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

[Cagliostro]

Hello everyone! :)

Spends today: £6.30 bus fares and £31.10 on Sunday lunch in a pub. It was amazing and I was so stuffed, I could only manage a café latte afterwards. DS had enough room for sticky toffee pudding and ice cream though!

Sainsburys delivery came tonight, so that will be £43.81 out tomorrow, after a £5 voucher off they sent me. Unusually for me, I haven't decided what we're having when yet: but lentil Bolognese for 2 nights; jackets with cheese and beans or pesto and salad; mushroom stroganoff; bean burgers, chips and salad; and pizza are this week's meals. I need to get more wraps for lunches though, as I hadn't realised DS has been scoffing them this weekend. He's discovered that they're like crepes, if you have them warm, with Nutella! Who'd have thought it, eh?

Oh I can't remember who asked earlier, but I think Iceland offer free delivery on orders over £35. I'm aiming to get to £5 in Nectar points that I can save as an "emergency fiver", which should only take another couple of shops. Then I'll give Iceland a try.

Cath this is a link to the page I found.
creme glad you had a lovely meal out, we succumbed to takeaway last night after football and a couple of drinks at the pub . It was worth it though!
need glad you enjoyed your posh hotel night, sounds fab and minimal extra spends. I know exactly what you mean re your mum. I'm seeing my mum tomorrow and am likely to see dad too (for the first time since the Christmas incident) and I've got all sorts of plans as to what I'm going to say to him but I know that I probably won't. Of course it does make it more complicated that mum is still living with him.
Cag the Pontins trip sounds good.

Have been busy painting dd's room today. It's the wall that was rebuilt as part of the loft conversion. The rest of the room is staying the same, just a few bits need touching up. Already had all the paint so no extra spends but it looks so much better now.
Decorator friend is coming later in the week to start painting the loft room and the stairs/landings etc. £500 for it all which, considering the time it would've taken us is money well spent. My additional hours and pay for Xmas and New Years day will almost cover it.
I haven't meal planned yet but tonight we had stuffed chicken thighs with roast potatoes, veg & gravy. Tomorrow is going to be chicken curry with rice & HM onion bhajis. That's as far as I've got!

snuggly beside the colic she's doing fine, growing really well, eating good and is talkative and smiling a lot just need the colic to pass and then we are hopefully better. How are you feeling? When's the due date?
Just bought a bowl and plate that is "sticking" to the table so it can't get dropped or moved around, they were half priced because it's last years colors, didn't know plates had changing colors so 25£.
cag I think in general the water tastes chloride in the U.K. Compared to hear, but if it has changed perhaps try calling the water company or council? Our council puts online if there's any changes

Thanks Need. Well done on contacting your Mum. Good effort there.
Hope she's got a will.

Brilliant, Cath, well done on doing that. If she writes a rude, angry letter back copy it, with a covering letter, to her professional association.
Cag, wow £69 for Pontins that is really good. My friend took her preschool DD just before Christmas and they had a great time. Money very well spent.
Hello Italian. Snow here too....well there was a bit for a few hours last Friday. Gone by Saturday. I love the pic of DD pulling the sledge with the dolly in.
Went to see friend in the village today. We had planned to go for a long walk but it was heavy rain so we stayed in and had tea and biscuits ( so much for my healthy eating resolution. But it would have been rude to refuse. Right? )
Back to healthy eating tomorrow.
Cath, I have to have fresh air every day ( walked to friend's house). I get cabin fever if I stay in. Even if I just potter in the garden for an hour or so. I feel so much better.
Am gradually eating up all the soup and veggies that I froze in the autumn. Tomato and lentil soup for lunch tomorrow and the slow cooker on with veg stew.
NSD
Cath and Cag, I hardly spend anything on toiletries and nothing on cosmetics. I just use soap and basic shampoo. DP bought me a body warmer for Christmas. I have to run out of something before I will go shopping, so my clothes have to wear out.

Well we ended up spending more than expected today as the venison casserole didn't have enough time to cook before PILs arrival so ended up dispatching DP to M&S for sneaky 'shove in the oven' beef casserole.

We now have enough venison casserole for three meals or so, just about to batch and freeze.

Am aiming for low spend week next week...apart from groceries, just to spend £25 on a medical pet suit needed for DCat Mia, pay the window cleaner and petrol. We might go to the cinema on 2-4-1 so that will be £11. Also might do a Costco shop to stock up in bulk on things we use a lot.

