The Mighty Frugaleers Meticulously March into March

[WreckTangled]

New thread. Sorry for lame title

Girlie - put the incident report in. If you dont exception report repeatedly then nothing will ever change. Put one in for every shift you feel understaffed. Encourage your colleagues to do the same. Make sure you get a written outcome from risk management for each and every one. (Can you tell NHS unsafe staffing levels are something I care about, lol? Sorry for all the non-NHS folk on the thread for waxing lyrical about this issue)

£2.32 on an orange juice and a scratchcard
£3.70 in a bakery this morning for coffee and a jam turnover (yum)
£2.70 boots - had a few vouchers so for this I got 3x Johnston bath bubbles, a kids toothpaste and brush which I though was good going as the bath bubbles were £1.32 each alone
£2.30 local shop on a bottle of wine and some beers for DH for friday night - was £12.30 had £10 off from the scratchcard - dont do these often but today it paid off!

Love all the dog pictures. When can I borrow Teddy, he looks lovely?
Meadow, that's wonderful news, well done you. We are all proud of you.
Cag, 5 new pupils. That's great. I bet it's because word is getting about that you are a brilliant teacher.
In meetings all day. £3.50 on veggie sausage sandwich.

I visit nursing homes, the Drs are so over stretched their refusing to visit patients now.

Poor dog moving his bone, it's a good job your cats haven't spotted this & realised the wind up potential.

£20 on gloves for work.

at the bone, bless him!

Fluffy My new nails are still spotless one full week after application. That's great isn't it?

Shellac?

You should get up to 14 days yet, hopefully they didn't buff.

Mine lasts 14 days on dn. I'm teaching Dh how to spray tan on Sunday after I've patch tested myself, I predict an argument that includes the phrase "it's not like painting a fucking car".

Have had major issues with MN this week, but finally working now. £1.30 sausage roll for lunch, £63 food shop.

Haha Fluffy the cats have totally worked it out, what they do is the dog moves the bone so the cats very slyly move towards the bone forcing the dog to move it again, they will keep that up all day

Thanks blue what pisses me off is the expectation that we will just work over our hours routinely (given 10 hours work to complete in 7.5 hours ) and not expect to be paid for it or get that time back or complain about it!! Plus we have no time to fully complete anything as always rushing onto the next thing iyswim Grrrrr!!!

Girlie That sounds awful, are you in a union? Deffo make some noise about it. Are you NHS worker? Also poor doggy with such sly cats haha!

Blue DH is NHS employee and I have been shocked to see widespread illegal working practices. I naively thought it should be a higher standard being public sector but clearly not and it really angers me how managers prey on front-line staff's compassion to basically put them under duress to work in unsafe conditions/hours as they know that staff don't want to do anything they think will jeopeodise patient care. But healthcare staff are entitled to the same workers protections as everybody else and no matter how compassionate you are you can't work ridiculous hours/in ridiculous conditions for ever, eventually something gives, be it the worker's health or God forbid a mistake made with someone's treatment. DH was in a situation recently where a nurse wrongly labelled a dead body, if he hadn't double checked the forms they would have labelled someone in the mortuary as someone else, can you imagine the trauma that could have ensued for the families involved .

Poor doggy 😹

adora I'm so pleased teddys better. He's done well to survive that.

Meadow the RCN, the union I'm with, are beyond useless complete waste of time and £16 a month!!

Meadow - that scenario doesnt surprise me in the slightest. Tiredness leads to mistakes. I was an NHS doctor but left about 6 months ago due to depression - I had to prioritise the welfare of my children whom I didnt really see. Any time I did spend with them was spend snapping and generally being a shitty mother because I had nothing left to give. Plus DH works a 90 min commute away, so essentially my mother was raising my kids (thank god she is retired and was happy to do paid childcare for us). My biggest regret is that I dont remember much about my DS (now 4) from age 1-3 because I was back at work doing ridiculous shifts plus serious amounts of unpaid overtime, then trying to do portfolio and audit work in my spare time. Something had to give, and unfortunately it was my mental health.

