Frugaleers, keeping their frugal resolutions in the new year. Keep on, erm, resoluting!?

[Cagliostro]

Hello everyone! :)

Made pesto from new Jamie Oliver book, it's delicious. Took about 5 mins and there is tonnes left to freeze. I don't think I'll be buying the jars again!

Scan not great, one baby still not growing. Have to have more tests and scans. Trying not to worry.

Finally managed to read trough, I think
Sorry if I missed anything

frazzle get well soon

Interesting to read about the different parent techniques especially because I think we do some things really differently here than in the U.K. And I had never heard of Gina Ford before so needed to google her. It's not a technique for me and couldn't imagine it being recommended here. But we also have all naps outside in the pram and only night sleep in the bed.
Baby dd had her health wife check today, she's 9 weeks, 57 cm and 6 kg, so I think I'm producing cream instead of milk

Hope your dh is okay fluffy
em your cat is adorable

monkey thanks for the explanation re nusery, hope you dd will get in soon. It sucks having to worry about it. Here your guaranteed a spot at the nearest to your home and all places cost the same because you pay to the council and the place itself

Always interesting to hear what other mn do or did if work cag

Glad to hear you got your money back from the dietitian and that the new gp seems good cath that dietitian does not really sound like she's in the right field.

Sounds like some lovely bargains snuggly. It's always handy when getting stuff for babies. Hope you got the rest that you wanted later. Do you then also get double child tax credit now you get twins?

north

Oh snugly sorry to hear about the scan. Remember it all to well... lots of hugs to you

Apparently not, Italian! I will get it for each child but I think you get less for siblings than first child so it won't be as much as I'd initially worked out. Nevermind, every little helps and we're lucky to live in a country where we get child benefit at all.

Hmm creme maybe not umm thanks fluffy but he's the least annoying one in the house!

Cath I'm pleased you got your money back. It just shows how unprofessional she is. If someone was unhappy with my professional advice I would be apologising and asking what I could have done to make the appointment better.

Oh snuggly sorry to hear that. Is it a 'thing' with twins? One doesn't grow as well as the other? Is it like IUGR? There were a few babies with that when I was in hospital with ds, they thrived once they were born. Wrt child benefit twin 2 will count as a third child so it is a bit less.

Hmpf, annoying with the benefit, but of course everything helps, a colleague to dh is expecting twins so we were checking out for fun what you would get here, which is the normal amount (dosent get lower per child) and then a one time exstra amount for help with the big purchases of 1000£, quite surprised about that. Dh now thinks we need twins

That's amazing, Italian. You've prompted me to find out how much we will get and it'll be just over £109 a month which is a bit more than I was expecting. Should cover nappies at least!

I know she has zero experience doing what we do. I get that. I really do. I was in that position once myself. However I'm not asking her to review legal docs or close deals.

I'm asking for payments to be made, cover letters to be written (properly to know the difference between yours faithfully and sincerely), to know what when filling out info on one form to duplicate the same info on the corrreponskng one, to not say "I dunno no ones trained me mate" "that's not my background" or "can't do that mate" when I ask her to do something. The joke is that she moans when she has nothing to do yet give her something and she just kicks off.

When she started with us I sat and patiently went through each new thing with her. She took no notes. I made templates of forms (where to find the info for each section etc) these have been binned I should have copied them I did everything I could. But she didn't want to know.

Another issue (I suppose) is that I know she suffers from depression. She had a really rough year a couple of years ago (divorce redundancy death of child). So I totally understand why you'd be depressed. She comes in and tells us that the drugs aren't working but then we find out she hasn't taken them or hasn't given them a chance. The Drs are wrong. She's been told exercise and a better diet will help with her sleep. Which lack ofnisnt helping the depression. But the Drs are wrong. But she's not doing anything to help herself. We then get told we're insensitive for suggesting, as I did today, bacon roll Friday. She's on a diet. How dare we. What a bitch I am. (We're still doing it. Crispy Bacon and fried egg on Portuguese rolls with ketchups. Mmmm. The junior in the team is getting them. The boss is buying).

I don't mean in any way to belittle mental health issues. I really don't. It just annoys me when people use is as an excuse not to do things. Part of me wonders whether she was ready to come back to work. I want to suggest that maybe she's not coping but can't broach that with her because she would undoubtably take it the wrong way.

