NSK;The Tortoise and The Mad MARCH Hare!!!

his_missus

Food: £42/£200 (aiming for £50 a week instead of the usual £60)
SFD: 1/19 (allowing myself 3 spendy days a week)
Savings: £4.14/£600

£1 spend today in £1 shop - toy for mum's dog. She always forget to pack one as she doesn't take a toy out when she takes the dog for a walk. However, he expects one when he's staying with us and he ignores other dogs if he has one.

Quite impressed with my weekly shop on Saturday AND got £1.51 off due to a wombled receipt

Living_a_good_life

Afternoon lovely peeps. Sorry for the lack of posts so far - we had a viewing on Saturday on our house - apparently she loved it but my kitchen is lacking in natural light - it has a sun porch on the side. Another thing I cannot change unless I can convince God to move the suns trajectory??

A few spends on Saturday - dd got her brownie tshirt and onesie in preparation for "camp" this next weekend. I'm going too as a parent helper - we get to sleep at an aquarium, beside the big tank. Not sure which of us is more excited! I have however saved her pocket money this month - due to her chopping a hole in her newest jeans, it's fixable but that's not the point. If she wants to chop clothes she can pay for them!

Shopping list and budgets done, savings paid over. The new savings account opened in the last week of Feb has paid more interest than the other one did for the whole month - you only get the bonus interest if you dont withdraw - talk about an incentive!

Right need to get on with work, full of cold and feeling a bit grot - largely due to lack of sleep because I cant breathe. Happy days!!

Love to all
LAGL xx

NinjaSavingKat

traveller wrote: »

Kat, I had to laugh regarding your yellow fever vac. Last week, a work collegue, was trying to get an appointment for this and ended up going half way across London for it, as apparently there is a national shortage, only to be told when she got there 'oh you don't actually need it for Gambia! She was annoyed of the journey be glad to save the money

Where I booked you can't cancel the appt or you lose your money. The shortage is why they are staggering the appts on certain days and why mine is at 0840 in the morning... bet your friend was well annoyed but she has saved a LOT of money!

thriftylass

Hugs to those with difficult OHs.

Sunny day here, first day of maternity leave. Been on two walks, weeded the front and some of the back, planted bulbs and fruit bushes. Made soup, the washing is out and will do some vacuuming later and start tidying the conservatory.

Plus It's an SFD

SarahB1989_2

Having a laughable conversation online with the bank...
"It is written into your agreeded terms and condictions, which you signed when you opened the accounts. This is done to guarantee that the payemnt will be made and that there are suficciant funds available to do so"

There are primary school children who could type and spell better.

In other news, my plan to save money this summer was to get out of our flat early and move home to the parents until work starts. This has been foiled by the letting agents, who say we're contracted until the end of our 'rental year' and can only be refunded for moving out early if there's a new tenant moved in. So I have another £250 to find by June... Tightening the purse strings won't get me that far, so the plan is to sell everything that isn't tied down.

lotti379

Avogirly wrote: »

I forgot to add that I am going to do my first shop at Aldi tonight, anyone got any tips of things to try/avoid?

xx

I'm going back to Ald! tonight after being lazy recently and going to the nearest SM (Tescimo - hideously expensive for the quality I think, well that is what I've found recently). Most of the things I know are good are probably not what NSK would call essential! Nice little camemberts, their "french style" cafetiere coffee is much better than their "100% arabica" in my opinion, some of the wine is very nice indeed. Their blended malt whisky also goes down very well too..! :rotfl:

Actually on a serious note - passata, chick peas and kidney beans are a good price, my mum uses their washing powder (I will get some once I finish the current box). TBH my mum gets most of her shopping from there now! I seem to remember their gnocchi and tortellini packs are much cheaper than anywhere else too - handy for a quick storecupboard meal.

Anyway, my meal plan is done and doesn't include tortellini, so it isn't on the list! :A I'll report back with how much I spend in there tonight... :rotfl:

PheoniX

Ay oop folks, how do?

So I've had a rather productive and spendy day so far. Not a wasteful spendy day might I add as everything was necessary and accounted for.

I found myself back in Clinton$ today again! And paperchase SarahB! Ive bought greeting cards for all up until June, averaging £2 per card. Only 3 more to get until I can claim my freebie card and it'll be the biggest and most expensive I can find in the shop lol I have also contributed a fiver toward a friends birthday gift, which I have also noted on my yellow stickered wall planner

I spent £1.10 on 'signed for' postage to send my old broken mobile phone for recycling and I will hopefully receive a £15 cheque for this within the next week which I will stick into savings :T

I managed to wangle a free fringe trim in a local salon today even though I get my hair cut in a different branch which is miles away! The 'curtains' were getting on my nerves and something had to be done as I couldnt last 'til the end of the month for pay day to afford a decent cut!

