BOO! The Freaky Frugaleers prepare for Halloween and beyond. All welcome!

[Cagliostro]

:)

Wreck, that's interesting, I thought you could only claim carer's allowance if on middle rate DLA. I will look into it once I hear back one way or another about my application. Just doing the DLA forms was very draining - you have to write down all the negative stuff about your child. It made me cry

Cathode, I have never even heard of Humax. I think my brain will melt with all this extra information!

Not having a frugal day because I have just had to chuck some home made soup and gammon because I didn't freeze it in time. Freezer seems to be completely full of disorganised rubbish of dubious vintage It's embarrassing to admit all this, I must sort myself out!

Off to PO now and to do a top-up shop. I spend a lot of money on these as DS eats no fruit except strawberries (a punnet a day! ) and bananas, both of which don't keep well so need to be bought frequently. I can handle the upset if I don't provide the strawberries but not the (even worse) constipation problems. I'd give a lot to get him onto grapes, apples, anything else... I'll never given up but it's not really going my way at the moment!

Oh Christmas don't quote me on that then. I though there was only two rates to DLA.

DLA and all that confuses the heck out of me. I need to get myself sorted and go back to the CAB for advice on PIP (that's a whole lot of initials in that sentence!)

My voucher that I won arrived so I now have £100 on Amazon yay.

And I found my glove...

Butter chicken curry sounds nice Em.

I might post a few times catching up.

Firstly, there's a few bargains in Aldi.

Big bag of Magnum dishwasher tablets. 100 tablets for £5.99. That's pretty much 3 months worth, or more if you split the tablet.

Massive First Aid kit for £9.99. I got one for the horse box. Way bigger than a Boots kit.

Running and cycling gear for anyone that needs it.

Christmas. I got a bit emotional when I read your post from this morning. I can fully imagine mourning a perceived life that will not be. Not that your current life isn't wonderful, but it's not quite the rose tinted glow of pregnancy life that we have for our children. Bless you, you sound absolutely lovely (not patronising I hope).

Told you you would find the glove Cag

Afternoon everyone, it's bloomin freezing today! DS has gone up to my DMs for the afternoon for a change of scene, hes dying to get back to school but it will be thurs at the earliest

Did a small topup shop with some euros which had gathered up in the coin tray in my car, about €14 or so - we live right by the ROI border so easy to scoot over and use them up. Means we havent touched this weeks shopping budget yet and hopefully with freezer items / topup shop we shouldnt need to until the weekend when friends are coming to stay.

I have been doing a bit of sensible stuff energywise which really we have no excuse not to have done previously... eg we dont normally pull over our sitting room curtains at night, just the blinds as the corner sofa is pushed right up against them, ditto it was pushed right up against the radiator - have propped it out in all directions a bit so theres room to pull the curtains and for the heat to get out of the radiator, hopefully it shouldnt move about. Open fire set for later. In the process of getting a curtain at the bottom of the stairs put up to keep the heat in also. Must start pulling the door curtain at night. Anybody use radiator foils and noticed a difference?

Yay for the missing glove showing up
I switched electricity providers, will save €258 a year & must do FixPay so fixed amount monthly, if I pay one twelfth of what I paid last year I'll overpay right as it won't be the reduced price or should I work out what our yearly usage would cost at new rate and divide that by 12?

Welcome back mummy and congratulations on baby number 2

Christmas thats kind of you to say - my decision was based quite a bit on work related stress, it was impacting on the whole family so we decided it wasnt worth it for now. Felt so relieved to make the decision, we will muddle through with plenty of and lol

Mammy probably the second calculation as it includes the discount? We do a fixed monthly amount though and ended up with our DD going up after the first year as it wasnt set quite high enough - maybe better to have a slight surplus and then adjust next year if working for you?

