Judiciously June frugal thread now including Christmas bargains.

[Fluffycloudland77]

Everyone is welcome.

£2 on a bar of choc each for the kids to take for the school chocolate raffle. Now I know they do smarties bars I think it might cost me more as I might need to "test" it...

£15 on food for tomorrow night - have decided to invite a load of mates round and chill out in the garden. I'm doing nibbles, they're bringing booze and I'm providing venue etc. Should be great!

My rice pudding risotto is amazing!

Really need to shop. Our fridge contains 1/4 cucumber, a tennis ball amount of cabbage, margarine, milk and a jar of cranberry sauce from Christmas.

miss that's a great frugal socialising plan!

Congratulations on job creme.

Miss A we've done something similar in the past and it's worked well. It's a great way to have a cheap night.

cake you shouldn't post such things as I may need to test that too although I haven't thought of a good reason why

We making the most of the good weather and enjoying lots of park time and occasional ice lollies from multi packs instead of ice cream vans. I returned a couple of small things to the shop and then bought some milk, yoghurt and fruit but due to return only spent £1.58.

£11 at Aldi. Had to go there as we need to bring a bottle gift for the school fair tomorrow and I have no bottles that I wish to share with school. So I bought a bottle of ale. And some strawberries, pasta and passata. All needed stuff. Will get the big shop by the weekend. Need bread, milk, fruit. Maybe some meat.

Last few big shops have been about £35/week which is great.

Lets say £10 on food shall we? Dh refused the takeaway I offered, bought a meal for him, then he got two meals I can't eat & I had to go out buying salami because I am trying to low carb.

The takeaway would have been easier & I can hear him stomping while his meal cooks.

I have reminded him the takeaway would have been eaten by now

I think smartie bars ought to be tested so you know they are safe for children.

70p in boots getting weighed. The girls at work (all young and skinny) have decided to try to reduce their BMI and body fat over the next 6 weeks. I figured that as I have so much to lose, this will be a good incentive. Plus we have a netball match coming up and I want to do well.

Got to find £12 for teachers end of term present contributions today. Someone else is organising and I'm happy to jump on the bandwagon though I guess if Iwas bebeing frugal I wouldn't.

£10 last night getting my eye lashes tinted, think my own lightened in sun as I looked bald!

£12 on teacher presents please tell me you have at least 6kids because even£2 per child class 30 is £60 n even if only 25 contribute £50 more than enough for end yr present.

I think the whole end yr present thing has got out of control mummy business set up making handmade gifts etc bonkers I think if a teacher has done an extra special job with your child then of course reward but what's wrong with handmade card from a child.

My little one starts school this year he has been at childminder he is with now since 19mths and nursery 13mths I buy childminder small bday n Xmas present n will get a leaving gift but more personal relationship than nursery. Nursery he was in room one for 6mths brought them Xmas gift but didn't when left room. Room two was in a yr got keyworker small gift n some biscuits for room staff n that's because keyworker really tried hard took on suggestions made etc.

Current nursery room keyworker is shocking thick as pig muck springs to mind no initiative n will get nothing however a nursery nurse who has been there whole time my little one has n works in all the rooms will get a nice gift always makes an effort speaks to us knows my child n actually loves her job.

Sorry that turned into a rant - I am probably as tight miserable cow rather than frugal but only reward efforts n work beyond the bare min.

I would blame pregnancy hormones but nope that's just me

If its £12 per child in a class of thirty wouldn't that make the present too expensive for the teacher to keep anyway?

Dh's boss gets visibly twitchy when suppliers bring in presents over £10 at Christmas.

I'm a teacher and I would be if a class gave £12 each for a gift for me.

No gifts necessary, guys! A card or thank you from the child always makes me very very happy. The thing I treasure the most is a box of cards with heartfelt messages in, and one gift: one of my tutor group last year painted me a picture of a raven (my favourite bird) in flight, I had it framed and it's on my dining room wall. Love that painting.

