We are Resolutely Frugal! Frugaleers continuing their new frugal year. All welcome!

[fuzzpig]

Hello! I hope nobody minds me starting the new thread :o

Does anyone have any nice/cheap recipes for baking brownie/flapjacks/small cakes for school packed lunches so nothing with sticky icing. We normally include one biscuit or cake bar but they five per pack if everyone in the house has one the whole pack is gone. Looking for something I can bake a load of and keep in a box ready

I'll catch up properly later; just wanted to post today's spends.
£20 gas.
£25 weekly bus ticket.
£5.65 Tesco (milk, pesto and cough syrup for DS, who has a nasty, chesty cough).

Super I make flapjacks with ready brek so they have vitamins in them for added healthiness points.

It's just 125g butter, 125g sugar, 60g golden syrup, heated over the gas until liquid. Then stir in as much ready brek as will go into a sort of dough (about 250g). If you add too much it's gets like scone mix (lots of tiny bits) and then it can be a bit too crumbly when cooked.

You mix it all up then squish it down into a cake tin and cook for 20 minutes on 180 degrees or until golden brown, then cook in the fridge. They come out kind of biscuity but are lower in sugar and more healthy for being a bit more heavy on the oats.

Super Google vegan brownies, cheap as chips.

NSD.

I make dairy free flapjack

250gm of dairy free Mary I use 1/2tub of vitalite or marks Spencer dairy free spread both £1 a tub

Melt with 3 tablespoon of sugar and 2 tablespoons of given syrup or honey

Then add approx 500gm porridge oats (we use 1/2bag value oats so bout 75p for bag

Mash into a greased pan bake for 20mins

Actual butter is okay for people with dairy intolerance too. A dietician told me that it's because it's a biproduct rather than a product. That sounds like jargon gobbldegook to me but ds never had any trouble with butter.

Tesco has gone and discontinued one of the 8 things that I can eat, which is rather sad. It was very very nice ham and I have been trying lots of other kinds of ham but they are nowhere near as kind to the inards. I wonder if they might relent and bring it back? I have emailed them.

On the plus side, things are improving from the eating point of view and I can now have occasional bits of chicken and steak and salmon fillet. Definitely an improvement. Silly hormones.

We had another great trip to the library in town today after school. Ds is really into books just now and came home with armloads of books about various battles in history, and a book about how water turns into steam. I love that the library is free. Once the weather is better we'll be able to cycle there too and miss the £2.50 parking charge.

camden wow good work!

collie hope you're feeling better.

£7.99 in boots today. It's freezing cold here and my fingers have started to get affected by the cold despite me wearing gloves the skin around my nails is all split and I'm picking at it gross

Bought some nail/cuticle oil to help moisturise and soften. My nail lady uses it when I go and has always suggested it.

It's a teeny pot but only need a small amount each time.

Other than that no spends. Gym after work to thrash out my bad mood. Boss spoke to me like I was an utter effing moron today. Gave him a telling off and asked him not to blame me for things i hadn't done. Idiot.

Someone brought cakes in today so that brightened things up. Lovely iced donuts.

Prawn lemon and pea rissotto for dinner. Now to chill (and do a manicure)

We were just discussing over dinner that we haven't been to the library for ages and I really want to get DD into the habit, she enjoys stories now.
Am reading a book my mum lent me, will go when I've finished it.
Nursery gave us a brilliant magazine today about all the toddler activities and family days out/events in our area. There is loads to do, much if it free or very cheap. There is even a toddler nature group, I'm so excited about that!

Good plan Pointless. Ds used to really love having the same books over and over again so it was easy enough to just buy a handful and then stick with them for six months, but recently he's gone on a real book-reading bender and we'd be bankrupt if we bought them all. It's great to have the library as an option.

This post moves so fast, sat was a bit traumatic had to ring an ambulance for an elderly next door neighbour, she is okay luckily but she really did scare the life out of me.....so a quiet subdued weekend at sfa headquarters really,
Library cafe lunch for kids, coffee for me £10.10 Did get a free coffee too...
Home bargains £10.00
Morrisons £24.50
Asda £11.00
But bought art & craft stuff for work too
Sunday quiet LSD just a salad box and a few bits under £7.00
Today, work NSD, tomorrow LSD loaf, going to use up what is in house until payday. Batch cooked chilli, spag bol, enchiladas, chicken curry x 4, veg curry x4 all for the freezer.
Snow here fell in the night and had gone by lunch, love spotty's snowman....roll on 28th, payday and a free start.

