Marvellous Frugaleers - Chatting and saving through November, and into December.

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Just setting up the new thread for the chatty Frugaleers.

By popular request - copied from an old thread

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/other_subjects/1324074-For-those-who-cant-afford-to-use-central-heating-this-year-How-are-you-going-to-cope

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/credit_crunch/1543785-your-top-tips-for-money-saving-and-a-more-frugal-life

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/credit_crunch/1600030-Small-money-saving-habits-petty-even

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/credit_crunch/1628874-Gas-Elec-Bills-monthly-and-SKY-so-angry

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/mumsnet_classics/1911061-NO-MORE-COLD-MUMSNETTERS

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/_chat/2209167-Slow-Cookers-are-shit

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/_chat/2224969-saving-money

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/legal_money_matters/2258202-Debt-mutual-support-thread-number-6-start-the-new-year-with-a-clear-purpose-and-keep-moving-forwards-even-by-tiny-steps?

orchard.tesco.com/ Sign up to this.

www.topcashback.co.uk/home And this.

www.quidco.com/home/ And this

www.moneysavingexpert.com/ And this

www.moneysavingexpert.com/cheapenergyclub ditto.

www.checkoutsmart.com/ Plus this.

www.hotukdeals.com/all/deals/new?page=3 Check this daily.

wreck that bag is lovely!

cag good luck with the housing people. really hoping that they help.

Yesterday wasn't as spendy as I thought as town was too busy. I hate crowds! So I went home early!

Today is a NSD but I am separating daily spends and Christmas shopping spends as I will get confused otherwise.

collie I'm going to have to do that. Otherwise I'll risk running out of cash money dollar.

So far I have bought Christmas pressies for dm. That's it. Must get cracking.

Just went out to get DD's prescription and some cat litter. Did a bit of Xmas shopping while waiting for prescription and also got a birthday card and present for a friend and some alcohol free beer for me. Spent about 40 quid.
DH got paid yesterday. Miraculously we had £350 left from last month - good frugalling! Left £150 in joint account for Xmas shopping and put the rest into maternity leave savings fund. So proud of us for managing that!

Wow snuggly great frugalling.

We are smashing open our money jar this weekend. We've been saving pound coins, £2 coins and 50ps for ages. I think we should have about £400 in the jar. This will be spent on Christmas dinner with leftover cash being split between dh and I.

Washing my winter snuggly bedding today. In readyness for December. Eeeek!!

Collie I tried your idea of getting ds to write a letter to santa so that his Christmas present requests are fixed, and it seems to have worked. He is even posting the letter. He chose really good things too that will let him use his imagination and that are totally age-appropriate, so that was good.

I've been to see my new GP but she just looked stressed out of her mind and wasn't interested. I told her that the headmistress wanted me to bring ds to her if he gets run down looking so she could figure out what's wrong and she just refused point blank. I'm on the waiting list to be moved to a different gp who's been recommended, so maybe that will work. In the meantime, I have a private GP in mind as a backstop. I wonder if the NHS will actually burst into flames eventually. They all look as if it wouldn't take much.

cath glad it has helped! That's what we will do from Christmas 2017 when DS is a little older.

When I was looking for a new GP last year - I searched based on the amount of patients they had. My previous doctor surgery had 16,000+ patients. My new GP surgery had 9000. The difference was pretty clear.

snuggly that's amazing! Well done!!

Em very jealous of your jar full of money. I would love to do that next year. So satisfying!

That's interesting Collie, I didn't know I could search on that kind of thing. The lady I am seeing just clearly didn't have time to think about anything. I think if I want something better then I'll need to go private. The good thing about this new practice is that if one of us gets really unwell then at least we can get there. I'm hoping I'll get moved to a better GP if I hang on for a bit. This one really seemed crap tbh.

I also have a gp with relatively few patients and it's an amazing surgery. The glitzy new surgery down the road is packed and people complain about it a lot. Ours has a very drab waiting room, only 2 doctors, a practice nurse and a weekly midwife clinic. I can almost always get a same day appointment and the receptionist knows everyone by their first name. I will never change!

How do you find out how many patients there are in a surgery then?

If you Google search your surgery and click on the official "overview" NHS page (a page for reviews, opening times and a list of GPs names) for it you can scroll down to "Key Facts" and it'll state the registered patients.

Oh wow! I found it. My old practice has 11k patients. My new one has 16k and the other nearby one that everyone complains about has 20k. Yoicks.

Thanks Collie.

Thanks again everyone. I will write this all down!

