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.

One of the ladies I ride with suggested to have a massive argument with dh get hideously drunk and have at it. Apparently that's all it took for her. And she was 40.

It'll happen. I know that.

Sil will be fine hopefully she's a toughie. And her mum lives nearby. And is abbot of a tiger from all accounts.

In other news catface has started getting very brave. She's popped into the living room three times this evening. Once to watch tv. Once to meow about the distinct lack of food. And once to prance about and chase her tail. It's like she forgets she has a tail. Then sees it. Then gets freaked. Then remembers it's her tail. idiot

Also thanks guys for the positive words. I e no reason to think it won't happen. I'll work on it.

Cag i worried about that as well as I was the first of my 'gang' to have a baby but actually now they have all started having babies I just feel relieved more than anything don't get me wrong babies are cute but 10yos are much more civilised most of the time and at least dd doesn't get me up ten times a night!!

It will happen for you, Em.

Spends: £3.80 Co-op (milk, bananas and salad leaves), £1.95 bus fare home, £21 next 3 Pilates classes, until Christmas, £21.75 on 2 pairs of pajamas from Sainsburys for DS.

Em, yes you have to work at it.
DDiL is 44 and has 2 YO and 4 yo .
You have ages yet, relax
So glad you found the owner of the poor cat.
Was going to be a NSD but needed more tiles for bathroom and needed a chocolate bar. Tiles are so expensive.

£31 on Amazon on Christmas gifts - ottolenghi Jerusalem cookbook for df Brian coxs book and milo for dh.

Out for a lovely meal with my cuz last night & she paid(we're taking it in turns) I'd sizzing fajitas & sticky toffee pudding. Le yum

So tired this morning!
Discovered dh never informed car insurance that we'd got a better quote when they took €75.99 deposit, must chase that refund today. Just realised I forgot to lodge a cheque at bank for second time running, just going to pay for stamp altogether #notfrugal

Bank stopped my card as my ynab subscription came out due to transaction outside eu, love that they're so attentive to detail.

Spends €12.50 on mascara have a wedding on fri
€1.40 on two mini boxes of jigsaws for stocking fillers
€37.73 on a topup shop, dh did such a massive shop last week, a weekly shop isn't necessary this week. We get paid Thurs & Fri respectively.

Friday I've a half day from work so will be spendy - smear & dr appt booked, eyebrows, hair cut & colour, wedding

Just realised I never kept back money for au pairs kindle fire from her pay last week so at least that will mor than cover babysitting fee for Friday night.

Should be nsd. Off to work then Drs then back to work then this evening dd has her first school play performance so need to drop her off at 5:30 and collect her at 7:15. She will be knackered and has to do it all over again tomorrow! They say they can go in late the next day but tomorrow we have the vets early and Thursday I'm working so she will have to go in normal time.

Tired this morning. Dd didn't go to bed until 9.15. early night tonight.
Nsd planned.

Nsd planned here. Christmas is wiping me out moneywise. Budgeted £40 pp excluding dh. And although I am keeping to it, that coupled with normal spends is clearing my account faster than anything. Balance this morning £2. Have transferred some from savings.

This week have 2 lots of drinks (one with a friend one a corporate thing so free) after work and riding to pay for on Saturday.

em me too! Regarding being envious at other pregnancies (but happy for them!) and at Christmas wiping out our money. It's truly scary.

I'm not spending much lately but DH has had to do secret Santa, Christmas beers, Christmas jumper day and God knows what else.

I'm finding life really hard at the moment. My meds make me lethargic and DS is going through a shouty / whiny stage. it's hard going!

So food plan for the week
Monday biksemad
Tuesday at my parents
Wednesday medister
Thursday left overs
Friday beef stroganoff
Saturday left overs
Sunday soup

Going to my with Thursday to say hi to the colleagues and showing off baby dd. Also need to make my leave plan with my manager, dh already made his with his boss, his off over Christmas and 3 weeks in January and then the whole of august and 2 weeks in September. I'm planning on being back to work in the first week of September. Seem like forever away.
Tomorrow dh and me are going to my great grandparents house and pick up all the Christmas lifts and going gift shopping for them, they have 28 gifts to get but to much for them to handle now so we are doing them for them. But they have decided what each are getting so we are basically just the pick uppers lol. Dh has also made some different freeze dishes for them, so need to remember them as well.

Made both dh and mine preliminary tax statements yesterday so that's done for the new year, only need to do my parents, aunts and 3 set of friends now
Will have a read trough now and post again

Em congratulations to you Sil and bil and ofc it will happen to you too soon.

Just found out our bank tracks our spending in categories automatically so one less task for me to do, I'm impressed with our new bank

Thats cool italian quite a useful thing for a bank to do!

Collie sorry to hear you are feeling down, life with toddlers is hard going. Funnily enough I was thinking this morning about a day when dd was about 2.6yo where she literally moaned and cried all day so much so that the neighbours complained Hope today is a better day for you

I've got a day off - horah!

