Lovely birthday...and books for free

Had a great birthday - ate and drank far too much but hey ho! its only once a year! Downloaded 6 free books for my Kindle - do like something for nothing! Did my first week shopping in a while (lived out of the cupboards last week!) and it was £55 for the three of us - not too bad but we still had fish and chicken in the freezer. Its really difficult when trying to diet as my go-to cheap meals are all fattening and stodgy! Dinners this week are veg curry, fish, chicken stir-fry, macaroni cheese, roast beef (bought slices cos its cheaper) and pasta with chorizo. Saturdays teas are alway something quick and this week its beefburgers for dh and me and dd are trying carrot, cumin and kidney bean burgers from a blog that has really cheap recipes from a blog called a Girl called Jack which I intend to try out.

Days 3-5 of Frugal Boot camp

Invited to a barbecue so had to buy stuff - £8 including drinks for 4 of us!! lol Did buy a dress for myself but it was out of my allowance for this month (which is going to be halved next month) - reduced from £39 to £22 - I have now lost 4 stone and have quite a bit to go -the dress is lovely standing up but when I sit down I spread a bit so its an incentive. But we also had to pay for car repairs which was £75 - but again, I had that already saved up in my Car repairs account - defintley a need! Went for a lovely walk along the beach with my two dds gathering drift wood and shells to make stuff with (my eldest is arty not me!) And my Prima magazine arrived today (paid for with Tesco clubcard vouchers) so been a no-spend day.... My birthday tomorrow so there are secret plans afoot that I am not involved with so we will see what tomorrow brings...

Day 2 of Frugal Boot camp....need to get dh on-board!

Well Day 2 and already dh has been spending!!! Breakies - bran flakes, lunch - quorn chilli - tea, chicken (tiny bit) and veg curry & rice Dh took on himself to do some gardening.....now in the past he has happily ignored our garden but I guess hes thinking of ways to amuse himself but it had to involve buying grass seed and weed killer! And he toddled off to the shops to get some basics (which we did need but could have managed without) Bless him - he is really trying hard but just ended up being trying! lol So he cost us another £18.20 from the housekeeping (leaving £65.80 until the end of July) and £20 from the household budget. I spent nowt!

Day 1 of Frugal boot camp!

Breakfast - Smart price Bran flakes Lunch - made up a big pot of Quorn & veg chilli - portioned it out at 50 per per portion - will use this for my work lunches Tea - Macaroni cheese I have no fresh fruit (which I have been eating loads of on my diet!) so had a tin of pears in juice at work No money spent at all.....

The s**t has indeed hit the fan.....

Well we had a good run...... Now my youngest dd is no longer getting DLA our Working Tax credit has been totally slashed....and we had an overpayment (which we told them about but were told to wait until the renewal!!!!) and the way they work is our claim will only go this year until August (when dd would have left school) but we advised them that she is staying on and it will be a new claim from them - upshot is they are taking all our overpayment from the remaining few months claims so we are dropping a huge amount..and when its re-instated even then its a massive drop from what we were getting... Been working at our out goings for the last few days and have slashed dhs mobile bill from £27 per month to £8 and dds bill from £20 to £8 too. I have also saved £30 over the year by not getting paper bills too. Cancelled Napster (plenty free music out there! lol) saving £15 per month. I am currenlty on Weight Watchers (lost 4 stone in jut under a year) but as I know the diet inside out I am going to get weighed at my eldest dds house (I dont own scales!) before she goes to Weight watchers and cancel that dd - saving another £21 per month. So thats £55 per month savings....If we are not going out so much I have cut back on our petrol allowances If I can manage on £250 for groceries for the month we will have enough to pay our bills and I can also reduce some of the money I put aside for my Freedom account (basically pots of money I fund every month - Birthdays, Xmas, Household, Car Repairs, Holidays and Emergencys)but continue to fund the pots for Car Insurance, Road Tax but there will be no extras. However, dh has a wee job but is sporadic money (its a renumeration for chairing meetings)so that money will be used for entertainment and clothes. Groceries are challenging - I have been buying seperate stuff for my diet but will have to start looking for cheaper alternatives - dh has a dodgy stomach and dd is a bit fussy so it will be a working in progress but £250 is the maximum I have and thats it - great if I can cut it down as that extra money can be used on something else - I have £84 to last me until the end of the month for food which is good - and we did an inventory of all our cupboards and freezers and the only thing we have to buy this week is milk, eggs and we have run out of fabric conditioner but will use vinegar instead! I did this years ago when paying off our debts but gradually we got more money and you live up to your lifestyle. We had savings we can dip into if needed but I will be happy if we can just manage on the money we have but I know its going to be hard at first. So watch this blog for cheap and cheerful recipes and ideas of frugal things to do!!!