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.

It's a shame they don't do a family and friends card like the trains. I think that would be a really good thing to get though. When I went to school we had to get a public bus to school and so the council issued us with bus passes that could be used any when it was great and must have saved my parents a fortune.

We have a sort of discount card for DD - children here are free until they're 5, and then it's half the adult fare, but you can get a photocard for them that makes it quarter fare instead. We got DD's free because we were on free school meals when she turned 5, but haven't got DS one as he was still 4 when DH started work. If you pay for the card it is £50 for 3 years. So getting one of them, and then proper bus passes for all of us, would be fantastic.

spotty hope you start feeling better soon
I was at the docs this morning, I've folliculitis for the 3rd time this year, seems to follow on after having a cold/flu etc €45 on doc and €20.60 on medicine, on the plus side she gave me a repeat prescription and told me I only need to ring in for another from now on as I can self diagnose at this stage. She prescribed a wash which will hopefully help rather than taking another course of antibiotics.

Spoke to her about my blood results too, and finished up getting a test done for early menopause. I'm 32 Will have results in about ten days.

fuzz a bus pass would grant ye a lot more freedom, would any relatives chip in as a Christmas present?

My cleaner cancelled today so saved €45 but got a guy out to service gas hob that was €120 I've been telling dh it's not right for over a year now. All my saucepans are blackened. And it stays on your skin for days. Any hints now that it's fixed to clean my saucepans? The €120 was borrowed from ds's birthday money Dh said the full cost was €150 but guy did him a discount as he knew him

fuzz know exactly how you feel with dh not being happy at work. He left yesterday middle of the day and when I went to bed at 11 he still wasn't home. Dd was crying as he promised he'd read her a story last night, ds was crying with tiredness. I wanted chocolate but luckily I don't keep it in the house

I think they do a weekly family type pass here. I'm sure there's something that gives unlimited travel for up to 2 adults and 2 children.

Mine's a 52 week one. It's made me ridiculously lazy about getting the bus for journeys I wouldn't have dreamed of paying for though.

Can't believe the news about the tax credits. Still thinking I might wake up in a minute and find it's a dream.

Agree about getting a cleaner. It's what I would do if I could afford it.

Fuzz sorry to hear things are tricky, I think a cleaner would be a good idea to take some of the pressure of you.

Lila why do they think its the menopause? Surely you are way too young?

Spotty I dread my dd getting any injuries as she will completely panic about getting it wet!

My sc chicken casserole was delish so a good first attempt. Dd wouldn't eat it though so had to cook her a separate piece of chicken with veg. She is a fussy bugger when it comes to food in sauces.

Frugal fail managed to up end an entire new jar of Bisto, covering myself, the cat bed and a surprisingly large proportion of the kitchen floor everything smells of chicken gravy now.

Thank you all

Asking relatives to chip in to the bus pass would be a good plan :)

And lilac yikes what a nightmare re: the hob!

I just walked DD's to my friend's (she takes DD to Brownies for me) and realised when I got home that I'd left the (electric) hob on. Thankfully I'd moved the pan.

I thought a bus pass was a fab idea too. So I checked our annual fee and its £975 .

Girlie I have been known to rinse casserole with boiling water to take the sauce off for fussy dd.

I always whizz casserole into soup for my fussy dd.

No proper period in the two years since I had ds girlfriend admittedly one year of that was because of implant. Struggling to lose weight despite a very healthy diet.

If you get those cook in bags you can put your dd's portion of chicken into it and cook in slow cooker without getting sauce on it. I do this for some veg that I dislike

spotty i recommended this just yesterday to a work colleague who made too much chicken & tomato casserole and didn't like it

Yikes Collie :(

Ours would be £490 for a year for me, and £135 for each child if they had the ID card. So including buying an ID card for DS, it'd be £810 for the 3 of us for the first year. I wonder what I generally spend on travel when we use cash - not so much at the moment because I'm not working and we aren't getting out every day while I'm this ill.

DH's would be more as he'd need a wider area pass to get to the new place of work - £850 but would be more than covered by the higher wages. If he gets it I think he will accept, and although the idea of him having a longer commute is daunting, I'd rather he was in a nicer job that didn't leave him so ridiculously worn out and stressed.

Collie I think you are in a similar area to me. That sounds about right although I get a small discount through work and pay monthly.

It really depends how much you use the bus. At nearly £8 for a return trip to work it pays for itself quite quickly. Especially since I use it to go elsewhere as well. I have no idea why the bus is so much more expensive than the train.

