Rapidly losing things to report

My frugal living’s going so well at the moment that I’ve almost got nothing to report to you guys! The hight of spending yesterday was 50p on a KitKat.

Here’s a heads up about tonight though – I’m going to be a bit frivelous . . .

Take away (chinese) – £16.00
Wine (a nice Riesling) – £8.50

I love it 🙂

It’s been a while

Every now and again I look back at dailyspends and realise that I’m not doing a great job of tracking my actual spending. I’ve also been a bit naughty and neglected the blog slightly over the last few weeks.

The thing about DailySpends is that I enjoy writing it and when I do write it, it actually makes me think about what I’m spending.

This weekend we’ve been a bit short on the readies because we’ve had to spend a few quid on the car (£270 to be precise on MOT, TAX & a new tyre). So it’s been back to basics with some old skool (yes! with a K) thrifty tricks:

1 – Nice cheap dinners: Home made pizza (50p per head) , Nachos (30p per head), Cheap Sunday Roast (£1.00 per head)

2 – Cheap weekend drinks: 20 bottles Becks (£7.59 on sale at Tesco), 4 litres Cider (£3.00)

3 – Family fun: Dog show (free), Craft (free), Park & Walk (free)

Bank Holiday Spending – Back to Basics

We aimed to take it easy this Bank Holiday weekend and keep spending to a minimum – and succeeded! Managed to get away with minimum spend on Saturday, Sunday & Monday with cunning use of some old school days out!

Saturday, Feed the Ducks! – Took it easy at the park. Took the children to feed the ducks and for a run around. Two cheap ice creams & a good play on the park. Spend – £1.60 (two ice creams)

Sunday, Get to the Seaside! – Blackpool! Oh yes! Blackpool! If ever there was a place children could make you spend money – its Blackpool! . . . No if you’re savvy like me though. Park at the far end of the prom (find a free spot outside someone’s house), take a good long stroll up the beach and then spend a couple of hours on the fairground. Spend – £3.49 (large chips, candy floss)

Monday, Watch the Planes Land! – The most expensive day this weekend was a trip to the Aviation Viewing Park to see the planes come in at the airport. Fab afternoon out (if a little geeky) – Spend – £20.00 (fuel & entry)

Weekend Spends

It seems everyone else in the country was paid this weekend except yours truly so unfortunately we had to keep the spending to a reasonable level:

Fri:
bottle of wine – £4.50
beer – £10.50
chips & curry sauce – £1.90

Sat:
groceries – £9.50

Sun:
paper – £2.00

Total: £28.40

Supermarket Spending

I’ve documented my theory on shopping at Tesco before with the fact that everytime I go in there (no matter what I go in for) I usually end up spending upwards of £40.00.

This started to concern me so much that I embarked on a mini personal boycott to cut out the risk of running up that unecesary spend . . . deciding instead to shop at one of the other major supermarket chains to see if any other micro spending tactics were in play.

Here are my brief and entirely un-scientifically proven findings:

Tesco – Always spend over £40.00
ASDA – Always surprised at how much I manage to spend, especially when they’re supposed to be cheap
Morrisons – I’m always pleasantly surprised when I shop at Morrisons
Sainsbury’s – Never get any change out of a twenty

***Special Mention*** Booths (specialist in North-West UK) – I ALWAYS walk away happy with myself when I shop at Booth’s. The food is exceptional and usualy sourced locally – I always feel I’ve got a good deal when I shop there and I should go there more often.

So, my rundown of preferred Supermarkets is:

Aaaaaat 1 – Booths
Aaaaaat 2 – Morrisons
Innnnnn 3 – Tesco
Innnnnn 4 – Sainsburys
& Iiiiiaaaaaaaaaan 5 – Asda

Like I say – no science behind it, no standard shopping list . . . just a gut feel 🙂

Leap Year Weekend Spends

I may be jumping the gun, but I’ll assume that Leap Year isn’t as major event to you as it is to me . . . being that the 29th February is actually my birthday, I like to take some time to wollow in the glory of my special day 🙂

My birthday is a special day to me, I just like it, it’s the one day in the year that I feel comfortable making demands and spending money on myself.

So . . . what have I spent on this glorious weekend?

Friday:
Train – £14.50
Breakfast – £2.75
Lunch – FREE (a colleague bought it)
3 x coffees – £4.19
1 x Subway – £1.99
Drinks – £8.50
Takeaway – £18.50
Total – £48.44

Saturday:
New jacket – £20.00
New jeans – £18.00
Mothers Day Gift for Wife from Kids – £19.50
Hair stuff – £2.99
Total – £60.49

Sunday (Mothers Day – Parents & Nan for Dinner)
Supermarket* – £40.18
– Baguettes
– Paper
– Wine
– Biscuits
– Milk
– Gift for Nan
– Nappies
– Formula
– Other stuff (I’ve forgotten)
Total – £40.18

*Why is it that EVERY time i go to Tesco I always spend over £40.00. There are some very clever marketing peeps at that company. They know exactly how to make you spend your money!!!

Total Weekend Spend – £149.11

An expensive weekend – NOT

Wooo hoooo. Payday on Thurs and still had a little bit of cash left to treat the kids this weekend. We didn’t spend much though. Just kept it simple with some nice food and swimming:

Beers – £10.00
Alcohol free wine – £4.00
2 x swimming sessions – £7.50
Groceries – £23.50
Hospital parking – £1.50 (my son decided to do surgery on himself)
Papers – £1.50
Fuel – £10.00
Total – £48.00

Top weekend had by all 🙂

Friday Spending – Wine, Ham & Something For ‘t’ Missus

Might have a bit of a blow out tonight. Spend a bit of cash on the old Winicus Winicus and Ham.

Bottle of Wine: £5.50 (cheap rioja)
Lambrusco: £2.45
Serrano Ham: £3.45

Others from today:
Fuel: £15.00
Breakfast: £1.50

Have a happy weekend.

Back up to date!

OK! So I’ve been laying low for a little while due to work commitments, but I’m defo going to keep up with this malarkey from now on. And just to prove I’m up for it, here’s a run sown of spending this weekend:

Saturday 16th Feb & Sunday 17th Feb:
£20.00 – Fuel
£19.50  – Groceries (eggs, bacon, paper, wine, beer, chocolate)
£3.00 –  DVD rental
£4.35 – Chips for lunch
£28.00 – Daughter’s new shoes
£74.85 – Total Spend

Not bad for a weekend spend . . .

Another big shout out to Trying2Save for making me feel ashamed for not keeping up with te blog.