The Mighty Frugaleers Meticulously March into March

[WreckTangled]

New thread. Sorry for lame title

£11 top up today, a few things got left off the Sainsbury's delivery as I didn't want substitutes.

Had lunch in Sainsbury's, probably about £12 but DH paid so I'm not sure.

£46 tomorrow for Pilates. I bought a new, thicker, mat on Monday, £12.

Wow snuggly 😁 one of each 💓🥂 be prepared, some people will still ask if they are identical despite the obvious difference. Hope you are managing some rest.

Love the nails blue

Adora I love that. Identical boy girl twins. Excellent.

Had to say no to contributing towards a lovely friends birthday present :( but my friends have still put my name on the card which is wonderful.

I told my sisters today I couldn't travel and they're coming to stay with me instead 😁

Polka it will be hard especially at first but people who matter shouldn't mind.

YAY, Snuggly, double congratulations. Please tell all as soon as you feel able. One of each is brilliant. Weights?
Em, well done on the hospital visit and the tests. Better to know so you can make decisions and be prepared.
And well done on the parking ticket. It wouldn't have occurred to me to blame the hospital but of course you are right. Their delay, their fault.
NSD.
Getting excited. Bathrooms just about done. Just need 1 shower screen which has to be made to measure and the decorating. But I'm delaying decoration until I have a greenhouse. That's next.

Yep Ipso I worked with a woman who had a twin brother and she was asked if they were identical twins, and a boss had girl/boy twins. A colleague asked him if his twins were identical. The entire office was stifling a group giggle 😂

Polka what life said.

Sorry Ipso, meant to mention dentists. The frighten the life out of me. I still haven't registered with a dentist since I moved here 14 months ago. Must do it.

I hate the dentist too. Bad experiences. Due to aforementioned lack of enamel on my back teeth I had to have caps on them when I was seven. Yes, seven years old and I had to have injections in my mouth through no fault of anyone. Anyway I was sick beforehand at the dentist but they went ahead anyway (they thought I was nervous but I wasn't, I wasn't scared of the dentist at this point and had no idea what was going to happen!). Anyway after the procedure at my nans I passed out and was sick some more obviously had a bug.

Another time the dentists hand slipped and he ended up hitting me in the face.

More recently I had to have a root canal and after I had had all the injections he realised his equipment wasn't working so I had to leave all numbed up with nothing done.

😭😭

NSD today - on a school trip tomorrow, it will be fun but always tiring.
Really busy at the moment as leading a trip abroad in Easter holidays so lots of paperwork for that. Will be amazing though!

Congratulations snuggly , fantastic news!

Very, very busy day today. The only spends were £3 for ds' cricket training & £2 for a drink at book group. The soups that I made last night were lovely & the focaccia turned out well too.

May try to do an early morning gym session tomorrow as I've got another busy day.

Gosh wreck that was really unfortunate about your early dentisting experience. I'm sorry to hear that. You really are a trouper, you know. You should be the poster child for resilience.

My ds needs a tiny filling done soon and I am trying to work out how to make it easy for him. I think the noise of the aspirator will be the hardest thing. I do need to take the sugar back out of his diet though. I give him rice krispie bars and flapjacks made from readybrek to get him vitamins, but I think I need to find a lower sugar alternative.

Does anybody else here have elderly relatives who live a long distance away? I have this constant dilemma of how to watch out for our for grandparents who live a long way away when we're not allowed term time "holidays". We don't have the energy to do frantic weekend trips. I keep wondering how other manage this.

Ipso would he listen to a story through headphones? We have lots of patients at work whose family live a long way away, some as far as Australia! It's very tricky not sure what to advise.

Nsd today.
I've always been ok at the dentist but she was phobic. We found a dentist who has additional training on phobic patient. Now he goes every 6 months

Adora one of the hospital staff actually asked me that yesterday! Non-medical otherwise I'd have been a bit worried!
Still in hospital, just enjoyed a quick scan through all your news.

ipso I think the answer is to use technology, get one of those hone security devices that watches your house a bit like a big video 'baby' monitor, then you can log on and keep an eye on them. Also get a tracker, we use this for mum as she sometimes goes wondering, you can also use it for kids (incase they get kidnapped) www.spottergps.uk/
Also use skype or facetime to talk to them.
Pay someone to do cleaning and gardening so there is company and activity in the house and so the house looks well kept - to prevent anyone preying on the elderly. Buy big clear clocks so they can tell the time/date easily.
Anyway that's a start
Am out for lunch today but may just get a drink to save money.

Also spk to Age Uk as they can organise for someone to see them on a regular basis just for company as a volunteer.

Bit of a fail already £2.85 for a drink on the train. So incredibly tired today so got a later train but I have things starting as soon as I get to work at 9am and then an online thing so may not get until 11ish.

Due to go out for lunch today too (which will be nice) but hoping to spend less than £10. Already feeling overwhelmed with everything that needs to be done today.

And my boss is in which means more work. Ahhhhh

DP and I keep talking about when I'm going to quit. Days like today make me think today!!!

Today's plans are:

Be out of bed by 10 - currently enjoying jammy toast and tea
Put washing out to dry
Put yesterday's dry washing away
Take rubbish out
Pack up charity shop things and take to shop
Rummage around charity shop for two new pasta bowls (I broke our last one last night!!!)

