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

[Cagliostro]

:)

shortlegz Distraction is best, the actual scan is never as bad as you think.

Seacow I hope the new bulb is led, they last years.

NSD & I fitted some window film to the tiny window in the lounge. It's very tricky and I'm not looking forward to doing the patio doors.

Christmas that's good to know that they do repairs. Dh is really pleased with his new umbrella. The ceremony was lovely too.

Cag I'm so sorry to hear your news about your house. I thought your idea of a prefab was wonderful. Is that a possibility?

Mummy I'm crossing all my fingers for your scan. Hopefully benign and easily removed. Good luck.

I forgot! I bought draught proofing tape and did the front door yesterday. I think it's making a big difference to the heating coming on. The thermostat is in the hall and I'm sure the heating comes on more than necessary. Dh is away till Saturday and I'm not going to tell him I've done it to see if he notices a difference.

I hope so Cathode it's still something we really want to do, not sure it's possible yet as ideally we'd want to save up a lot more.

Mammy, fingers crossed for you. Keep busy in the meantime to distract yourself as much as you can.

Cag, how annoying! Hopefully you can start looking for your prefab once it's March and the weather is slightly warmer, if your parents will cover the rent increase for a couple of months.

Spends: £9.70 travel to work. Day 1 of 3 full days done.

Sorry, I meant Mummy, not Mammy!

Mummy. Thinking of you. It's very tough. Keep busy, then you don't have to think, that's my motto.

Cag Bless you, not great news at all. Have you thought practically about this at all? A few things struck me immediately.

• Do you claim all you are entitled to re your health condition? Plus, it would put you higher up for a council house.
• Could you potentially manage one extra class a week?
• Is there an equivalent of FSM for Home Ed kids?
• I recall that you sometimes eat 'on the run' due to lack of organisation. Wondering if some extra planning in this regard would help save a few quid?

Congratulation to your DH for his British citizenship Cath. I bet the umbrella is lovely and a real investment piece.

Seacrow Time to ourselves, especially when at home all the time is very important to our sense of wellbeing.

NSD, blimey. A while since I said that!

Thank you Trying I will look into it.

NSD today, although I did facilitate DH buying my Christmas present from Boots, so that I get the points because he doesn't bother with reward cards.

will catch up tomorrow, blazing row with teen lead to no sleep for me last night

Wreck how's the foot today?

Love the socks Cag

Sometimes I'm not sad we couldn't have kids. She'll come through it Adora. Then one day have kids of her own you can regale with tales of teenage attitude.

Thank you all

Yep Need we are terrible for eating on the run, we have agreed to properly go through the diary each week while placing grocery order!

I'm going to try for PIP and stuff but I'm not holding out much hope TBH, same with housing priority as I can manage stairs (even if sometimes I crawl up the damn things but you're right I do need to bite the bullet on that. :(

I think in some ways this could be a good thing as it's giving us a kick to actually change things. TBH one more winter in this horrid cold house is more than enough, it would be nice to get out of it!

Cag sorry about the rent. I hate our council house and feel so embarrassed about it but know how lucky I am to have the security.

Mummy hope all goes well with the scan, did you breastfeed? My friend found lumps and from the scan they found they were scar tissue from all the bouts of mastitis.

Adora foot still looks the same luckily I have hardly any feeling in my feet so it doesn't hurt. Also I'm dreading dd being a teen we argue enough as it is and she's six...

Oven food for dinner as I feel sicky. Bleurgh.

£15 fuel (it was £1.22 a litre )
£17 in m&s food but it was a gift card I used and I got two Christmas presents as well.

Oh and dd has decided she wants packed lunch because she doesn't really like the food. I would mind but school dinners are free for the rest of the school year I don't want her forcing herself to eat food she doesn't like though.

Ha ha Fluffy, I thought someone would ask that! Yes, LED bulb. Hope it lasts a decade as we have no hope of ever getting up there again!

Oh good. I was a bit obsessed with them when we moved here. I bored everyone to tears with them.

You should get at least a decade out of it.

I missed you foot Wrecked, ouch. Poor you. x

Wrecked ouch!
Cag what a nightmare for you.
Mummy

I checked my bank account and had a lot more than I thought I had so have done some more Christmas shopping £140. This includes a bird of prey flying experience for my Dad and Step-Mum!

Window film also works miracles - many years ago I went to Canada in the middle of winter to stay for a few weeks (working in a lab there). I stayed in a relatively old house where the windows had been filmed. It was -40 outside but really not too cold near the windows (some of which just had poor secondary glazing ) I was very impressed.

I have a window next to my front door which is single glazed and cold. I am going to get a door curtain first and then maybe replace the window and door with double glazing in due course. Not this year though!

£55 today on a dress for three Christmas parties. Black from warehouse with pink sparkly stars.

cag oh no! It'll work out. I'm sure of it. As you said you wanted to move anyway and a better place will be out there. It's meant to be.

I'm probably going to need some sort of sparkly shoe and/or a sparkly clutch to go with it (one party is my work one and everything is paid for apart from drinks after dinner so in theory I could get away with dh's wallet....as he's coming too)

In other news, another spendy day - £99 on a private ultrasound scan. I found out a couple of weeks ago that I am pregnant. I didn't want to mention it to anyone (even anonymously!) until I got to a viability scan as I had a miscarriage earlier in the year so felt very wobbly about it. Saw the heartbeat today so all good. And only one [relieved!]. I don't seem to conceive at all easily and am rather old now so I felt as though time was running out! We had looked into IVF but couldn't afford to do it and for me to take time out of work for DS, so had made the decision that we weren't going down that route and would just have to leave it to fate.

There's still a long way to go but after today, for the first time, I am allowing myself a glimmer of optimism and to look forward a bit.

However, this has thrown up a whole load of new financial dimensions - we had been trying for a while and I was hoping it would work out that I could take mat leave with pay and be home for DS too. But in the end I just had to take a decision for DS and leave my job, rather than hang on for something that might not happen. So now no mat pay, a somewhat prolonged period off work and additional costs. Phew!

Not off to a flying start either - I bought a ready meal deal for dinner tonight. I am just shattered and can't face cooking. I have been knackered anyway and now have DH's cold, without the benefit of being able to take the good drugs! Still, a good day

Congratulations, what a lovely thing to have seen :-)

Congratulations! With my second pregnancy we literally lived off oven food. I would probably plan for easy meals for the next couple of months, that way you will still be able to budget rather than thinking 'I really don't have the energy to make X tonight lets get take away' etc.

christmas omg congratulations!!

Breakthrough here. Fed catface. I was sat in the floor and she rubbed right up against me. We had a nice 15 minutes of pats and strokes before I fed her.

Congratulations ChristmasSeacow.

Congratulations Christmas, fingers crossed for you.

Cat face sounds a lot more confident now. She's scent marked you so you now officially belong to her.

All of this has given me the warm fuzzies.