Oh come all ye frugalers, joyful in December, oh come ye, oh come yea and chat

[babsmam]

New Fred, hope I've done it right I've never done one before.

Lilac I think this post-adrenaline thing is a big feature with me, and probably a lot of people. My physiology went all wrong when ds slept through the night last year and I was telling a neigbour and she said "Oh the adrenaline has gone and your digestion's packed up. Yeah, that happens." It was the first time I'd ever heard someone acknowledge that as a thing, even though it's happened a lot to me. I wonder if the sudden disappearance of adrenaline is also part of the reason why kids to often get ill in the school holidays?

Hi all! I havent read all the way back, this thread moves so fast! I am back at work since Thursday. New practice and they seem lovely (but busy!)

Was payday also on thurs so I transferred some to savings (now 25% of way to target!). Was a months full pay for annual leave though so now I am part time Im not too sure about how much December will bring... if it matched DHs wage Id be happy.

Sainsburys order coming later with a 12 off voucher - didnt have time to get to lidl. I forgot how much being out at work means sacrifices money / time wise!

Xmas shopping is nearly done bar a few people so we are getting there.

Anyone had mice? Scratching in the attic and found a load of droppings in my attic store room :/ spent yesterday cleaning it out so now I need to get some traps etc, any tips?

Pointless I'm experimenting on this at the moment. I'm trying to spend the next few weeks chilling out and not letting the adrenaline get too much in the hope that I'll be sprightlier at Christmas. I've never done this experiment before. It's tricky to remember to rest.

Blue That's exciting to be in a place. I hope it goes well. Are you a GP then? I think you said before, but I get muddled up trying to remember who has said what sometimes.

Will your council sort the mice Blue? Please dont use glue traps, they are very cruel.

Fudge is better today, I still want the icing sugar recipe, it would be more fudgy.

The cat did a wee in the bathroom, it's smelling despite our best efforts in cleaning it. Dh will clean again today but if that doesnt work the carpets coming up.

It always happens with me. I noticed that pattern a while ago. I also have a tendency to stay indoors and curl up in bed when I'm stressed too so in the last year, since I left my awful stressful job, I've been taking the time to do more things for me. More outside things. Hence the riding lessons. I'm a bit deficient (or was) in vitamin d so my dr suggested just going out more. And occasional booster jabs.

So far it seems to be helping. I'm feeling more confident, less stressed and have touchwood been ill a lot less. And have managed to shake off things quicker.

am up, dressed, made dh bacon and eggy sandwiches in bed. Have a ragu in the slow cooker a load of washing is going and have opened windows in kitchen living room because the bacon almost caught under the grill

I am so far winning Sunday!

Em you are putting me to shame. I have managed 2 cups of coffee and a read of the papers online.

unescorted but I did nothing yesterday....so am just making up for that!

Morning all

So Mary Poppins was amazing, seriously seriously good. Very long show though, nearly 3 hours dd struggled a bit with it being so late but I took her pjs with me and got her changed in the car, think she was asleep by the time we left the car park!!

We had dinner at Za Za Bizarres which is an all you can eat buffet type place, had heard a lot about it and was impressed actually. Its massive and serves every type of food you can imagine, set price for adults and kids and you get an hour and 45 mins to stuff your face eat as much as you can. Dd was in hogs heaven esp when she discovered the chocolate fountain apparently did get reprimanded for trying to hold her ice cream under it though

I paid for dinner which for the 3 of us was about £50, also bought a bottle of water for £2.50. At the theatre went to enquire about how much the souvenir's were and nearly fainted when the lady said that for a magnet it was £5! Utterly ridiculous.

Today will be a quiet, lazy type day. May venture out to buy some milk but thats about it.

Glad you had fun girlie

Meal plan for the week:

S: roast chicken with all the trimmings
M: honey and mustard chicken with rice
T: bacon and leek risotto
W: shepherds pie
T: chicken goujons with chips (swimming night)
F: bean burgers/caulk cheese grills with hm potato wedges.

Blue most houses have mice I think, make sure they haven't got any access to food and if you see any gaps that they can get through block them up! I personally think the traps are cruel and pointless as they breed so quickly.

Naughty puss Fluffy cat wee is a terrible smell to get rid off.