Anyway. It'll work out. I've sent emails for tomorrow. Clear step by step instructions. Where to find the information. Who to ask for help not me we'll see what happens.

Just back from spinning. So. Tough. My legs are going to either seize up overnight or fall off. Or both. 💪🏻💪🏻

Snugg Did you look into Costco? There's one in Birmingham near star city & one in Coventry on the A45, bit further on from the Jag dealership.

I'm sure their nappies are cheaper. Ooh and wipes. I think trade memberships £23-25 for the year. I wonder if any of your colleagues are members and would put you on as an extra card for £12?.

snuggly that not that bad, is that in total or per child? We get the money per quarter and gets 500£ per child.

God em I have something similar with a guy at work. Really struggles to grasp things. Maybe you need to go back to basics and start again. She can "sign off" things she has been shown/feels confident or competent doing, and build from there.

Thought it was an NSD but then remembered £17 on sheet music .

Wow Italian no wonder you guys pay so much tax!

Spent £18 today. £10 was on wine, £5 on coffee (for me a my colleague - it's a long standing arrangement!) and £3 on chocolate for dd as future treats. Got a lift to and from work.

I have just arranged to go out for a meal with some work friends next week so I'm going to have to keep spending down until then too. Hmmm

Wilderness I may have to. As a new starter you have 6 weeks to read the procedures do some examples and sign off that you are happy with each thing. It's a right pita.

I know she can do the work. I just don't think she wants to. In a previous job she was fairly shit hot on stuff (I used to work for the same company so knew of her) so it's not because she's a total thickie. It's more that I honestly believe she doesn't want to.

She got shitty today because I reviewed a cover letter and again, instead of writing "please find enclosed document xyz between x and y dated xxxx signed by xyz" she put "please find enclosed documents"

I explained why, basically so that when inevitable the people were sending to says they didn't receive them we can say yes, yes you did doc xyz was sent on x date blah blah blah. She got shitty and said "well mate you do it your way and I do it mine" I did say that if I'm signing off on the letter - which I was then I need it to properly reference the contents. She didn't get it.

bangs entire face against rock

Oooh wilderness what sheet music? I love finding new music. I am on a no book buying 2017 mission so not allowed to get any books for myself, I have been wondering if this includes sheet music as technically those aren't reading books... mind you I have recently discovered just how much is available online for free.

Fluffy I'm sorry you're having this worrying time. I hope it's nothing and you get the good news ASAP!

Gosh Snuggly that doesn't sound fun, I am glad they are monitoring you lots but must be stressful! My DSDs were similar from what I've heard, one was taking most of the resources in the womb IYSWIM? They ended up doing a c/s early I believe because they were worried about the smaller twin, but they were and are both fine. It did always make us laugh though as the bigger twin has always been the bolshier one so they always said it must have started in utero! 😂😍

North bloody well done on your cycling. So sorry about the blood donation, I can't either and I hate that I can't!

Max woohoo for first drive success!

Em that does sound very frustrating. I would be pissed about the lack of note taking etc, heck even for my relatively unimportant library tasks I had a work notebook where I always wrote down anything that needed remembering, and as for throwing away templates you'd made, WTF?! 😡

Cath bloody well done on that letter. Proper ROFLing here about her "not wanting to see you again" HAHAHA as if you'd want to! It makes me think of someone responding to being dumped with "well I was gonna dump you anyway"! 😂 I'm glad you have saved the money. I do hope you are taking on board one bit of advice you've got lately though - ARE you eating more cake and ice cream yet?

I love that you're all intrigued by my job by the way - I thought I'd mentioned it before! A lot of people say it's a dream job. I remember the first time I went in there (new building opened when DD was a toddler) I looked around in awe and thought wow, this would be a cool place to work! So I was very lucky that I did get to, and it's a shame that I was unable to continue. It was a fun job and I actually enjoyed working with the public and doing customer service stuff a lot more than I ever thought I would. Plus, obviously, BOOKS. 😍 I got to work on events and specialist stuff too which was awesome. So I do miss bits of it, but I don't miss all the bureaucracy and that kinda thing. And as I said earlier some of the staff who were ever so judgmental about invisible illness etc (not my actual manager thank goodness). So now that I have really settled into tutoring etc I barely even think about it TBH. 😊

