Springing into the New Year with the 2017 Frugaleers

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Just setting up the new thread for the chatty Frugaleers.

By popular request - copied from an old thread grin

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.

Argh overdrawn past our overdraft. Dh gets paid tomorrow. I might have to go to the bank and pay our Christmas cash in.

Ds has swimming this morning and dd is finally back at school.

Morning all. Back to work today. 6.30 is a shock to the system after nearly 3 weeks of getting up between 10 and 11.30!

Cag- lots of balance transfer info and questions on this week's MSE email.

I've never been to Nando's. I don't shun it but whenever I am within range of one there is something more interesting (to me) nearby. I'm a big fan of Thai /Japanese food, gotta love a noodle.

I hope I don't ever need to home ed DS. I would do it and I wouldn't be daunted academically but I think the discipline would be really hard - not just for me but for DS. I think some children /parents can have that educating relationship alongside their 'normal' one but for others it is more difficult. My dad tried to teach me to drive for 10 mins before realising that our relationship would never recover if we continued

Quite a bit of top-up shopping this week but I didn't do a proper weekly shop, just shopped for NYE party. We've been mostly eating leftovers though. I spent almost £100 in himebase yesterday though, on storage crates, primer and bird food and feeders mostly. DH is big into birds and feeds them assiduously but a couple of our feeders are falling apart now. We actually have a list of all the birds sighted in our garden, by year, for each year we have lived in our house. and he had spreadsheets of all the birds he has ever seen, by year, country and continent. Irresistible to women, my DH

I digress. Anyway, I also spent some money on maternity clothes on line -about £200 but I expect a lot will go back. I have Mat clothes from last time but some are too big as I was a big bigger then. The maternity jeans fall right down, while I defo can't do up my normal jeans now. I can barely dress myself to leave the house right now!

Today's balances

Joint ac £684 (mortgage paid, petrol came out as did a small food shop).
My ac £172 (Amazon purchase plus cat litter came out plus a credit card payment)
Cc £563
Penny ac £1.64

We have almost zero chain restaurants here. We have McDonalds and Burger King and a pizza express and Bella Italian. That's it. I used to long for a Nando's. Or a Wagamamas. Or a wahaka. But for me that's half the fun of going to the uk. If we spend the weekend in London we tend to have lunch at a "fun" place like the above then maybe go to a proper restaurant for dinner. Somewhere new and exciting. Somewhere a bit different.

Today should be nsd. I've just got out of bed showered and breakfasted. Need to make a sandwich for lunch. Have also just garbled with solvable paracetamol. So far my throats doesn't feel as bad as yesterday....

Off to work we go.

Love acc balance updates em
Mine are
Personal 44.74 - reduced by doctor & chemist
Joint 1194.04 - reduced by tv license dd
Cash still haven't counted
CC1 unchanged
CC2 increased by interest charged
If I increase my cc payments to €75 per week & get second card on 0% I will be cc debt free in 6 months

cag I have a 20% off voucher for h&m if you spend £30, you can have it f you want.
Mission today is to put clothes away and iron (maybe!)

So interesting reading all the HE chat! My DS is yet to turn 1 but it is something that I have always been interested in. My only reserve is that I am not very outgoing at all and I wouldn't want to pass that onto him and he be lonely.

My online shop turned up and they had subbed frozen spinach for frozen brocoli and like the spineless fool i am I accepted it

Anyone for a bag of frozen brocoli..?

I'll take the frozen broccoli! Broccoli and Stilton soup is one of my favourite things.

I always use frozen broccoli, we eat it a few times a week. You wouldn't know it's not fresh. I often cook carrots and then when the carrots are almost cooked I throw in the broccoli and stick the lid on and it steams really fast.

I've raided the freezer and cupboards to come up with a meal plan,
Lunches- various sausage rolls, party snacks, cheese and biscuits, leftovers!
Thurs- risotto with Turkey, bacon and mushrooms
Fri -salmon en croute, pots, veg
Sat- fajitas with leftover beef (cooked and frozen in slices)
Sun- sausage and mash with veg
Mon- home made pizzas
Tues- home made tuna fish cakes (if I can find a recipe using tinned tuna)
Wed- prawn curry
I should only need to buy fruit and a small amount of veg all week, so will be able to increase the next 2 weeks budget from £50 to £65, plus will still have half a freezer full. I'm also interested in the HE chat, I would never do it as I work full time plus don't have the patience but I can see how it could be beneficial to some children.

Cag I love Craig R-H, I'm not a panto fan either but I bet he's brilliant!
Seacow I have a Pinterest page of all the birds and other creatures we've spotted in our garden. My favourites are a nuthatch and a sparrowhawk I didn't bother saving photos of all the slugs.
Just spent £76 in supermarket on food shop, slippers for DH and a birthday present for a party DD is going to. Going to make a big pot of minestrone for lunch that should last for lunches for the rest of the week.
Hospital appointments today and tomorrow so more parking fees. It's just occurred to me that I should have asked to move one appointment so they would both be on the same day. That would have been sensible!

