Fearless Frugaleers Finding Their Feet in February

[SpottyTeacakes]

I've got fruflu

Laska

So sorry laska

Looks v Icey here and the local radio is warning drivers to take extra care this morning. Glad of my decision to walk.

Saves stress and £7 parking and gets me another 6k (there and back) on my 1000k walked in 2016.

Not sure who it was who suggested I try the "bounts" app (as recommended by MSE). I've racked up 280 points already. Not enough yet to get money off things. But am building it. Without really having to do much. So thanks!

Better days today for everyone I hope

A LSD. Perhaps £3 on the bus!

I'm spectacularly anxious about DHs second interview. It's actually this evening not this morning so have to wait all daaaay.

IF he gets it we plan to move nearer to the job to save £200 a month on fuel and be near a fab school and nursery. Exciting! must not get over excited

Oh laska, how utterly dreadful and heart wrenching for you all. What an awful thing to go through.

Your snow sound pretty, and not too inconvenient I'd, love dog walks that don't involve mud.

Ipsos, not sure if you saw with the speed of this thread, but have you considered meeting up with some mums at soft play, or even just going along with your DS? He gets to burn up some energy then, and interact with his peer group and it's not all on your shoulders. Or, maybe even meeting up at a local park or NT place, Stately Home or whatever.

Good luck Collie, it'a awful waiting for news isn't it?!

Hi Cheese sorry your DH's job is so miserable. It really affects your whole life, doesn't it, when your work causes so much stress :(

laskalots of love and best wishes for dgd and family. Coming off the vent is huge so I hope things keep moving I that direction for you. Nicu can be a very scary and lonely place so please keep posting if you need to x

em that was me as it's not valid in ROI glad to hear it's building a bit for you.

I'm using ReepRewards app for anyone in ROI you get 15c or 25c per receipt uploaded depending on where it was and then once a month a spend report detailing where you spent your money. This alarmed me at first because there was a lot of money spent in Centra which is our local shop until I realised I had bought diesel there a few times it doesn't pay out until €50 so it will take a long time to build but it's free money. Must start getting clever though and getting receipts from others too

Laska how frightening for you all, I really hope she goes from strength to strength now.

Ispsos agree with Needa soft play or taking dd somewhere she could run free used to save my sanity!! I sort of think children are similar to dogs in the sense that they need regular meals and exercise has he got a friend near by that you could have over for a play date? If he likes building things my dd got a gift for her bday called Zoob which has kept her occupied loads so far link

I have had a nice lay in this morning, its great now that dd is a bit older she can get up without waking me and watch the telly or play quietly. Its another beautiful day but very cold, everything is frosty outside. Plan is to wrap up and cycle into town have a list of jobs to do, will try and reign in the spends though....

Laska I'm so sorry to hear about your little DGD. Must have been so frightening for everyone. I hope and pray that the scan results bring good news.

NSD yesterday

€8.74 on groceries today. I will have to pay €3 for cubs later and €20 for DD's dance class.

£78.33 in Asda. More than usual but that actually included washing powder, cat food & litter, dishwasher tablets and 3 packs of nappies plus some extra snacks as we're all at home this week so I'm quite pleased with that.

Just checking in, took me a while to find you and you're already 18 pages in!

Thanks for the suggestions of softplay and parks. We've avoided softplay up to now as ds and I pick up viruses in such places very easily and they always linger for a fortnight and really mess things up for us (the same happens in B&Q for some reason. No idea why.). Ds loves the nature reserve near us but it is full of trees with catkins which give him very bad hayfever, blocking his nose for weeks after a visit and causing chaos for our sleep. There is a good place with non-catkin trees but it is too far away for me to drive at the moment. Antihistamines aren't sufficient to solve the problem. We have seen a GP and a specialist and they said most children get 8 to 10 viruses a year and we just have to lump it. They don't know what to do about the hayfever. Unfortunately it is just not an easily solved problem, or it would not be causing us all this trouble. We are pretty sharp and if there was an easily found solution, we would have found it. Thanks for the thought though.

My guess is that eventually he will grow out of it. That's my hope anyway.

