Frugal January, everyone welcome.

[Fluffycloudland77]

Useful links.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/other_subjects/1324074-For-those-who-cant-afford-to-use-central-heating-this-year-How-are-you-going-to-cope

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

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

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/credit_crunch/1628874-Gas-Elec-Bills-monthly-and-SKY-so-angry

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/mumsnet_classics/1911061-NO-MORE-COLD-MUMSNETTERS

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/_chat/2209167-Slow-Cookers-are-shit

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/_chat/2224969-saving-money

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/legal_money_matters/2258202-Debt-mutual-support-thread-number-6-start-the-new-year-with-a-clear-purpose-and-keep-moving-forwards-even-by-tiny-steps?

orchard.tesco.com/ Sign up to this.

www.topcashback.co.uk/home And this.

www.quidco.com/home/ And this

www.moneysavingexpert.com/ And this

www.moneysavingexpert.com/cheapenergyclub ditto.

www.checkoutsmart.com/ Plus this.

www.hotukdeals.com/all/deals/new?page=3 Check this daily.

Happy New Year Everyone!

Pass, what lego set is it? I loooove lego :) I'm so glad the DCs love it too, I really enjoy choosing sets for them :o

LSD £2.50 on milk and washing up liquid, think I was short changed by £1 though (although feel slightly ridiculous to be annoyed by this!!)

Fuzz any recommendations of lego sets for a soon to be 9yo girl? She hates lego friends but loves the Creator stuff. Am really struggling for inspiration for her bday....

Well done standing up to them bantam. It's so hard to know who you can trust. Good luck with the Vectra.
Have been trying to follow the thread but have not been well again so when not in work I've mostly been sleeping or coughing/sneezing.
Have been continuing to use up food from the freezer. Put half the leftover Xmas ham in a pasta bake today. Not decided what to do with the other half yet.

Pea and ham soup is lovely and very simple to make northender The BBC good food site has a good recipe.

DDs and I stayed in today as the little one is ill and even clingier than usual. That should mean a NSD but I got bored and spent £23.60 in the Boots sale and £16.23 at dotcomgiftshop.

I told myself that the bargains I got will save me money when various birthdays roll around but I'm kidding myself. I got bored, I spent money I don't have on things I don't need.

girlie my dd 6 loves the Lego movie sets - we have cloud cuckoo land, ice cream van one and they just bought the double decker couch with their pocket money its brilliant
she also likes the city sets her favorite at the moment is the campervan.
have u seen the Lego ideas and Lego play books? they have lots of pics of ideas to make dd loves looking through them trying to get me to make them! I got them really cheap from thebookpeople.

now onto spending.. last few days been a bit spendy
Monday £6.40 Iceland (chips, pizza, blueberries, strawberries) £17.89 Tesco (dragon for dd2, pull along wagon, bath toy - birthdays and a bag of apples) £10 whsmith (3 busy books for upcoming birthdays) by got free diary with O2 moments.

Tuesday £5ish co op (snack biscuits for lunch boxes, Apple juice and box of biscuits for my mum who's babysitting this weekend) 40p dd busfare £3 gloves as we forgot ours and was bitterly cold when dd GB finished.

today £4 co op (reduced 2 punnets grapes, pot of mango, 3 pots blueberries, stir fry pack) £20 half term fees for dd1 aftersschool art club. but took some clothes/toys to local second hand shop who gave me £29 for a few bits

need to rein it in next couple days as im going out Fri and sat night however have saved £50 from some bits I sold so don't feel so bad!

My DD absolutely loved the Lego Research Institute.

She loves all the creator ones too, for Xmas she got the treehouse which is brilliant, there's quite a few different house ones like a mountain hut etc.

Lego technic is pretty cool too, more fiddly and unusual.

Also love the lego movie stuff - avoid the castle cavalry set though, it's surprisingly poorly designed and the turrets fall off! But everything else we've tried has been brilliant. I adore the cloud cuckoo land set and am considering the double decker couch for her birthday :o (do the seats lift up like in the movie though?)

shop.lego.com/en-GB/Birds-21301?CMP=KAC-GOOGEU&HQS=lego+birds

This is the one I am totally desperate for myself though. It's beautiful!

By the way is recommend going on the lego site and looking under 'what's new' - they've released a load of new sets since Christmas. I do could spend bloody HOURS on that site. If she likes animals there's a new creator 'rainforest animals' set that looks lovely - really bright.

