2017 - Spend less, live more

chanie

quids in

I received a letter a couple of days ago from Southern Railway offering £70 compensation for all the problems on the trains. This was a nice surprise and I've put the money into my saving account as we've had to eat into that as work has been quiet for OH.

I also have nearly £20 worth of vouchers from the train strikes, so I'm going to offset that against my next ticket and pop the difference into my savings account.

Plans are underway for DS' birthday in about 8 weeks. I've started to add a few bits and pieces in with the weekly shop for the party, particularly stuff on offer. By the time his birthday comes around, we will have a nice stockpile.

We are holding his party at home, having done whole class parties in reception and year 1. We are going to invite his little group and possibly get a bouncy castle. Family can come around after his friends have gone home. Doing the party at home will keep costs down - DD is in reception, so we 'owe' her two class parties!!!

Bobarella

Fantastic refund! How nice.

chanie

I've booked onto my bread making course and saved £35 on the cost through a works discount. It's only an introductory course and I don't expect to save any money from making bread, but I thought it could be a handy skill to learn.

Bobarella

Definitely! And you'd know exactly what you were feeding the family too. Plus nothing like that smell!

chanie

This weekend has been spent repainting our kitchen. We bought the paint on offer a few weeks ago and I took the children out to let OH focus on the decorating. The walls have been done, it's just the woodwork left.

We pulled out the fridge to decorate behind it and an error light started flashing which was worrying. I asked my sister to take some frozen meat and put it in her freezer for me as I thought the fridge was broken. Luckily, the fridge is okay now.

We did a food shop today and spent £37. We only needed fresh stuff like milk and cheese, plus I reclaimed my frozen meat!!!

Bobarella

Phew glad the fridge wasn't broken. They aren't cheap are they.

chanie

making something out of nothing

I really put my frugal ways into practice today. We had a colleague leaving and I was tasked with organising the leaving do. Despite working for the company for 10 years I didn't get as much money as expected for the leaving gift - this is because we've had a lot of long serving staff leave and the ones my colleague works with are either on holiday, off sick or maternity leave.

I managed to throw together a nice little party:
Card - from Card Factory, which is half the price of the expensive shops locally.
Gift bag - recycled from home.
Presents - I bought some jewellery, which was quite expensive. I topped it up with some cheaper items like smellies and a registered item I had in my desk.
Cakes - I baked a cake and topped up with some extra nibbles from the supermarket.

Anyway, colleague was pleased, so I managed to pull it off, on a shoe string.

Bobarella

chanie wrote: »

making something out of nothing

I really put my frugal ways into practice today. We had a colleague leaving and I was tasked with organising the leaving do. Despite working for the company for 10 years I didn't get as much money as expected for the leaving gift - this is because we've had a lot of long serving staff leave and the ones my colleague works with are either on holiday, off sick or maternity leave.

I managed to throw together a nice little party:
Card - from Card Factory, which is half the price of the expensive shops locally.
Gift bag - recycled from home.
Presents - I bought some jewellery, which was quite expensive. I topped it up with some cheaper items like smellies and a registered item I had in my desk.
Cakes - I baked a cake and topped up with some extra nibbles from the supermarket.

Anyway, colleague was pleased, so I managed to pull it off, on a shoe string.

Well done you :T how kind that you went to so much effort.

chanie

£50 today in Lidl, for the week. I really wasn't in the mood for doing a shop so probably missed off things we need, buy we should last until next weekend, when it's payday and a new shopping month.

So in total, we've spent about £300 this month on groceries.

Bobarella

That's good! I think we will be around £250 this month. I 'think' but am not certain, that it's due to buying the biggest size economically still. It's well worth checking the cost per 100g thing I find. This has meant things lasted longer. For me used to shopping very hand to mouth it has felt alien at times to spend more but the theory seems to hold.