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.

North that is the same book we have must get it out again.

Off to lidl today with my £10 off £50 spend (thanks fluffy). Dh working all weekend so that should be fun we're going out to dinner tonight to Casa Brasil for dh's birthday, which isn't for a couple of weeks. Should be good though.

Hopefully a NSD. I plan on not even going out of the house if I can help it today

Still wild and wet and windy here. Just woken up after 10 hours sleep (!!!)

Off riding today. Hoping the rain calms down. But other than that no more spends planned.

I was going to go to the garden centre and look at Christmas things but might do some Christmas baking instead.

Morning all! Lovely night with friends and not feeling too worse for wear this morning! We're just planning a walk and a night in with xfactor today so shouldn't be too spendy. Spent £40 on dinner and drinks. I have £40 in cash in my purse and my aim is to not need to use my bank card! Will catch up with Fred now

at 10hours sleep...I must fit in some early ones before the holidays start!

at pasties and casa brasil (that's a big hungry face rather than shock!)

[santa] at cosy nsds!

spotty dd has had the book for a couple of years and we've overlooked it but it is great fun. I'm not quite sure what we'll do with all the decorations yet but a shoe box full is being prepared for Auntie & uncle!!

Haircut today, will be £26. Then we're off to buy a Christmas tree 🎄 I am sooooo excited, choosing the tree is one of my very favourite parts of Xmas. Also need to go to pound shop or Wilkos for extra tinsel and some of those sticky hooks to hang lights.

Pointless we're getting ours next weekend. There's a farm which does tractor rides to get your tree and bauble treasure hunts etc.

North I think we will get ours out this afternoon it's windy here but not wet.

I'm also jealous of ten hours sleep!

Ursula we haven't been before but it looks good.

£30 petrol
£48 lidl which included a dvd for dd

Meal plan:

Roast chicken et al
Chicken and med veg pasta in tomato sauce
Chicken and leek risotto
Lamb koftas with Greek salad and pittas
Breaded cod with h/m wedges and peas
Shepherds pie
Spag Bol x2
Chicken goujons with croquettes and veg

We spent £67 in store on our weekly shop! So pleased. We bought a few things that weren't on the list like mince pies (2 packs), chestnuts, chocolate & Earl grey.

Also got my DM & DFs Christmas Present for £10. Was originally £20 but the box was slightly damaged. The gift itself was in perfect condition! They won't give a toss about the box.

Christmas gift shopping done done done

Oops! Just when in Aldi to buy mulled wine and came out with 2 bottles plus a few extra Xmas cards, garlic bread to go with our dinner and some posh cheese nibbles for Xmas which we have just eaten! They are the most deliciously moreish things I have ever tasted, might be going back later...

£5 on DD's dancing lesson this morning - DS had a little go too but the teacher didn't want me to pay for him. And on the bus home, the driver only charged for me and not the DCs. Little things like that make my day :)

I just had a mobile phone cock-up. I called an 0800 number the other day and they've charged me £80 for it. My account used to be capped so the phone account would be cut off if I went more than £1 over the usual £8.50. I figure they've removed that then. On hold to vodafone now...

north sorry to hear your dd had a traumatic event at school sounds like you had a lovely evening though. We also have that Christmas craft book, and have been using it for the past few years.

spotty I like the sound of your meal plan...yummy

We've just been to buy our Christmas tree too. We have a community orchard in the next village and we get to choose our tree and then chop it down. I love it £15.50 spent. We're going to decorate it now.

Tonight dd1 has an ice skating party to go to. We're all invited to skate though which will be fun. I need to put some birthday money in the card and we'll probably buy some drinks there but all in all it should turn out to be quite a frugal, fun filled day.

Vodafone and I are no longer friends. It turns out that they removed my account cap without telling me, then let me go 180 minutes over my free minute allowance without telling me. They refuse to restore the cap, or reduce the bill, and won't let me terminate the contract without paying a £97 exit fee. I'm going go back to writing letters and reading novels in a cave. Modern technology sucks.

Oh no ipsos that's awful!

It's a bit of a nuisance certainly. It's doing my blood pressure no good at all. I just went through about 25 departments of customer service and they all hard balled me until I gave. And I am not the type to give up. They must really be on a mission.

That's really bad ipsos!

I think dh and I are just going to change phone company in the January sales. I know that now the cap is gone I'm bound to be lumped with a huge bill sooner or later so I may as well just pay the exit fee and try a different company. It's a shame as I've been with them for donkey's years, but there are other companies that do caps, so I want to be with one of them definitely. Grrrr, though.

I went through about 45 customer service reps and now have got my PAC code. Phew!

Yay! I am now signed up to Tesco Mobile who do still do capped contracts. Good stuff.

Ipsos some phone companies will pay your exit for you to switch for them, look into EE. That is really bad though can you post something on their FB page, they seem to respond better to social media moans than on the phone.

I had the works Christmas do last night, it was good fun and I enjoyed it. Drove so didn't drink but still feel slightly hung over today think it must be tiredness. Spent about £5 on drinks and a charity race (which was hilarious!)

Today have not spent much, £4.50 on lunch in morrisons, £3.50 ish on a small gift for dd for being brave (she was stung by a bee ystd and it has come up in a large red welt across her side - poor thing) also bought a scratch card but won the £1 back!

£15 on dds horse riding lesson.

Quiet rest of the day on the sofa, its really windy here again but still mild - can't believe the bees are still out!!

Ipsos that's terrible! Girlie is right. FB or Tweet them I certainly won't be using or recommending Vodafone after how they treated you. The gits!

Having a lovely relax snuggly day

Girlie Vodafone waived the exit fee, so that was good. I just had to pay this month's staggering bill and leave.

I'm not going to bother with social media or anything. I tried really really hard on their customer service line and talked to just oodles of people and none of them would do anything. My head is actually throbbing now, so I can't begin to imagine how the call centre people feel.

I've noticed a whole series of people on my facebook feed taking vodafone's name in vain, so I figured things were not going well there. I'll give Tesco a go. They have this call capping thing and it's really easy to set up, so hopefully we'll be a good match.