Will do meal plan tomorrow morning. Have got some good ideas from the ones posted here to mix things up a bit!

Ooh. I'm feeling smuggy smuggerson for having got my act together in order to get my bus passes sorted. Prices are rising, it would've cost £8 more if I'd left it until the end of the month.

Fiveshelties...your planned year sounds a lot like mine.

• No new books (as I have so many to read already)
• No cosmetics/toiletries except necessary replacements (again, bursting at seams)
• No new clothes as I have far too many and am also planning to lose the massive amount of weight I've put on so I can fit back into things I have and can't wear at the moment.

Also decluttering and ebaying to put the amount saved into savings.

stumbly Does a medical cat suit look like a baby grow?.

Thanks for the encouragement to write the letter Trying. I hope it works out okay. You wouldn't believe the indigestion I gave myself by sending it. Dh always says "Oh dear, have you been thinking a difficult thought" and he's usually right. That's a good tip on what to do with the reply.

That's interesting that you also are not into toiletries and clothes and things. Some of my husband's friends wives are really into handbags and shoes and things, and I have to remember to take it seriously when they invite me out bag shopping or something like that. I never can fathom the concept of the £300 handbag.

Well done on the bus pass Cag. Nice work. You're going great guns there.

someone tell me to woman up
I have spent all day writing out my answers in the PIP form (it takes such a long time because writing by hand hurts) and just about held it together, now within 5 mins of opening the housing form I just wanna fucking cry
sorry to bring the mood down somewhat, I need a kick up the bum to get on with it!

Cag you're doing a wonderful job there. Keep going. I know it's hard, but filling in that form is edging your family closer to getting what they need. Keep on going!

In case it helps - here is a story of a similar form:
When my eyesight failed on me at age 28 and I managed to find the right medical person to solve the problem, the first thing that person did was to send me a 15 page form to fill in. It was absolute hell filling it in, because I couldn't read what I was writing or focus on the page at all. It took all day and many many coffee breaks, but I did it. Shortly afterwards the woman saved my eyesight, totally and completely, which was just as well, because I couldn't have earned a living without getting that solved.

What I means is that sometimes forms are really hard, but they might open really good doors. Hang in there! You can do it. (Also it's really okay to cry while you're doing it. Sometimes that really helps.)

Thank you Cath I'm really grateful that you wrote about that. It gave me the encouragement to push through the last bit.

It's done, finally. I have written everything I can think of. I have cried. A lot. Haven't stopped yet. I have narrowly resisted throwing the damn thing out the window. Which is an achievement in itself.

I don't know, it was bearable (just about) writing all the stuff I can't do for the PIP form. Because it's just me, I know I am ill and have limitations and I have had a good few years to get used to them. But there's something really, really crap about writing down all the ways in which life is really bloody hard for your kids, the fact you can't give them what they need and that they are really struggling because of where you live. And I guess the stakes are higher. PIP, it's just money at the end of the day (bloody useful I don't deny). But this - if it doesn't work, we are stuck here.

This form better work. I am not a praying person but please for the love of SOMETHING let it work.

Oh Cag , I know how I felt filling out DS's DLA form. I cried. It really really sucks. You've done a hell of a lot in a day if you have done both of those forms so be kind to yourself. I really hope you get the result you need. I can't believe you won't get PIP, from what you've said on here. As for housing, I know nothing about the rules but fingers crossed for you . And on top of all that you e booked a holiday -sounds brilliant and a bargain!

I hope you have managed to get to sleep now. I was sleeping fine till DS woke up and needed reassuring (bad dream). Now wide awake . Can't even blame DH who is sleeping QUIETLY next to me.

Was an NSD in the end, bloody good job too after giant spendy Ocado order that didn't even include a whole week's meals! Curry was delicious (Anjum Anand North Indian chicken curry, if anyone fancies it - on t'interweb and well worth the effort imho) and fruit salad was lush, lots of that left. Had half a giant bag of spinach with the curry too. Baby has had good vitamins today! Thankfully I have turned a corner with food and can eat more or less normally again (after a few months of basically eating stodgy carbs and cheese balls )

Might take DS to Ikea tomorrow (brief in-and-out visit) to get one of their folding crash mats, as he has taken to jumping off furniture. It is next to a giant mothercare with soft play and a bouncy castle so that is the sweetener. Will not be an NSD though!

italian love the pics of DDs.

