Getting shot of the mortgage sooner than 2049!

Bluegreen143

@badmemory - as above, you can turn off substitutions. I always leave them on as I find it more of a pain not getting the thing, most subs are fine tbh! Just this Christmas shop they were random. 

Also, it’s not in any way a big deal to reject the sub. You can hand any item back to the driver it doesn’t need to be a substituted one, it’s fine to do it if you’ve changed your mind or don’t like the short date on it etc. You can refuse the whole order, I’ve done this before when I forgot to edit it 🙈 I’ve never ever had a driver be even remotely bothered at me refusing an item or even the whole order. They get paid regardless! They usually have a good laugh with you when the sub is a funny one. 

Bluegreen143

So I just wanted to do a quick round up of frugal/simple living things we’ve done this Christmas as I feel it has been really relaxed since the birthdays finished and definitely our most frugal year so far. Noting down successes in case it’s use for for others but also so I can refer back next year!

(Caveat - we aren’t hardcore frugalists and we do spend much more on gifts than many. I feel this year has been frugal FOR US. But some things we don’t want to give up on, like buying gifts for each other - I know many save by not doing this, but Red’s love language is gift giving).

((Second caveat - NOT saying any of the below money saving things should be copied by anyone. Obviously we do certain non frugal things so by no means do I thing others should ditch the panto or Christmas Eve box. This is just a record of what worked for us!!)).

1. No expensive festive outings or activities.
This year we have not done any family Santa visits, Christmas market visits, pantos, shows or any other festive event which costs money. I didn’t go on a work night out (opted to receive a £30 voucher instead of the company contribution to a night out) and my night with friends was hosted here and super cheap/low key. (Note - I did go to the ballet with my mum & sister but it was a previous year’s present from my sister - dinner was pricey though!). Red did a Christmas night with his friends in October 😂

I honestly think this is one of the main reasons we’ve not felt stressed and busy!

What we have done is taken advantage of everything free that school & nursery have offered - party days, shows/nativities, the nursery Santa visit, the school panto trip, the school fayre, the evening showing of The Snowman & Father Christmas.

We’ve also (as always) done a woodland walk this morning to collect greenery for our table centrepiece and tonight a walk round the block to see the Christmas lights in the estate.

2. Cut back on gift buying for non-immediate family.
This year I opted out of friend and colleague gift exchanges and didn’t buy for as many extended family members. Red chose to buy for a couple of friends but did that from his own money.

3. Did a lot of crafting, both as entertainment and a cheap source of gifts.
We’ve made decorated mugs for grandparents and teachers (plain white mugs for £2 each decorated with paint pens), loads of cards & drawings, chocolate fudge, Oreo truffles and crispy cakes. I made the kids pyjamas as I do every year.

4. Relatedly, we’ve not yet introduced the kids giving shop bought gifts.
They’ve made lovely cards for extended family, mugs for grandparents & teachers and we ask them just to do a card or drawing for each parent. I helped Monkey make crispy cakes for his sister & daddy and I helped Bambi make Oreo truffles for her brother & daddy. These all cost hardly anything.

5. We’ve resisted the urge to buy cute things off Etsy (which I was seriously tempted by). 

Guys, I nearly spent £30 on personalised Santa sacks (we don’t wrap Santa presents because Santa wants to be green, so we leave out a bag or sack) 🙈 in the end I came to my senses and we have used pillowcases instead. Yes, as my mum used to in the 70s. Nana knows best it turns out! 

On a similar vein we used to have a £20 personalised plate from Etsy to put mince pies and carrots on (we stopped using it when we had Bambi as it’s not got her name on). The last two years we’ve used a star shaped platter from Home Bargains. Last year I wrote on it with sharpie and it rubbed off after so we could continue to use it year round. This year I let Monkey write it out and draw pics of the items and it’s super cute.

6. We don’t do a Christmas Eve box. 

They do get my handmade PJs on Christmas Eve though! So not that frugal 😂 but I make them in non-festive fabric deliberately and I don’t do adult matching sets. I just about fainted a couple of years ago when I realised you don’t get much change from £100 when buying family festive PJs! Which Red would NEVER wear again. 

And what did we do that wasn’t frugal…?

I spent around £140 on Red inc his stocking; he’ll have spent the same on me; plus we’ve spent at least £100 per child but likely more. We get a real tree which costs £50. We have a gazillion fairy lights everywhere and we buy a lot of Christmas booze and treaty food. I spent £75 on a voucher for a fancy steak dinner for my parents and Red spent £100 on his mum. But in previous years we did all this AND bought for friends and extended family so I’m still saying it’s a win?!

badmemory

Thanks both of you for the delivery info.  As for pillow cases that is what our santa sacks were in the late 40s & the 50s.  Much better to use something that you have than something that needs more "stuff" using to make it.

