Claire's OS house deposit quest!

donny-gal

Hi Folks
Couldn't just read and run.
Not needing to save, but can certain do with a few stone off.
Hi Cranky - How is the LO, probably not so little now.
Re the Shard, if you register with Amazon Local, but select London as the location, there are some offers on there for visiting the top of it, and even eating there.
Quite a lot of offers on there, for small treats, without breaking the bank.

For everyone else :hello: I am the wrong side of 60, and we are fortunate enough to be on two decent pensions. Our DS has just got married and lives in a nice part of North London. They are looking to move this year, to something easier on my knees I hope (2nd floor victorian house flat) with step up to the front door too! We have had the discussion about moving out, versus staying near where he is and he feels it is more beneficial to put the money into the mortgage where it does gain value, than to the transport companies, and they love being in London, moving back to deepest darkest Yorkshire is not on the scale. Where they are very little option of supermarkets, W@itrose, Budg@n, or Tesc0 Xtra, as they do not have a car, but are getting one in March. They are very good with the food shopping, meal planning for the week, then only getting what they need, but they are foodies, and do like nice food, but DDIL is veggie, which they both eat during the week, which saves too. But as DDIL works in the fashion industry, they only like very nice clothes!!
As for me, well I shop in Aldi, have done for over 20 years, and now find I can do almost a full shop there. We kept doing the try it once, and see if you like it, brown sauce for DH being one of the latest conversions. To be honest, haven'f found hardly anything we dislike, but we do tend to cook from scratch with minimal prepared things. Just done a top up shop as trying to eat up to clear the fridge/freezer, £54, but £15 was beer for DH, and £8 was some wool for me.
I really wish you all wellin your goals. Me I need to get my head around eating less, I find low carb is normally the only way I lose, but DH has to have a low fat diet, which includes loads of carbs as he has no weight issue. Just hate doing two meals.
DG

CyclingLondonSaver

Evening all!

Long day at work again - left home at 8am and wasn't back in till 7.30pm. And then after I ate, I spent some time doing some work from home. Stopped at about 11. Feel like I haven't had a chance to do anything relaxing so far! Never mind, tomorrow's a new day.

On the positive side, today was a NSD and very OS. My lunch and dinner were both slow cooker leftovers and I snacked on homemade brownies (not the healthiest, but money saving!). Another week till pay day. Going to keep spending as low as possible so I can transfer as much as I can over to my savings.

Hope you've all had a pleasant day. Bed for me imminently!

CyclingLondonSaver

donny-gal wrote: »

As for me, well I shop in Aldi, have done for over 20 years, and now find I can do almost a full shop there. We kept doing the try it once, and see if you like it, brown sauce for DH being one of the latest conversions. To be honest, haven'f found hardly anything we dislike, but we do tend to cook from scratch with minimal prepared things. Just done a top up shop as trying to eat up to clear the fridge/freezer, £54, but £15 was beer for DH, and £8 was some wool for me.
DG

Hello donny-gal, welcome to the thread. I haven't shopped in Aldi really, only Lidl. I did pop into one last week though. Surprised me as it looked and felt very much like a Tesco Metro. I was expecting it to be in very much the same style as Lidl, but it wasn't at all. Didn't look too much at prices, but I'd imagine they were much cheaper than Tesco Metros though!

CyclingLondonSaver

Evening all! Shorter working day for me today, was home by six which is unusual! Returned my £25 trousers I bought at the weekend - just need to confirm the money has been paid back into my account and then I'll move it over to savings.

Had to pick up a few bits from Boots today that I needed - didn't really want to, but had no choice - so not an NSD. Popped into W@itrose as I needed some fresh vegetable stock. A 500ml carton is £1.89 :eek: Decided to be OS and make my own stock, at a total cost of about 12p. Definitely MSE there!

Also got home to find a cheque in the post for me. Forgot that I had sent off a very old, very broken phone to one of the companies that buys them. I thought it'd be worth nothing but they've paid me £12 for it. For something that had sat in a drawer for two years and doesn't work at all, that's not too shabby Will try and get to pay it in on Friday.

Still dreadful at getting to bed on time. I should be fast asleep by now!

Hope everyone has had a pleasant day

donny-gal

With Aldi, it is not that they are cheaper than the cheapest tat you. An get at the big supermarkets, but they are similar prices, but the quality is like the higher priced ones, IYSWIM.
Heads up for dog owners, I get Skye her dog food there, it is Gluten Free, and the fine mouthed little madam, clears it up, and tries to ask for more! Many she just walks away from and does without.
DG

CRANKY40

Hello D-G, the house elf is 10 now and not so little at all He quite fancied a stay at the Shard but it's £500 a night and the Covent garden travel lodge was £250 for three nights so no contest really. The last time I looked at the prices for the Shard observation deck they were more than a ride on the London Eye so I will have a look at the offer sites thanks.

My broadband has been off in the daytime most of this week due to Openreach fiddling with the box on the corner of the road. They say it isn't them, but it's funny how it comes back on when they shut the cupboard doors and knock off for the night. Apparently they've finished whatever they were up to anyway, so normal service should be with us for a bit. Just asked for and received a credit on my account for the same thing that happened before Christmas.

