The friendly frugaleers natter on through November...

[blueteapot]

Hope you dont mind me starting a shiny new thread

lou everyone is welcome in this corner of the tinternet.

You know a few months ago I did the preserved lemons.... used some today for the first time in a lemon lamb kabab combo. It was sooooo nice. Next time you see cheap lemons I would recommend having a go. It gives a real depth of flavour.

and to those of you under the weather.

£5.21 on the kindle version of the advent book suggested up thread.
£6.45 in Tesco

Could still spend some of the OT money on more kindle books. Lots of interesting stuff in the 99p or books for £1 sections.

Had nice time at the fireworks it was a good display! £8 spent.

Welcome newbies, am watching Googlebox then off to bed - rock n roll on a Friday night for me

Welcome newbies.

NSD.

Ds had is up at five and there's no milk

Morning all. I'm trying to muster up some enthusiasm for Christmas shopping. Normally I buy loads of rubbish so am going to be thoughtful!
It's pouring with rain here so a quiet chilled day planned.

Morning. Pouring down here. Builders are about this morning for internal work. I need to meal plan and do a food shop . I also nay have a mooch to matalan.
I need to get ordering Christmas stuff when I finally pin the DC down to what they want.

Oh spotty :( DD woke at 6 but thankfully went back down with a dummy. I am having a sneaky cuppa.

Not a ridiculously late night with friends last night as we stayed in, watched a few movies and had some drinks - was lovely. Today we are off on a road trip, friend suggested picnic rather than dragging my DS to a restaurant (they dont have any kids, but are thinking about - they live in london so I think they are imagining what they would do if they had to take my tantruming DS round with them lol)

Morning all! I had a good day yesterday. I have asked some friends if they could recommend cleaners and I did more writing. I'm up to £90 now heading in my direction. :-)

I'm finding that it's more expensive keeping the peace at home just now. Every dinner had to be serious dinner or people get tetchy, and I need to have more things around (cut-outs and so on) to keep ds busy as we have three hours of darkness before dh gets home. I think I am just going to suck that up. It's better than open warfare.

Hi all. Have had a fairly low spend week, but am on a mission to break the back of Xmas shopping today (without breaking the bank).

It's a vile rainy day here too so am hoping town will be quiet.

It's horrible weather. Proper ghastly. NSD here I think! We're doing surprisingly well this month. Being super frugal and sensible. It'll go all tits up when the guests arrive at the end of the month. But that's OK - I've budgeted for some of that

I have a £26 Next gift card after I returned trousers with no receipt last month. Also may use £10 Nectar boost and buy £20 of gifts. So I'll be using these to finish Christmas shopping so it doesn't impact our bank account.

It's a miserable day here too but DD has been up since 6 and is already climbing the walls so I think we'll have to go out for a walk.
Just making banana oat pancakes. Also going to make Xmas cake today.
Welcome lou.

Pancakes are burnt now! Must concentrate more.

Win for me yesterday. Two meals out and nsd. Lunch out with client. Then work dinner. Yippee.

Today's spends £25 riding lesson.

Studying for most of the day apart from my horse time. Maybe going to fireworks later but not decided yet.

Pancakes were very easy and delicious and would be a good way to use up manky bananas. I think they are gluten free too and dairy free.
Just mix up 2 chopped bananas, half a cup of oats, 2 eggs and half tsp baking powder. I used the food processor but you could just mix it all up. Leave to stand for a bit then fry big spoonfuls. We had them with syrup and blueberries.

£55 lidl
£59 petrol

I'm ready to drop the dc have been awful! Made it home before the rain got too heavy though.

Thanks for the recipe pointless. I was just about to ask.

Bloody hell Amazon are a pain in the arse aren't they? Somehow yesterday I managed to sign up for Kindle Unlimited free trial. Good job I noticed that e-mail before they automatically charged for the 1st month.

Better get reading I suppose. Would be a shame to waste it.

Thanks for the pancake recipe, sounds lovely.

My phone is dying so I need to upgrade. Really wanted to keep sim only for a bit but I use my phone all the time for important things like mn so need one that works an iPhone

Thanks for the suggestion lila, something with wheels sounds good.

Inspired by Hugh W's waste programme, I've decided to try to buy more of my fruit and veg from the local market instead of the supermarket. It's a bit of a pain because my local market is Saturday mornings only (8.30 - 1pm) and Saturday morning is not my most shopping-y time! But I have managed to get myself there and back, and it was really nice. For the grand total of €20 (about £14) I have got:

• 1 massive aubergine
• 1 massive courgette
• 1 avocado
• 3 punnets of strawberries
• Bag of carrots
• Bag of tomatoes
• Bag of onions
• Bag of shitaake mushrooms
• Some banana shallots
• Some red onions

...and the splurge item was a wedge of brie with ground pistachios running through it. This alone cost €5, which was more than I was expecting to pay but the lady made me sample it and it was so good I couldn't say no!

I think overall this is much better value than I would get at the supermarket, and is more than enough veg to get me through the week. I think this week I'm going to make:

• Chicken and shittaake mushrooms in bamboo steamer
• Aubergine and tomato soup to take to work
• Some sort of pasta dish with a sauce using the tomatoes, courgette and some carrots
• Thai red curry with the banana shallots and some carrots
• Some sort of salad with the avocado and red onions, and I'll buy some feta to go in it too

I still need to go to the supermarket later to get meat and other bits and pieces, my aim is to spend no more than €80...wish me luck!

I agree Rafa it is getting harder and harder to avoid clicking the wrong button for those free trial things. They are adding in new stages in the ordering process all the time, very manipulative!

That brie sounds amazing riverboat!
I too have been inspired by HFW and have been chucking random things into recipes just to use them up, some have been quite nice! We'll find out tomorrow whether leftover cherries from the Xmas cake work in a tea loaf, I can't see why they wouldn't!
Might try and do a bit of Xmas shopping on Amazon in next couple of days.

For some reason I am finding it really difficult to post on this thread.

Do you mean as in you don't have time or as in the technology won't work?
£54 on Amazon on Xmas pressie for DH, 2 small gifts for mum and one for dad, several stocking fillers for DD and some gingerbread man cutters for me. Pleased with that, I got 10 items in total so that's an average £5.40 each.

At least it wasn't Prime, fuzzpig I've already used my free trial for that so I'd imagine it would just have charged me £75 quid.

They definitely need a way to filter out all the self-published stuff too. There's just too much of it now and they all seem to have 5 star reviews.