To do list;
Tidy up
Clean bathroom
Post a couple of parcels off
Start Christmas cards
Pick up some meds for boy cat from vets

Best get off the sofa then

Barely keeping up with reading the posts here never mind commenting on them.
italian you seem to be doing a lot for someone with a small baby and a toddler, I hope you're not doing too much.

that's really handy with your banking too

girlie I need to make a list of things to do also. I need to fill remaining boxes on advent calendar as a priority anyhow.

em congrats on impending auntie status, it's ok to feel envious, you're not spiteful in feeling that way. Someone I worked with years ago owns this company Simply Conceive if you wanted to talk it through with her. Her aim is that getting help with conceiving would be as common place as going to a physio is with an injury. Her background is in science.

All dd's will be tired this week wreck lifelong my dd has her school tour tomo to a venue an hour away and she's going back to that same venue at 6.30pm for 2 hours of rehearsals for her dance and drama christmas concert again. I will do what I did last year and bring pjs in the car so that she can sleep on way home and be transferred into bed. There are two of these rehearsal evenings so the plan is for dh to bring her to one and me to the other.

Hello!

Back again after being really busy for a couple of days. (Thanks for noticing Fluffy!)

I did a bit of Frugaleer affirmative action and blew £170 on 40 minutes with a private GP.

We have been given some helpful referrals and a letter for the headmistress to help ds a bit. If Bupa will fund it, then we should both be able to see a dietician which would be great.

The lady said there aren't any CFS specialists here, but she did confirm that I have symptoms of CFS, which is helpful.

It was so nice to see a GP who wasn't tired and resentful and looking worse than we were. NHS GPs just seem to have such a harsh life at the moment.

Well done CRT sounds like money well spent!

Off to the library to return something via amazon locker, and to meet friends. So proud of our girls, they've decided to do their next geography project together! It makes me happy that they can still get collaborative learning without school. Just hope it goes better than for DSD - spent ages on FaceTime with her yesterday as she had to do a group project and three people have done fuck all and the fourth just copied and pasted several pages! At UNI where they are seriously hot on plagiarism FFS! And whatever mark DSD gets for HER work all the others get too. So unfair 😡

After that we will head to the park if we don't freeze, then it's off to the post office to collect a parcel and send some stuff I'm returning/selling. So hopefully a frugal day other than bus fare.

crt great work! Sounds like money well spent. I'm all for spending for health reasons.

Spendy already. £423 on gym membership for 2017 (cheaper to do it now. If I did it in January it's cost £470 £35.25 a month this way instead of £42 if I'd done it on a monthly basis).

£28 in Waterstones on books for my friends daughter - the tiger who came to tea, oi frog and the v hungry caterpilller.

£31 on Amazon for 2 calendars (one for home and one for my desk) cork pin board for kitchen and some command hook thingy to stick it up with.

Also just spent £98 on drinks for Christmas. This included 12 white wine 12 red wine 12 prosecco 24 Diet Coke 24 tonics and 12 ginger beers. All ordered from my local friendly wine shop which I just discovered I get 10% off at. Yippee. And they will deliver to my house on Saturday morning. Yay.

Have also set up a transfer to pay £500 off my poor credit card on 21st (payday). Poor credit card.

Oh and £5.45 for lunch because I forgot to do a pack up last night. Chicken red pepper Mayo sandwich, Diet Coke and bag of popcorn.

Cag those group projects at University can be a real pain.

In my first year chemistry practicals my partner was totally useless and just stood aside and then copied all my results.

One time I messed up and got no results, and my partner told the supervisor that it was my error that caused us to get nothing. The partner was given full marks and I got zero.

I sincerely hope he got what was coming to him in later life.

What University is your DSD at? Someone once told me "The cream rises to the top". You can tell her from me that if she sticks at it, the supervisors will soon see that she is the one that's worth having.

Oh balls. And £50 to the cat trust where we got catface from as a donation and a thank you to them for letting her rescue us. Catface licked the envelope.

I swear that's all my spending for today.

Spendy day Em!

CFS would make sense Cath yes good to have someone who has the time to listen to you properly.

I think I can tick most of the to do things off my list; have tidied up and hoovered the house, cleaned the bathroom, posted 2 parcels £6, picked up a few food bits £4.50, got boycats stuff and picked up cat food £11 and made the mistake of popping into Dun Elm and spending an unnecessary £10 on not much ahh well a productive day at least.

Cheers CRT she's at Winchester. She's been to see the supervisor etc. But she works damn hard and TBH harder than many just to tread water - she's finally been diagnosed with dyslexia and dyspraxia and finds it all really hard. So it seems doubly unfair that it's all falling on her shoulders really. I'm very proud of her, she's dealing with it all very maturely :)

LSD, just bus fare and postage fee. Friend bought me a hot chocolate :)