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.

Sorry to hear about Lilac and Spotty's poorly DSs. Hope they're better soon.

Ipsos, great news about your dishwasher.

£1 milk, £1 chocolate and £1.29 on mailing bags for my eBay auctions, that end on Sunday. Tomorrow will be a NSD, as we have weather warnings for wind and rain for the whole day, so I'm not going anywhere.

I was going to do risotto for dinner but I really cba so we're just having crumpets. Dh can like it or lump it I'm afraid.

You're still a step up on cornflakes there Spotty. Well done.

Hope you're dried out soon ipsos! Get well to all the poorly dcs - hopefully get it out of the way before Christmas. Lilac was it your ds with bronchilitis? My niece had it last Christmas - really nasty - get well soon little lilac!

I'm in transit! Spends so far - £2.18 on a mag and some gum. £2.50 on a coffee. I've bought a bottle of water and some snacks from home so feeling quite virtuous

Have a good weekend, Ursula.

I've done my shopping list. For the first time in years we are doing our weekly shop in store. no doubt we won't be able to keep within budget. But we save £3 by not paying for delivery already. Budget is £65. We are having a scrummy vegetarian week.

MrsSimonNeil £98 in Lidl then £20 in Tesco! Scary!! Do you have a big family to feed?

Yes ursulatodd it is. It's his third time having it, first time he was only 6weeks old he's 2 now.
I spent €19 on food today most of it fast food for me & dh.
He's anaemic as well they've discovered. He'll be staying in hospital again today & we'll see after that. I've been walking corridors for about 3 hours with him so I think I worked off my lunch of chips cheese & coleslaw it's hard to grab something wheatfree from a deli counter isn't it ipsos?

Obviously fellow frugaleers I don't eat from deli counters often as I bring a packed lunch everyday

Coat sounds lovely what I'm also finished Christmas shopping girl except for dh's grandchildren & that's because they couldn't decide what they wanted.

Lidl is scarily more expensive than aldi

collie you'll be like a child in a toy shop

Lilac yes it really is. Glad you're not off wheat and dairy. :-) Good luck there.

Don't say that lila we only have a lidl and even that's forty minutes away!

My NSD didn't last! Had time to kill between physio and collecting DD from nursery so went for a quiet sit down with a coffee in a nice cafe. That was £2 then I went to Greggs and bought a cake for this evening, 90p. Greggs is next to Peacocks so I popped in to kill 5 mins and ended up spending £16 on slippers for DD and a jumper. Pleased though because I have had a lovely skirt since September that I haven't worn yet because I didn't have a top to go with it and this jumper should go well. If not I'll be returning it.

I spent £11 at the school fair. Hoping to win the hamper of chocolates or even better the jar of £40.

No spend day today as I haven't left the house and resisted online shopping.
Need to really think how to finish my Christmas shopping as I'm affected by the bridge closure in Scotland that you might have heard about. Don't want to end up spending a fortune online to compensate for other stuff I can't get.

INeed oh no! I heard about the bridge today. Such a bummer! Well done for resisting online shopping though.

I honestly had no idea that Lidl was pricier than Aldi.... I assumed they were cheaper. I'm slightly ashamed of myself.

What a pain Ineed! :(

Bad news about the bridge and hope poorly dc get well soon.

I think lidl is a bit more but still not as much as the others.
We were going to see santa at an open air place tomorrow but will go Sunday instead due to the weather. Going to work some ot which will help.
It's a bit grim out there isn't it creme?

Yes I'm really pissed off about how much I spent. I'll be holding out for a space in the aldi carpark next time. I'll send dh after work as the car park should be quieter then. collie we're a family of five dd 11 dd 5 ,and Ds 3. I think it would have been about £70 in aldi.

We got fed at a friends house tonight though so that's an extra meal in stock for next week

Obviously it needed to be done but getting to work is just going to be such hard work for the next few weeks.

Hope all poorly Dec feel better soon. ineed I heard about the bridge on the radio today. I think I detour was suggested but it'd be a further 50 miles....? Madness.

They're worried here that the shops might run out of fresh food in a couple of weeks because the freight ferry has been dry docked for a while. It's routine but with the bad weather the other boat has bee a bit sporadic in getting here. But I think it's Typical scaremongering to force us to spend spend spend.

Hey ho....perils of island life.

Nsd here. Wierd but nice dinner of leftovers. Freezer pizza, leftover pad Thai, salad and apple pie. Yum

Just had a couple of hours of frugal Christmas fun with dd. we made Christmas decorations from our Usborne book and listened to Kate Rusby Christmas CDs, happy days. Hopefully the uploaded pic works [crosses fingers]

Lovely picture north and sounds like a frugally fun night.

Feeling awful for all the poorly children, it's dreadful when they are little and not well.

The bridge closure sounds awful, I've been listening to it on the radio today.

I can understand spending that amount MrsSimon, we get weeks where the food budget seems so much more than average spend, it evens itself out. I essentially feed 4 adults, as my 2 are teens.

It's been a BIG spending day today, gulp.

£65 petrol
£30 M&S (food and cards and presents)
£40 Amazon
£18 Pony feed and chicken feed
£40 paying for panto tickets
£22 meal out in pub for DD and myself for Pony Club
and...

£700 MOT for the horse box, gulp. Good job the tax was less than I had budgeted.

It is very wild indeed, Babs.

We had wild weather last night, it's much calmer tonight.

Well done on your frugal activities north

Popped back to Sainsbo's for a couple of bits and spent another £40 that did include a new board game though, Family Trivial Persuit for £16.99 and Christmas scented tea lights.

Hope all those DC currently under the weather feel much better, good weekend all.

Wild here too.
Have now caught up on today's posts, sorry to hear of the poorly kiddies, hope they're better soon.
Today I spent an hour up what felt like an enormous stepladder decorating the church Christmas tree. Did that with 2 friends, one of whom had made soup this morning, brought it with her and so we had a frugal but v enjoyable lunch together. Dd has had more trauma at school so it was good being able to chat to somebody other than dh about it.
Tonight I've made cakes for the Church Christmas Fair tomorrow so that's most of our Saturday planned! As Christmas fairs go it's a pretty good one and a chance to catch up with a few friends.

Sorry to read about the poorly kids

creme you have reminded me I need to order some posting bags from ebay

LSD today, bought pasties from the £1 bakery for lunch (2 for £1) which is cheap even if its not healthy! Then we had leftover soup for tea which was healthy and cheap and saved stuff being thrown away!

Top up shop will be more than usual tomorrow because no shopping this week but overall our weekly shop bill will have been more than halved still

Still excited about the prize I won meaning I have one less person to buy for