Stumbly and Five I really need to do the same. I am not too bad on toiletries but do have some posh gifts (shower gel etc) that I never use. Books - big guilt. Also stash of craft materials and half finished projects! And I have soooo much stuff I could sell but realistically not sure that I will. I have never actually eBayed anything, must get to grips with that.

Lean DS isn't really interested in helping in the kitchen (unless there is cake mix to eat). He has ASD so is very single minded about what he is interested in (currently letters and numbers). Maybe I need to make some vegetable letters! He is occasionally interested in what I am eating but has an amazing instinct to avoid the healthy .

Need glad your break was good and that things are back to 'normal' with your mum. Even though normal isn't great it sounds much more tolerable.

I need to go back to sleep. Not relishing thoughts of soft play tomorrow.

cag no idea what pip or housing form is but sounds like hard work so sending you some viatuel flowers we have woke up to approximately 20 cm snow so looks like winter is sticking around for a bit longer

I need petrol today and it's my best friends birthday tomorrow. I'm going to see her today though. I've got her a cook book but need to get her a card and prob some flowers. Need to post eBay stuff and work out my profit.

Ah cag, well done on getting the forms done. Hope you got some rest. Be kind to yourself today. Get them proof read, photo copied and in the trackable? post.

Work today. DS hair cut but that will be free except for the hair dressers kids raiding my cupboard when my dc do.
£5 skatepark, £2 cubs. Will need diesel this week £50 ish.

That's wonderful Cag Well done. What a day you must have had, filling in both of those in a row. Will you give yourself a mini-celebration today to congratulate yourself?

Btw, I also have felt how hard it is to confront the things that we can't do. I had to fill in a form like this 6 months ago and it was super-hard. I bet there are plenty of olympic athletes who are secretly dyslexic though, and major film stars who can't operate a computer at all, and all sorts of things people with hidden problems like that. I suppose we all have a bit of that.

Would it help you feel better perhaps if you now made the opposite form just for yourself, where you make a massive list of all your wonderful strengths and skills and qualities, to restore your sense of self-worth? I wonder if that might be a home ed thing you could do with your kids? Just a thought anyway. You have so much going for you. It seems a shame for the housing process to leave you feeling beaten down.

I'm going to try to get out in the sunshine today. That's my mission.

Place marking. 🙂

cag filling out forms are my idea of hell. I'm diagnosed dyslexic and just the thought of them makes me want to cry so I know exactly how you feel. Just think though once it's sent off and sorted you never have to think about it again, just keep going and drink lots of tea!

It's my driving test this morning and I'm really nervous, then I have a split shift so am treating myself to lunch in town which I'm budgeting £10 for.

That's all my spends for today hopefully.

God luck with the driving test max

Thanks italian it's at half ten so am just waiting for driving instructor to pick me up, eeeeeeek!!!

Aah thank you everyone.

Italian (nice to see you back! :)) PIP is personal independence payment which is a disability benefit, it's not an out of work one (that's a separate one which I'm not claiming) but is for people who have higher care needs/mobility issues. :) The housing form is because we are hoping for a council house - we've been on the register for a few years but the lady we spoke to recently reckons that because of my needs, plus the kids' needs (they are being assessed for autism) we should be moved up to a higher priority band.

I am awake and bleary eyed and spending the day at a friend's house - we've got some group learning stuff and I'm teaching her DD as well. I am knackered but I'm not cancelling as being with her (who really gets it - both her DCs have autism) will be awesome today.

And we can talk Pontins. So bloody glad I'm booking it - I had put some money aside for it, as we've been talking about it for several months, but this is even cheaper than I thought and would be covered in a few piano lessons. :o

Onwards and upwards.

Well done Cag. Good luck Max. I've woken up with the snottiest cold so all my plans for a full on day of de cluttering probably won't happen, so I'm going to have a day on the sofa writing lists and drawing up a budget! What do people consider to be a reasonable weekly budget for 2 adults and 3 children ( 2 small eaters, 1 big)? I would rather slightly over budget instead of setting myself to fail.it will need to cover food including packed lunches and washing powder, loo rolls etc.

Cag Your pontins plan makes me want to do it too. I looked at Center Parcs a while ago and nearly fell over at the price. £69 sounds much better.

I've completed my mission to go and march around in the rain for an hour. Mobile phones are great.