October continuing into Novemeber frugaleers part trois

[Lovetoknit]

Hope it's okay to start the new thread since the other one is already full
£1 at Cornwall Ambulance shop for 3 books for dc after I dropped off my old slow cooker and some books and £1 at Prospect hospice for some wool and fabric
Just made cauliflower cheese with some bacon and cavolo nero for dh who had it for lunch and there is enough for his dinner too, the rest of us are having homemade burgers, buns and wedges

Welcome arsenic

I've just found a recipe for slow cooked soap bars. going to read it carefully and consider homemade soap bars as Christ as gifts. But not convinced and I don't want my SC smelling soapy.

We've just done a coop shop £63. Stuck to the list. £15 was stuff for parents when they come back from their trip.

I caved and bought the boots from dune.

But. This should be all my spends now until next payday. In November.

Hapy Birthday What

Welcome arsenic

Welcome Arsenic. I also used to buy a lot of things and then wish I hadn't bothered. One of the big changes I've made is that I always buy online and then if the thing doesn't work or doesn't do what I need it to do then I can return it under the 7 day distance selling rule. It really helps with the over-active online shopping trigger finger. After a while I've learned that constantly returning things is a big time waster, and that's gradually curing me of my tendency to buy daft things in the first place.

Good luck and welcome to the group!

Welcome arsenic and other newcomers.
Has anyone ever frozen croutons? Thinking of making some to use up stale bread. How do you thaw/reheat them?
Anyway, here's my meal plan:
Today I made leek &potato soup and sc cauliflower & potato curry with some left to freeze.
Tomorrow - more soup for lunch, frittata & salad for tea.
Thurs - leftovers for lunch, lasagne for tea with spicy sweet potato wedges and salad.
Fri - lunch out, sweet potato and peanut butter curry for tea.
Sat - going to carve a pumpkin so will be using that up. Definitely soup and probably risotto with blue cheese.
Sun - leftovers lunch, roast for tea. DH is doing a chicken, I'll have veggie alternative. Going to have red cabbage with it though as I love it and one cabbage makes lots of portions to freeze.
Freezer tea on Monday.

Welcome Star and Stellar

Got an email this morning confirming that DS has a place to go on choir trip to the Czech Republic next month. £100 deposit was paid last week, £140 balance to pay. But mum and MIL are going to contribute his Christmas money (plus MIL said she'd give £50 extra)

Bought DS a small hand luggage bag £15 to fit Ryanair rules, plus hat, scarf and gloves in school colours (assuming he'll at least travel and sing in school uniform) plus he wanted a new USB data stick, total £40, but used his £25 Amazon voucher to part pay.

Need to buy a birthday present for my niece, pyjamas were suggested

Congratulations \Toobreathless

Spotty wow, that arrived quickly, I only posted it on Saturday.

Glad you like it. Hard to believe it is 9 years old! The colour is lovely and there is only so much blue or green or brown I can bear.

Hi ipsos
The cooling off period is a good idea. I've set myself a 3 day rule. I buy lots of little things too so stopping that will help. Had my first test yesterday when I wanted a book. 24 hours later I'm not fussed about it.
I've got £15 budget till Saturday as have bought shopping and have fuel in car so going to try a NSD. It will be awesome if I manage even one but we all need to start somewhere

audit same, ds has red hi top converse and pink wellies! I love the colour

Probably a nsd today we've got to do dd's homework. If we do go out it will be to costa for a treat but not sure.

Welcome arsenic

We are going to buy a kitchen bin today as I'm fed up of the carrier bag tied to a drawer handle system that we've had since the last bin fell apart. We don't do well with bins, I think because I always buy cheap pedal bins and they break, so we're going to invest in something a bit more solid.
Also need dry food for our ageing cat which costs a small fortune.

www.johnlewis.com/brabantia-built-in-bin-black-10l/p167201

I bought this one but I got it in Dunelm. It takes smart price pedal liners and you can wash it in the kitchen sink.

I empty it after dinner every evening so there's no smells. Dh has a nose that is part blood hound.

I'm exhausted. DS who normally goes to sleep at 7pm was wide awake, giggling & meowing in his cot until midnight then he got up at 6am. I was going to go into town later but I've changed my mind. I just need to rest quietly. So NSD here as I don't have to pay for the bus.

audit good for your DS

I'm hoping for a NSD after a total fail yesterday. I have gym which is DD then straight home.

Does anyone aim for a set number of NSD's?

We have a cheap Addis bin with a flip top. We use black sacks so they go straight out (no wheelie bins here). We usually use one sack a week, but all the food waste goes separately for recycling on a weekly basis.

I think we are on the 3rd bin in 15 years, but that was a fancy stainless steel one that lasted about 2 years, and now onto the 2nd of the same type.

Thank you for bin recommendations. I want something fairly small so we'll be forced to empty it daily.

Spotty DS's favourite colour is orange, a couple of years ago I got him an orange padded jacket from pumpkin patch (it is pumpkin coloured!) for £10. It is still going strong.

I love to buy foreign clothes for him as they seem less stuck in the blue/green/brown rut.

Arsenic - love your name, it goes well with the Victorian theme of the thread.

Pointless I just reheat crutons in the oven - 2-3 min on really high (that is a Delia oven setting honest!)

We lost the lid to our bin ages ago.... I keep thinking we need a new one, but haven't got around to it. Not really up there for items in Retail Therapy.

Arsenic That sounds great. I've got the flu at the moment and I spent the last two days bidding on stupid but beautiful printers on ebay. I managed to get outbid on all of them, so I'm going to call that a success. I was only bidding money that I could make a profit on if I had to resell them (excuses excuses...) Good luck there.

Pointless - loving your bin thing. We have a tesco value white plastic bin and we just leave the top open and it works well. www.tesco.com/direct/tesco-value-recycling-3pc-bin-set-3x15l-white/127-1448.prd

Sorry to hear about the rough night collie. Puts my ds in perspective. :-)

Ipsos my printer is broken do you know much about fixing them?!

spotty is it an inkjet? I've done loads of reading about printers over the last few days, and the message seems to be that inkjet printers are pricey to run, and very breakable, and not fixable.

As I understand it, for printing letters and diagrams it's best to get a secondhand laser printer off ebay (which we have), and for photos, it's by far the cheapest option just to take them to boots or tesco or similar.

I was hoping to buy a good and not-too-expensive-to-run photo printer but they do not seem to exist. Sorry to hear about your printer. They so seems to be very troublesome.

Yes it is but it's been great. I don't use it often. As soon as it starts printing the first line it stops feeding the paper but if I cancel then it feeds the paper through it just can't do both at the same time!

Thanks for the crouton advice unescorted - if they go wrong I'll be able to put them in my new bin!
Other bin requirements is that it needs to be toddler-proof as "sorting" is a favourite activity of hers!

Be thankful you don't have "posting" - when we pulled up our floorboards to run some wiring through we found 3 lost bank cards and over ?100. There was also the matchbox car in the DVD player incident and the car keys in the drain..... how she has made it to her teenage years I don't know.