£2.90 coffee and after swimming treat for ds
£1 in pharmacy for a men's adidas shows gift set in the sale
£10 on some new boxers for Dh and socks for ds (both much needed)
Used £3.75 of boots points on some nice wrapping paper in the sale and a body spray for dd as I had treated ds.

Paid in all the money no longer past our overdraft.

£1.95 on hot and sour chicken noodle soup.

Also tried to get a dr appointment. The receptionist told me that Nothings available until Monday but asked what was up. She suggested going to the pharmacy and getting a spray and warm drinks resting as much as possible and paracetamol/ibroprofen as required. Also lots of water.

Essentially I think this is what gp would have told me. She's got me on the list for a cancellation though so may get lucky.

That's very kind all thank you, do you mean a paper voucher or a code? I may pop into the store tomorrow as we will be in town again but if not the voucher would be much appreciated if you don't mind. £30 spend before discount would be about right as the credit note is £21ish. :)

Loving the bird chat - I've signed up for a pack from the great garden bird watch thing which is at the end of the month. Should provide ample opportunities for statistics skills as well. :o My favourite bird is a goldfinch.

I get what you mean Seacow re: the education relationship, that is the biggest hurdle when you first start I think. DD was so compliant at school - not just a good girl iyswim but almost pathologically quiet and frankly a pushover, virtually invisible to teachers hence never getting any help for her difficulties - that when she came out of school and realised she could say NO to me, oh boy did she! 😱😱😱 It was horrible TBH, it was like she was detoxing - getting the months/years of feeling ignored out of her system. Anyway it did mean that the education relationship was very strained. I often hear "I can't even get my kids to do homework" response to the fact we HE but once that 'deschooling' phase has finished and you get back to learning just being a natural part of life, there's not really a separate educating relationship anymore if that makes sense? It's just part of the every day relationship. Took a damn long time to get there though, particularly with DD, and it wasn't without its "wtf have I let myself in for" moments!

Anyway I have waffled enough!!! 😳😂 It's really nice to be able to chat about it though.

Sorry you are still sore Em it's really gross but try dissolving a load of salt in boiled water and gargling with it as soon as it's not too hot. Totally disgusting but it helps.

Have been a bit slack with frugal meals recently, just laziness really. Am working tomorrow and want to do chilli for tomorrow's dinner. I will do it in the slow cooker but have just prepared all the veg and put all the herbs and spices in with the veg so all I need to do in the morning is brown off the mince and add a drained tin of tomatoes plus tomato purée and garlic purée.

We are havjng spaghetti and meatballs. The sauce is a little odd, I didn't have enough tomatoes so it's one tin of tomatoes and one of baked beans and that was added to softened celery (i dice and freeze it into portions), carrots, onions and swede (left over from New Year's Day) and some stock. I've blended it so you can't tell it isn't just a thick tomato sauce.

We've got bolognese tonight with garlic bread. I meant to add lentils but forgot

Tonight we've got red cabbage left over from Christmas dinner, broccoli, peas and some trout fillets that were bought reduced and then frozen. It'll be nicer than it sounds!

We've got cauliflower cheese and I'm making an experimental bread and butter pudding using stale ciabatta and leftover mincemeat from Xmas.
Minestrone went down well at lunchtime too.

£3.50 Aldi.

Still doing dry January. I haven't lost any weight & I don't look 10 years younger so I don't think it's working.

em I had it loads years ago & found ice water best. It stays cold over the tonsils & washes the debris off the area. Every attack was milder than the last. I would have been around your age when it hit me.

I tried to spend money this evening but I couldn't as shop didn't have the diary I wanted, I may just order online.
€10 at Unislim & despite being unable to eat since sat I've gained weight

My birthday is in 6 weeks, that's my first goal.

at Fluffy.

Do you all want to throw virtual eggs and shit at me 'cos the weight is falling off me at the minute.......

Cag Thanks for the explanation re HE and older DC. You seem to do the whole thing so well. Fair play to you for having the confidence to consider taking on A Level Further Maths, most of the maths teachers at our school leave it to the select few!!

Another question, wrapped up in a statement. How do you work if you HE? Just be flexible round it? I hugely value my work. It's really important to me. I don't need to work, but there's just no way I couldn't, it gives ME too much. It's my sense of identity outside of the home, and a huge amount more. I'm too selfish to give it up, to be truthful. Not that I could HE anyway, I'm just too selfish in general and need space from the ratbags regularly to continue to like them.

LSD - Crusty fresh bread for homemade Jamie Oliver minestrone soup.

Kids can help themselves, I'm off running with the club but meeting a friend before, so 10 miles in total.