I'm jumping on the £12 contribution is too much bandwagon too . Even if your child went to private school with 10 children in the class, it's still too much. eastmids Your rant made me laugh. I get like that too and I'm not pregnant!

I am so annoyed with myself. For some reason, I have email alerts for all my favourite stores apart from m and s, and they have a 20% sale for school uniform, which I only realised last night. I had set aside money to buy uniform in the sale and they don't have any of the trousers he wears in his size. at myself. Does anyone know when the next school sale is likely to be?

Do a search for M&S sale on hotukdeals and It brings up previous sale dates, so you might find the last one was 10 months ago for uniform. That's all I can think of offhand.

Or wait for the stampede that is the aldi uniform sale.

I read once that a teacher in a private school (maybe Eton or Harrow, can't remember) got given 2 first class tix for a holiday in the Maldives by a pupil...

A teacher in our school was bought an iPad mini by a pupil recently, I was completely horrified that he was allowed to keep it.

for horrified read

I'd be jealous too, bet he sold it.

Last years uniform sale was mid August by the looks of it.

Thanks, Fluffy.

miss at mini-iPad. I obviously work in the wrong area.

I am a nurse anything over £20 has to be declared n all small thank you gifts n cards recorded.

Coolcadbury glad I made u laugh.

Little stressed as dad n his wife to be r coming this eve now rather than late tonight n hadn't planned dinner n dad is a plain foods man so just knocking up a cottage pie. They r staying the weekend as dad is helping husband do patio so means will have to entertain wife to be n take my toddler off out luckily his new school has its fete in the afternoon so that helps.

The £12 could include several teachers (if part-time) and any TAs though I guess - i'm not saying they all need to get things, but at my school the parents collect so they can give a little (!) something to everyone, so a £12 donation would mean each teacher works out around £3/4 a head, then £1 each for each TA....
however if it all goes to one teacher - I'm working at the wrong school! [disclaimer - I'm joking, wouldn't expect or feel comfortable with that at all!]

Ours is £5 per child, to cover teachers (including job share ones) and the teachers aid, and we only have 24 students in the class.

We just get them some chocolates and a gift voucher. Card is a creative one, with photos of all the students.

We also have an optional £5 for the head and the Office Manager - infant school with only 3 classes so it's not like they would get inundated with gifts.

Wow! I'm impressed that parents get together to organise presents for school staff.

I feel incredibly awkward accepting any kind of gift...please parents it's not necessary! However, that said, when I have been given gifts from individual children (e.g. Box of chocs or bottle of wine) I can see how pleased the children are to be giving the gift so I would always make a huge fuss.

Planning our big shop later...eek! We usually come in under £50 week in week out but today we need yo seriously stock up! (Budgeted for)

The buying of huge teacher gifts is not a new thing. My DD is 18yo now and I am going back 13 years to when she was in year 1 and one of the mums got up a 'collection' for the teacher and the amount required was £10. Then! It would have been really awkward to make a fuss and refuse so I went along with it, and I think most of the other mums did too. The mum who had organised it bought the teacher a pot plant and spent the rest of it (nearly £200) on m&s vouchers. Somehow I managed to get out of the group who presented her with the vouchers but my good friend reported back and said that the poor teacher was obviously gracious but seemed embarrassed. Poor woman - I would be embarrassed too. I am cringing now just thinking about it

Once your children get to secondary age, teacher presents don't seem to feature and even if you would like a particular teacher to have something, your teenager is too embarrassed to take it to them. I tend to write emails to certain teachers who have gone out of their way to help DD (and I have even written a few this year) and these have been greatly appreciated.

DD's last exam today - it was a day we never thought would come so we are both very relieved. I made my last trip to the giant Tesco and spent £72 which should keep us going well into next week.

We are a class of 30 kids, and for Christmas, the teacher had £80 vouchers from JL, TA got £50 maybe and boxes of chocs for random others. I imagine it will be the same for end of year....

Fuck it, I'm going to retrain as a teacher if you get iPads & JL vouchers.

How hard can a pgce be

They ought to put this in the prospectus for teaching, sod all this making a difference lark.