Beef stew is in the slow cooker. Definitely the weather for it.

Glad you had a good time Girlie.

Mmmmm bacon and egg sarnies sound amazing em

fluffy naughty cat!

Spotty your meal plan sounds fab.

We've had mice before in the last house. They were so hard to get rid of! We didn't use traps. We just sealed up the gaps like girlie said.

I'm so hungry! I need bacon and eggy sarnies. [santa]

Em That's the same sort of thing as I am trying to do, except with fewer horses.

Thanks for and Girlfriend. I enjoyed that.

We have mouse trouble here too. They come in through our stair cupboard and we haven't seen any since the council man sprinkled three kinds of mouse poison all over the floor in there, but now were are always really worried about using anything that has been on the floor in the cupboard in case the poison falls off it onto the carpet in the house. ds likes to pick up random bits off the carpet and eat them for why?.

Most irritatingly, my steam mop is covered in poison. Can't really clean a floor to make it safe for ds when mop is covered in poison.

We tried human traps but the mice knew how to open them.

humane traps, not human ones.

Hello, can I join too please. I've had to give up work because of a spinal fracture so we are living on one income.

Wastes:

I let bread go mouldy instead of turning it into breadcrumbs then freezing
Impulse buys
Things from the bakery in Lidl because it all smells so good
Maom sweets!
Not signed up to any cashback sites

Frugality

I freeze everything.
Mostly buy frozen veg.
Bulk cook meals
Shop at Lidl
Don't use a tumble dryer
Rarely shop online
We're both on sim only phone contracts
I have a prepayment prescription card.
Sold my tassimo and bought a cafetiere instead.

Welcome steven - Are you a man or a women? (sorry, that sounds silly, but I just wondered.)

fluffy bad cat. No treats for it today!!

Welcome steven sweeties are my weakness too one of many

I've just read an interesting article in the paper guardian about not spending anything at all for the whole of next year.

I'd love to give it a try but just don't think I could do it.

This year I've dramatically cut my spending down. So maybe next year I'll be back to just the essentials. Maybe.

I'm female. My username is a bit confusing but was watching 'That 70s show' when I registered. It's Steven Hydes afro, him being a character with said afro who I'm too old to be having immoral thoughts about.

Going a year without spending is beyond me, we do a couple of weeks without shopping every now and again but always have direct debits going out.

Welcome Steven.

It wasn't the cats fault, he asked to go out for a wee and dh decided it was too dangerous to let him out . He doesn't like using his tray because he associates it with urine infections so he must've been desperate and no where to go.

I wanted to train him to wee in the bath but dh vetoed it which I haven't reminded him of but I'm really cross with him over it. At least the bath can be cleaned easily.

Great, thanks for explaining Steven or afro. :-) Welcome to the group.

Fluffy I once went to see a house for sale that had a massive long haired cat in it, and while we were being shown round the (huge) bathroom the cat jumped up and did a poo in the bidet. The agent was hilariously embarrassed.

I just took Em's advice and went out in the garden to do some photography and get some sunshine. Everything's a bit scruffy out there just now. I found some nice pelargoniums though, that have been inexplicably happy living outside for two years now.

From that Guardian article:

"This means no [spending on] meals out, no cinema trips, no holidays, no gigs unless they’re free, no rounds down the pub, no new clothes, no coffee – you get the idea. It also means I won’t be able to buy train tickets or bus fares so my trusty bicycle will be relied on to get from A to B. "

The above has been the definition of parenthood for me.

I couldn't do it. I'm not sure the money saved would be worth how utterly depressed it would make me feel

Welcome Steve

That Guardian article is interesting, and I have been living much like that for years and years. I think there's a line to draw between necessary expenditure on things like basic clothing, and non-essential things like music concerts and foreign holidays.

Clothes buying has to be done sometimes (once every four years in the case of my recent experience) and if it's done infrequently like that then it can be one very big expense all at once, which is a bit of a shock when it happens. In that case, I think it's worthwhile doing a little bit every year instead, especially as cheap deals and good items of clothing will not always be available all the time.

For the other non-essential things then I think that is just about picking the lifestyle she wants to live and can afford to live, and then sticking to that. I'm all for that kind of moderation and I think that most people could probably stand to do a bit of life editing to get rid of unnecessary expenditure.