Afternoon all! I've had a crazy busy few days with work, hospital appointments and doing stuff with DD.
Anyway, have caught up with the thread now. Welcome to Christmas and I'm pleased Cag's glove has turned up.
Very cheap few days. Saturday was NSD, so was yesterday and today except that I have to pay for yoga later.
On Sunday we made chutney using a load of apples we were given from a friend's tree. We had all the ingredients but no jars so DH got some from Hobbycraft. They were £8 which is quite expensive but we can give a lot of them away for Xmas and that still means they are cheap gifts!

Snuggly have you got a gigantic twin bump?

Yes! I'm only 20 weeks but look more like 30. Am going to have to get more clothes I think. With that and all the hospital parking these babies are already costing me a fortune!

Amazing! When you're really close to having them you'll have to post a bump photo!

Sausage beans and mash tonight. It's so cold we now have three heaters on.

£1.90 on a latte.

Macaroni cheese with spinach here. I'll make enough for today and tomorrow.

You did indeed Need :o and I totally didn't believe you! It had fallen into a bag. Hurrah. They are proper toasty as well, especially considering how cheap they were.

Hey all, I'm back after an awful week!

Back to frugaleering

I was wondering where you were collie! Hope everything's ok?

Oh Collie hope things pick up for you soon.

Cag well done on your win and finding the glove!

Snuggly did you use a recipe for Apple chutney - I have a load of apples to use up.

£2.75 on lunch today.

Toaster Yes I use foils for the rads, you can buy rolls of it, the plastic they use to hold it in place is a type of binding for paper. I will find out the name of them. I noticed a difference, fleece blankets on the curtain lining works too.

Theyre still building houses with open stairs in the lounge 🙄. So wasteful.

Collie as always. x

Poor you snuggly. DS was a twin, and DMiL had 2 DC already, she said it was exhausting at times. Keep well.

Hooray again for the glove!!

Been on the go all day today, so will be nice to sit on the sofa tonight with a glass of wine.

Slide or spine binders, you need two per big radiator. Every little helps with insulation.

Thank you, I'm uncomfortable today but most days are better.
Hope you are ok, Collie?

Need, I don't think I am especially lovely but thanks! It does feel as though I have drifted into a parallel parenting universe... instead of worrying about DS's a-level results, or whether he will go to a good university etc, I will just be relieved if he grows up to live an independent life! It does put a sort of distance between myself and my friends with NT children because we are having very different experiences. It can feel a bit lonely but I expect I will become less sensitive to the differences over time. I am still grieving really.

Cag, if you don't get PIP it's definitely worth getting advice. IIRC you were not well enough to work consistently? I don't know how it works though, I am only just understanding DLA!

A frugal question: a Couple of years ago we had our loft insulation replaced under one of the free schemes. All good. Then a year of so ago we had the loft boarded so we could use it for storage - we had proper supports built so that the boarding wasn't squashing the insulation but was floating on top... anyway, we now seem to have an horrendous condensation problem up there. We have black splotchy marks appearing on our bedroom ceiling - I am not sure whether they are mound but it looks more like where the condensation has dissolved a load of dirt and grot and it is seeping in and staining the ceiling. I have no idea what to do about it! Any ideas? We use a tumble dryer to avoid adding to the moisture in the air and when we can't we dry stuff in the spare room with a dehumidifier, which we have running most of the time even when there isn't washing. We also keep the bathroom door closed and the bathroom window open to ventilate after a shower. Up until this problem we didn't have any issues up there. (We did, and do, have a bit of mould in our built-in wardrobes because they are cupboards built into the outside wall of an extension and the back wardrobe walls are cold enough to condense any moisture in the air. I need to tackle that too. Somehow.)

Sausages (from the freezer of doom) and mash for tea. Trying to decide whether to do beans or whether i can be bothered to make onion gravy to make DH happy. Cold weather food anyway, which makes me happy.

Hello everyone, Collie good to 'see' you

I reckon Italian is having her baby!!!

I have had a nice heating person out, he has worked out what the problem is and said its a fault in the electrics and absolutely would be something the developer to sort out! He has got it working tonight and bled a few of the radiators and told me to get on the phone tomorrow!! I am not great at being assertive but will do my best. Anyway he was very nice, gave him £20 cash.

No other spends.