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

[fuzzpig]

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

Oh dear audit has he done anything like that before? (Your dh that is). I would just ensure all homework is checked off now if ds can't be trusted to do it himself.

How exciting north! Congratulations to them all

I've got more money pending on my account and I don't know why ffs

Should be nsd. Hope there's cake at work.

north how exciting!!!

audit is be angry at being lied to too. Although wouldn't have reacted quite as dh did. It's not so much the homework I suppose is it? It's the dishonesty.

With dh I've always asked him to tell me if he can't/doesn't want to do something. I'd rather know straight up that somethings not going to be done than be strung along and find out it's not

audit I had this discussion regarding homework with my mother a few months ago, she's a retired primary school principal/headmistress. Dd 5 had told the au pair she'd no homework on returning to school after hallowe'en break but I smelt a rat and she did indeed have homework to do. My question was when do you let them go in and face the consequences at school with teacher, and she said in conjunction with teacher at 10/11.

Your dh's reaction sounds very similar to what my dh would do and it is so wrong. My dss lied and swore on his own mother's grave one time that he was telling the truth! The lie was against me so that's why I remember it so clearly.

Will your dh be able to rationally discuss the situation with you today when ds is not around? My dh would also be home less than me and flies off the handle about situations without being aware of the full facts.

Laska I'm really hurting for you in this mess with your work when you've your plans in place and have worked so hard to be debt free and have an early retirement, talk about a kick in the stones

north that is amazing news and I love the name and its significance to the couple too

pointless hopefully it's just an oversight on your mum's part, she wasn't hungry herself so didn't think your dd would be either. I often find that myself when home with my two that sometimes dd has to say we're hungry. What age is dd?

Congratulations North, lovely news after all that stress and pressure.

Slightly different take re Audits DS. He's 11. They go to high school at 12. Ensuring his homework is done is HIS call. There would be consequences to not doing homework. Sometimes, you've got to feel the consequences yourself to understand the importance. I can't and won't and don't monitor either of mine other than to sign their planner and ask generally if their homework is completed. DS routinely gives me very vague answers and used to do his homework on the bus, until his work slipped, he got pulled at school and he recognised he wasn't going to achieve the grades he's capable of with that attitude.

Obviously I didn't do this when they were younger, but sometimes you got to take a step back and hope that the ground work you've put in in the early years will reap reward later, at 11, I think I would do a mix of the two.

Not the best way to deal with the situation though re your DH Audit. I understand this, which is why I do the hands on parenting round here. DH nags and natters too much and winds them both up

Already been a spendy day as I've paid the excess on DH's medical treatment (£150) and the tree surgeon (£180). Both budgeted for.

Financial moral question. Long story but DH's parents are divorced. DFIL has announced he can no longer pay maintenance. It was a voluntary arrangement, but of some 20 plus years. DMIL will have to exist on state pension and the stress this will put her under will be immense. It was £300 pcm. 4 siblings. Loose plan is to cover the £300 between us, but the majority will probably fall on DH and DBIL, for financial reasons.

DMIL will find this very difficult I know. She doesn't know, as DFIL has only told DH in a letter, being a coward.

What do you think?

There's only DH and myself here for tea, so we are going for a rare early meal out together!

need that meal out sounds like just what ye both need, pardon the pun.
That's lovely that your dh and his siblings will cover the shortfall in income for dmil. Could dmil manage on less than the £300? Or could each of the siblings take on one of her bills/expenses instead?

I received my renewal for car insurance & another company beat it by €36 however I think I will add step back protection for my no claims bonus and go with the second company as I've €140.01 in vouchers that they will accept. This is my first time in 6 years paying my car insurance upfront. I will then pay 3 months cartax in April & July and 12 months in Oct and this will bring me back to paying these things yearly. Plus the following Oct then I will be thinking about purchasing a new car hopefully!

Congratulations north!

Pointless I know what you mean. My dm always overfed ds and it always led to real chaos when I got him back. I think that because they don't know the child as well as you do it can be really hard for them to judge what's needed. Perhaps just say - "dd was very hungry yesterday. I've left the right amount of food on different plates to give at times labelled on the plates. Could you try to give all the food, and if she doesn't want it then that's fine."

I was also very nervous of choking when ds was small. During that phase I had lunch at a local church cafe every single day, because I knew that that was if he did choke badly, then at least I wouldn't be on my own.

Oddly, the only baby I've ever known to choke seriously was the kid of a neonatal intensive care consultant, and she said there was nothing that she could do but wait for him to sort it out himself.