Should be a low spend day today.

Yesterday while I was out with friend we were chatting about dh and I moving house. She asked why we were trying to do it now. And not once I go back to work after mat leave (when we would then know my hours and how much money we'd have to play with). I hadn't even considered that. Makes more sense to do a move next year doesn't it? And spend this year throwing more cash money dollar at the mortgage? Then move when we know my new salary (I doubt work will let me do reduced hours on the same salary although if they do it's a winner all round for me!!) and how much we have to play with....

I was going to suggest some kind of video monitor, also what about an emergency contact such as a neighbour who can phone you if there's an issue?

Also some kind of day centre attendance, can they have a hot meal there so less cooking and such like?

I'm sorry, I don't have grandparents and haven't for a long time so I don't really know about elderly people. I miss my Nanny.

Aiming for a NSD. I'm still laid up in pain so I doubt I'll be leaving the house.

I've switched electricity provider this morning, and have decided to clear out my wardrobe and eBay. Will discuss proceeds with parents.

I am weirdly and unreasonably proud that I have got my DC to adulthood and they have never ever had any dental treatment. Far more to do with genetics than anything I have done probably

Em The suggestion sounds good, the only downside I can see with staying is the stairs to your flat. I know it's something you can't envisage right now (not patronising you, promise) but lugging a car seat, or prams/pushchair, changing bag, plus some shopping or whatever up those stairs will be tricky. It's not exactly a massive issue but definitely a negative about staying.

Spends today will be £15 for the personal trainer.

I was thinking the same about your stairs Em. Also, I don't know what you are hoping to do about reducing your hours but for many people the formula is driven by how much they need to work, i.e. What money do you need, and therefore how much do you have to work, to afford the next house?

I am killing time at hospital while having a glucose tolerance test (standard for those who are a bit old and a bit fat!). I have just been made to down a bottle of lucozade, I hope I can keep it down as I don't like sweet fizzy drinks at the best of times! I brought the iPad and headphones with me, might watch a film. Exciting 'Me Time'

I had thought about the stairs. I thought about them the other day when I dragged three shopping bags up from the car.
I think it would be doable. But agree that we're not going to know until it happens!

From what I've worked out (rudimentary figures only) we can afford to look in the region of £500k. This will buy us a 3 bed house in sort of walk in just needs a lick of paint. Or a 4 bed in shocking condition.

We currently pay £1334 pcm for our mortgage on our 2 bed flat. And have £140k left on original mortgage of £280k. Estate agent without formal valuation but knowledge of our building thinks we could put it on the market for £360k and achieve £355k.

If this happened we'd have circa £210k equity plus any savings we have to throw into new place for deposit legal fees etc. Aiming for a new mortgage of around £1500 pcm. We started off with this when we bought 6 years ago and had lower wages. So financially we know it's achievable.

Childcare is an issue. Average salary here is £37,500. If a household earns more than £70k a year you are not entitled to free nursery hours. And average nursery fees are £1800 pcm full time (friends have told me what they pay and I've averaged it out). We earn more than this collectively.

So we need to look at either less hours at work for one of us. Or both reducing hours. My parents have said they can have baby for up to 2 days a week (I wouldn't have asked but they offered) if we want. So in theory may only need to pay for 3 days.

We want to be mortgage free by the time we're 45. Which in itself isn't unachievable. It may be a struggle. But it's something to aim for. We also need to factor in holidays to take baby to nz to see family there (not cheap) and at some point think about schools (private vs non private - no schools here are bad - private schools here range from £3k to £12k a term....dependant on school the £12k one goes from reception to age 14 then it's expected you head to boarding school - I don't think we'll do this one....even though it offers wrap around care and the kids are generally working to a standard 2 years above their age....)

Dh as an accountant earns much more than I do. So it makes sense for him to continue working full time and for me to drop down. If one of us decides to. However both of us are in jobs where we could both work from home. So if work can be flex with me and let me work from home one or 2 days a week (probably the days my parents have baby) it may in theory work and I can remain full time flex.

So much to consider in the above ramblings. Must sit down with dh and have a good chat with him really.

I think its hard to make decisions before the baby arrives as you can't know how you will feel once they are here re work iyswim. i had all sorts of ideas about work before dd arrived but once she arrived felt very differently!!

Agree with Need about stairs, they will be a real PITA with a baby thrown into the mix, personally I think if you want to move it would be better to do so before the baby arrives as doing anything with a baby is much harder!!

I am feeling a bit weary today, time of the month related I think. Need to tidy up a bit and do a Morrisons shop which unfortunately means moving off the sofa....

Ipsos is there any option of moving the relatives closer? We moved my nan into a small retirement flat in our town so she would be closer, she lived 300 miles away prior to that. It is tricky when we have patients who don't have local family as unfortunately there are so many gaps in care, it tends to be practical things like shopping, finances, cleaning, personal care that elderly people sometimes need help with. Although with my nan she remained fiercely independent and refused to admit she ever needed any help despite it being fairly obvious she did!! God bless her soul she ended up needing a nursing home in her 90s as she had dementia and died a few years ago.

Girlie Yes I think it's a question of whether they move or we do. They really like where they are and I don't really want to live either here or there, so it's a bit tricky. That's the question really, and of course no one can answer it but us. It's always nice to ponder with friends though.