Not Buying It- A Consumer Holiday 2016

HOWMUCH

I had no spend weekend and was at the GP's with DH so popped into Co-op next door to take a look for any YS I got £19.49 for £6.21 so that bring the shopping up to £28.64 for this month so far. I just need some potatoes and that will be it for about the next 10 days. I called in aldi and got my 12 pints of milk and I've still got loads of my YS bread cakes at 3p.

[Deleted User]

Well done HOWMUCH you obviously keep a keen eye open for a bargain, very little Y/S where I live so I make do with Lidl's and Aldi's.

When I go to Book club once a month I always check in the small co-op near there and often they do have some decent Y/S there ,far more than the big Tesco's in fact.I think the smaller co-ops get overlooked often because they are a bit like the small 7-11 shops

girlybags

Evening everyone.

Opticians for me this morning. Had eyes tested at B00ts, slight change of prescription as one of my eyes has improved slightly so I brought my prescription home and ordered (from speckyfoureyes) a pair of specs, a case for them and 3 little cloths for the grand total of £17.99 inc £4.99 p&p. They are having a sale at the mo and there are some MSE codes to make certain brands cheaper.
Really happy with this, have wanted a spare pair for a while and, as my prescription hasn't changed much, I will keep my current pair as spare

Had a houseful of kids, my son and 2 nephews, this afternoon so I've had them washing the car (free labour ) and playing in the garden.

Hope everyone has had a nice day.

wildthing01

Well, we have had what turned out to be quite an expensive day, and for not that much really. This is one of my only days off this half-term so gave the kids a choice of what to do, and they chose to go to nearby city and go to the castle/museum (we needed an indoor day as it's been freezing cold).

Tram in is v cheap during the hols, and a treat in itself for the kids, but museum is quite steep considering equivalent museums in the two other local cities are free, plus they were charging extra for the craft activity (which would also be free in the other museums) - we didn't do the activity as it was just making hats from coloured card which we can do at home for free. We also paid for a cave tour, so all in, approx £40 for a family day out to a place that is nice, but not amazing and not worth that much.

Decided that we will not do that museum again now, but will concentrate on the other free ones. It was a lovely day but I'm annoyed we spent so much. Think the museum in question are trading off their particular high profile tourist status (which the other local cities don't have), so really feel as if we've "Bought It" today!

On the plus side, have sold more stuff on ebay and switched gas/electric as part of the MSE Cheap Energy Club, saving £400 pa. When we quit our old supplier, we found out they had completely messed up our billing (transferring from fixed to variable rate - they had not sent us a bill for ages despite numerous requests for one and then calculated transfer dates etc wrong) and we were worried they were going to charge us well over the odds, so DH has kicked up a bit of a fuss, however, he's now done the maths and found out that even if they do persist with their billing, we will not actually lose any money, so not such a worry as it was - thankfully as couldn't face long drawn out battle!

Happytravelling

HOWMUCH- How much? Thats some good bargain hunting! :beer:

Chirpycheap- I'm not sure I've got the focus to maintain an inventory. Logged the contents of one of my cupboards, but got distracted when I realised I'd got all the ingredients to bake cakes so the rest of Saturday was spent doing that. :rotfl: Did finish a jar of peanut butter in decorations, and managed not to duplicate any contents when I did my food shop, so its not all bad news.

JackieO- Can't get much more NBI than exploring the peak district. I absolutely love walking up at the Roaches. We've also done a walk at the coombes valley reserve, but regrettably my footwear was less than ideal so I was top distracted by a growing blister to recall enough to share! :mad: Hopefully April showers won't be too heavy.

For the first time in I don't know how long, the weather was dry and calm after my hair cut on Saturday, so I was able to strut around feeling like a rockstar (whilst not spending like one), rather than scurrying home whilst trying to avoid the 'dragged backwards through hedge look'.

Sunday I had a super long lie in, pottered around the house and visited family.

Today has been the car's MOT and service, fortunately passed- woo hoo. :j

We've also been invited to a big birthday in London in a few weeks time, so trying to see what I can cut back on to fund an overnight stay and really make the most of catching up with everyone we don't get to see often enough. I've already stashed some surplus funds from December and January's budgets.