CRT I'm sorry you feel judged too. You sound like an awesome person, I wish you lived nearer as I have a feeling we would all get on very well :o

I'll have a look at that CAF form. We did have a common assessment framework (under various names as they seem to change these things every few years) but always got 'discharged' as it were - we asked for help a LOT especially before DH finally got his op (for those that haven't been on the thread long, DH got a serious back injury and was out of work for a few years, which is when I went to work FT instead, and then I got ill... long boring story) - but any child-focused help has always been refused because all the Caglets' needs are clearly met. So while we've always welcomed intervention from SS, family outreach etc, it's never actually gone anywhere. That's basically what they've said - your kids aren't suffering, they're obviously well loved and looked after and educated, so there's nothing we can do for you. Which is nice in a way of course, but incredibly frustrating. Mind you I now feel we've reached the point where they ARE suffering.

collie it's a great jar. I'm excited to see how much is in there. We've been popping stuff in it for about the last 3 years.

Hair was £42.

Cath, that's really annoying about the new gp and how the new practice has far more patients than the old. Sorry to hear that.

Cag, approach everything from how you feel when you're at your worst when you speak to housing. Really emphasise your symptoms at the their worst and lack of money and how the damp and small rooms impact on your family health and wellbeing.

NSD.

Thanks everyone I'll get the bag.

At work we have £13k patients. But we also have 7 GP partners, 4 salaried GPs and 3 registrars. Plus 1 nurse practitioner, 4 practice nurses, 2 HCAs.

Dd just shouted out in the playground really loudly in front of her teacher that she's going to Lapland (UK) tomorrow afternoon. I was going to tell them she had a hospital appointment

Nsd and dd's swimming lesson has been cancelled.

Wreck that's hilarious.

cag that's interesting that those common framework forms lead to discharge for you. I just filled one in but the head just confirmed that we don't really need to send it as ds is doing really well. Kind of a relief really.

I understand your frustration about not being able to take time to save for mobile home. That sounded like such a great idea. I keep thinking and thinking about what you could do but I see that it's really tricky. Would it work for you if your dh was transferred further north away from London prices if he works for a big chain? Houses are so much cheaper in the north and the schooling options might even be more viable there.

I would love to know you in person too. We seem to have so many interests in common. Good luck there.

I just spent £18 on posting a parcel overseas and 20 2nd class stamps. EIGHTEEN POUNDS!!!! I am still gobsmacked, it wasn't even a heavy parcel.

Wow! Snuggly. Posting is so expensive now. My Christmas cards to Ireland are costing £1.37 each versus 64p for UK ones. It just goes to show what would have happened if Scotland had become independent.

I have a frugal tip, I'm sure you all do it anyway but just in case... You know tomato purée and the stupid tubes it comes in? Well I can never get it out near the end but rolling a rollin pin down it gets loads out!

www.google.co.uk/search?q=toothpaste+squeezer&client=safari&hl=en-gb&prmd=sivn&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiP1qGc8sHQAhVlCsAKHcJ5AgQQ_AUIBygB&biw=375&bih=559#imgrc=hhiG9eth4bcLOM%3A

I have one of these for tomato purée.. just saying

£32 in garden centre on 4 church candles (2 snowy white and two grey for my storm lanterns) 6 wooden hanging tree decorations, some pine cones (dm argued I could collect these myself...but then I'd have to dry them and get rid of bugs) some Amaretti biscuits for dgm and an assortment of sweeties.

Oh em that's cool!

You can cut tubes open as well.

£5 pizza & beer.

Got a £5 JL voucher from gfk internet monitoring.

Cag I've wondered in the past if you'd be better off moving oop north. But it's not something you'd do lightly.

Hi all just catching up

Wreck bloody kids!

Cag I reckon you have such a really strong case with the council to be appropriately housed, just keep going with them, good luck.

Em I always cut the tubes! I find esp tubes of face cream or similar you can get loads more out of them.

I've not felt great today, just 'off colour' was randomly a bit teary earlier which isn't like me, I'm not normally much of a crier! Anyway work took pity of me and let me finish a bit early, suspect I am probably just really over tired as have worked 6 days out of the last 7 and work is relentlessly busy at the moment.

Have seen a woman from Stonewater (who I share ownership of my house with) she agreed the issues with the house are not acceptable and the developers should be liable for them so phew for that, fingers crossed that they might actually get sorted out now.

Nsd ystd and today will spend £15 on a theatre ticket for dd to see a show with her drama group in a couple of weeks.

I cut tubes of make up. And toothpaste (as inonly have one of those deeleys)