Don't Panic, December is frugal this year.

[Fluffycloudland77]

NSD = no spend day
LSD = Low spend day

NSD today and my splurge dressing gown arrived and it's hideous in real life so I'll be returning that via post office tomorrow, going there anyway to post something for the "I have and don't need thread".

The refund will pay for an extra pressie for DH I ordered.

ooh happy birthday pass have some to go with your chocolate!

Happy Birthday, pass. Hope you enjoyed your fish and chips

MissA - I am sat in a leopard print onesie, you dressing gown can't be worse that this!! DH always says his luck is seriously out when I come downstairs at 8pm in it

pass Happy birthday, enjoy chips and chocolate.

big move to relocate collie, very brave.

fluffy the Sky deals look good at the minute, not in the mood tonight to really research in full detail, but I am so pissed at BT it will be done by the weekend.

poet hope you feel better soon.

Happy birthday, pass. Enjoy your chocolate even if it's slightly baffling!

Not a cheap day here: £30 on my Oyster card and £15 on lunch for me and nice biscuits for the team at work. I've also booked some trial dance classes for DD so I've committed myself to about £20 of spending at the weekend.

I was hoping for a NSD tomorrow, but my bike has a puncture in the front tyre so it's a trip to the bike shop for me.

NSD for me, have chosen lots of presents and things but not actually ordered anything.

Not a total win though - I mentioned needing to get a cake to donate for the school fair but DH misunderstood so bought one from co-op. Cheapest one there was a fiver. And then he left it on the bus :( I've sent a message to the bus company though, asking them to eat it if it gets handed in :o TBH if I had the spare cash to be doing 'Xmas tip' type gifts I'd be dropping something off for them anyway - the drivers on our route are lovely. Probably though some lucky eagle-eyed passenger has now got a salted caramel cake :o

Re: groceries, I think we've finally settled into a routine of a delivery every Sunday - this helps me as DH is there to unpack (something I sometimes can't stay upright long enough for!). We were doing smaller deliveries every 4 days or so but we were definitely overbuying. We are getting better at just making do now. It helps that DD now has school dinners on Friday (she really missed her fish and chips!) so we don't have to worry about any fresh stuff lasting that long.

I'm getting better at using the freezer - loads of tomato sauce, spag bol etc in bags - and we are having more cheap meals. For example now they are both having a hot school dinner on Fridays, the DCs agreed Fridays could now be cheese on toast night :o will have a weekly jacket spud too.

I need to reduce my expectations I was avoiding a lot of frozen veg for example as I do prefer fresh, but TBH the DCs don't notice the difference and I'm frequently relapsing ATM so the convenience of frozen carrots/broccoli is much better too. I keep wanting to do fancier food but I need to get over myself and embrace the routine!

And happy birthday pass! :o

I would quite like chocolate for my birthday but I understand the bafflement - as a teen my mum would usually present me with a scarf or similar, and the words "if you don't like it, I'll just keep it for myself"

Happy birthday pass! I hope you've had a good day with and

spotty have an amazing time, very

need I second fluffy's advice. I switched to a 12 month contract with EE. They had a great cash back offer on so unlimited broadband and weekend calls are costing me £32 for the year. Unsurprisingly the cost rockets after the 12 months are up but I'll just switch again. It's easy and you're usually only without bb for a couple of hours.

60p on shopping as I needed a snack for dc. I've massively over bought milk so my freezer is full of it. I'm hoping just another £10-15 on fruit will see us through to payday.

Finally, I shopped online at Argos the other week and they've sent me a £5 voucher to spend online. I'm not going to use it, does anyone want it? I don't think there's a minimum spend but it's only valid until 9th. I may have a £5 off £35 spend in store voucher too, I shall check.

Sleeping Beauty was good fun, very traditional!! Only spent £1 on a drink and biscuit for dd.

So glad of a day off tomos, this week seems to of been going on forever!!

Today will be an NSD as I will be all day supervising the boiler people and trying to tidy things back as they go. But I am so looking forward to a new boiler, which makes me a bit of a saddo, but this has taken so long to get and I'm really looking forward to a nice modern boiler that doesn't make loads of noise and we can have hot water when we want rather than having to plan for it and radiator valves that you can actually turn up and down!

DS hasn't asked for much for Christmas, he only asked for Operation and Buckaroo which he likes the look of. I was a bit when his little friend said he wanted an ipad and minecraft - even I've not got an ipad! Am I a bit old fashioned?

Only you ladies will understand my frustration, spent €56 in aldi on enough shopping to do us for another week hopefully this is compared to usual €120. When I'd it unpacked I remembered my €10 off €50 vouchers that I bought two papers for on Sunday. It's a waste of €5 on papers,& €20 savings if I don't use them by Sunday. Grrr.

What would ye do? Thinking maybe of spending one on buying ham & Turkey for Christmas & giving other one to my cleaner who shops there & who I adore.

Also spent €6 in lidl on toilet paper.

You could try customer services with your receipt and the voucher. They might honour it.
Friends did food shop in M&S and paid . They then bought some clothes and were given a £5 off food voucher. When they said that they had already done their food bit they were told to go to customer services who happily gave then £5.
Might be worth a try with a sad face .

£8.51 in Tesco yesterday, bit more than I'd planned but DP asked me to get coffee, bananas and tomatoes which bumped it up a bit. Had to go to Tesco for that particular shop.
Today is unlikely to be an NSD because DP and I are in work together today, he's attending a training event at my company. So we'll probably go out for a sandwich at lunchtime. Apart from that I need nothing though.
spotty have an amazing time. Happy birthday for yesterday pass

needastrong trust me, a leopard print onesie is about 100 times better than this monstrosity. I'd be ashamed to open the door in it!

I have run out of Christmas cards and stamps, so will be stocking up when I go to the Post Office to post evil dressing gown back.

Am sick of laundry drying slowly everywhere, I need to find a solution as I can't put up with it all winter. Ideas anyone? We don't have space for a tumble dryer, but we do have a narrow space free, I wonder if you can get compact ones?? Also pondering getting one of those overhead laundry hangers fitted on stairs as I don't tend to sit in the hall so at least I wouldn't be staring at it. Argh.

We have quite a good washing machine - fluffy do you think the laundry would nonetheless have enough water left in it to make a spin dryer worthwhile? Don't want to buy it and find my washing machine is already extracting most of the water!

ohhelp do you think we love near each other? That's exciting! I'm in Hampshire...

Live!!!!!

Belated birthday wishes Pass! £20 Amazon voucher yesterday for a gift. Need to get a few top up groceries today but otherwise should be LSD.

I've got a top of the range bosch logic washing machine and I still get between a pint and a pint and a half of water out of a 9kg wash.

You need a 2800rpm one, preferably without a hose.

You just fold everything, stack it vertically heavy stuff at the bottom and spin it.

If its making a horrible noise you've done it wrong.

does yours have a spout that you collect water from? We do actually have space for this, I think the previous occupants had a slimline dishwasher or something, there's a narrow gap under the work surface about 1/2 or 2/3 of a normal washing machine.
How quickly do things then dry? Sorry for all the questions!!