I had no idea that bus passes and bus journeys cost so much. I live in the middle of a city, which I find difficult as there are a lot of rough people around on the streets, but at least it means that I can walk to most places. I must remember that that is a good thing next time I am hiding in someone's garden to let a scary drunk go past.

From my point of view fuzz that's half the cost I pay for the monthly payments on my car ( petrol, tax and insurance) not including purchase cost, mot/wear and tear and parking so when you think about it like that it doesn't seem bad

Aha, this is where you all are. I'll read through and be back later.

Fuzz we are so much in the same place as you. I'm so worn out that I frequently need dh to do the school run, even though I don't have a paying job. I'm not well enough to manage if dh goes away on a business trip which is a real problem for him because he works in a tiny branch office (just a handful of people) and the main office is 8000 miles away. The plus for us is that dh's office is 5 minutes walk away and ds's school is 3 minutes walk in the other direction.

We have thought of employing cleaning help, but the effort of actually managing another person's work seems like more work than just cleaning for ourselves.

I was getting on quite well in the summer but seem to have stalled spectacularly since autumn started. I've decided today that I'm going to dig in and do a lot of resting (how?) until Christmas in the hope of improved health.

So sorry to hear about all your troubles. I hope that providence finds a way for you, even if none appears obvious now.

Given that so many of us seem to be in crappy health - has anybody looked into naturopathy? I gather that it's pretty much just rest and vitamins, but I wondered if it might be a thing?

Yeah its so pricey here. Most of our buses don't even show up either. and don't go anywhere very interesting. Blerghh. We have a town nearby and there are plenty of drunks around. We were walking down the high Street a few days ago and a random guy chucked a glass bottle at a wall. I was lucky that DS didn't seem to bothered. We escaped into New Look. It's just "normal". Sadly!

Anyway, had a great idea for a gift to DH. A homemade coupon book that'll consist of coupons for beer, takeaways, days out, films and Mario Kart etc. He'll love it. I can't wait to make it.

I did post this just now but it didn't show up. So Im half expecting two similar posts to show up

Quackwatch thinks not.
www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/Naturopathy/naturopathy.html

Coupon book sounds great Collie. Sorry to hear your town is weird too.

I sometimes wish we could go back and ask our grandparents and great grandparents, and so on, how our lives compare to theirs at the same age. I wonder if they had different constraints and freedoms that would give us useful perspective?

I suppose they had the freedom to let their kids play in the street before cars, but then they had far more trouble with childhood infectious illness, and no antibiotics. I'm sure that sometimes my parents must wonder what we're fussing about - after all we have central heating and inside toilets and what more could we want?

I have a feeling that in winter we should go to bed really early. Sometimes I'm ready for bed at 8pm and we havent got kids. I have a suspicion that neolithic people weren't keeping the hours we do.

Fuzz I hope it turns out well for your Dh, I suspect lots of us have jobs we dont really like. It's crap. I fantasize about clearing the mortgage and working as a cleaner.

Collie You anarchist! good for you.

Spotty Have you got work tomorrow?. You'd be better off in the house.

£15 petrol.
£7 candle making stuff off ebay. Obviously it's cheaper if you buy in bulk but I bought tiny amounts for one candle in case it doesn't work.

Thinking of making slow cooker fudge at the weekend. It's just choc, icing sugar and condensed milk by the looks of it. What could go wrong eh?.

I've been pricing up gas fires, did you know some of them are only 50-70% efficient? that means 30-50% of heat produced goes straight up the chimney!. Also I cant spell efficient. I didn't know that yesterday.

Yes absolutely cheaper than running a car! Neither of us drive, DH has no coordination whatsoever (thanks to head injury caused by his abusive mother) and I just never got round to learning. Now that I'm ill I am too dizzy anyway, driving would not be safe. Luckily the buses round here are pretty decent - unfortunately they are only 3 an hour in our part of town, but mostly there's a very good network.

Ipsos I'm sorry you are struggling as well. ISWYM about having to 'manage' a cleaner. I think we are kind of thinking the opposite in terms of Christmas - seeing as DH can't take any time off now he's just got to keep pushing on, and therefore so have I, until new year or later.

My sick note runs out just before Christmas and I'm expected back. But nothing is changing in terms of my health at all. I'm sure they'll enjoy pointing out that I'm off for Xmas if I get another sick note (this happened a few years back when I had a massive relapse in Nov/Dec... yeah because obviously I planned it that way just to avoid working over Christmas )

No work it's ds' birthday. Dd has swimming lessons so I'll see how I feel if I still feel rubbish Friday at work I'll see one of the Drs there.

Ipsos I'm not one for alternative therapies.