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

[Cagliostro]

Hello everyone! :)

NSD here but only because I feel too ill to go out.Meal plan has gone out of the window but we are eating freezer odd bits and toast etc so technically will cut down the next online shop I do.Girlie, your budget looks similar to mine, we rely on unsocial hours and overtime extra money for real extras but can live reasonably comfortably without.

Oooh Em! Now granted I am mega hormonal at the moment but I felt all goosebumpy when I saw your photo. YAY! Lapcat! How awesome :) well done for your patience. Lucky lucky catface. Enjoy the snuggles. :)

And awww girlie kids growing up

Thanks for the kind comments, I did feel better for venting. I am usually fairly patient with DS but he was really pressing my buttons today! I poured it all out to DH, feel better now largely because DS is safely in bed . Tomorrow will be better. (Shame I can't have a real drink but I appreciate the anyway Mammy! Hope your chat with DH improves the atmosphere)

Girlie, defo mixed feelings about the little ones growing up! I found it weird enough when my sisters went through puberty, never mind own DC. I have a good while to wait yet (certainly hope so!).

Peonies your weekend sounds lovely.

I am off to bed to browse baby name websites. That'll be a nice end to the day.

Council tax is £106 here, northumberland, band a (cheapest?). My most expensive direct debit.

Spent £28 in wcf, chicken & ferret food, ball for little dog (at 6 he suddenly plays fetch - who knew!), and dog deoderant (on a mission now with grooming/bathing, instead of ignoring the smell!)

Then £30 in morrisons, had the mad urge to fill the trolley, reined it in a bit. Haven't spent less than £100 in there on a shop for a while.Got lunchbox yoghurts, so can hopefully push into february without another food shop (bar milk - we get through about 5 pints a day, which is bonkers).

At months end I will add up my spends and compare with last year. I must have spent less... we shall see.

Ah, glad you are feeling a little better Seacow - sounds like a horrendous day, parenting is hard enough without SN thrown in.

Yay, baby names! Any thoughts so far? :)

Well Cag, we are having a girl, which saves DH and I resolving our argument about my preferred boy name!

I have a very unusual name and have always liked that, so although I don't feel strongly we should choose something unusual it is a consideration. We gave DS quite a standard top 20 name because we just loved it but I probably won't do that for DD, partly because there is such a lot of choice for girls at the less popular end without being whacky, and also because I am not keen on the current most popular girls' names anyway (we'll probably go less 'girly' though I can't exactly define what makes a name 'girly' - a subject of much debate with DH!).

First though we need a bump name to put family and friends off the scent. I favour Madge

Seacow :o Madge is a good one! Although what if you end up falling in love with it and don't want to change it?

Bugger it. I just realised I fucked up my tax return. I'm such a muppet. I will get a fine! Even though I don't owe any tax. FAIL!

Em that's fantastic! We've fracker it with stray cat who adopted us too we can now stroke & pick it up. I say it because we need to figure out gender

Cag is that change in dd due to you guys being at home full time?
How did that happen with tax return?

Seacow someone I know called her baby the name she used to call her bump! The girl is called Molly.

I'm not going to get my cc cleared in the interest free period, I haven't had as much overtime as before Christmas & I had to loan joint account €500+ at Christmas time which would have paid it off
I have a standing order for it & will leave it work away like that & will move the bigger cc to interest free next & put the focus there, we'd quite a few meals out in January which reduced what I could pay too, the meals out in Feb are being paid for by work & the work I volunteer at.

Why am I awake at 5am on sat

Fracker? Cracked!!

cag You don't have to accept the increase. I didn't when I used Edf. You've got till Tuesday to file tax online.

We pay council tax over 12 months, it's less to find each month & the free months just used to get frittered.

Yesterday was £29 aldi, £5 sains, £1.50 Iceland, £2.10 homebargains.

Girlie I'm glad it's not just our school. I keep thinking that I wish parents would keep their kids home longer to avoid passing on infections, but since ds came down with d&v in class yesterday, I probably can't pass comment on that one atm.

That's wonderful that your dd had a nice night out and lovely grown up clothes like that. Well done to her and you.

Life sorry to hear that. That doesn't sound fun. Yay! for the healing process though. Hope it kicks in fast for you.

Lovely to have a lapcat em. Well done!

Frazzled take care there. Hope you feel better soon.

Sorry to hear about the tax cag.

Thank you all for being here with your chat. It helps so much when we're stuck in with a lurgy.

girlie ah yes I hadn't thought about single person discount. Ours is £132 I think for a teeny two bed house we don't even have street lights not sure what we're paying them for sorry I just remember having the same thing when we moved into our place and I was annoyed we didn't get two months off.

