Frugaleers Flying into the New Year All Welcome on the January Thread

[SpottyTeacakes]

New thread hopefully someone can add some old links?

Thankfully IBS flare ups come and go for me, so I am pretty confident the restricted diet will only be a temporary thing. This is by far the worst flare up i have had though and I was diagnosed around 20 years ago now.

My main things for the dietician are to check my diet to make sure nothing is missing, discuss a plan for introducing foods back in, and also ask about pre-biotics. I have read some stuff that suggests the right ones can help with ibs but it all seems a bit complicated.

I have cut right back on buying gluten free stuff like bread, etc to save money. I do buy gf flour for making cakes and pancakes and occasional gf pasta. I'm planning on having more porridge for breakfast as it is so cheap.

Aldi is a god send. The meat is really good and super cheap. They also do packets of ham off cuts that are amazing value. I then top up in waitrose (we have both shops at the end of our road so can walk there) on the more specialist stuff.

5minutes I would really recommend the Monash university app. It is a crazy complicated diet and I don't think I would have got my head around it without the app. Even though it does cost it is worth every penny if your dh wants to try low FODMAP seriously.

Great thanks I will have a look at it. DH is really stressed atm so I'm sure that is what has caused the flare up!

Jeepers we love those ham off cuts for a few pence more than the reformed stuff its great and often nearly whole slices in the pk often short dates though we have found although lasting more than 3days in this house would be a miracle!!

Jeepers are you sure about porridge? It usually has gluten in it. Mostly because of cross-contamination with other grains. You can get (expensive ) porridge that is guaranteed free from contamination, BUT it's worth noting that some coeliacs for example can't even have those (like my DH).

NSD for me personally as I've not heard back from the Amazon seller yet but I've asked DH to get a new heater on the way home, and we've run out of laundry stuff so need to get that today or we'll get more behind on the washing. Hoping Wilkos has some decent offers.

December was £19.82 over budget. Could be worse!

So busy day sorting out the flat post Christmas, have just about got the front room straight but dds room still looks like a bomb site!!

Popped into town as its my mums bday tomos, spends £23 in Boots, got 4 gifts for this all half price. One of the gifts am going to put away as an emergency friend gift!

£15 in the Body Shop got lots of nice smellies in their sale, some for me and some for gifts.

£5 in Card WareHouse

£7 on tea and cakes (treat for dd being so good ystd)

Need to start planning dds bday now Christmas is out of the way!!

Hi Laska was wondering how you are - nice to 'see' you

For the month including Christmas I'd say that is very very good!

I've not really thought about an actual budget yet. I think for this month I'm just going to put the spends in one long list in the spreadsheet and then see how I want to change it from there (that's what I did with Christmas and it worked well).

Realised we forgot to have lunch! Got leftover pizza for dinner though.

5minutes this is good:

www.amazon.co.uk/Solve-Your-Food-Intolerance-intolerance/dp/0091906652/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1451754685&sr=8-1&keywords=john+hunter+food+intolerance

and this:

www.amazon.co.uk/Irritable-Bowel-Solutions-essential-treatments/dp/0091917069/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1451754722&sr=8-1&keywords=john+hunter+ibs

If you have a credit card statement for the purchase of your microwave then that will work too.

Big Congratulations on all that Laska. I'd love to know how to make that kind of change financially. So glad to have you back. You were here when I first started.

£13 in Starbucks, drinks for family and a packet of their Christmas blend beans for home because clearly I don't have enough coffee already also took out £10 for photos and bought the FT for £3.50. Must sort that online, it's a lot of paper.

Back again and already 7 pages to read
Welcome all the newbies

Today was supposed to be my "me" day so I could go shopping in Truro on my own but the weather is awful again - windy with lots of rain, rain and more rain so dss stayed at home with dc and I went out with dh.
£15 at the market, £30 at Lidl and another £20 at Aldi after we went in for cat food since Lidl didn't have any but I blame dh, he always picks up extra bits - stilton, biscuits and crackers in the sale
Dh' ds and her dh came for lunch yesterday so we had roast turkey with all the trimmings and nuttella cheesecake for pudding so today is bubble and squeak with leftover turkey for dh and dss and burgers for dc.

I'm really sad not to have any leftovers! Lucky that we didn't have to pay out for the Christmas food in the first place of course, but it's a shame not to have any turkey and stuffing to munch on. I do love a leftover sandwich.

I just emptied out all my kitchen cupboards and threw away all the useless stuff, so there it now more space and I can actually find the useful food. That should help with a saving sort of a year.

Welcome back Eastmids and Laska. It's great to have you back!.