Anyway it was ok being back today, we weren't there very long as we'd spent ages at the park with friends. We just did a bit of project work while we warmed up. They did ask to borrow a book which I wasn't planning to do for a while but I suppose if we are going to pop in every Thursday we will manage without late fees etc. I was happy to allow DD especially as she has become so passionate about a particular subject - awesome women through history! It's really caught her interest and she loves reading about women who broke stereotypes and changed the world. It's turning into a big project and I love it because she has such confidence issues herself, and I really think this is helping her see that she can achieve anything. ❤️

19th Jan
£14ish various groceries etc
£70ish Tesco delivery
60p tuck money. Caglets normally get around that much anyway for Badgers, however the other day I suggested a new thing for a bit of fun - now they will earn it instead. Every week they'll get 10 spelling words each and on Thursday mornings we will test them, they'll get 3p per word they get right. I gave them fairly easy words this time as we only agreed on the idea a couple of days ago, and they were chuffed to both get 10/10... let's see if they keep it up! 😂

Evening, just skim read on phone, will catch up properly tomorrow. But just wanted to give Snuggly , must be impossible not to worry. My GP friend says it's very common with twins though so I'm thinking positive for you.

Just checking in with today's spends:

£4.67 Lidl top up shop
£0.64 stamp
£6.20 cake and coffee meeting friend although DH gave me the cash for that and I've kept the £13.80 change

However I've been looking at holidays for half term and my friend and I plan to book tomorrow so that could be very spendy indeed.

Cag can't remember the exact titles but one is something like Everything you have always wanted to play and the other is Film Music which I am going to hold back until DH's birthday. When I used to play, I got to Grade 5, so I'm hoping it will all come flooding back. We are picking up the keyboard on Saturday (eeeek!)

I used to work in a bookshop and bloody loved it. Love reading so much.

Wreck i must try avocado with Worcester sauce. I bought five with the shopping this evening - au pair likes them too

I had my list & shopping was €101.89, couldn't do frozen stuff because I'm wasn't going straight home but that should be max €15. Last week was €165 without a list. Will still need to go to butchers but that'll be €20 because back to the deal.

Win win at class tonight had tasters of two types of soup & some brown bread & a lovely warm lentil, roast tomato & feta salad & I got the leftover salad for my lunch tomo as I'd a Tupperware box in the car le yum & so frugal too

Hope the babies are o.kay Snuggly I guess its good that if they have picked up on a problem they can sort it out sooner rather than later.

That sounds a bit worrying re your dh fluffy not a good time to be off the have some instead. Really hope he is o.kay.

Cag I always wondered what you did as well!! I would never have guessed library but that does make perfect sense!

Em that sounds stressful but if she has lost a child my guess is she is probably just not in the right place to cope in a work environment. I can't imagine breathing in and out let alone working if anything were to happen to dd

I'm back to work tomorrow and really not feeling the love, oh well at least its nearly the wend!

The puppy was amazing, 8 week old springer spaniel - adorable.

Major bonus today opened my weigh in card & found my €40 change from last week

Cat, I remember when you had to give up work. You said then that you worked in a library.
Fluffy, hope DH is ok💐
Max, great about your first solo drive. I remember being terrified.
North. I think you were very brave going out on your bike again. Terrible about giving blood though. I used to but can't because I take medication. Only a bit but still they won't let me.
Only bought hooks to put some pictures up, but they are so expensive. £5+
Em, that woman is taking the piss. I know there is little you can do but she is just playing up and being annoying. If you just keep insisting that she does it your way will she do it in the end.?
Honestly, I bet it's a great job for her. She doesn't appreciate you.

Plumber will finish ensuite tomorrow. That's cloakroom, bathroom and ensuite done. One to go, but it's a big job. Knocking through some walls.
Just done tax return. I owe £63. How did that happen. I am PAYE!

Sorry Snuggly, hope those babies are ok. They are probably just squabbling over the food. I know it's not going to happen but try not to worry. Try to rest and eat. When do you finish and start mat leave?

In the end spent £12.34 in the coop, to avoid my 4yr old screaming all the way home about needing a lolly. A few things I buy were on offer (millicano), and reduced carrots and lovely English apples. Plus the bloody expensive chocolate brioche that ds lives on. Not on offer anywhere just now.

Slow cooker arrived, it's huge! Will try a chicken or bit of lamb on sunday to start with.

snuggly such a worry, but good that the midwives are on it, and closely monitoring you. Have they given you a date by which they'll deliver you if your baby doesn't keep growing?