Austere April - Frugaleers continue to the next quarter!

[Leilandri]

Come and join us for another frugal/thrifty/down-right stingy month!

After reading the whole thread I feel a little more inspired.

I need to buy new school uniform next month so have to cut back a little in some areas to allow for that. I'm going to try listing my decent 'clutter' on the local facebay and raise a few quid.

For the last few weeks I've been using up odds + sods in the kitchen cupboards. Almost getting to the last of it now.

Adora WTF? Surely school can't dictate what goes on outside of school hours?

I will have to spend something today after all. £1.09 to collect a birthday card from the post office for DS2 - my brother didn't put enough postage on it. I'm very tempted to invoice him

Ali I assumed that Adora had something going on at her dc school so they need a certain colour top.

My dc school seem to have one day a year where the children have to wear a certain colour depending on what team/there doing. And it always a colour top we don't have.

Good luck with getting your ds card (happy birthday). I had this with one of my dc cards. The man in the post office gat a bit shitty because she didn't have any ID. I pointed out as she was 6 she didn't have anything other then a Zoo pass. The man next to him told to stop being so stupid and give dd her card.

Ali my thoughts exactly, but there's a forced fun day and they've decided pupils have to be in "house" colours, but not uniform. This is standard for the end of year event, but hey let's do it for the beginning of the year too.

Adora I know what you mean my dd's have a large range of coloured tops but I can guarantee the school will ask for the one colour they don't have.

Adora it was more the issue of them dictating who they study with outside of school that I found a bit odd - never heard of that before!
Hopefully the tops will still fit at the end of the year, or is that being too optimistic??

Spent £48 at the garden centre (what??? It was raining..) where we bought 2 bird houses, some bird feed, grass seed and other things. Other than that we ate at home, managed to clean the house (deep clean bathroom and toilet) and vacuumed the house.

Had passive aggressive email exchanges with idiotic colleagues on emails. Argh.

Tomorrow will be doing work stuff in London. Kids and dh will hopefully not spend any money and if they do it'll be on things like wall paint for our hallway!

Wow Toast fantastic deal at Claire's, well done.

Ali with the way my two are growing it's unlikely that DD1's tops will fit. She's out grown the shoes we bought in Feb already.
Re the home study, it really is a case of "you, you, you and you, do X and hand it in tomorrow" I have spoken to the school about a few issues and apparently the problem is me being foreign - I just don't grasp the way schools operate, said with a PA smile.

I'm popping into the shop after the school run, just a little top up, will report back later.

Bought fish and chips for tea tonight £15 . I think its only the second takeaway of 2013 which is really good going for us, 2 takeaways and one meal out.
Have spent £23 on tickets to see dd in a play this weekend. She's only 8 and it's the first thing she's done like it so we're making sure one of us is there each night and then going en masse on Sunday. She's definitely worth it and it's cheaper than drama classes [frugal].
Off to make cottage pie for Sunday's supper now.

I have a quick question re bolognese if I may...
I tend to batch cook about 1kg of mince (2 packs of pork and beef, or pork and quorn or some variation of the above). This makes for easy food from the freezer at least once a week.

I have a pack of quorn in my freezer and no meat. I could go to the store and get a pack of meat mince. Or does anyone cook with quorn and is able to tell me what they put in the vege bolognese sauce? I have vague ideas that people use lentils? Help!

I do add celery, carrots, onions and garlic to the sauce together with the mince and of course tins of chopped tomatoes and some herbs. So I will be adding those to the quorn mince too.

Thanks in advance!

You don't need to add lentils to quorn - I usually use it as I would beef mince and make bolognese with celery, carrots, onions and tomatoes etc as normal; if you wanted to bulk it out you could add some red lentils maybe, but I've never tried that! :)

Same, I use it in the way that non-veggies would use the meat in a bolognaise. I add a teaspoon of marmite to the bolognaise too, for extra flavour.

Naughty Adora being forrin. You must try harder with that.

bessie second the marmite, very yummy! but have to do it while DH isn't looking as he doesn't "like" it, but loves the bolognese with it in

I also sneak it in when nobody's looking

yes! secret marmite is the best marmite

just hit 2/16. woe is me. my target is not looking achievable this month

My official frugal target for this month was to try and only spend £100 on food for the month (me and 2 young DC's). We're almost at the middle of the month and I have £10 left . although I've lasted longer than I thought I would.

My thrifty food shopping is always scuppered by my IBS or illness, which naturally requires nice comfort food .

You've done pretty well meglet

NSD yesterday. So we're up to 5 (or 6 I think) not bad really. I shouldn't need anything over the weekend, baked lots yesterday and made crispy cakes for treats.

Meglet you've done well how much do you normally spend?

That's a tough target meglet, you've done really well