September savers/frugaleers continue into October

[574ejones]

All welcome!

My hopes of £10 to get us through the week are already looking doubtful - we only have one and a half toilet rolls in the house .
My meal plan: M: morrocan chicken T: ham frittata W: beans on toast T: chicken chargrill and salad F: fish fingers and chips S: chicken kiev and veg S: butternut squash soup.
I'm relying quite a lot of freezer and tinned foods this week so not the healthiest but I'm sure we'll live!

Orange, brilliant ideas, I hadn't thought of us eating as normal and just saving a portion for DS for the next day. I'll definitely make a batch of mash and freeze it in oortions and look out my toddler cooking books, I have several you've just reminded me!!!

Hmm, well this weekend has not been brilliant.
On Saturday my parents were here and we went out for lunch. I had a starter as a main but it still cost us £35 for our half of the bill!
Then I went round to a friends with wine and nibbles - £12 - though I was pleased I persuaded her to stay in as that saved cash on going out!
Today was £50 on resoling and heeling DH & I's winter boots and a pair we were given for DD. And £80 on a rug - we'd saved up to buy it, I'm hoping it will make the lounge feel warmer this winter as we have wooden floors, and £20 on Swedish groceries from the IKEA shop.
It's going to have to be a very, very sensible week as I have osteopath appointment to fund tomorrow.

Mealplan for the next 4 days is:
Mon: Bacon and Pea Risotto
Tues: Spinach and Mushroom Pilaf
Weds: Cottage Pie out of the freezer
Thurs: oven baked white fish with tomatoes, carrots and line

Lovely to see you back MissA - I remember only too well how hard a PGCE is, I'm amazed you have time to cook anything at all!
What I also save leftovers for DD, especially if we have odd bits left over, I freeze them for her to have on nights when we're not going to eat with her for some reason. What I'm really bad at is having enough snacks in the house.
We had a lovely sunny day out at an NT place today. It should have been a free day out as we are members and I had a voucher for a pot of tea but I didn't notice that had to be activated online so we ended up buying drinks and also some delicious churros as they had a food fayre on. Didn't spend much though.
I have GOT to start saving more money if we are going to have another DC, Sept has been very spendy. I get paid tomorrow so will finally see exactly how much my part time wage will be, that could be quite sobering!
We are thinking of setting the alarm to get up and see the eclipse - is that utter madness at the start of the week?!

There's no cheap way to go out for lunch really is there? Perhaps think of how much you have saved by having a frugal mindset, going out would have been at least £50 usually? And instead of buying new you have reused and preserved your boots, so that's a saving even if you had to spend to do it! I'm trying to work out whether I can go without new boots this winter.

I know whatabout it's impossible to do cheaply! I am pleased with the boots as we couldn't have replaced all our shoes for that price. I won't need any winter footwear this year I don't think.
Turned the thermostat down to 19 today and told DH to put a jumper on ;-)
I also freeze mini meals for DD,,saves loads of time on cooking. I always make extra mash or roast veg too and freeze in weaning pots as they make a quick and easy side for her.

Oh thanks need. I am and DS was from birth until a few months ago, but is currently trying out meat outside the house. So I'm the opposite of all those parents going, "It's just a phase", when their DC go veggie!

what I have a similar problem with my 11 month old, I try and feed her our food as much as possible but not always practical for us to eat together/we're eating something too spicy/salty etc, so yesterday I made big batches of Annabel Karmels cheesy tomato pasta (using bog standard pasta, I'm not forking out for her tiny baby pasta ), baby beef casserole (using half the amount of beef and some lentils as I was already making spag bol, so I nicked a bit of beef from that) and a cheesy veggie mush that I've forgotten the proper name of. I've portioned it all up, froze it and on my meal plan I've worked out when she'll eat what we have and when she'll need something different so I can defrost one the night before. Still lots cheaper than baby food and I know she's getting plenty of veggies. When I cook a meal for me and dh I often portion some up for her and she gets it the next day so she doesn't have to wait for us to eat.

I left the cooked chicken in the microwave all night would you eat it?! It feels cold to touch was going to put it in the slow cooker today!

Welcome back MissA!

Spent £20 on a spiraliser (wanted it for a long time) and amazingly the kids ate the entire cucumber (!!), 2 courgettes and 3 carrots!!

£20 at a food festival but that was for lunch so would have the been the same if we went out for lunch somewhere, possibly cheaper even.

£130 at sainsburys. £35 on food shop, and the rest on clothes. Dh needed 2 jumpers (he was wearing one that had holes everywhere and possibly older than my older child), some pants, got the kids some socks, swim costume, pjs (for Christmas), and I got some leggings, a top and a scarf. Whoops.