Yay em! She was so scared when you first got her!

fluffy our mot is due beginning of Feb so our council tax will hopefully please please please cover that! My mum pays hers over twelve months too.

Well today I'm taking the dc to the cinema to see trolls (already paid) cag it's on cheap now. Will buy popcorn and a macdonalds. Also need fuel.

Today's smoothie is spinach, cucumber, Apple and a small amount of banana plus linseed, chia, green tea and water.

We don't ace council tax, all our tax is paid before we get paid if that makes sense. So no extra tax to be paid after being paid. We get paid combined 3600£ per month and transfer to our budget account 2200£ per month leaving 1400£ for food, petrol ect. (Of course get paid in DKR but have used the currency converter. The pound is so low at the moment, we really gets something for our money shopping in the U.K. Over Amazon.

em glad that cat face is now cuddle all up to you. All your patience really paid off

How can you do your tax return wrongly ? cag

I bought sweet potatoes for the first time, what do I make with them?

seacow love Madge. Be careful though a friend of mine ended up using her bump name as actual baby name. She grew attached to it.

Catface work me up an hour ago. Really must teach her about weekends!!

I'm back in bed she's on the floor but I've opened the curtains so I can snooze mumsnet and watch the sun come up.

It may end up being spendy today. We're staying at a swish hotel this evening. Fil gave us s voucher for Christmas. It's all paid for except for drinks. I may have a naice gin. Or some bubbly.

italian

Sweet potatoes are great. I use them a lot instead of normal potatoes. Wedges are good or slicecthem into discs (about 1cm thick) then bake. Or mash. Or have them instead of jacket potatoes. They're great with chilli

Hello everyone. I am joining you as I need to stop spending and start saving. I would like to have money left at the end of the month and stop frittering it all away. I will be setting up ynab to keep track of things. Will go and read the links now.

Ah em that's awesome about catface

Spend £10 via topcashback today & get £5 back.

www.hotukdeals.com/visit?t=2608327&hukdm=31942&d=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.topcashback.co.uk%2Fbonus%2F5-thank-you-bonus%2F

Oh basically I just thought I'd done part of the process that I in fact hadn't done, and as it involves getting something in the post it won't be done on time. Brain fog (cognitive impairment and memory issues caused by the illnesses I have) can be a very expensive symptom! I'm going to ring this morning though just in case they can do it over the phone.

Welcome, Ook!

Em that's amazing - enjoy lovely cat cuddles.

Have just looked at our meal plan for tonight which says quiche & salad and realised we've eaten all the salad except for 1 tomato which won't go far between us! Looks like a quick trip to the shop, annoyed is thought it would be NSD.

£27 last night on dinner plus tip. Had a lovely time catching up with my friends.

Should be doing housework...

Stupidly entered a short story competition where they give you a genre, scene (e.g. A fist fight or someone stuck up a tree) and a character (a hoarder or a biker) and you have a week to write a story, everyone gets feedback from a proper literary person. It was my xmas present from my dad to join as it was 50 US dollars so I really need to submit a story, deadline is today and I have written a story but I can't work out an ending!
It's unlikely but there are three rounds, if I get through to last round they give you 24 hours!

Mind you it speaks volumes for my improved mental health that I'm actually handling my mistake rather than being devastated, angry, self hating etc. It's not a catastrophe it's just annoying.

Either that or I'm just too knackered to care! 😂

Ha ha, it is a risk with the bump name... we called DS a foreign name that rhymed with DH's surname and sounded frankly ridiculous but it took a couple of months to stop inadvertently using it. We got some looks

I don't think I will fall in love with the idea of baby Madge but maybe I should think if something even more unlikely. (hope I haven't offended all the Madges on this thread) .

With all the drama of the last few days I haven't meal planned or ordered the shop. I'll have to go to a RL shop today, for a couple of days' worth of food at least. I am not feeling inspired. I'll also have to go to a diy place over the weekend to get a screw to fix the kitchen cupboard and also silicone sealant as the shower cubicle has started leaking and I can see where the problem is - I think I will strip the whole bottom seal out and replace it. Better get on it quick while I can still bend down in the shower (DH is hopeless at diy, I do it all).

DH has just brought me tea in bed and I have the radio. Will get up soon.

Cag I don't know how you submit corrections but as you are still within the deadline and it won't make any difference to the bottom line (you don't owe any anyway!) I should hope you won't get fined. Can you ring a helpline? May have to be Monday I guess.

Hotel sounds fab Em enjoy the naice gin. Mmmmn, gin...