Chanie fabulously looks after her pennies...

chanie

the missing £10 has been found

I put money in envelopes for purchases and add to them each month. I prefer this to YNAB and its much cheaper. I had put money aside for DS birthday and took the envelope to the shop. When I got home that evening, I couldn't find the envelope, which had £10 left in it. I thought I'd lost it.

Anyway, I found the envelope today, tucked into my notepad at work. I was a little bit annoyed with myself, as I would only have lost it due to my own doing (so no theft suspected). Am pleased I found it, really cheered me up.

pennywisepoundstupid

Glad you found the missing money.x.

chanie

pennywisepoundstupid wrote: »

Glad you found the missing money.x.

Thanks Penny.


The Metro today had a £5 off a £40 spend in Lidl. The voucher is valid until next week, so grabbed two copies: one for this weeks shopping and one for next weeks shopping.

Kitten868

It's naughty but I'm glad I'm not the only one having the budget go to pot every now and then sometimes it has to happen to get you back on the case.
Ds's party sounds fab! Can we come? I think it's great that no one goes without you're just smarter about it.
My freezer drawer is parcel taped together...
Yay for finding the £10! Xxxx

chanie

You are welcome to come kitten. We are child friendly, so your girls would have a good time.

The party went well. It was hectic, but we survived. We had family come over afterwards and in the time honoured tradition, something got broken. For some reason, when we have family over, their children become unruly and things get broken. Admittedly, our house does need work, but we manage to not break things in our house, yet when we have people over, things get broken. We are getting a bit fed up now.

chanie

May plans

I've just been looking at what I need to do in May, now that I've been paid.

Car - needed a new tyre, I borrowed half the money from our holiday fund as we don't need the money until the summer, so I replaced that.

Uniform - DD was accepted into DS school, so I've started to buy a couple of bits of uniform.

DS shoes - ordered from Next and paid off.

I'm kind of struggling on the birthday/Xmas present front. For the past few years, I've done really well in terms of bargains, but the children in the family are getting older and are becoming fussy about what they like, so it's difficult to plan ahead, as what they like now, may be different at Xmas. Plus, some of the older ones want cash, which you can't bargain hunt!!!!

pennywisepoundstupid

I just give the older children gift cards now, much easier and they can get what they want. Not very moneysaving as you can't get a bargain but at least they get something they want.

chanie

pennywisepoundstupid wrote: »

I just give the older children gift cards now, much easier and they can get what they want. Not very moneysaving as you can't get a bargain but at least they get something they want.

We have lots of people to buy presents for, so bargain hunting helps to keep the costs down. I can get cashback with some vouchers, but only save a maximum of 10%, whereas at Xmas, I was saving 20% minimum.

Kitten868

Tesco often do 20% vouchers. Maybe save up your tesco points and buy the gift cards at 20% off from them?
Saying that just got a letter that they aren't doing clubcard boost anymore
What got broken this time? Xx

chanie

Kitten868 wrote: »

Tesco often do 20% vouchers. Maybe save up your tesco points and buy the gift cards at 20% off from them?
Saying that just got a letter that they aren't doing clubcard boost anymore
What got broken this time? Xx

I'm not surprised Tesco are stopping the clubcard boost. I remember a few years ago, they were doing double points for about a year, plus the boost. I got £80 worth of baby toys for free. The toys lasted for both children and I've just given them to a relative, so it's worked out really well.

Ds has a couple of weeks off school, so costs will go up, for example buying extra food, but I'm trying to keep costs under control:
IKEA - I dumped the children in the creche, whilst I had a free cuppa in the restaurant. The children loved it, I loved it. Win-win.
I also treated them to an ice cream for 50p each.

Library - we borrowed some books and I got a couple myself.