Girlie RCN is Royal College of Nurses right?

Girlie an Blue DH is a porter and has just joined Unison (been nagging him for months, it is costing him about £8 a month) after his managers have tried to force him and his colleagues to work an unpaid training day on one of their rest days with no offer of TOIL (which is patently illegal). He has just been away with some of his annual leave so just said he can't make that day as he's coming back that day but lots of his colleagues will be unaware of their rights and no doubt forced into it, and regardless when he gets back he's going to have a battle with his managers because their other suggestions for people who cant make the training day include copious hours of unpaid e-training at home on rest days (again illegal as no TOIL). He has also previously exceeded EU WTD rules on hours worked when he has done lots of overtime despite not explicitly opting-out of the WTD - again illegal. It's really sad for both of us as we're both passionate about our NHS but underfunding (and not enough training of homegrown healthcare professionals) is crippling it . Really sorry to hear about your health problems and the experiences you've had Blue. DH works in A&E and my dad is a medical doctor himself although only worked briefly in clinical practice so I know from second-hand accounts how brutal it can be for doctors (and nurses and all the front-line staff really).

Yes RCN is royal college of nurses. Your DH needs to fight for his TOIL Meadow, would he consider becoming a unison rep if its something he feels passionately about? Don't get me wrong, I love the NHS and everything it stands for - that said, it would have taken two of me to do the work that one of me was asked to do, with signs that things were only going to get worse as time goes on. Unsustainable.

So here I am. Broke but happy :)

Well done meadow
Any opinions on tefal ingenio saucepans?
I've got tefal saucepans whose handles move to sit alongside saucepan for easy storage but they've been scratched to be very non stick over last 8 years

My mother gave me a voucher for my birthday & we received another for Christmas that can be converted to Amazon gift cards - total €75

Sadly its not just the NHS that is suffering. The ambulance service, police and schools are all feeling the pressure as well, all the public services.

How anyone can vote Tory is beyond me, seriously.

My dds school is going to be £70'000 worse off next year

Blue I totally get where you are coming from, getting the work/life/kids balance right is so hard, I have always gone with I would rather be financially poorer but time spent with dd richer.

My little DGS is waiting for open heart surgery. It will be in the next few months and he will need to be in intensive care I assume.
I am seriously worried about the NHS.
Mammy, I didn't know you could get saucepans with moveable handles. Interesting. I could do with them because I lack space.

Trying I am sorry to hear about your DGS and I am sure you will be really worried but I think you will see the best of the NHS. Clinically and for the most specialist services it is second to none, it is just under incredible strain. Where is he going to be treated? Paed cardiac services are highly specialised and highly centralised; the standard expected of those units will be very high indeed.

As some of you will know I was a senior manager in the NHS until I stopped last year to be with my son more. Same from that angle as your experience Blue - I was working 60-70 hour weeks routinely, plus on-call management responsibility for a major acute multi-site trust (when on call I would get called a lot!). Easter 2015 I had a big deadline on top of my day job and for about 2 months I was working in excess of 18 hour days, including most weekends (and Easter itself). I was utterly delirious with exhaustion. It was only when I passed that deadline that I had the time to really look at my DS (then not quite 3) and I realised I had been too busy to properly notice his issues (ASD). I was devastated and so guilty that work had prevented me seeing it sooner.

Unfortunately I can't see the situation in the NHS getting any better as resourcing can't keep up with demand. There is a workforce of over a million people most of whom are working in an unsustainable way. I know so many good people, clinical and admin, who just can't keep doing it and are leaving

£20 top up in Waitrose today. Ocado is coming tomorrow but I needed bits for dinner tonight as duster is unecoevtedly staying, and I also wanted to bake a cake to take to BIL and SIL tomorrow morning when we go to see new nephew with the terrible name

SIL is gluten free so I have made a suitable lemon drizzle cake involving mashed potato . BBC good food recipe, got good reviews though. Mine sank a bit but even the picture in the BBC site is somewhat concave so I think that is normal?! Not terribly impressive to look at and seems excessively moist so might be Destination Bin instead.

