2014 Frugal Living Challenge

sparrer

2 nsd days, that's 4 so far but no hope of making 19 like last month as I'm away for a week during March but will squeeze in as many as I can.
Have found a gorgeous pair of shoe clips to bling up a pair of shoes I want to wear to an evening do, will try to persuade one of the DC to buy them for me for Mothering Sunday .
Fitted the replacement shed window myself - the last one blew out and shattered in the gales - only cost me the piece of perspex.

DawnW

Shortie wrote: »

- I have put aside a chunk of SA tax money in prep for April's tax return. I want to get it paid for and out of the way as soon as I can. I still have a few month's of saving still to go until I have all the money I need, then I can save in earnest for building work etc

- Try out a meat pack from a local butchers we've recently found. This will depend on how much meat we have left in the freezer as next pay month goes along, but they have what sound to me like massive family meat packs for under £45 (I say that meaning that I've never been good at visualising a weight of food, whoops)

I am another one who likes to get the dreaded tax returns out of the way asap. There is no way I could leave it till January or whenever - It would drive me mad :eek:

I tried out a meat pack from one of the good local butchers, and was quite pleased with the contents. It wasn't very varied, there were beef joints, a pork joint, some packs of stewing steak, some sausages and a couple of packs of bacon. Not bad value for £35 when you think of the price of beef joints :eek: and it is all locally produced. We have only eaten one pack of sausages so far, so I guess it will last a while :rotfl:

The contents vary from month to month apparently, presumably according to what they have a lot of.

Well, no NSD for me today as I succumbed to a muffin £1.20, so a LSD I suppose.

Bloomin train was cancelled tonight, and not many run to our little town, so I had to go to the next town and ring OH to come and pick me up :mad:

Grandson's birthday this weekend, so spends necessary. I have up to now tended to spend quite a bit on them, but will have to cut this down after this year as I won't be at work, or at least not full time.

Well, I have some jobs to do - a button to sew on, the CPP form to fill in and the washing up bits that don't go in the dishwasher, so had better get off here and get on with it

Frugalsod

I had to top up my milk. Got to T no 4 pint of semi skimmed, all sold out so had to get 6 pints, so will be able to make more desserts as a plus. Also incredibly badly timed. I managed to get loads of YS items and can make nearly 30 meals all for £8.44. So will be doing a big batch cooking in a couple of days. That will bring my monthly shopping bill down considerably.

SarahB1989_2

No credit card for Lent is going well - just went to pay B&B bill and stopped myself pulling out the CC, have paid with debit card so no trying to work out how much I need to keep aside for CC bill this month! Would take it out of my purse but bank cancelled my debit card once (years ago) and then acted all shocked when I said I didn't have any other access to money! CC is for genuine emergencies only now though.

millionaire_in_training

Hi folks. I got an amazing bargain yesterday. Morrisons are selling the £12 box of persil for £4.99. I bought 3 and I had a £5 voucher. So £36 worth of powder for £9.97

Shortie

DawnW wrote: »

I am another one who likes to get the dreaded tax returns out of the way asap. There is no way I could leave it till January or whenever - It would drive me mad :eek:

I tried out a meat pack from one of the good local butchers, and was quite pleased with the contents. It wasn't very varied, there were beef joints, a pork joint, some packs of stewing steak, some sausages and a couple of packs of bacon. Not bad value for £35 when you think of the price of beef joints :eek: and it is all locally produced. We have only eaten one pack of sausages so far, so I guess it will last a while :rotfl:

The contents vary from month to month apparently, presumably according to what they have a lot of.

Well, no NSD for me today as I succumbed to a muffin £1.20, so a LSD I suppose.

*Coughs* so the tax year just gone was my first ever SA and I left it to the last minute, but now I know just how dead simple they are I'm getting it over and done with as soon as I get the relevant documents through at close of this tax year

The butcher we found seems like a real treasure, and apparently has it's own abattoir. I'm actually quite excited at the idea of getting a meat pack from there (I know, I live life on the edge ) but we absolutely MUST get through a good chunk of the Boxing Day bargains that we still have in the freezer before we even consider buying any of it in


Oh, and I succumbed to a bag of crisps from the vending machine this afternoon

abby1234519

I have spent about 3 hours sat working out my finances up to the end of 2017! I knoooow that sounds very OCD but there is a reason....

Initially I wanted to work out when we could be debt free which I did last week and decided March 2016. Then I wanted to see when we could afford to have another baby. So I spent ages working out DS1's childcare when he starts school (breakfast club and after school as my other half starts at 6a and I start at 8am). Then I worked out maternity pay for when I would like a baby. Then I worked out when maternity would finish and go back to work. THEN I worked out tax credits/benefits whilst on maternity. THEN I worked out childcare for when DS1 is at school and then when Baby-to-be would start nursery. And finally worked out how much help we would get towards childcare once our monthly childcare rockets to £1100 a month. Now according to entitled to, with me earning 19k and OH earning 15k we would get enough under universal benefits plus child benefit (and apparently a little HB thrown in) we would be able to cover that. Something like £1128 in tax credits etc a month. We will be better off under UC by about £150 a month. It doesn't seem right though, at the moment I get £476 towards £667.25 childcare a month and I think in April this goes down to £203 a month. Although to be fair the £1128 doesn't cover the extra I will pay in the summer holidays when DS1 will be in summer childcare.

But I always though it was really expensive to have two children, one in nursery and one in school (with £300 a month before/after school childcare). We don't have any spare income at the moment because of the debt but if we didn't have any debt then even after paying the current childcare we'd have anything between £500-£700 a month for luxuries like birthdays and better food.

Yet it seems that when we have no debt and have another baby I'll also be able to save for a new car? The calculations are right, I worked it out methodically. I dunno, seems to good to be true!

Coulddobetter

Sorry have been missing been really busy at work, set off this morning at 8 am back at 9.45 pm, long day.....
The diet has gone out the window but I have given up chocolate for lent. Love the idea of giving up cc, will steal that great idea.
Had an expensive weekend last week as we went away but I have tried to buckle down this week. Paid £100 off the mortgage so very please with that as I tend to set goals and within a few days I have lost my way.:T

happybird71

Sounds great Abby. Your brain must have been buzzing! Did you sleep?! I'm a bit like that once I'm on a mission!

Well I don't seem to be doing too well with finances this month. Have already paid quite a bit out of my ISA to cover us. Unfortunately we couldn't sell DH's flat when we got married & got our house so it's rented out (thankfully) but costs us about £200 a month. Also had to pay £250 house insurance. Can you believe we were quoted over £600?! Am also getting maternity pay which is a lot less than my usual pay. Even though I see where our money is going (thank you Spending app!) I still feel bad. We're not really bad with our money except with occasional take away or Starbee coffee.

Got a rugby shirt on eBay with a bid on it. Woo - much excitement

just_the_two_of_us

skintygerlinky wrote: »

Also signed up to the Ipsos survey site - any thoughts on it from you guys?

Skinty - not read the last few pages so not sure if you've already had replies re above question.

I have been doing IPSOS for what seems like ages. Important you do them as soon as you receive them or else they are over limit. Often they say " we have had enough replies from your sort of profile" but give you a few points anyway.

I have had one JL voucher and almost enough points for another one. Had a period where I thought they had forgotten me - but perhaps no surveys.

You can also give your points to charity - which is why I signed up originally - but JL vouchers will help with budgets when we visit family.

They have some very interesting surveys!