Spring into Savings - April Frugal Chatter

[beckyrobinson1]

For our home we use 1 cup of vinegar to 1 gallon of water, warm water. It works great on our hardwood floors. Cheap too!

[Natalka]

Question of the Day

When out doing your purchases (I have noticed that few people on this thread compare quantities vs. sale prices) do you check the sheets per roll on (paper towels) and figure out which is cheaper with or without coupons, save with meats do you figure out price per pound vs. prepackage packages, do you compare single roll toilet paper to double rolls, etc....anything goes.

For TP, we have favourite brands - Royale first, then Purex if we have to. Luckily they go on sale often enough and there are coupons once in a while.
For paper towels, we don't use them much, but buy Life brand ones - they are decent enough, and really cheap. Tried the brand name and pricier ones, and it's just not worth the difference.

For buying meat - I buy per kg - and I judge how much it will cost to make a meal for us.

As for SDM and bonus days - gah, it's been AGES since I've gotten to the $50 level! First of all, it's rare that we are buying enough - but most often, when we are, usually there isn't stock enough in one store - and it's NOT that I'm buying multiples of anything, it's just that not everything is at one location.

[gourmetsue]

Morning everyone! Last day of april!! Where the heck did the month go? Managed to take out a load more tomatoes from the freezer yesterday, I can almost see the bottom! More will come out today and I'll use them to make butter chicken for when my brother and SIL visit this weekend. I think I may almost be done with tomatoes! AMEN!!!! I will never just throw them in the freezer again. I've learned my lesson.

Heading to ikea tomorrow in hopes of finding a small dresser in the AS IS for our guest room for my uncle this summer. Don't want to blow the budget since the bed we have in there at the moment is just on loan and it will be back to an office again once he leaves.

Wishing you all an incredible day!

[dreamcatcher1962]

Morning everyone! Last day of april!! Where the heck did the month go? Managed to take out a load more tomatoes from the freezer yesterday, I can almost see the bottom! More will come out today and I'll use them to make butter chicken for when my brother and SIL visit this weekend. I think I may almost be done with tomatoes! AMEN!!!! I will never just throw them in the freezer again. I've learned my lesson.

I did that with our tomatoes as well and I won't do it again either. We are planning on growing lots of tomato plants this year.
I plan on making pasta sauce (without the meat, will add that later) with them and will likely freeze it in ziploc bags so that it will lay flat in the freezer. I think that will work better than freezing whole tomatoes.

[gourmetsue]

I did that with our tomatoes as well and I won't do it again either. We are planning on growing lots of tomato plants this year.
I plan on making pasta sauce (without the meat, will add that later) with them and will likely freeze it in ziploc bags so that it will lay flat in the freezer. I think that will work better than freezing whole tomatoes.

Great Idea. I bit off more than i could chew last year with 200lbs of tomatoes. I made 31 litres of sauce and canned that but then ran out of time. That being said, it only cost $40 for 200lbs and I have had a lot of meals out of them so far.

[jasperandchar]

Here is the link to the May the savings be with you thread

http://forum.smartcanucks.ca/351604-...a/#post5413167

[jasperandchar]

Question of the Day - many parts

What goals did you achieve during the month of April? (could be making your own baked goods, to cutting/purchasing prepackaged food by 1/2, implementing a meal plan) ANYTHING GOES that you are proud of or have implemented?

Have you been successful in staying on budget? If not, What through your budget if anything?

Is your May budget completed or in the works?

Have you made adjustments for May's budget?

Do you have any set goals for May? (do you wish to share)

[jasperandchar]

Good Morning,

check out the scratch & dent section at IKEA, however, you were probably thinking of this anyways (lol). I love IKEA.

Morning everyone! Last day of april!! Where the heck did the month go? Managed to take out a load more tomatoes from the freezer yesterday, I can almost see the bottom! More will come out today and I'll use them to make butter chicken for when my brother and SIL visit this weekend. I think I may almost be done with tomatoes! AMEN!!!! I will never just throw them in the freezer again. I've learned my lesson.

Heading to ikea tomorrow in hopes of finding a small dresser in the AS IS for our guest room for my uncle this summer. Don't want to blow the budget since the bed we have in there at the moment is just on loan and it will be back to an office again once he leaves.

Wishing you all an incredible day!

[jasperandchar]

Ambitious 200 lbs but the price was definately right

Great Idea. I bit off more than i could chew last year with 200lbs of tomatoes. I made 31 litres of sauce and canned that but then ran out of time. That being said, it only cost $40 for 200lbs and I have had a lot of meals out of them so far.

[gourmetsue]

Question of the Day - many parts

What goals did you achieve during the month of April? (could be making your own baked goods, to cutting/purchasing prepackaged food by 1/2, implementing a meal plan) ANYTHING GOES that you are proud of or have implemented?

Have you been successful in staying on budget? If not, What through your budget if anything?

Is your May budget completed or in the works?

Have you made adjustments for May's budget?

Do you have any set goals for May? (do you wish to share)

We've converted to cash for our food shopping and it's working so far. I've got DH on board and now he asks "is that in the budget?". We've also started to put an extra $300 a month in our savings account for a holiday next year.

May will be a little whacky for us because we, yet again, have 2 weeks of visitors staying with us. Oi! I'm hoping that the freezer will be able to feed the meat eaters so I don't have too many huge expenses.

Goals for May are still in the works for us.