Thanks for suggestions ladies, have just bought this one lego set so hoping she likes it, I compared prices to Argos and it was £20 cheaper via Amazon. Those birds look amazing fuzz will ear mark those for next Christmas Also got her a Sylvainain family nursery for £16.

Am debating about picking up a bike for her at the local reclamation place and getting it serviced for her. She does need a new one but this seems like an affordable way of doing it....

She also got the tree house for Christmas!! Apart from one small melt down when building it (one piece in the wrong place meant quite a lot of back tracking) she loves it as well

Anyone else got some pretty stormy weather?!

I literally cannot wait for DDs to be old enough for Lego and have a set stashed away.

The tree house looks great. My favourite set when I was younger was a Robin Hood tree house.

It is very windy and lashing with rain here in Kent. There are flood warnings all over the place so my plans for a day trip tomorrow could be scuppered. Good for the budget as long as the roof stays on

unfortunately the seats don't lift up like n the film but still pretty cool and a reasonable way to get the main figures! I've got the research institute stashed away for dd's me as I was worried they would discontinue it. have u seen Elsa's castle? I would love to buy it but dd1 isn't fussed by frozen and dd2 who likes frozen is only 2...

pretty stormy weather here too, hopefully doesn't wake dd's up...

Fluffy regarding the money club, in the last year (or 9 months) I have made £100 in cash back (but £55 was on one purchase), if I pay the membership, then I need to make that again just to cover the fee. Also, I have to pay upfront. I don't like the uncertainty.

I think I will cancel.

Today £4.89 on lunch and £5 for DD1's karate class.

fuzz I got ds the lego city police station - currently £60 in Amazon and ToysRus, usually £80 . We got him the fire station for Xmas and the requested the police station so he can play properly but I really love the look of the railway

dd isn't into lego as much, and tbh I don't think the girl stuff is as good as the boys!

Been loading my CV onto a couple of recruitment sites. Feel like I have made a start at least....though I can't start work until April at least, once I have my hands on my redundancy.

Meeting the childminder tomorrow to discuss options, am worried about losing her, but also can't justify paying her when not working? What to dooooooo.......

Ok now what's happened?! I was proud for making rice pudding, about 1.30 a litre as I felt rash and used cravendale. but then saw morrisons were selling ambrosia rice for 50p a can..! That's about the same price! So much for much cheapness!

Yesterday was a very lsd €5.83 of which I'll get €1.35 back from work. This was on 2l milk for home, 1l for work, a new pack of biscuits that were yum foxes hazelnut cafe thins, and a jar of piccante sauce that looked good! Going to pour it over chicken fillets & sliced onions in slow cooker, looking forward to dinner already & it's not even morning yet.

It's stormy here too but it didn't wake me dh did getting up for work & then ds woke also, so now I've a lovely cuddly hot water bottle in my bed! [Grin]

Joan I am guilty of that too but when doing night feeds have spent £59 last week on debenhams, £50 last night on boots and £30 tonight on debenhams without random Amazon spends so must stop myself going on shopping sites!!

Should say it's night feeds for my own 8weeks old baby and being on mat leave means no wages so really must stop spending- was clothes for my 2 ds and presents for large family n some for bday parties ds1 is constantly being invited too.

I did that too east when I was doing night feeds bought stuff sometimes when it arrived I didn't remember ordering!

Last night I tried to order brother max training cup for ds for collection at boots cos they don't have it in stock €2.50 charge or min €25 for free delivery to store not home so I've left it & I'll try ringing the two pharmacies that stock that brand instead.

Did you get loads in boots for that money in sales?

We got woken up at 2am by the wind. Dh had to get up and go and weight the dc's playhouse down as it was blowing everywhere I couldn't get back to sleep for ages.

Ds has is last settling in at nursery today it's only 90 minutes and as its 20 minutes away no point coming home so will go to costa

I got woken by the wind too, and the rain lashing against the windows. Mercifully our house is fairly sheltered so DD's trampoline stayed put.

I went out for drinks after work last night that turned into dinner, so that was a bit of a fail. £35 - but at least I paid in cash so it won't add nastiness to the credit card bill. And, amazingly, I'm still in the black this month: normally I spend all of Jan very overdrawn!

Should be NSD today - I'm on a course and they give me lunch as part of it.

Yesterday:

14/1
£14.52 coop on essentials and junk food :o not as bad as it could've been though...
£1.20 bus
£4.81 Vosene hair stuff for DCs

£2.80 savlon spray for ds I think he's got an ingrown toenail

£6 something Costa I forgot what it's like to have a coffee in peace and not have to share my toastie!