Congratulations AuntieNorth

£58 for new school uniform for ds who is moving school after he was offered place at the Penrice which was our first choice on the application
He is 11 (year7) and we have had few issues about homework as well. You can check "show my homework" but it doesn't really tell you which set is your child in so we have done homework which wasn't needed He also has a planner to put homework in but his writing is terrible and he forgets to put it in. He was supposed to have extra help with filling his planner but it didn't happen.
And he had one afternoon detention for forgetting to bring in a picture for English which he actually enjoyed so he is no longer bothered about getting another one
I just hope the new school is better. They are going to do their own tests to find out which set he will be in for different subjects and which help he might need with dyslexia and possible autism.

Aww North congratulations :)

Feeling spectacularly unmotivated today, although have got a little work done and have been told another cheque is in the post for it but all thoughts of housework and such are gone!

Just made the most of the £10 off £50 spend on Amazon. Had to check everything was eligible but there were quite a few household/home ed/teaching things that we need, so I'm pleased.

I mentioned earlier in the thread that my DSD has been a bit low lately, she told us yesterday that she saw the GP (on her own, this is a massive achievement!) and they said she might have depression :( they're talking to college about it and they are being understanding so that's good but I have no idea what to do TBH. Obviously she knows we are always here. I'm a veteran of MH issues (and she knows this to some extent, so she knows I will always understand - we are pretty close anyway, have a lot in common etc) but I haven't got the faintest idea how to help someone else through it. She assures us there's nothing going on, she doesn't really know why she feels so flat. I'm glad she is being so open with us though. Sorry this isn't frugaleering related but any words of wisdom would be much appreciated

fuzz depression is very common in students. I read somewhere that they think it's because children are in a very structured environment when at home and school, but when they go to college or university they have a whole new freedom and things can go a bit wonky as they adjust. My own feeling was that sometimes a child can be a square peg in a round hole and as they go to the new free college life they sproing into the new free-form shape that will be their own adult self. I think that sometimes that is quite a hard sproing to deal with, but healthy in the long run. I found a book called "The positive Woman" by Gael Lindenfield to be very useful when I was that age. Maybe she would like a copy?

Nsd.

Hi all

Audit i get why your dh reacted the way he did, I hate being lied to! My mum once threw a full bowl of cereal across the room because my brother was lying to her I guess some time apart to let the water settle is probably a good thing.

Need thats really tricky, when they divorced was nothing legally set up so that your mil would be entitled to a percentage of your fils pension? I think if your dh is in a position to help than he should but that is a big commitment. Has she a house she can sell or down size?

Fuzz thats hard re your dsd would some counselling help? I had really bad anxiety in my late teens and what helped me was leaving college and working in a very boring job for a bit! I am not a big fan of Ads so would want to avoid them if poss and look at alternatives first.

So I have had an interesting day, went to Connolls to discuss the possibilities of buying a shared ownership home and they said I can afford it and there is one in the right area that I love! Seems to good to be true but am allowing myself to be a tinsy bit excited.

The most scary thing would be that all of my savings would be gone in one foul swoop which obviously leaves me with no safety net at all. However we would own our own home and its beautiful, we would have a garden and everything!!!

Oh wow Girlie, that's fantastic, I am SUPER excited for you. Be excited Take the leap, it will be ok, promise. x

Yes we can afford it, DBIL most certainly can too, DSIL's x 2 would be more of a struggle. I feel MIL will find it hard though, she is an extremely proud woman (absolutely lovely), but will not want to depend on her children. DFIL has since remarried and the divorce was many years ago, with less protection for spouses. She has a small bungalow, but in an affluent area so probably yes she could move, but it's everything to her really. FIL has behaved very shoddily over the years.

Girlie that's amazing!! Well done it really is all down to your hard work if you don't mind me asking how much of a deposit do you have?

Yay Girl! Awesome news :o

Thanks for the advice folks re: DSD. She's having blood tests firsts to rule out anything physical like thyroid etc, and they're liaising with college to lighten the workload a bit. The GP said they don't want to try ADs yet. I guess all we can do is be there really, I do believe her when she says there's no particular reason (friendship troubles etc) as she is generally very open about that sort of thing. She's not been getting on too well with her mum lately, clash of personalities type thing I think - I know she is really desperate to move out (she would move here if we weren't crammed into a tiny 2 bed - she stays over a lot though). So going to uni this Sept might help, although I'm a bit worried how she will manage now :( thankfully she's chosen a uni that is only a couple of hours away so far enough to be independent but not so far away that coming home is difficult.

fuzz I had depression in my teens but it was the pill that caused it. My parents didn't help - they just brushed it off, laughed it off and ignored it. Nobody knew why I was so low until a lady GP had a lightbulb moment & told me to stop taking it.

my boyfriend at the time was a gem. He listened to every single thing I had to say & he made it crystal clear that he loved me. Knowing he had time for me was the most supportive thing he could have done. Makes me teary thinking about how amazing he was.

