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.

Ipsos, thanks for the warning, went to book a slot to discover my account was on hold as due for renewal and my card changed as it was cloned. Have paid up but not yet activated to book a slot

Audit oh dear, that was unfortunately timing.

ds looks wonderful Spotty. Well done to all of you. MNHQ will delete the post later if you want them to. They told me that they are always happy to do that for identity privacy. You just have to press the report button on the comment.

btw I showed ds the frugaleers page yesterday and said "Look, these are my imaginary friends" and he said "They're not imaginary, they're real friends. They just happen to be on the internet." which I thought was pretty good for a five year old. He thinks that all our names are hilarious.

Happy birthday to your DS Spotty those pyjamas are SO cool.

I hate the Christmas grocery slots. They make me feel so under pressure. Which is daft because I do an online food shop every week. 51 weeks of the year. Ha!

I've written a shopping list of "Christmassy extras" that we need (on top of a normal food shop). When it's finally December I'll post my list so you can all tell me what I've forgotten it seems suspiciously short. And I'll post my Christmas bucket list / advent activity list on the 1st too.

I spent £11 on 2 DH Christmas presents last night. And I will continue my hunt today during nap time.

Collie I'm excited to see your lists! Sainsvury doesn't do booking early delivery slots for Christmas, it's three weeks in advance like the rest of the year. So I think the 23rd will go online on the 2nd December so I'll put a note in the Calender.

Yesterday I bought a travel cot mattress, Gabriel is getting too noisy in the Moses basket so he has gone into the travel cot. He has a bad cold but is now up to hour 12 of his sleep so I think the travel cot suits him! I also bought envelopes and postal bags from eBay. Spent £30.

I bought some rocket dog boots from Amazon in the Black Friday deals. Third pair of boots and these fit and are comfortable!

Still working are way through muscle food, I'm very impressed and it makes life so easy havjng it all in the freezer and I know it's healthier than what I would normally buy.

Spotty happy birthday to your lovely three year old! Ds1 is 3 in April and would love those pyjamas!

Happy birthday spotty ds

HUGE thank you for mentioning the delivery slots. Had totally forgotten this morning. Got one for the 22nd. I always just fill the basket with alcohol so I can check out straight away. Even though I never actually buy any of it, it's the quickest way of booking a slot. I swear one year I'll forget and end up with a delivery of four bottles of Archers shame :o

Happy birthday Mini Spotty, who incidentally is seriously cute! Love the photo :o

Thanks everyone. The pjs were seriously unfrugal but I fell in love with them and got them when they were on offer

Should be another lsd here today. I'm on another study day. Have just woken up. Went to bed at 930 last night. So have had a glorious sleep. But have woken up with a bit of a sore throat and a blocked nose.

Staying in as much as possible today. Might have to pop to the shop for study snacks and/or a pizza for dh for his tea once he comes back from his trip.

Cannot wait until 1230 tomorrow. Exams done. Life back. Yay!

hope everyone is feeling better. spotty ds is cute!! I bet he's an angel! Love the pjs. Catch kidston?

Hmm not sure Angel is the right word they're Hatley pjs

Happy Birthday to your DS spotty. Love the pyjamas.

Isn't going to be a nsd here. Going for coffee and cake after work, then to the Christmas market. Thanks to ynab though, I know exactly how much I have to budgeted to spend there and will spend it guilt free. Which makes a change from the usual monthly coffee and cake outing.

Collie I hate Christmas grocery slots too. It makes me feel that we can't shop at all in December except for those precious slots, which is of course not true at all. I must actually visit Tesco this December to remind myself that it's possible.

Fuzz Glad to you got a shopping spot. Two years ago I had an ocado order and they closed editing early, and I ended up with 12 bottles of persil and a chicken. Our Christmas lunch was hilarious. Archers would probably be better.

Good luck Em. My studies were everything to me so I can feel the excitement as you go into this last exam. Enjoy the buzz and the expectation. I miss the feeling (but not the work).

