I can't think of a witty title, so here is July's Frugaleer Thread! All welcome.

[Cagliostro]

Hello :)

Spendy day, paid for dc's swimming lessons, I joined the gym, paid for hotel for a London trip next month and renewed zoo membership! But now, apart from food and a few bus/train fares we should be able to have a frugal summer holiday! We went to the park today with some friends, tomorrow we are planning on a "tidying bedrooms" day, then at the weekend we will visit the zoo and go swimming ( swimming lesson fees include free swim sessions so I may as well make the most of it). I bought a cool box last week, £10 morrisons, so lots of cheap picnics planned, rain or shine. Hope the pain goes soon lilac, I don't think you can do any more than antihistamine and pain relief. I'm jealous of all your Chinese dinners, I have a tonne of food in the freezer and am on a mission to use it up before we are allowed takeaways, but am not looking forward to a fortnight of fish and minced beef.

A wasp sting is so much worse than a bee sting. And the little b**rs sting for fun.
For bee stings we recommend antihistamine and whatever you take for pain.
Hope it's better soon lilac

I enjoyed that TedTalk lilac, but then I always do.
A lot of my friends make creams and lotions from their beeswax but not toothpaste. And you have to buy the other ingredients.

Em please could you tell me more about the sinus rinsing? What did you need to get for it? I did try salt water with a syringe once but I freaked out and stopped :o

I am now rather lighter in the wallet department thanks to my Usborne friend. I was so good and resisted the last sale. But this time she was selling off stuff she already had at home (as opposed to placing an order IYSWIM) and... books, books are my weakness when it comes to the Caglets! It is mostly home ed stuff but one book is for Christmas (illustrated Edward Lear).

On the subject of books I was amazed today. When clearing out the cupboard we'd uncovered some manga-style books that I'd given DH years ago (based on a TV show we watch) - we gave them to the Caglets as they now watch the show with us on DVD. Anyway after my lesson DS wanders downstairs having read half of a book! And then randomly read some more to my pupil's mum! It's making me so happy to see him pick up a book and read it by choice :) he really hated reading when he left school. But it seems to have clicked for him now. :)

cag I bought a kit from boots. It's a netirinse I think. But basically it comes with a special bottle and saline sachets.

You add the powder to cooled boiled water (I think it needs to be warm water) and pop bottle tip up against one nostril then squeeze bottle until the water comes out of the other one. Repeat as necessary. It's gross. And it does feel strange. But it helps.

So as well as trying for no spend days I am trying to go for minimal miles days. I've got in the habit of going places quite a distance away as the kids will have a nap in the car and make my life easier. My fuel bills are not loving me! I'm going to work out a miles budget. I budget £150 for fuel for both our cars. Dh works from home four days and does one day in the office in London so drives 7 miles round trip a week to the station. Ds is at nursery two mornings a week which is 40miles of fuel. I then shop at aldi which is a 14 mile round trip. So the minimum we use is 61 miles a week. 400 miles of fuel costs me £52. So if I can reduce how much I'm driving I should be able to drop my petrol bill quite a bit.

Tayto Kondoing changed our lives, we were running out of storage space but we have room for everything now, and we can find things. Like you say, it is hard with kids' stuff about and the house is certainly not immaculate but the cupboards and drawers are organised and life is easier without rummaging for things. It has also made me buy less as I don't want to bring more clutter into the house! It's still going to be difficult when baby #2 arrives as we'll have to use the spare room which we currently use as an office/clothes drying space. I'm not sure what we're going to do with all those things.
My freezer meal week is going well and today we've baked muffins with overripe bananas and frozen blueberries. Hoping for NSD, it should be, I can't think of anything we need from the shops.

Welcome back collie.

Em: I would get your blood percent and pressure taken, they can often give instability which feels like waving dizziness

My due day is 11.11 but baby dd is very petit so we are having exstra scan and control. Doctor might want to start the labour in week34 but really hope that's not gonna happen.
My blood pressure has always been in the low area but has know dropped even lower combined with the blood percent being low means constant headache and dizziness and tired in my bones. But what don't you do for a little healthy baby.

Pay day yai. And money transferred to budget account as usual and we are left with 1000£ for us, should be fine. Did lidl shopping 40£ and petrol 15£. Going to my great grandparents later with dd.

Pay day! Get in. Skinted after yesterday cc d debit went out as it had holiday, vets bill and another big bill which I forget on it. £3500.
Next month will be over £1000 as will have sofas on.
All saved for but good grief.