We're having a riot of fun here with me playing the piano while ds rushes up and down the stairs. :-) I hope all is well there.

Still sending the healing vibes to Laska's DGC.

Girlie yes we are also working on playdates, but they are tricky to organise and short and what he really needs is company all the time. Spring should solve the problem as our garden is interconnected with three others that are all full of children. It will be all go once the weather warms up.

I'm getting a garden designer in to make our garden really fun to play in and to get rid of the grass. I have great hopes for that turning our garden into a magnet for other kiddies and a great place for play. :-)

I've managed to fit in nearly 4 hours of writing now so that's a bit of a victory. Not much time for breathing left, but I find the writing really satisfying.

Just had a lovely morning of play dates with DS and his little friends. Arranged in a hurry to accommodate all the toddlers nap times. It was so lovely. And well worth the effort for the children.

I don't think I'll be catching the bus today. I feel like I may fall asleep so perhaps just a walk on the beach instead. I'll be sleeping well tonight.

The TU sale started today at Sainsbury's so I'll be popping there tomorrow to stock up on trousers, pants and socks for DS.

Laska I'm so sorry, it must be torture for you all to watch her go through that when she's so tiny.

Ursula I've done that with ham cartilage. It was yummy apart from the cartilage grit.

£10 petrol
£39 hair cut
£5 tip
£2.50 Sains but 50p claimed back off shopitize.

£30 la redoute sent back, ordered size 6-8 and it was all massive. It's vanity sizing gone potty.

£1.96 cashback came through so I've had it as Tesco points.

Bugger. Just found this on the bottom of my payslip. I've been doing piece work at home for a lovely local company. Not much money, but I've been paying every penny of it onto my awful credit card bills. Am feeling very down and rejected, DP recons that they're probably not busy right now and it will all be fine!

I will be able to get on with knitting, but that relies on people ordering stuff, so isn't consistent. I have wanted to try a new pattern I've had in my mind for a while, um, am hunting for positives!

Spent 40ish in Lidl, lots of fruit and dairy, had all dc with me so it was a bit if a blur. Fierce northerly wind blowing here, think the bad weather is heading south towards you all! Have had to shut the boiler down as the house was full of fumes when we got back. Log burner it is then.

Are the cards 0%?

Sorry to hear that Knitting. Hope more work comes along soon. It's freezing here too.

Everything crossed Laksa I can't begin to imagine dealing with that.

£6.50-ish on post. Shopping was bloody expensive this week over £100. Glad Feb is a short month. I'm still fighting off this cold.

We are no strangers to terrible bosses, that's why DH ended setting up overseas. I was bullied out of a job and DSis was fired for being off sick, she has CFS.

Glad your DH is a good boss need, mine is so mindful of not being a bad boss he gets taken advantage of occasionally.

Good luck with all the interviews and job searches.

Ah knitting, that's such a shame. Fingers crossed for more work.

collie I remember those days. I used to meet my friend at 2pm twice a week at the local stately home basically ALL year long, to work round nap times. Got very tricky when we both had second children. Used to be toddler groups am and nap then park or other in the afteroon. Good for them though.

ipsos I am sure you are pretty clued up with it all. I definitely remember a period with both of mine where they picked up everything going. It was an absolute slog, but they needed to build up their immune systems, the consultants estimation seems about right to me, maybe even a touch conservative! It felt like they were always ill.

Just back from a lovely lesson with the pony. We decided to put him round a course of jumps, he hasn't jumped at all really for about 4 years. He was a lovely good boy and just popped the jumps like he did it every day.

Lesson - £7 bargain for a riding lesson.
Fuel - £60
Hair - £50

Nsd (two in a row!)

Ds is fast asleep still he doesn't want to wake up. Feels like he's been under the weather for ages! Hasn't coughed since he's been asleep though which is a bonus.

Fluffy that's a complaint I would love to have sending size 6-8 back because it's too big

I still think of myself as a size 10 but haven't fitted into a size 10 since before having ds in Nov 13. This is something I work on every single day and still can't get past a tight size 12.