While I was on a freebie roll, I also managed to wangle a free keyboard letter 'B' key for my laptop from a local repairs shop! Part of my mobile phone case had somehow managed to get stuck underneath the key and pulled it off completely! Losing such a small plastic thingamee was always going to happen wasnt it

I have been v naughty indeed today :cool: I accidentally knocked over my bedside table lamp this morning and the bloomin thing wouldnt light up! :mad: I took it back to the shop from which it was bought it, saying it had been given to me as a gift (;);)) and now wouldnt work! And so they plugged it in, fiddled with it and ummed and ahhed before deciding it was faulty and proceeded to give me a £35 brand new identical replacement! Somewhere along the line I *cough* forgot to mention the lamp was over 4 years old :rotfl:Had I known I'd get a new lamp I would have taken the bulb out of the conked out one!

Here's hoping it will last another 4 years! :T

Well, my search for a new pad is a work in progress.. Although I have actually found a place, which isnt perfect but would serve its purpose for a while.. My only issue is with the cost of the rent which I really feel the landlord is taking the mick quite frankly.. Im not usually one to challenge rent costs but Im afraid I sent him an email yesterday giving him a piece of my mind with both barrels about his overpricing and honestly thought I had shot myself in the foot with my fiery 'tinge of ginge' comments As it goes, I have received a reply today to 'discuss' the rent! I will wait a little longer before I get back to him just to be sure that this would be a good decision plus I dont want to appear too eager

Hope youre all having a good day? Condolences to you IwillSucceed.. MrsGSR I would do exactly the same in your situation.. traveller hope you'll feel less meh soon

Laters folks

:wave:

lotti379

£21.74 spent! I am so chuffed with that as I got everything on the list bar white wine vinegar (can't remember what I wanted that for anyway) and tomato puree (which I can do fine without)!

So that was £20.35 on groceries (inlcuding loo roll) and £1.39 on toiletries. Admittedly that takes me over my £5 budget as I bought some night cream at the weekend, but that should be it for the month now.

I'm on:

£23.35/£80 groceries
£6.38/£5 toiletries
£12.85/£90 entertainment & miscellaneous
£44.17/£200 petrol
0 SFDs so far, but no plans to spend until Saturday (when the car goes to the garage... :eek: :eek: :eek:)

TiptoesDB

Hello all

Quick check in as I have been awol this weekend visiting my bestie down in the big smoke. She has just bought a house with her fella, an upgrade from the flat they had, and she revealed to me after a few glasses of wine that their mortgage is £1,000,000!!!!! (that's not a typo btw) It's a beautiful 4 bed house in a beautiful part of London and she has a very high flying job, but sheesh! So, I have most certainly been living how the other half live this weekend. A quick observation of their habits reveals that they definitely throw away food every week which costs more than the total of our weekly grocery budget and their alcohol budget for the weekend costs double our weekly shop for food! Back home to real life now, and no real feelings of envy at all about it. Yes, I would like three wardrobes full of reiss and boden dresses and three bathrooms full of aveda and white company toiletries. But I am happy with my life and there is no point in comparing it with anyone else's! Good to be home to DH and the cats. This was the first weekend and first overnight that DH and I have spent apart since we got married... so I am very happy to be home!

So, I had budgeted £50 for the trip, and thought that was going to be optimistic and it would cost a lot more, but I only spent £30 in the end.... also did the weekly shop when I got in and DH ordered the heating oil, so certainly a spendy day. But yesterday was a SFD.

I am going to work out my month plan and totals tomorrow and will post them then...

anyway, good to be back, have missed you guys too!!

[Deleted User]

NinjaSavingKat wrote: »

Crazy_Lady those food parcels sound superb.. I have never thought to do that for someone... do they know you love them or just give them to you as they are surplus..?

I must sound like I am always blagging food from others!! My cousin and I both live in households with one veggie and one carnivore (my DD, her OH). We used to live together (without her OH) about 8 years ago, but now we are about 40 miles apart, with my aunt (her mum) loosely in the middle. We used to enjoy cooking together and have kept it up - we meet up about every 6 weeks or so, stick a CD on, and spend a few hours chopping, peeling, lots of gossiping, bad singing and cooking bigger batches of things than we would manage alone - typically this nets about 60 portions. Staple recipes are soup, bolognase sauce, lasagne, daal, sweet n sour veg, cottage pies, casseroles, mashed spuds and fried onions, apple crumbles. We freeze it in dishes or takeaway containers. We often cook at my aunts as she is housebound and likes the company, plus likes to tell us how to cook! She also has the biggest freezer and so my cousin and I just take a few things on at a time each time we visit her between times. Sometimes we'll cook separately something the other would enjoy and we add that to the central freezer too. I usually spend about £10-15 on ingredients to contribute, but it is also a big social / therapeutic event, and a timesaver too. My DD loves joining in and we all enjoy seeing each others messages on the labelled packets as we pull them out of the freezer, usually relating more to whatever it was we were talking about at the time than the contents.

The marmalades were gifts from the same people, but I hadn't been involved in cooking them this time. I did do a lot of little jobs and drove them places in return

I am often the only veggie in my social circle and definitely benefit from that in terms of leftovers - I've learnt not to be proud and to say yes please to anything that is offered after going out for dinner at friends. It makes such a huge difference as the only grown up in the house to have a meal sometimes that someone else has put together!