Lynplatinum

Ahoy there me hearties

yorpington - well done on the reclaim - awesome very NBI
How much - cool YSing - it becomes a bit addictive - and another good NBI - am not teaching near my fave YS place this week - which is good as it will make me use up my stash of stuff!! :rotfl:
Wildthing - its so annoying when a place promises a lot and delivers little - but still it may have been a valuable lesson for your kids that coughing up dosh is not always a guarantee of quality.

Well, went to the Baby Shower and resisted the urge to shout out 'What are you doing giving in to commercialised Americanisms?? Furthermore why are you all gender stereo typing by buying pink!!!??' I was v well behaved. I bought the babe a ' best' dress in turquoise velvety stuff - feminine but not pink. It turns out it was not DILs idea but one of her unpartnered single friends who has not had kids and is a bit soppy about babies while having no experience of them. Poor thing - she may well be in for a horrid shock one day!! DIL is, by contrast quite realistic as she has looked after her sister's child a lot as sister is epileptic + looked after her friends kiddy when friend had relationship problems. But I cannot be too harsh as some of the gifts were useful such as reuseable nappies and liners. Also her closer friends (also my son's friends) were fun as usual :T

Felt honour bound to offer to buy first round (was held in pub) so ended up spending £15 but I didnt pay for any late comers - also its a v civilsed pub as it does cafeteriere coffee (me) and green tea (DILs Mum) and good non alcoholic drinks. :j

NBI today as it was an NSD and made do with food stuffs from cupboards. Tomorrow intend to do some more reclaims meself - its half term and time to kick the bigger businesses who have conned us for years in the proverbial !!!!! (While I have time off from earning monies freelance teaching children excluded from school!!
Anyone on here whos not used Martin's Reclaim section of the site check it out - you may be pleasantly surprised!

Nite all

tatabubbly

Glad to hear the baby shower went well Lyn! I found a baby bouncer and changing table, both mamas and papas, both second hand which I think I will get. Both will be very useful and I can sell them on after at the same price I've bought them for. So far, all I've bought new have been a pair of tongs for steraliser and cotton wool balls it can be costly having a new born so I'm delighted I haven't bought into the trap most first time parents get in needing everything to be brand new.

Me and OH may have found ourselves a new house - contract needs to be drawn up and deposit needs to be paid yet however it's looking possible at the moment. It's also a bit cheaper than our current place with a communal garden so no upkeep needed.

NSD today, I'm in the house chilling out.

wildthing01

Tatabubbly, I did fall into the trap of thinking I had to buy every thing brand new for my first baby and was devasted when we had to sell it all for far less that we bought it for a few years later - we had had two babies' worth out of it, but wish I'd bought second hand in first place. We didn't buy particularly expensive or branded stuff, just own-brand, but still it all mounts up.

One thing I did learn too was not to keeop buying toys all the time - I;d see stuff while doing the supermarket shop and think how much they'd like it and we ended up with tons of stuff. Now they're older, I hardly buy anything apart from birthdays/Xmas. My mum picks them up bits at the CS, but I've managed to train her into mainly getting them books/craft items instead of yet more toys. I am even now quite restrained on days out, and yesterday, having been annoyed at the high entry fees to the museum we went to, I refused to buy DS a knight's helmet (he already has a couple at home bought as presents by others), and apart from a brief moan, he didn't seem that bothered in the long run, so it was worth saying no!

Lyn - unfortunately the kids thought the museum and especially the cave tour were brilliant and they don't really understand relative pricing so the high cost to fun ratio went over their heads, but I've def learnt a lesson!

tatabubbly

Thanks Wildthing, I think paying more than €100 for a changing table is ridiculous.. Granted what I'm getting are from M&P's, no way in hell would I be paying the shop prices.

It's a pity museums etc can be so expensive, they are a great educational tool!

HOWMUCH

I managed to get a Walla boo baby sling for £5 used once she said but you can't tell and it's still boxed on Amazon they are £49.95. It will be a nice surprise when I give it to DD we've sold DGS's years back.