Reducing My Bills - Mobile Phone

I am trying to cut down on our monthly outlay and over the next few weeks a number of things are coming up for renewal. This year I am going to make time to ring around and get the best price instead of just accepting the renewal quote like I have in previous years. Today I have made a start by getting a better deal on my mobile phone. I don't like contracts and have had Pay As You Go for a number of years. It suits me, I don't use the phone excessively but when I text or call it is more expensive. My current provider is Vodaphone and I have been topping up £5 per month which gave me free weekday evening texts. Depending upon the content of a message I received, I would wait until 7.30pm and then reply ! Sometimes I had to top up again within the month, if you top up £10 per month you then got free weekend texts as well. I never really spent anymore then £10 per month. My land line is with Virgin and they advertised a £5 SIM only deal which is on a 30 day rolling contract. The deal actually finishes tomorrow and is for Virgin customers only. With that I get unlimited texts and 100 minutes per month. I can also call other Virgin landlines or mobile customers for free and as most of my family are on Virgin it should work out well for me. At least now if someone texts me at 3pm I can reply straight away without having to check my credit !!

Bag a bargain

As I have mentioned before there is a conveniance store where I work and although it is usually overpriced , you can pick up the odd bargain now and again. I popped in today on my way home and picked up a few reductions; 6 Free Range large eggs 25p reduced from £1.60, Onions 25p reduced from £1 and Vine tomatoes 32p reduced from £2. Its hard to believe nowadays the price of 'basic' items, the things I bought would have been £4.60 full price ! Hubby has boiled some of the eggs to take to work tomorrow, a nice frugal lunch but eggs can be a bit pongwiffy in the office ! I plan to have a nice omelette for lunch tomorrow and Thursday. The onions will be thrown in the mix for most meals. I don't like tomatoes so hubby will be eating those too. I'm going to try and see how long I can avoid going to the supermarket for a big shop. The fridge is already looking a bit baron but at least I can clean it whilst its empty.

Pay Day

We had a great weekend. On Saturday I managed to get husband to clear out ''some'' of his wardrobe and we took a huge Ikea bag to the local charity shop. The shop assistant was really pleased as he says they don't get many donations of men's clothing. Some items we have held back as I may be able to sell them on ebay to raise some extra cash. Yesterday we had a lie in and headed over to Shugborough Hall in the afternoon. We have a National Trust membership and enjoyed looking around Lord Lichfields private apartments that have recently opened to the public. The grounds are great and we all enjoyed a good walk , admiring the daffodils. We have about 8 weeks membership left before it expires so we intend to go out each weekend and through the Easter holidays. I'm not sure yet if we will renew it , will have to see how the funds look at that time.
Today is payday and I have sat down after work armed with pen and paper . I was surprised when I checked the bank account online to see we had gone overdrawn by £80. Feel annoyed about that as it is £80 less off the credit card balance. This month looks as if it could be quite expensive, a few birthdays coming up and Easter Holidays looming. I also have to factor in childcare for my daughter whilst I am at work. With the Easter break and the Royal Wedding , the children will have nearly 3 weeks off school. I intend to sit down and make a holiday meal and activity plan. Hopefully the weather will be good, fingers crossed !!

Baby Shower

My brother and his wife are expecting their first baby in the summer and I have just received an invitation from them to go to their 'Baby Shower' in May. Baby Showers are a new thing here in the UK but have been going on for some time in USA. I knew they were thinking of holding one so I have been stockpiling items in advance. When I have been to the shops I have bought things on special offer. Johnson's baby products have been on offer recently at £1 each, usually £2 plus, for the large sized bottles. I picked up bubble bath, shampoo, baby oil and talcum powder. Nappies were on offer another day and I bought a pack at £3.24, half price from £6.50. Another time they had other things reduced, I picked up a set of Disney dummies 25p from £1.99, Disney feeding plate and weening spoons at 50p each from £2 each. I also got a cardboard box from work , destined for the recycle bin, and took it home. I have some nice silver paper to cover it and all the items fit inside the box nicely. My brother and his wife have a lot of friends so I know they will probably get a lot of clothes, toys etc so I thought I would give a little hamper of goodies instead. They are expecting a baby boy which makes buying clothes easier. I have also bought some clothes to give as gifts later on. Sainsburys had a 25% off clothing sale so I got a few bargains there. I got a reversible baby jacket £4 reduced from £8, but then they took off 25%= £3. Hat & mitten set £2.25 reduced from £4.50, again 25% off = £1.68. They had big sizes available so I can keep them for Christmas presents.

Its Friday !

Thank goodness its Friday, I am so glad its the weekend. This week the weather has been great here and I have managed to get all the washing done and line dried. The washing basket is now empty but the downside is that the ironing basket is now full ! The meal plans have been going really well and I am going to plan next weeks over the weekend. This sounds pathetic but we haven't eaten out or had takeaways for over two weeks now. There was a time when we would have had a meal out or a takeaway at least once each week but so far we have stayed strong ! It is so easy to feel weak and give in to the laziness. I felt like that yesterday, I'd had a busy day and felt like taking the easy way out but I came home and cooked dinner as planned like a good mother ! Another success this week was that my husbands credit card bill came and it had came down by £2300 last month. This was due to a number of things: overtime, cutting back, savings and sale of our second car. Our other car hadn't really been used for a few months. My husband gets the train in now to work, much quicker,cheaper and easier ( should have done it years ago-never mind ) We decided that rather than leave it parked up to rot away , we would sell it and put the proceeds towards the credit card balance. It is great to see the balance coming down. This was what I had to remind myself with yesterday when my mind was drifting onto fast food. Nothing tastes as good as being out of debt feels !!

Books

My daughter has always enjoyed stories and reading books but it seems in recent weeks she has turned into something of a bookworm. Each night she goes up to bed and reads before she gets off to sleep. She has even been asking if she can go to bed early so she can read for longer ! She does have quite a good selection of books , she has always had them for birthdays and Christmas. She is now into Jacqueline Wilson books and has read the ones she has and wants more. I have suggested that we go to the library at the weekend and she can take some books out but she is not happy about this. The reason being is she would like to buy the books to read over and over. Most of the children's books are between £6-£10 each for a paperback and if she is averaging a book every few days that could be quite costly! No to mention all the extra clutter. I do feel a bit of a 'meanie' saying no to the purchase of books but I am really trying to keep on track with the spending and not buy any unnecessary things. The library will let her loan out 15 books at a time and although you are supposed to return them within the month, children do not get fined if they are overdue. I do also believe in the 'use it or lose it' theory; as tax payers we pay for the libraries and if they are not used then surely they would be closed down. So I will be saving my pennies and heading off to the library this weekend.

Where has the time gone ?

I have been so busy the last few days that I haven't had time to write my blog. I just don't know where the time has gone ! The weekend flew by, we had a great time at the quiz and came a respectable 7th out of 24. The next day a nice surprise in the post, our tickets for Alton Towers arrived. They have allocated us a Saturday in May so no time off work or school. We managed to stick to the meal plan and did not stray. We are now on our second week of meal plans and tonight was Sausage and Mash ( 59p sausage from last week) It was delicious and everyone enjoyed it. It works well with the meal plan as there is no wasted time thinking what to cook. I just get the ingredients together the night before and it just seems to work so much better than throwing things together when you get home from work. It seems a such long time since I got paid last but I think March always does seem long. Next week feels an awful long way off ! But I do still plenty in the freezer to keep us going.