Need tips on switching the family from frivalous to frugal please!!

balletshoes

onwards and upwards from now on OP .

pigpen

Bumpmakesfour wrote: »

I tried to sneak in different brands.eg tescos own choco snaps instead of coco pops and my 8 year old noticed straight awa but I'll persevere with that idea.Need to meal plan as I'm terrible and if I go in to tescos each day to get dinner I end up spending £60 on impulse buys

Switch the contents from the tesco box to the cocopops box and see if she still notices.. Mine eat the tesco value cocopops.. in a proper cocopops box.. they didnt even notice the difference.. the choco hoops are disgusting though.. not at all like weetos.

Besides.. she will get used to the new ones.. she is 8 she does as she is told and gets what she is given and should count herself lucky she gets something other than weetabix.. I actually prefer the choco snaps and I am really picky!

And you dont SNEAK anything in.. you say this is what we are having from now on.. you are the one paying!

Bumpmakesfour

balletshoes wrote: »

onwards and upwards from now on OP .

Definately! A big :beer: to that!!

Bumpmakesfour

pigpen wrote: »

Switch the contents from the tesco box to the cocopops box and see if she still notices.. Mine eat the tesco value cocopops.. in a proper cocopops box.. they didnt even notice the difference.. the choco hoops are disgusting though.. not at all like weetos.

Besides.. she will get used to the new ones.. she is 8 she does as she is told and gets what she is given and should count herself lucky she gets something other than weetabix.. I actually prefer the choco snaps and I am really picky!

And you dont SNEAK anything in.. you say this is what we are having from now on.. you are the one paying!

Haaa love it!Will try that box idea!And that will be my mindset from now on....I'm sure they won't notice most things anyway!

CH27

I used to transfer own brand cereal to tupperware boxes:rotfl:

plzhelpmesave!

Bumpmakesfour wrote: »

Wow you paid less for all that than we did just for tickets It was a 3D film..£10.75 per adult x 2 plus £8 per child x 3 then £18 for the kids pack of popcorn/drink/magic stars and a sharer tub for me and hubby.Total total Rip off!!To add insult to injury we then went to Frankie and Bennys and spent another £50 on dinner :o:o
Am feeling a bit daft looking back at the cash we've wasted over the years.Gosh we could have a really lovely savings acct balance..but have zilch

Not daft, just 'uninformed'!! Its only through this site that you realise how much money you can save just by changing how you do things.

You can still go to the cinema - just go at a cheaper time, or on certain days, e.g. cheap tuesday, orange wednesday, kids am

You can still eat out - just use a voucher, or eat earlier/later when it is cheaper & keep your eyes open for offers, e.g. groupon, kgb deals etc

Look around for offers, special events, money off vouchers and use them with pride!!

My kids know we won't go anywhere unless we have a voucher, discount code or have got it for free! :rotfl:

I think its a really good way to teach kids too about the value of money. I took 7 kids (mine & a friends kids) to a soft play centre today and paid £7 entry for all of them by using a £1 promotional voucher from a website, had snax in our bags and bought a jug of juice for £1.40. We went after lunchtime so they'd eaten, I told them they couldnt buy any sweets or cakes from there and they all had a great day.

Would have cost us £35 entry at full price and we could easily have spent £20 on food & snax...:eek:

Better get on and double check I have printed all vouchers I need as we're going to alton towers tomorrow!!

Have fun Bump, and try to enjoy the moneysaving ride! It's a bumpy one!!

Mojisola

plzhelpmesave! wrote: »

Have fun Bump, and try to enjoy the moneysaving ride! It's a bumpy one!!

I think this attitude is important. Instead of saying - we can't do/afford that - think - aren't we clever, we've just done that for half the money we would have spent before.

Spendless

Bumpmakesfour wrote: »

ohhh just checked out the cinema £1 showings on a sat too..GREAT idea thankyou!That could be a once/twice a month outing.We went to see a film 3 weeks ago..cost £46 to get on then £18 on popcorn.I'm not tight but DEF begrudge paying £64 on the cinema :eek: Question..how do you keep "extras" costs down?Take your own popcorn??Are you allowed to do that??

Also joined a special needs swimming club so we can go as a family on a sunday night for £1 for the 5 of us instead of it costing £12...fab

I have a feeling this whole money saving lark can become quite addictive :rotfl:

I have a roomy bag with multi pockets for such occassions.;) I bag up sweets/popcorn and take drinks in. I have even taken ice-cream before when an offer was on the mini pots I knew it wouldn't melt cos first it had gone into my freezer which freezes stuff hard, and then it was taken out just before I set off. I've looked thru ts & cs of my local cinema and I can only see stuff relating to you not fetching hot food in. A few years back there was a notice at my cinema saying bags would be searched, that was the point I got the bag with many pockets..whistles.. I've not seen any such sign for a long time though. Occassionally I will let the kids have something from the cinema.

Another thing, do you get a local paper? There are often cut on coupons in there specific to your town/area. I went thru my clippings the other day and discovered a 241 voucher on a swim and skate day at my local leisure centre to be used by today, so on my day off I went with the kids to use it up. At the min any vouchers for kids off the expiry date is oct 31st, so am saving stuff for oct 1/2 term. Since I started clipping vouchers, I find we do more stuff cos instead of thinking we can't go cos it's too dear, I think this won't cost a great deal. Timings are also a good thing. There's a pub a short drive from me that has an outdoor pool, climbing equipment and some furry pets, but the meals are expensive, but they don't serve mid-afternoon, so I time my outings there for then mainly and every so often for a treat we'll eat there too.

Jugs of juice when you are out is a fab idea. We were on holiday at center Parcs last year at same time as my mate and family. There were 5 kids in total from age 4-10. My mate's husband asked if they did a jug of squash and they did. The person next to him looked sick as he then paid less for the jug then he'd paid for 3xfruit shoots.

YORKSHIRELASS

Hi! As a parent being money saving is always hard because of course you want your kids to have everything. I still find it hard to say no sometimes. I do think though that yours are at a really good age to start getting them used to the idea that the family doesnt have a bottomless pit of money to fund everything. Try and think along the lines of how could we do this cheaper or for free - instead of thinking we cant do this because its too expensive.

When you go for days out take a set amount of money, put it in a separate purse and let the kids get involved in spending it. My two love this. We took £20 for a day at the seaside and I gave them free reign. They could choose between expensive ice-creams or cheap ice-creams and a go on the amusements. Fish and chips on the sea front or a sandwich from the supermarket? The only rule is that once the money is gone its gone.

My DS is 12 and I am proud of him being really frugal. He wanted a certain type of Adidas football boots recently so they had to be bought second hand off ebay. He understands that by only paying £7 for them it meant I could also get him a Nike sweatshirt that he wanted. I have always taught him there is nothing wrong with buying things second hand and you dont have to tell other people if you dont want to. I was interested to hear his friend admiring his new boots and asking where he got them from and he said "dunno, Mum got them somewhere". I know he is secretly pleased that they only cost £7 and the fact that they arent new doesnt bother him at all.

Bumpmakesfour

So we have the first disagreement on our money saving journey! So far no problems and everyone has happily gone along with whatever madcap thing I come up with.Till today!
Hubby will not back down on the bloody lottery!!He put 2 lines on for £4 last night on the euro and just asked me to do 2 for tonights..so £6 on lottery.
Am I being unreasonable thinking we should stop that too??I spent 45 mins trying to shave the grocery bill down last night by £20..so to then "waste" 6 on lottery pees me off quite frankly:mad: But hubby is in the land of "if we win we'll be millionaires" and really not being persuaded.
Any opinions most welcome(before I strangle him!!!:p)