[dreamcatcher1962]

Question of the Day - many parts

What goals did you achieve during the month of April? (could be making your own baked goods, to cutting/purchasing prepackaged food by 1/2, implementing a meal plan) ANYTHING GOES that you are proud of or have implemented?

Have you been successful in staying on budget? If not, What through your budget if anything?

Is your May budget completed or in the works?

Have you made adjustments for May's budget?

Do you have any set goals for May? (do you wish to share)

I came in $40 under budget for groceries for April
Meal planning definitely helped.

Things that have thrown the budget were car repairs
Too many of those lately, between new tires, regular maintenance, check engine light (that darn thing is on again for the 3rd time and that's after having it check 2 weeks ago !)

Our budget is pretty much the same all the time, I just try to cut back where I can.
Things like hanging out laundry instead of using the dryer, aiming to get groceries under budget (doesn't often happen, lol)

My goals for May are still much the same as April , just keeping groceries under budget.
Make a prepayment on the mortgage. (may only be $100 but if I can do that I will be happy)

One ongoing goal I have is in relation to Christmas.
Every year at Christmas dh gives his staff gift baskets - 24 of them in all.
This used to cost us a lot of money, but last year he suggested that I use things I can get from couponing to fill the baskets.
This way it cuts down on our cost (it comes out of our pocket, he is an employee not an owner) and we are giving people things they will use rather than something that will sit on a shelf.

The baskets went over really well last year and I am hoping to find more items to add to them in May.
So, needless to say, this year in addition to the 2 bottles of wine they always get, they will contain Toothpaste & Toothbrushes, lol.

If anyone has any suggestions as to what else I can add, please feel free to make your suggestions.

[gwennad]

I went a little over budget, with getting the backyard set up to how I want it, but will be able to save more in May as my freezer is pretty stocked. Just need to get a tank for the bbq so I can start grilling! I have a bunch of frozen meats I want to cook up.

My budget is the same pretty much every month and two weeks, some bills are paid monthly, and I get paid every two weeks so I budget groceries, pet stuff, gas for the car and things like that in biweekly cycles. Sounds complicated but it's not really. I use a running Excel spreadsheet to keep me on track. I sometimes make mistakes though, like I forgot to put a car payment in for my last pay and so we ran short as I had less money than I expected. But we make it work.

I am looking forward to later in May though, I get an increment mid-May so a little raise, which will be nice for the summer! We'll be going to my parent's for the May long weekend, which double the gas budget for that week, but I've got that worked out too. And I had the extra expense in April of getting my little kitty fixed, which was also in the budget but I got him microchipped (the vet recommended it as he's quite handsome, very friendly, and everyone who meets him wants him), that was not in the budget so was more expense.

I have a cold starting and cannot seem to think in a straight line. All over the place!

[MaddensMomma]

What goals did you achieve during the month of April? (could be making your own baked goods, to cutting/purchasing prepackaged food by 1/2, implementing a meal plan) ANYTHING GOES that you are proud of or have implemented?
Have you been successful in staying on budget? If not, What through your budget if anything?

Is your May budget completed or in the works?

Have you made adjustments for May's budget?

Do you have any set goals for May? (do you wish to share)

In April we implemented a budget for the first time ever. We had a lot of bills, taxes, and debt to get caught up on so this helped A LOT.

We finished half our basement and created a bedroom downstairs including framing, insulating, drywalling, mudding and painting for under $500. The best part is we saved the $500 for the basement by selling items we no longer used on kijiji so really spent $0 out of pocket. Will be doing the other half next month when DH gets his bonus.

We also were pretty good with sticking to a meal plan every week.

We did go over budget on certain things this month.

We went $200 over our renovations budget since we only budgeted the $500 cash we had for the basement, but ended up finding a really nice half-glass front door for the house on clearance so we bought it to put on when it's a bit nicer out. Couldn't pass up a good deal like that!

I also went on a small girls weekend trip at the beginning of the month and ate out for lunch twice so that blew our take out budget.

Grocery budget was also way over, but I did stock up on a lot of things and will hopefully be able to cut back a bit on groceries this month. I also thing I under budgeted and the budget wasn't realistic so I adjusted it from $200 to $250 for groceries mid-way through the month.

We were under budget on a few things like gas for our cars. The actual expense was pretty much bang on, but I subtracted my expenses check from work from our gas budget and we were $150 under budget!

I also had a budget of $50 for household items like TP, etc which we way over budgeted for, so I reduced this to $20.

Our clothing budget for May is increased from April, since I need to be some more summer maternity clothing and we just went through ds' clothes and weeded out over half his wardrobe that was too small. When we find out the sex of the baby in a few days I might be able to list these clothes on kijiji to help with the budget though

Our main goal for May is to decrease our food budget, try and make as many meals as possible with findings from our freezer and only by necessities and sale items.

[Crochetlady]

Our budget doesn`t change. The only variable is the sales of my crafts which dictates the size of my CC payment.

[alicia]

Well my budget is a bit shot for the past month, and likely for the upcoming month as well. My fiance and I are living separately at the moment because I moved to a city four hours away to start a new job - he is trying to sell our home and tie up loose ends. Sooooo, unfortunately halving the grocery budget etc doesn't work so easily. And we now have rent, as well as house upkeep (mortgage, property taxes, utilities, insurance - ahhh, it hurts my head to think of the numbers associated with that!). We are going to try to be as frugal as possible to not completely break the bank, but my goodness, it will be nice when the house sells, and when we are in one location, not spread out/thin.

I don't know if that answers the question, but our goal is to basically try to spend as little money as possible!