I also bought a cute outfit for the baby nephew and can't find it. I have been sorting through DS's old stuff and have had some girl clothes donations for our baby too so I am literally drowning in tiny vests etc. Can't see the wood for the trees!

Love the dog pics.

And well done Meadow

Well done meadow I know what you mean about the acting, it's exhausting! Sounds like you did brilliantly and deserve an epic rest now.

Thanks all re: the piano lessons, all booked in now, diary is looking rather full. :) But so will the money box where I put my earnings so yay :)

World book day event went really well yay! Have been asked to make it an annual thing.

At mums having had an amazing dinner at a naice grown up sort of restaurant. Even the restaurant manager was jealous of my child free weekend :o

I often look on patients notes only to see their GP has done a prescription or written notes in there at midnight. These are the doctors with young children. One GP was running an hour and twenty minutes late yesterday because her patient had urine retention so instead of sending him to a&e she inserted a catheter there and then etc. Luckily her subsequent patients were fine about it but we obviously couldn't tell them why she was running so late. People don't realise what they do.

Anyway enough of that. Today will be a nsd. Pancakes for breakfast, will make soup for lunch then Ds has a party (have some January sale bits in the cupboard for present and a pack of cards).

Dinner is spag Bol. Dh working all weekend so not sure what we will do tomorrow. Would be fine if we had some money 😩

Meadow can't remember if I said well done or not? Sounds like you had a really good time even if it was exhausting

Finally!

Good morning :)
I had a good day yesterday, chilling, went for a walk, saw friends. My DD refuses to go to her Dad's and it's turned into a massive nightmare, I needed some time to think and decide what to do. So I'll tell him I am not letting her stay the night at his anymore, unless she specifically requests. I'm not trying to get to him or anything, she genuinely hates being with him, at his, he won't compromise on anything (ie have her in the day, do stuff, then bring her home, he won't do anything she likes doing etc). So, that's gonna be interesting.

Budgeting wise, I have bought a big pot from Lidl the other week and I made a couple of meals that left 5 portions for the freezeer. Last night it was nice, I just defrosted some rice with vegetables-fab!!!! So I'm getting there.
I had a bit of an expensive month, I booked the summer entertainment, a few days at the seaside, a festival etc, but the credit card is paid now and I have £160 left till the 24th, but the fridge and freezeer and cupboards are full, all the bills are paid. So we're good.

Hope you all have a good weekend, I plan to potter and I'm seeing friends on Sunday.

Morning all!
Sorry to hear about your DGS, Trying, how old is he?

Have to say I've had a lot of medical appointments over the last few months and I cannot fault the service and treatment I have received. NHS is brilliant and we are lucky to have it. I just hope the government doesn't throw it all away. Don't get me started on how they have ruined schools!

Need to get a small gift for a party tomorrow and I still haven't bought toothpaste so it'll be a low spend day I think.

Wreck that looks amazing
I've pancake batter made since last night for dc, I may just have one after seeing that pic

We'd spag Bol last night & dh must've decided not to so lots of spaghetti left so going to do something with that for lunch before we head to my parents this afternoon

I'm dropping in paperwork to bank to support my cc application so while I'm in town I'm going to spend my €40 vouchers in boots - they've got benefit packages on offer so think that's what I'll get will see when I get there. Dc have easons vouchers & dd has a wbd voucher so we'll go there too. And I will do the grocery shopping to take pressure off for tomorrow.
Dd has said she won't complain or delay getting out of swimming pool after her lesson today as she's excited about going to gp's house.

Knitting you sound financially ahead of things, your poor dd is she upset about going to her dads?

Cag child free weekend? Explain yourself what is this thing you speak of

We got our mortgage statement yesterday we have paid back 31% of what we borrowed just 15 more years to go

Trying I hope your grandson gets good care.
I will post pic of my saucepans soon(must get up first, I'm sandwiched between the dc!) these are the new ones. I won't be getting a 20 pc set!

Grocery Budget has €126.11 left after my top ups in Aldi & Lidl on Thurs eve. €20 for butchers so aiming for under €100 at Aldi.