Learning to Live on Less!

White_Iris

Feeling very little house on the prairie today. I cooked up a batch of windfall apples for pie filling and did a "kill or cure" pruning on a straggly shrub in the garden, then chopped up the branches in to sticks for the wood burner. There's something very satisfying about chopping wood (or in my case slicing it with a pair of garden loppers)!

I've also managed to come in £20 under budget in the grocery shopping this month, which is a pleasant surprise although it's probably because we were away on holiday for 10 days rather than my super frugal shopping skills! Anyway, I've stashed it away for next month and hopefully I can add some more and build up a little pot for Christmas food shopping. I'm also working my way through the fridge and freezer and menu planning my socks off, so aside from a top up of fruit, bread and milk tomorrow, I should get away without a food shop until the middle of next week. I'm going to budget £50 and try one of the discount shops - fingers crossed!

Still haven't sorted out the new budget but I really need to by the end of the month as we need to increase the petrol-money pot before DH starts commuting to work again. We've also decided to set up a new savings account for when the children start primary school, to pay for trips etc. If we start now and save maybe £10 a month, by September 2014 we'll have £120 which should get us started with whatever they need for the first term (I'm assuming we won't won't have too many extra expenses when they start pre-school next month, although I'm probably wrong!).

White_Iris

Just done my first shop at Aldi and I'm very pleased to have only spent £35! For a weeks shopping!! Admittedly we do have stuff for lunches already and I didn't have to buy any toiletries but I think even if I had virtually empty cupboards I could still come in at under £50. Going to try Lidl next week and maybe use a mix of both in the future - can't see myself using the big name stores again

Off to be even more virtuous and whip up some homemade cakes and biscuits and cook up a pile of windfall apples for pile filling. Oh, and finally do our new budget! :A

White_Iris

Another successful Aldi shop - £30 in my purse and £29.06 spent! I should have £35 left out of the £100 I had budgeted for the last two weeks grocery shopping, unfortunately I made the mistake of leaving my grocery shopping money in my purse and the change has been frittered away. DH is back to work next week and the children start at pre-school, so there will be fewer unplanned trips to the shops. I've already hidden away a jar for stashing my leftover grocery money, so as long as I remember to empty my purse as soon as I get home I should build up a nice little pot of cash over the coming weeks.

White_Iris

DH is back at work today so I've spent this morning cleaning and baking - very productive :A However I've spent this afternoon sitting on the computer...not quite so productive

Need to pop out later and buy some milk but I've got some change in my purse to cover that and I shouldn't need to do a big shop until Thursday.

Need to phone my energy supplier as I think my electricity meter isn't working - it's an old fashioned one with dials and either I'm not reading it properly or one of the dials hasn't moved since we moved in. I might put it off until Wednesday morning when the children are at nursery as I think I might need some quiet time!

I also need to send another letter to our landlord about installing a water meter as the supplier still haven't received confirmation from him about agreeing to install one :mad:

Off to check the bank account, them get on with some paperwork I think.

White_Iris

Epic phone call with energy supplier yesterday - not really their fault but they couldn't get through to the department needed to book a change of electricity meter. We eventually got it sorted and they're coming next month to change it over.

Still haven't sorted out the water meter letter but hopefully will get that done today.

Didn't do quite so well on this weeks shop - still under my £50 budget but only by £3 I put it in the pot though, rather than leaving it in my purse to be frittered away. I did get a lot of things that will last for the next few weeks, so next weeks shop should be a lot better. Overall, I am really pleased with myself for reining in the grocery budget so well (it does help that both children are now out of nappies - that has saved at least £7 a week) and also for menu planning as this has helped loads! :T

Filled the car with fuel today - £57 for 3/4 of a tank (still had a bit left in there) but hopefully that should last me the month, although I do have a long trip to make tomorrow .

debtfreewannabe321

Hi WI It's good to get back into a routine isn't it. Are the children in nursery full time now? My youngest starts full time school on Monday! When I first started posting on these boards he was a baby, time flies huh! I remember my 2 younger ones getting out of nappies and i was so happy lol it really does make a difference to the budgets

White_Iris

debtfreewannabe321 wrote: »

Hi WI It's good to get back into a routine isn't it. Are the children in nursery full time now? My youngest starts full time school on Monday! When I first started posting on these boards he was a baby, time flies huh! I remember my 2 younger ones getting out of nappies and i was so happy lol it really does make a difference to the budgets

Hi debtfreewannabe321, it's great to back in a routine and be able to reclaim the house again after the summer holiday chaos! The children are only at nursery for the funded 15 hours a week (3 hours a day) but it's still nice to have a bit of child-free time.

Just ordered DS his Christmas present, as I got sent a free £10 no-strings gift card for Mamas and Papas simply because I had signed up to get emails from Giraffe restaurants. I had a look around the site earlier, thinking I get socks or something sensible but spotted the present we were intending on getting for him, so decided to use my voucher for that. I also added another Christmas gift for a friends new baby (half price in the sale), so that I would qualify for free delivery. Even though I ended up spending £40, I feeling very MSE as it was a planned spend, using vouchers and money from my eBay pot that I had already earmarked for Christmas presents. :money:

That got me thinking about Christmas in general, so I've started by making a list (and checking it twice!), setting a budget and scanning the internet for back-to-school/end-of-line sales, money off vouchers and free delivery codes. :snow_laug

thifty

Hi WI,
could you tell me how you earn money by doing surveys please? I'm a supply teacher and am waiting for my next job so I'm having to watch our money at the moment too!

debtfreewannabe321

wow well done you for being so organised! I usually am but this year I am waiting for vouchers from park so have held off spending a penny until I get them and they best hurry up I don't want to miss all the offers! I've no idea what to get for any of the kids though :eek: I best let them peruse the argus catalogue that I usually hide from them

White_Iris

thifty wrote: »

Hi WI,
could you tell me how you earn money by doing surveys please? I'm a supply teacher and am waiting for my next job so I'm having to watch our money at the moment too!

Hi Thrifty,
There are lots of survey sites out there that offer cash incentives for completing short surveys - look on the "Up Your Income" section of the forums and you'll find loads of threads about them there.

The ones I use are My Survey, IPSOS (which anyone can join) and Pincone (which you have to be "invited" to join). My Survey is great as you can reach £3 worth of points fairly quickly and then redeem them for cash via PayPal (called PayPal vouchers I think, but basically cash!), I've given up on IPSOS at the moment as it seemed to take ages to get enough points to redeem for a voucher. Pinecone is my favourite as you also sometimes get products to test as well as surveys, and you get £3 each time straight to your PayPal account.

To be honest though, I make most of my extra income from eBay - it's a pain photographing, listing and posting (especially with all the recent changes to postal rates and eBay deciding to take a cut of the money you charge for posting things) but if I'm focussed I can make up to £100 a month just from de-cluttering (mostly childrens clothes, toys etc.)

Oh and if you're going to buy anything online check if you can get cashback from somewhere like Quidco first!

Hope this helps.