Cheery_Daff

Lovely to hear all about your festive frugality Bluegreen! 😊😊

I'm giggling about online shopping. I know someone who once accidentally ordered a single mushroom 😂 They thought the 1 referred to 1kg, but nope, just 1 mushroom 😂😂

Baileys_Babe

Happy Christmas @Bluegreen143 and family 🎄

I'm just having a couple of minutes for myself drinking a coffee and having a quick catch-up. 

Thank you for breaking down your Christmas spending, I am going to come back and read this and reflect on our Christmas spending to see if I am happy with everything or if are there areas I would like to change.

Bluegreen143

Have rounded up spending for this month so far (understandably very high given two birthdays and Christmas etc!). Want to get back in the habit of doing this every month - I will post the final version on the 1st.

This is joint spending, personal round up to follow!

Joint Spending Dec 23 Total - £3,651.17

Mortgage & council tax £687.86

Insurances £26.79

Energy £194

Internet £25.19

Car loan £160

Car maintenance £276.95 New tyre, new battery & investigating fan issue

Nursery school fund £25.80

TV & music £39.22 Spotify & Amazon music (slight crossover from changing service), Netflix, TV license

Groceries £470.72 

Petrol £131.23

Parking £8.20

Chicken feed £22.50

Taxis/Uber £83.10 caused by three separate car and snow related incidents! 

Birthdays (general) £66.48 BIL’s gift & 3x kids’ party gifts 

Eating out £52 BIL’s birthday dinner

Kids’ parties & presents £190.21 some of the cost fell into last month 

Christmas £642.53 most of the gifts bought and some craft stuff 

Conservatory/garden project £336.60 mainly stones for the garden and painting supplies

New hoover £119

Air fryer £10 bartered £10 of beer for it 

Kids’ books £28.96 bought Gaelic books at the school fayre and then ordered books using gift token so paid a bit extra on top

Kids’ activities £33 Monkey football DD plus taking Bambi to one Playgym session

Kids’ movies £19.98 We let the kids choose one new movie each for their birthdays 

Kids’ pocket money £18

Kids’ clothes £46.98 Christmas jumpers, cosy vests, PJs for Monkey

Charity £13.48 Christmas food bank shop 

Misc £18.58 printer ink sub, de-icer, car key battery etc

Unknown £49.68 4x Tesco shops labelled as misc (so won’t be food) and a £10.39 mistake found during reconciliation. Woops! 

Bluegreen143

Personal spending £274.30

Bills £102.49 Gym, phone bill, iCloud storage 

Eating out £55.40 Dinner with mum & sister

Hosting £24.24 Crisps & alcohol for friends 

Christmas £47.99 Gifts

Misc £44.18 Basically frittered away. Buying lunch at work x2, my half of a split takeaway with Red, Greggs lunch with the kids, bits & bobs at school fayre, hot chocolate at a cafe with Bambi (not worth it, neither of us enjoyed it)

KajiKita

The frittering is something I want to get a grip of in the new year - a lot of mine was meals in the subsidised works canteen, but it’s still spend I don’t need to make. I forgave myself in December as I was just soooo tired to be organising lunches. New year, fresh start though! 😊

KK

Bluegreen143

Glad I’m not alone in a bit of frittering @KajiKita!

Frugal wins

1. Spent the afternoon in the kitchen! Made:

- turkey & sweetcorn pie which we had for dinner

- 2x turkey & chickpea curry 

- beef stew (with half a roasting joint, the other half I froze for a roast dinner) - this stew will become the filling for our new year’s pie 

- “vegetables lurking in the fridge” soup 

- 2x sandwiches for my beloved’s lunch the next two days 😇 (earned major brownie points as he generally scavenges for himself) 

2. Bought YS salmon and corned beef and a beef joint on offer, all things on my list so will be used. Only 30% off the YS items but still a saving! 

3. About to cut Red’s hair, thus saving on a potential barber’s visit. I’m the hairdresser for everyone in the family, including me. 

My hair is extremely long, not layered and generally worn somewhat wavy so it’s easy to trim and mistakes aren’t too obvious 😂. The boys both favour a fairly standard “longer on top” style, not buzzed all over - Red has a short back & sides but I keep Monkey’s a bit longer than his as I like a wee boy to have a bit of a tousled mop head 😅 but after years of practise I can do both quite quickly now. Bambi has shoulder length hair which we’re growing long so I rarely need to touch hers.

Spending today

£49.68 Lidl
£47 Groceries, £2.68 Household

KajiKita

I cut hubby’s hair a couple of times during the first lockdown when it got warm and he became unbearably uncomfortable - it gave me a huge respect for the skills of hairdressers!! Mine howled with laughter when I told him how I’d struggled with it! 😂 And then very kindly tried to give me a few tips and hints. I still trim hubby’s beard as if he gets his barber(ess?) to do it, she just runs over it with the clippers which doesn’t look good for a couple of weeks.

Most Excellent processing of leftovers! 👏👏😊

KK