I'm so sorry that your DSD is so low.

NSD again. One more No Spend Week to go. :)

girlie that's so exciting! Go for it!!

£13 in boots on necessary toiletries. And £2.05 on soup for lunch.

Then £6.45 just now for pork ribs for dinner.

girlie exciting news!!!

I'm decluttering another wardrobe tomorrow. Mum needs help. She says she has nothing to wear. But since me and sister moved out she's taken over all wardrobes in the house. Yet still buys new as has nothing to wear. It's going to be a mission.

I've told her all of it is coming out and half is going back.

I suspect she'll be putting loads into hiding this evening. Haha!

Have had a really dull week, mostly NSDs.

Food shopping today £45, then £3.80 in Boots.

Em I may fall off the dry Jan wagon tonight too!
North congratulations
Girlie how exciting!

Quite glad we aren't doing Dry January (we rarely drink, other than at Christmas, so there didn't seem much point) - DH was given a bottle of Baileys by his staff for his birthday :o

Interesting about the pill collie thank you, I don't think she is on anything but could be wrong!

That's so exciting girlie, go for it!
Well done fuzz's DSD for seeking help, hope she's ok.
Thanks for all advice re DD, she's nearly 2. I think leaving it all labelled is a good idea.
Very long day today, very tired and looking forward to an evening of tv and beer!

My shoes just fell apart. I can't stop laughing - its just so flippin' typical.

I usually wear boots but I'm struggling to get my boots on and I'm also struggling with laces at the moment. So slip on pumps are the best. It'll have to wait until payday. Next week will be a flip flop week

pointless TV and beer sounds absolutely perfect. Enjoy!

Happy weekend everyone

Well done girlie go for it!!

need if your dh and bil can afford it, then I think you should do it. From my culture, most children who are grown up will give their parents something every month. I don't because we live over here but when we are back home, I give dad money and pay for nice meals out (it's not something my dh does for his parents though and they are English!). So many people from the previous generation will have an 'income' from the kids if that makes sense. If we ever move home, I will do it again.

So I went for my follow up GP meeting today and it was disappointing that there were no results from the heart trace! The GP was really upset about it and promised to follow up - he couldn't believe it's taken so long... But he's also going to refer to me to some stress counselling, and to a gastro. My mum died of bowel cancer many years ago when she was not even 50. So there's possibly a genetic link. I've had a colonoscopy done 2x now so I'm ok about it, and if anything kinda looking forward as I'm not feeling too well down there.

Stress because of how horrid work is. I've finally figured out what's wrong with the place, and it's made me more determined to leave. I just need the right job. A friend suggested that Melbourne might still come back if their first choice doesn't accept the job. I hope so!!!

In other news, we are going to look for fireplaces tomorrow. Now that we aren't moving, we want to do up the house!! when stressed and depressed people go shopping, right?!!

Congratulations Girlie

Update on DS. This morning he apologised to me without prompting. He apologised to DH too (although I did tell him he had to do this both this morning and again this evening by phone). I told DH this morning that if DS apologised, he was to accept it gracefully and was not to harp on the issue again. I also pointed out this his behaviour was not what it should be, and he should look carefully at how he behaved. He accepted DS's apology and apologised himself. Yay.

DS is also year 7, where we live they change school at 11, DS is one of the youngest as an August baby. To be honest, I see lying about the homework as a rite of passage. The school were a bit soft, they called in the big guns (me) and now DS will get treated as a baby again. Cause and effect. Once I can see he has got the message, I will perform random checks (I'm an auditor, so I'm good at this) which will keep him in his toes.

Today £2.98 in the card shop for a pack of balloons, sparkly crap to be used for a school project and 10 birthday cards (love card factory!). Then £19 in Tesco top up shop for tomorrow's packed lunches and the weekend.

NK Thanks, that's a useful perspective. I have no problem doing it, even if it would stretch us financially. I am struggling to see how DMIL will accept the help I guess.

I am sorry your work is so awful, how would you feel if Melbourne was a goer again?