I reckon I'm having some success with my experiments with magnesium suppliments. Normally I'm really wired and can't sit down to rest, but after a week of these suppliments, I'm actually getting slightly lazy. Four times this morning I have considered painting a skirting board, and then immediately dismissed the idea in favour of sitting in bed with a hot drink. Definite progress!

Happy birthday spotty's ds and welcome newcomers.
I'm bloody ill now, have caught DD's cold. Not surprised she's been grumpy I'm miserable. Woke up at 4 with a fever and my whole face hurting and didn't go back to sleep, DH had the nerve to complain that I woke him up blowing my nose. Have called in sick to work and am in bed while DM plays with DD downstairs.
Talk of paint colours has cheered me up though, DH would love to be the person who names paint, they always have such stupid names he can't believe anyone is paid to sit around coming up with them!
Looks like an NSD today after all. Disappointed, I was meant to go out with friends tonight.

Sorry to hear about the cold Pointless. If you have any more tips on paint then I'm all ears. Maybe your dh could choose me a colour. I actually quite like the colour that the walls are now since we stripped the wallpaper, but it's probably not okay to leave them like that.

This is a good website to help see what colours suit each other color.adobe.com/create/color-wheel/ its called Adobe Kuler. Couldn't do my old job without it.

I expect there's another website somewhere by an actual paint company though.

Have a look on Pinterest for inspiration. I adore Pinterest. :)

My kitchen is grey, home base kitchen and bathroom paint grey. It's brilliant and it was cheap. We used the same type for my son's room and it stinks still 9 months later. It is very hard wearing though! I can't help with paint as our hall has two samples of blue painted on that have been there since February. Looks awful but we've learnt to ignore it. I have no idea what guests think! We've written the name of the paint in the paint on the door.

Thanks Collie. I signed up to Pinterest two days ago after remembering that you'd recommended it. Lots of nice hallways on there.

ipsos :o at your persil order. At least that's useful!

I really need to step away from the internet. The Twitch is kicking in early this year.

Ours is grey too! It's warm in the winter. And cool in the summer. And hides scuff marks ;) Grey is my favourite. It sounds so dull but it suits so many other colours.

Its also eased headaches that I used to get with indoor lighting.

Ipsos we used f&B paint in our house (DH is a huge fan) our living room is "skimming stone" i thought it would be too dark, but it's a lovely pale calming grey. hallway is (i think) "pavilion blue" (which comes out as a nice pale blue/green) and bedroom is (i think) "dimpse" a slightly more grey blue.

i decided years ago that i wanted a British Blue cat. Dh wanted a neutral sort of hamptons beach house style decor. luckily both our wants fit in with the colour scheme i still dont have the cat but have a lovely sofa the same colour as the cat in case i get one soon

Collie Thanks that's good to know. If the indoor lighting is giving you headaches then it might be the LEDs. They do bad things to me too. I get on just fine with the older style low energy fluorescent light bulbs.

Em I love your descriptions of your colour choices. We are not anything like as sophisticated as that. I will have a look at these colours and see if I can pick up some tips. :-) Cat sounds an excellent idea.

Oh gosh! Skimming stone is just the kind of thing I'm looking for. I have something called Little Greene Paint Company Old Paper II in ds's bedroom and it is lovely in daylight but wrong in lightbulb light in the evening. The slight yellowness makes it go all wrong.

I would like to use a similar colour in the hall but downstairs in our hallway we have the original 1920s lamp shade with yellow glass in it that was put in when the house was built. It makes everything much more yellow in the evening. So if I use pale pink paint then it will become apricot in the evening. There is just a plain fluorescent bulb upstairs so upstairs will become a bit yellow but not as much. It make everything a bit more complicated.

Listen to me though, with my first world problems. La la la...

To give you an idea this is what it looks like on the wall. In both natural light. And lightbulb light. We love it. It's like a pale baby elephant colour