FFS two sodding days I'm off MN and I come back to a new 9-pager! :o
You'll all be pleased with me, I've finally signed up for Quidco and it's one of my New Year's Resolutions to make sure I keep up with using it whenever possible (I'll have a think about frugal resolutions in general later). And my friend has started looking at broadband/landline tariffs for us so we can switch (we don't currently have unlimited so we end up paying data charges... £15 a month, I had no idea 
) - he'd done it for a few other people and enjoys that sort of thing.
I have also been given, by a lovely lovely lady we spent yesterday with, some money to do something nice with. She is in fact the mum of the above friend (who I met at college), we became very close when DD was born as she kept us company a lot when DH was working (I had PND) even though friend wasn't there so she became a friend too. She's often said she enjoys seeing our DCs as grandkids, but yesterday when she gave me the card with money inside, and I got all embarrassed, she said "well, I don't have a daughter so..." basically it seems she thinks of me like a daughter as well. Made my day that, much more than the money, because truth be told I think of her as like a mum too, as well as a friend :) :)
Anyway, I now have £100 to spend on myself. I am actually not allowed to spend it on anything boring/necessary/householdy, and not allowed to spend it on the DCs either. "For you, and you alone" it said on the envelope.
In other news, I managed to get to the sales in town briefly the other day, nothing of any interest whatsoever. Just stocked up on half price wrapping paper (M&S was the only place to have any!), cards and crackers for next year.
Also if anyone knows about retail stuff, I have a question please. I've been given two board games that are absolutely perfect... but we already have them! I was wondering about taking them to the local game shop and seeing if they'll exchange them. They are both still sealed, and they are definitely both sold in their shop (in fact we bought our own copies there) so there should be no problem selling them - their till is a basic one so they don't scan barcodes or anything, just tap the price in, so can't see an issue there either. What I was thinking of was asking if we could exchange, despite not having a receipt? We'd use the money to get a bigger game and so probably still spend about £20 to top it up IYSWIM. Do you think it's worth asking? Or should I offer to trade in for less value or something? I have no idea how profit margins and things work .