)

mark55man

could have done with the tyres just had all 4 replaced - but not too despondent my car pays for itself over the year with mileage etc - its just 4 wheels and a tax disc in the same month is a bit ouch-y especially as OH needed insurance as well

boredofbeingathome

My electricity and gas combined has just gone down to £42 a month for both and we are over £90 in credit. I just used to work out the units using their calculations- swapped every light bulb for energy savers( Free ones ), sealed up any gaps i could find around windows-made draught excluders, switch everything off at night- just little things really.
The bill did go up to over £90 per month at one point and i was determined to get it down.

phizzimum

thanks boredatbeingat home (i always want to call you bob atbeingat home, cos of your avatar!) I've got a bit complacent with our energy usage, so that's inspired me to try to keep it under control a bit more.

HowlinWolf

Phizzimum, I've just discovered that our local library loan out energy monitors. I'm off to borrow one ASAP. Perhaps it would be worth seeing whether your local authority runs a similar scheme if you don't already have an energy monitor.