I lost another pound in weight this week, and also underspent on my grocery budget, the rest of which has been added to my savings account. I also removed a broken stylus from child's Nintendo DS console my own self so no need for an expensive repair. Who knew I could do stuff like that...... Hope you're all keeping well and the wind and storms aren't too bad wherever you are.

CyclingLondonSaver

Evening all! Thank goodness it's Friday eh. Left work on the dot of 5, which was pleasant (and rare). I've eschewed doing all work related things at home this evening and have instead have cooked and watched some TV. Perfect!

Spending wise hasn't been too great the last two days. I did end up going out for dinner, but thankfully the boyfriend paid the vast majority and only wanted me to contribute £7.25 which I was happy with. :T

Today I picked up a few bits from Asda meaning I spent £9.52. However, got some things like a big bag of atta (chapati flour), meaning I can make loads of chapatis. Did some homemade ones the other day - they're really easy to make and cheap. Perfect for wraps for lunches or filling sides for my slow cooker meals. Not sure whether I can batch make them and chill or freeze though, or if I have to make them fresh each time.

Today's shop also means I've got enough food in the fridge to top up my weekend shop and probably last me till the end of next week. Saves me having to do a big shop again over the weekend.

Tomorrow will definitely be an NSD and it's likely Sunday will be too. Going to a friend's for dinner and he doesn't want me to bring anything along, though I might take some of my leftover homemade brownies.

Glad to hear you got a rebate on your broadband for when it was down CRANKY40. I had the same issue a few years back and I got a grand total credited to me of £1.97! Better than nothing I guess

NewShadow

Good Morning All.

Half way through January, And it's not looking too bad.

I've not been online much as things have picked up at work. Last night I came in and went to bed almost immediately (Zzzz)

Up this morning (after a lazy lie in until 8!), and I've a plan of action.

• Put out the laundry I washed yesterday
• Sort a load of laundry to be washed mid week

• Pots
• Defrost something to batch cook for in the week - I'm thinking Chilli
• Make up a batch of breakfasts
• Make a [strike]bath[/strike] batch of yogurt
• Defrost cottage cheese for lunches

• Clear the floors
• Sort the bins (black and green) for going out
• Hoover

• Run (I've not run since last weekend, so will go to the park tomorrow morning)
• Play with kitties

Oh, and I forgot to post - new weight 99.4kg, so a 1lb loss last week. Weigh again on Tuesday.

CyclingLondonSaver

Congrats on achieving the weight loss NewShadow! Sounds like you had a productive day yesterday too.

I've been doing some work bits for the last few hours. Slow progress - need to knuckle down and finish it off otherwise I'll still be doing it at 10pm!

This weekend has been a no-spend weekend for me thankfully. Friend sent me home with enough leftover home-made pork buns for me to have for dinner today, which is good because they're lush! I paid him by bringing my home-made cranberry gin along Later I'll be sticking a veggie dish in the slow cooker overnight for some work lunches next week. Meeting a friend for dinner tomorrow but she's being frugal too, so it'll be a cheap one.

As I mentioned when I first posted here, I paid all my rent for 9 months up-front which meant my savings took a hit. I've made enquiries today about getting the money back into my account and moving to paying rent monthly. May make more sense and give me a bit more confidence in hitting my deposit target. I'll let you all know how it goes.

I was watching Martin's :money: TV show the other day and it's made me think that I need to look into getting a better bank account! I think the week after next, I'll take a day off work (need to use up some leave before April) and go to some banks to see what they can offer me. I'll do my research on here too first!

MSE plans for next week include paying in my cheque for my old mobile phone and putting it into savings. I get paid on Tuesday so that'll mean a bit of money moves about too. Should have enough food in till the end of the week, so hopefully I'll have some NSDs too

Miss_Purple_Hat

Hi all!

Been a bit AWOL, sorry. I kind of feel like I should be posting more, being the OP!

Hope you're all well. Welcome to new posters!

I have been pretty good with the spending. I've been stocking up on fresh fruit and veg because it's good for my waistline to eat it. It's not as easy for me to live on cheap carbs so it's probably not the cheapest option but it's a bit of a trade-off. I generally don't actually like to eat main meals without a tonne of veg.

I have a rule at the moment to help get me off the chocolate. The rule is: no buying chocolate. I can eat it if it's free, which because it's post-Christmas that sort of thing is not popular in the office at the moment. I've been having the free hot chocolate from work to get the chocolate fix.

I've not been buying snacks mostly in general, which must be saving me money. I'm sure it'd be surprising if I realised how much I save by not buying snacks.

This is all paying off a bit - I've lost 2lbs in the past couple of weeks. It's a little slower start than I'd like but it's 2lbs in the right direction.

I haven't been to the gym once in the past 2 weeks. This must change. I kind of see the gym as an investment if I use it. And I must use it. From tomorrow I must go 3 times a week.

I went to Tesco late in the evening on Thursday and got some reduced bread for my freezer. I also took £2 in change from my jar (stuff that didn't add up to full bank bags) and stood at the self service checkout feeding them all in! Wasn't going to lose some of it to the change machine, lol!

There's still been a lot of weekend time sorting through my parents' house. My stuff is basically sorted and a lot of my parents' stuff has gone. They've had the house valued once and are getting a second valuation this week to be sure. It should be going onto the market in about a week.

I've been spending evenings reading some books I unearthed for a change so that's been nice. Barely switched on my laptop for a week.