Marching into a miserly march with the mumsnet frugaleers

[Fluffycloudland77]

Newbies, helpful tips & lurkers always welcome.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/credit_crunch/1600030-Small-money-saving-habits-petty-even

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/credit_crunch/1543785-your-top-tips-for-money-saving-and-a-more-frugal-life

Does anyone know if it's worth haggling my broadband package with sky? Currently paying £32.50 for calls and broadband. We're out of area for any cheaper deals. We were paying £45 with bt prior to joining sky

spotty I think it's always worth a go with sky. They might not reduce you calls but may reduce the broadband?

Well we pay just over £15 for line rental and the rest is broadband. Free weekend calls but that's it.

Spotty, its always worth asking we got a good deal with them, free evening/weekend calls and broad band half price for 12 months.

Potbelly, make a white sauce with the peppers/chicken etc and pour over cooked pasta and bake. I add a chicken stick cube for extra flavour, spinkle some breadcrumbs and cheese on and bake. Or onion peppers chicken, fry gently add dash wine, tblspn Tomato puree 1 of flour. Add enough chicken stock cube liquid to make thin sauce.season & add dried herbs. Bake over cooked pasta.

annie thanks. Never thought about a white sauce. Will try that. Always seem to think pasta=passatta/tomato base.

Passthecake hope DH recovers quickly.

Spendy day here,

Airport parking - £3.40
Road toll £1.20
Shopping, including ice-cream as was there before 9 am, cool enough To Get it home still frozen -£30

Should only need fresh veg/ fruit this week as I have a freezer full of proteína. oh, and dog food, DH forgot and drove straight past yesterday.

That poor Stieff is likely To leave home you know. I splashed out for DDs and bought them each the Stieff for the year of their birth, they know they will be flogged, disowned and never have chocolate again if they Get damaged slight over zealousness on my part, Possibly

spotty we called sky last month to leave - we were originally with O2 broadband which was bought by Sky. I wanted to leave but they offered me broadband for 20 for the whole year. I would definitely try and haggle! Look online for the cheapest and then quote this to them to see if they will match it.

Spendy. Argh. Swapped some money for euros as going there next weekend for the week for work. It will be claimed back some how but still. Then whilst in m&s got lured into the 60% off shelves and got a top for £11. Dh joined us and ended up with 3 jumpers, 3 pairs of socks and a pair of trousers, all for £84 (one jumper was actually £2.99?!!!!). Amazing. Dh usually has clothes till they are holey so it's ok. I'm intending to update my wardrobe slowly. I have plenty of clothes, but some clothes are shall we say, not fit for wear... In terms of either I'm not wearing them anymore, or not age suitable!! The thing is, I've not really changed size since having 2 kids. Yes I have a belly but somehow can still fit into my old old clothes. So I still have clothes from my early 30s or even my 20s god forbid!! And yes, I'm not certain I can carry them off now, so I'm going to try and replace them with things I really like. Add then wear these things more often.

£16 at McDonald's, and the £3.68 at whsmiths. We went there to get a £1 book from the happy meal. I've never done it. But it looked like something the kids liked. Happy with that. What got me so annoyed was there was a stack of Peppa pig books on a shelf proclaiming 75% off.. Dd headed there and of course I said she could have it. When we went to the till, it was original price!! It's not a problem of paying original price for it, it's a problem of deception!! I was v annoyed.

Whoops sorry for the epic post!

NSD.

passthecake do you think it's food poisening or d&v?. Lets hope he's over it quickly, it's a vile illness.

Spendy day here. £44 for Sunday lunch with friends (for two), plus £18 in sainsburys as we have the in-laws here for dinner. Will have a frugal week to make up for it!

£23.49 seems to be the cheapest we could get

Well dp has been fine since the poo&puke fest at 6am so I recon it was the food. ..we've had d&v a couple of times this winter and he has no temp or lethargy

Nsd staying in!

spotty try them again tomorrow with a different call handler you never know?

It's still nearly £110 a year saved just by asking though spotty, you can't get primus where you live?.

For broadband? Wow that is pricy. I would leave.

I haven't phoned sky, that's the cheapest deal I can find online for broadband, line rental and weekend calls

Pastthecake - glad dh is feeling better. We had that a few months ago. Dh went to a farewell dinner of mutual friends who were relocating and by the end of the starters, felt v ill. He managed to drive home (left early didn't eat the rest but still paid up?!!!!) and spent the rest of the evening throwing up... Bad.

I can't get the primus website to load

No primus in my area

Ugh. Toilet leaking. We only realised when DS slipped twice in the kitchen downstairs and the second time noticed there was water on the floor. We were like but then realised the ceiling was soaking. It's a drip drip dripping at a fairly fast rate. We've put a container under to catch the drips. It's filling up within the half hour . No one seems to be available today but we do have someone coming tomorrow in the morning. We will have to turn the water off at the mains before we go to bed.

Dread to think of the cost.

cool rather than switching all water off could you just weigh down the stop cock and stop the toilet from filling up again? (Flush the loo to make sure there's no water in the loo itself).

If you keep letting it drip through ceiling the ceiling might come down. Stop it from filling up and just flush with a bucket when you absolutely have to. Do you have another toilet in the house?

Spendy weekend, we've been staying with friends and brought wine and chocs (£15) then paid for 2 rounds of drinks (£8.76, £14.50). Tonight we're all going out for dinner so that'll be about £30.

Frugal win: friends gave us a tin of paint they bought and didn't use in the exact colour I want to paint the study, saving us about £20!

We're going to homebase tomorrow for an electric sander and some more paint, but trying to return some unused paint which if they accept it back will take about £16 off the bill.

Painting the study made me see how much this house will feel more like our home if we make the effort to make it nice, it's only half painted but it looks fantastic.

potbellyroast. Thanks. It's not leaking through the ceiling anymore. We are catching the drips in a container. It seems to be the connection from the pipe to the cistern that is leaking the water, perhaps a washer issue? Luckily we do have another toilet that we can use. I'll try the weighing down the stop cock but I know I will worry all night that the leak has not stopped so I will turn off the water anyway.

cool we had a leaky pipe to cistern leak last year which was fairly straight forward to fix. My top tip - we tied a nappy around the pipe which caught drips beautifully!

That's great idea. Shame my DS is too old for nappies and we don't have any hanging around.