Cag: do you only home school your kids? They don't go to school at all? Do you then have to follow a some lines and what about exams? Sorry for all the questions but we are not allowed home school so find it intreresting but know almost next to nothing

Hello everyone, missed talking to all of you
No big news here, I have just been very busy working and gardening, some good crops and some big failures after we had to dig out our potatoes early because of the blight
Dc are finally off school so we went to see the Engine man in St Austell yesterday which they really enjoyed, they have also signed up for the reading challenge at the library and went to the local park
NSD today
I am working today so dc are having a craft day
cag would also like to know more about home schooling, ds (11) is autistic (still waiting for assessment) and has found the transition from junior school to Academy rather challenging

Thanks Em - yes that does sound utterly gross! But I think I might give it a go sometime.

Yes Italian and Love the Caglets have been home educated since Feb 15, so 1.5 school years now! They were both really unhappy in the school environment (DD had loved infant school but struggled at the massive juniors, while DS was just never really suited to school) - both are, I am pretty sure, on the autistic spectrum. DD was getting bullied as well and school did nothing . Anyway, all we had to do was inform the schools we were deregistering them, they then had to inform the LEA. We get an 'inspection' once a year when an LEA representative comes to see us and basically checks the DCs are receiving a suitable education and aren't isolated etc. You can actually refuse the visits but TBH I don't see the problem with it (many do though) - we had our visit last month and it was lovely, she just looked at some of the projects/books etc and asked about the clubs they do.

There's no obligation to follow a curriculum in England. The law is that the education has to be 'suitable for their age and ability' or something like that. So there are 'unschoolers' who do no formal work whatsoever and people who follow a timetable and follow/purchase a ready-made curriculum (more common in America I think), and everything in between. We are 'semi structured' which I'd say is pretty typical round here - the Caglets have to do core subjects, reading daily etc but anything else is pretty flexible, and it often starts from their interests rather than waiting until they 'should' be learning a particular thing according to the national curriculum. For example neither would've done anything about ancient Egypt at school yet but they were both fascinated when they got a toy pyramid a couple of years ago, so we've done loads, went to exhibitions etc.

We also go to various clubs and excursions which tends to inspire research - for example this month's geography club is about the UK so the DCs are preparing projects (DD - awesome British women from history and DS - geology) which they'll show to their friends. The DCs also love Greek mythology so we'll be doing a bit about the ancient olympics this summer and comparing them to modern (I may have ordered a book about the latter on the Usborne sale last night...).

I could waffle on about home ed forever sorry! Always happy to answer questions about it :)

Spent £3.41 on Amazon this morning thanks to my voucher I got for taking part in research. I found a cheaper (but seemingly better) chemistry set than I'd planned, so I spent the rest on some electronics stuff - wires, a switch, lightbulbs and batteries - so we can do basic circuits (I will most likely be asking Ipso for further suggestions after that! :o). Yay!

ROI ptsb customer cashback up to 4th August €5 back on €25 spend in Lidl one per card. I've a card on both joint & personal accounts & dh has on for joint account too, that'll be €15 off our shopping

I always try to combine as many jobs as I can on each car journey what could you do aldi on one of the nursery trips for example?
I usually do my trip to aldi after my second job, dh on nights though so only bought a couple of items yesterday & will have to make special trip tomorrow

£30 mountain warehouse, £25 sainsburys, £10 bhs, £15 wilkos, £40 pt.
Need to stop now.

Oh and £15 halfords, £4 gym lock

I do aldi alone While dh puts the kids to bed. It's my weekly treat

Does anyone use the Quidco high street cashback thing? It seems to be available in a lot of stores I use. Some as high as 10%.

Spends today:

€6 payday lunch, very good value for a delicious sandwich and a coffee.

Just applied for a new credit card as it seems to offer quite good cashback and my current one offers nothing at all. I'll cancel my current one once I get the new one.

Welcome back Collie.

Yesterday £10 on comfort food and new cat food because he's gone off his usual food.

Today was £1.50 on crisps.

Next savings goal is a chop cloc device to save on winter gas bills. They cost £70 but I'm hoping to get one off eBay using nectar points.

Thank you cag my ds is probably also on autistic spectrum (at the moment we are waiting for another assessment) and has found transition from Junior school to Academy really hard. I have thought about home schooling him but don't really know where to start. Could you send me pm about any more information since I don't want to clogged up this thread with all my questions? thank you

I am signed up for it cag but I had forgotten about it until you said so I always forget to activate the offers. I might get the ap and see if I remember.

I'm going to spend £100 on 6 pt sessions which I know is an indulgence but I really enjoyed this one and I don't have any other hobbies and its my stress buster. I figure I have saved enough for Christmas as so I'm going to use my cashback site money's.

Pay day!!
Spent £12 in IKEA
And £12 on Amazon
Need to fill car up with petrol (£40) and pay for my hair next week (£20)
Then that's it!
Need to save the rest for the holidays / not that the DC seem to want up do much!

Payday for me too.
NSD here, hooray! Pleased that we've managed two NSDs in the first week of the hols.