two frugal years to freedom: a fritterer's tale

lobbyludd

Ok -didn't bring lunch in today: had an early morning meeting so ran out of home without making it and had to pay the childminder £6 extra to cover the extra time with the children. But I knew that would probably happen, although I bought ridiculously expensive, not very nice sandwiches out of habit.

Have added son's PAYG phone to my account w/EE so that I can still get the discount on my broadband when I cancel my contract tonight (should save 15 a month) and will cancel audible tonight (£8 a month).

2 days to pay day, hurrah - will be able to start paying some bits of debt off

lobbyludd

forgot to bring lunch today but didn't buy any either - mainly because I have not-a-bean to my name - have managed to lose a fiver somewhere in the house - It will turn up, probably when I clean (sometime next year then ) and hopefully when I really, really need a fiver.

2 freebies though - a free plant for an order being very delayed, and a week's worth of cat food from an offer on the freebies board. resisted buying a kitten (see not-a-bean to my name) from the pet warehouse where I had to pick up the freebie, pets should not be in warehouses.

so all in all a pretty responsible day. kids are having soup for tea, I am having more of the never ending roast chicken in soup form.

have spied 2 enamel mugs in a charity shop near work for 50p each that would be great for camping, may get those tomorrow from my "spends"

need to ring and give notice on phone contract and get PAC, and pack my lunch, was up at 5.20 this morning but somehow still didn't manage to get round to picking up lunch (started work at 8.30) only seems to work if I pack it and put it by the door the night before.

lobbyludd

it's nice to wave at the cash as it flits through my account on it's journey to other destinations......

I have spent 1 whole pound on the 2 enamel camping mugs (which will also double as bathroom mugs as I've lost 5 lovely bone china mugs to child-tooth-brushing incidents over the past few months). I do love them and I resisted buying anything else.

paid money off all cc's to bring them back under limits . will have charges to pay off but the amount thrown at them should bring each back under control so I can concentrate on paying off capital.

have cancelled window cleaner, and have remembered another expense - brew fund at work - £3 per month, but as I essentially mainline coffee will carry on paying that for a while.

my grocery shopping budget this month is £60, which I know seems very low for 1 cat + servants (1 adult + 2 kiddles) but my larder and freezer are full to bursting. Plus crucially I am the only adult and my boy-child is prepubescent - IME once they hit puberty (and forever after) the male of the species consume an enormous expense of groceries.

Anyhoo, with money off vouchers, nectar adpoints and mysupermarket manipulation I have done a "big shop" at sainsbugs which I hope will mainly sustain for the next 2 weeks for £27:cool: which includes a bottle of indeterminate red, venison, black pudding, a massive chicken, lemon sole and braising beef (bring on the gout), plus other less medieval foodstuffs.

will top up the fresh veg/fruit/oily fish/bakery and dairy at aldi next week.

well the rest of the vino plonko is calling. I am very pleased to welcome the weekend and hope all are enjoying the free vitD source.

Shelbi

Hi Lobbyludd, really enjoyed your diary so far, can totally relate to the losing gusto and starting again...will be subscribing to
cheer you on, wish you luck on your journey hun...x

lobbyludd

thanks shelbi, what are the grids in your signature?

was a wee bit spendy today, have spent my discretionary money for the week on a mcdonalds for the kids. they were tired, hot and grouchy. but I guess that's what it's there for.

but I haven't bought a garden furniture set, which I was browsing this morning.

lobbyludd

was hoping to be able to report a no spend day today - I find them SOOOOO difficult, and I don't even count the direct debits and known about bills.

fritter, fritter, fritter.
I have baked brownies (I'm still not convinced this is cheaper than buying them, even though I've got the cheapest possible ingredients, but I've got the stuff in so it's not a new spend), I have made 3 ice lollies from lemonade that has gone flat (bought for ds's birthday 3 months ago, the kids like fizzy drinks, but it's so rare we have it that they don't think to ask for it!), and managed to do it without them seeing which is great otherwise I'm constantly badgered with "are they ready yet?). Only 3 of the moulds have survived and my first thought is BUY SOME MORE, but I know that will curse the lovely weather so will trawl interweb for other ideas.

and therefore I thought I had today covered.

I got the PAC from orange and gave 30 days notice, I sort of expected them to beg me to stay with offers of better deals: they didn't. harumph.

I had my bills analysed by billmonitor and signed up for tesco 7.50 a month sim only thingummy, 1 month contract which will save me money. But they took the 7.50 straight away from my card, I thought I'd have to get it and activate it first rather than the contract starting before I'd got the darn thing. Anyway, not a NSD, so will have to try again tomorrow.

next week's challenge is 5 days of lunch taken in and 2 NSDs. I really have to get to the point where spending money is not an every day occurrence.


the kids have still not noticed that we have no access to TV.:p

lobbyludd

:j NSD :j

this may sound ridiculous, but it's the first one I can recall - clearly there will have been other days when I haven't spent anything......presumably?

second day of baking brownies, lunch taken to work, l/o for tea - pfftt, this is easy (joke).... I have my eye on a cast iron fireplace for my lounge currently on ebay.

and by "have my eye on" I mean have already bid on I will only bid up to my weekly max of disposable cash, so won't get it.

dd has said that some of her year were given a note today to say they all have to dress up as superheroes. she thought it might be tomorrow, and that the (childless) teacher said if they don't have a superhero costume then that's ok they can just make one at home.

through contacts we've managed to establish it's wednesday, but NOT whether it's all children and her class has just not been given the letter yet (not unusual), or if it's only some children. joy.

The heat is wiping me somewhat, need to get arris in gear and pack lunches for tomorrow.

jwil

Well done on the NSD


Hope you get the fireplace for a bargain!

That's annoying about the school, I'm dreading all that lark when little jwil is older.

liltdiddylilt

Hi lobbyludd!

Saw you pop into other diaries here and there, then spotted yours! I can totally relate to frittering... Recently to the tune of £1100 :eek: in the space of a couple of months :eek: :eek: and all I had to show for it was an extra half a stone in weight (I kid you not) some rugs, and a lamp.. and the rugs and lamp only accounted for £100. I am lucky that mine was savings, but still, am fighting to control my urges.

I will subscribe and wish you extreme luck in your journey. Slow and steady wins the race as they say!

lobbyludd

thanks jwil, the fireplace finishes at half past midnight tomorrow, if it's above my bargain threshold by bedtime I'll give it up as a bad lot. we have settled on bat-girl. I think we have a batman mask, so it's only wings to go really leotard etc for the rest, and if I can't be bothered to go into the fabric hoard in the loft, a black bin liner will suffice.

thanks lilt - I do love rugs and lamps, john lewis have emailed to tell me specially that they have a sale on tomorrow - resist, resist.

thought it was going to be an NSD today, and indeed earlier declared one on the "small things" thread - I will have to do a retraction (the shame ), but after scrabbling around under some pipes in the hall where I KNEW I'd dropped some change some weeks ago, I gave into the pleading and spent it on sugary nothings for the children.

have done 55 adpoints, 33p on Qmee and 0.00005p on swagbucks to try and make up for it- a sort of neutral spend day really. Oh and parked further away from work (by about 10 yards!!!:p) but every litttle etc.

repaid paypal. Have jiggled around money so that won't go overdrawn until the mortgage goes out on the 1st of the month (I get charged £1 a day to use it whether that be by 1p or the full £950. I guess until I can pay that off completely I should sweep it into a savings account to at least get a few pence back on it. will scout around for instant access accounts with teaser rates.