Ipos we go to the library every sat and Sunday, its lovely in Worksop!

That sounds excellent sfa. There's a nice book about a library called "Library Lion". Your library must be a bit like that place as there are several people who seem to almost live in that library, and a lion who also wants to live there.

Our library is great. We go ever few weeks at least. I'm afraid I get terribly bored of reading the same thing over and over so love being able to swap dd's books regularly.

We have people who pretty much live in our library too :o

Hope you are ok superfurry, something sort of similar happened to me a few months ago, it can be quite difficult to process.

Bad news on the job NK. Stuff happens for a reason though I do think. Good that you have feedback too.

Hope you are feeling ok collie

I use the 'pay at the pump' facilty when I fill up, no need to move from the car.

Spends
£5 car wash.
£55 Morrisons delivery
£45 Abel and Cole

That's my weekly shop, really chuffed with this months shopping spends.

In fact, I can't decide whether to be pleased with myself or not this month. We have been so frugal that I have been able to pay for the following out of our monthly money. I keep going over and over the banking as I think I've missed something.

3 lots of club annual subscriptions.
£150 excess for DH's treatment.
£90 Vet fee
£100 bulk buy of dog food.
£250 skiing clothes for DD for her holiday.
£180 tree surgeon that bloody DH forgot to tell me he had booked, so I arrived home with one less large tree in the garden and a pile of wood chip on the drive and this bill.

We do put money away anyway, but I really wanted to save more this month. I might be able to still do so, just need to get to pay day next Monday.

Em My hands are wrecked at the minute, so are DD's, having to sort the pony every day. I've ordered a load of hand creams for us from Body Shop. Love their Hemp, doesn't smell brilliant but is fab.

That is the only hand cream I use need, it's amazing.

need I used to put neutrogena hand cream on my face for playing Sunday league football. I had the best skin ever once the stuff had come off in the shower. :-) I miss that feeling.

I went swimming with ds properly for the first time last week. It was really nice to experience swimming for the first time ever through his eyes. I showed him how to do the front crawl and it was amazing to properly stretch out and do that again after about 25 years of not doing it. It was £8 which seems such a lot, but I really had a good time.

I only use Norwegian Formula as anything else made my hands feel funny (I'm really fussy about touch, ASD thing I think!) although I used some the other day and it felt weird :( I'm lost as to what to use now!

Had to use DH's credit card today as I couldn't find my own. Phoned up the co-op by DD's dance club and found out I left it there. Could be worse but ARGH! Especially because I also managed to lock myself out of online banking the other day, tried reregistering once but the internet cut out halfway, and now I can't redo it because I don't know my full card number. FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL :(

Anyway. On a much more positive note, I mentioned on the previous thread that I was going to try and exchange the games we were given (duplicates) without a receipt, and the lovely lovely guy in the shop let us :) so we got one big (read: insanely complicated) game and one little one for only a fiver :)

Ipsos am glad things are going well for you at the moment, have you considered swim lessons for your ds? I am hopeless at going regularly will dd but find if she is booked into lessons (because you pay up front) she will go every week!

I like the body shop henna hand cream as well but the smell does put me off, my hands are also wrecked by the constant hand washing at work and weather.

My hands are feeling better. Used st Ives apricot scrub on them, then nice hot soapy water, then a bit of savlon, then new oil stuff then Crabtree & Evelyn cherry hand cream. And gave out clear varnish on nails.

They feel much better. Not soft. But less rough hurty and scratchy.

One of my eBay things hasn't arrived. So. Annoying. Asked seller to wait a few more days (blamed the weather as its affected flights and boats here). Really hope it gets there.

Girlie I did think about lessons but ds is nervous of water and strangers, so I prefer to teach him myself, and only go at times when he is feeling really gung ho. Also we both really enjoyed going together so that was a good bonding thing. He's getting his doggy paddle on already.

Collie Did you say you were a web designer in London? Did you know that there is tons of web design work on the UpWork website. I just looked today and there's lots and lots there. I'm quite tempted myself. I did html and css stuff for 7 years in my last job.