I had a lovely walk with a friend today and I treated us both to coffee and cake afterwards for £5. This is the friend who paid for us both to have a lovely lunch just before Christmas, so it was nice to treat her in the only way I can. Then I spent £5.20 at Sainsburys, on stuff that I need before my online shop comes on Tuesday morning. Milk, bread, Earl Grey teabags (Sainsburys own brand are currently £2 for 100 teabags), rice and chocolate. This is all I have bought between my Christmas shop and Tuesday 5th, apart from 2 pints of milk and a loaf! All being well, here's my meal plan for the week-
Tonight: leftover party food with waffles.
Tomorrow: Pizza Express with DS and using £22 Club card vouchers, so I will just have to pay for drinks, hopefully.
Monday: veggie spring rolls (last of the party food) and rice.
Tuesday: macaroni cheese with spinach.
Wednesday: same as Tuesday.
Thursday: gnocchi with veggie sausage rolls, pesto and peas.
Friday: veggie burgers in baps with cheese slices and ketchup, wedges and rocket.
Saturday: pizza.
Sunday: Mediterranean vegetable pasta bake, or veggie Toad-in-the-hole with peas and gravy.

Goodness me the thread's moving fast, nice to see some new faces and a big welcome back to laska I was thinking about you earlier, long time no see!
I was also wondering how peoniesformissA is doing??
LSD here, bought some apples and pears to keep DD going until supermarket shop, went to green grocer, the produce is so much nicer than in the supermarket and some things were loads cheaper e.g. bananas, avocado. Got a big bag of chillies reduced to 29p which has gone in the freezer.
Also got sweets for work in pound shop, some buckwheat flour and nuts in Holland and Barrett and stocked up on cheap kids cards in Card Factory as we have a lot of birthdays in the next few weeks. Also got box of Xmas cards for next year reduced to 49p.
Made stale bread and left over herbs to make breadcrumbs which I've frozen in portions for making stuffing and a lasagne in the oven using Bolognese from freezer and odd bits if cheese for the sauce.
Feeling quite frugal today!

Welcome to all our newbies .

need almost kicked out because the shop lady didn't like that I was soakin wet and dripping all over the shop. I didn't particularly like it either

Christmas stuff is away and the jumperoo has been rescued from the garage. Gabriel wasn't sure what to make of it! We decided we needed a new floor lamp, due to the Christmas tree one got moved to the playroom and it's right in there. So lounge short of one. Found one in the John lewis sale reduced from £150 to £45 and had £44 in vouchers. So it cost £1, but as I got £25 back from paper chase for December spending I am taking it from my positive balance. Trying very hard to have a no spend month. Found husband spent £50 on special tiles to stop us losing our keys. Not best pleased. Ironically I can't find my keys to put it on..

I'd second the Monash app.

I think low-fodmap allows a certain serving size of porridge oats. From what I can remember, it isn't a gluten free diet it's just that some of the foods i.e. wheat that are high in fodmaps are also high in gluten. The contamination shouldn't be an issue unless you are also sensitive to gluten.

Just discovered that the Warburton's sandwich thins/wraps aren't fodmap friendly. Since I don't think they are causing any issue they are staying though.

laksa congratulations!! That's awesome.

I went to look at waterproofs in local riding store. Found some (not in my size) which were great. But £70. Fleece lined. Totally waterproof. With a grippy suede seat and inside leg. Didn't buy them as not in correct size but might save up and get them on payday. Or might just hope that the rain goes away as its a lot of money to spend on something I might only wear a few times a year.

Ah I see sorry I didn't really understand the FODMAP thing :)

DH managed to get a heater and laundry stuff. Occurred to me that it may be cheaper to get the latter on Amazon in future? I'll compare prices.

Hi all

my NSD back fired - Went out due to being rained in again today
and returned £25.00 lighter from Mr Morrison's
However I did buy all my pot noodles on half price,
these are my lunch at work on my non-soup days
bought tinned stuff, milk and pizzas on offer at a pound for the
nights after school and work where I can knock up salad, onion rings and home made wedges...
Also a £5.00 Duracell battery that doesn't want to work in the fire
alarm:(
£10 in petrol to get me through my return to work Wednesday...
We had a chicken from Asda New Years Day, it was £5.00 and was massive, as I am a vegetarian that chicken will easily provide 2 more meals (curry/ enchiladas etc)
NSD tomorrow, come what may .....

Place marking
Welcome back eastmids and laska ye have been missed
Where are peonies and theonlypink?!

Started the Penny saving challenge. I get paid again on Jan 7th so I just transferred €25.41 to cover first 7 days of Jan & will transfer daily from now on

We decided to use Christmas money children got to do up their new room there's now €370 in the budget!

Bought cinema tickets for tomo kids club so €12 as opposed to €26.80 going to make this a once a month treat I think

TBH I've just had to look it up myself to check. So many of the recipe blogs I've read are written by people who are also gluten-free and dairy free it's easy to fall into the trap of thinking that it is.

£4.40 in tesco. £13 in Lidl. Not sure on what though as they seem to have run out of food.

Welcome back laska, lovely to hear from you again. Well done on the debt clearing, savings and retirement plans.

She still shouldn't have been rude or given you the impression she wasn't happy to have your custom though em. Good waterproofs are so worth it, if you can manage the cost, and feel you would get the use.

Menu planned.

Frittata and sweet potato wedges.
Ribs, rice.
Roast chicken dinner.
Sausage and bean casserole.
Rancheros pie.
Carrot, orange, fennel soup.
Chickpea, chorizo soup.
Devilled egg.
Veggie dish - not sure which yet.
Veggie pasta bake.