Happy work week everyone.

NK I'd love a spiraliser!! Do you recommend it?

LSD. Feeling really anxious. No idea why!

I've decided not to risk the chicken and I'm really pissed off with myself about it! Our chicken and chorizo casserole with now just be chorizo casserole

Oh spotty. You've done the right thing. I always end up doing that so you're not alone. It fills me with the rage too.

Just ordered two pairs of leggings from Tu. They have good reviews on here so I've bitten the bullet. My leggings currently are more holey that a holey thing and I look like a scruff. £7.50 each so £15 for the two. Click and collected so no deliver charge.

Thanks there was loads there too!

I'm doing an online shop with sainsburys but I'm not sure their torturous website is worth the £18 voucher it's horrendous!

Fluffy I keep meaning to thank you for your tip about straining tinned tomatoes when using the slow cooker!

I don't strain tinned tomatoes when using slow cooker, am I missing out?
I do leave it cooking for 12 hours though

Please could someone talk me through Now TV and freeview/freesat

We currently have Sky and it's nearly £100pm now and we are still scrabbling about for something to watch frequently. So it needs to go.

We need some kind of recording function so can I get a Freesat box and use it with our Sky dish? Or is freeview better? Do freeview even have recording boxes?

And am I right in thinking that Now TV works alongside whatever free TV we decide on through the Internet and is about £6.99pm for the entertainment channels?

We have an Xbox that has a Now TV app on it so would we need to buy a Now TV box?

Sorry if I should have started a separate thread but hoped someone here could help, I've confused myself looking all through it!

Lila I never used to but now, on fluffy's advice, I do. It just gets rid of the extra water that you don't need.

hairspray we have Now TV and I love it! We've had it for less than a month but its fab. We've been watching Boardwalk Empire and catching up on loads of TV on the "on demand" services.
It's so convenient and cheap. Love the YouTube bit too!

Hope you are OK collie. Watching the NowTV thread in interest!

I am mega pissed off. DH got to his interview to find out they'd changed the time without telling him. He couldn't stay because he had to go back to work in the afternoon. No idea if they'll offer him another chance :( really just feels like one thing after another at the moment.

Hello everyone, haven't read back very far so forgive me if I've missed anything major!

fuzz my heart goes out to you, you've so much on your plate. Really hope the new job are reasonable and offer another chance as it was their mistake!

collie hope you're feeling ok. I get very anxious too, it's a horrible feeling.

Ds 1 had an occupational therapy appointment this morning, managed to get on the street disc parking, instead of the hospital car park, so only paid €2 instead of €4.75.
Need to take the kids for hair cuts later, so that will be approx €20. Just had a tesco delivery, they arrived half an hour early, I was thrilled! Frees up the afternoon now! It was €101.
This week's gluten free meal plan:
Today: roast chicken dinner
Tues: Moroccan lamb with sweet potato casserole
Wed: herby peanutty, noodly salad
Thurs: Spinach and new potato curry
Fri: homemade burgers, chips and Asian slaw
Sat: sticky tamari chicken thighs, sweet potato wedges, leftover slaw
Sun: leftover stew (throw all the odds and ends of the veg drawer in a pot with a tin of beans)

Cut way down on the meat this week, will see how it goes down!

Collie we can be anxious together. I've had some attacks but have generally felt much better since speaking to the dr

Thanks for all the sky advice I think I'm in a contract until January but I can't get hold of bloody sky to check

Thank you Pink. Think I may be PMSing as well which is making me more ranty than normal. Not helped by the fact my phone is playing up and therefore can't get the other stuff done that I need to today. But yes, I really really hope they will still give him a chance. He's emailed and left a message, hopefully he's struck the right balance between 'rightfully peeved' and 'please still interview me'!

Much sympathy with the anxiety. It sucks. I'm on Sertraline which is an SSRI (ie an antidepressant) but is often helpful for anxiety. Think it's helped a little. I want to increase it but I'm still increasing my other meds so they don't want to pile too much on at once, which is fair enough!

Mindfulness is also helping. I don't know about you guys but whenever I get into an anxiety/panic state, I end up getting really cross with myself too. As in, 'OMG fuzz stop being such an idiot, why are you worrying about this' to which the anxious me replies 'yes but but but what if this happens' and so it goes on. I had some mindfulness training which has helped me just to 'observe' the anxiety rather than fight against it, I just accept that I get panicky and paranoid sometimes and oddly it makes it easier to handle. It was a total change of mindset as a CBT veteran, but actually learning to just accept the bad feelings is sometimes really useful.

I've been given that too fuzz