Frugaleers Marching on!

[Cagliostro]

Hi everyone, new thread as previous one full.

All welcome to chat all things frugal (and a whole lot more besides) - do jump in, we are a friendly bunch!

Fluffy Waitrose garden plans? Please expand? Have you hit a KATH area to do or is it manageable?

Our garden in decent by London standards (i.e. Bit of a lawn not just a courtyard) but it's still big enough for the time I have available to take care of it. Still gives me great pleasure to sit out there in the summer. Which is lucky as we. Ant afford a holiday this year!

What was that typo?! I think that was meant to say 'have you a large area to do...?'

My phone autocorrects to names in my contacts in capitals. Grr.

www.waitrosegarden.com/waitrose-ready-made-borders/

Here you are 😀

smallish garden.

Well done Polka I know just what you mean. What a change it must be, but you're doing brilliantly.

Fluffy That sounds fantastic. I've started my summer gardening too. Very exciting. Will you tell us what you do?

Today I spent a tenner on plants for the flower beds outside our primary school front door. I love doing up a flower bed that people will see.

DH goes back to work in a couple of days, Seacow, I'm dreading it!
Not bfreeding, Girlie although I'm very sad not to be this time around. It was a bit overwhelming with 2 and with DD1 to entertain, I had visions of being glued to the sofa all day while 2 kids were crying at any given time! I do feel like I've missed out on the experience with these babies though.

Have just tweaked my online shopping order. I think that having the chance to go back and edit cuts down impulse buys.

I am knackered! The race was a sucess, 51/60 guys turned up, and we got through the race with no injuries. But, the weather was truly awful. I had to marshall and was soaked to the skin. The kind where you cannot get any wetter. I have left one of the tiny back windows in the car open to let the moisture out as the car dries! Several of the guys were mildly hypothermic. All my cake went down well, 45 filled bread rolls gone in moments too, I got lots of compliments! We all needed coffee to warm up afterwards.

Home by 1430, and I had a nap (only slept from 0130-0530). Had burgers for tea (ones from morrissons 3 for £10 meat, very tender indeed), and just the last few bits of cake.

So much work to do, am 2/5 through work due back on tuesday, so had better get on. On the plus side, a nsd!

need how did you do? I hope your weather was better than ours!

Snuggly I loved bf but not sure I would be able to do it with twins especially with an older one too. I really don't blame you!

Seacow you're clearly very supportive parents RE the cake

Yikes, Knitting! Very well done indeed. I bet it felt like Heaven, getting into the warmth and having a nap after all that!

NSD here. I've been busy all day, with laundry, getting stuff ready to post, washing up, clearing up, etc. I'm on the sofa for the night though, at long last. DS (14) managed to spill Weetabix on our not quite 2 year old carpet. He was running up the stairs with it and it spilled out of the bowl. Just goes to show no matter how old kids get, they're still well and truly capable of wrecking the house!

Fluffy they are brilliant! We had our garden done properly last year but have a few gaps to fill. I need to do a thorough weeding and then see what gaps we really have after the first winter. I might use the Waitrose lists for guidance though, it's really good.

Guinea fowl is roasting. Am giving shallot, roast garlic, grapes and rose wine a go in the roasting tin to make a gravy. DH is very happy as guinea fowl is his favourite.

I have just sold a few books in French on Facebook and bought a bundle of newborn clothes for £15, so about £10 net spend. But very pleased with the clothes. We threw a lot of DS's newborn stuff out because of a hospital stay /illness and various associated stains so am a bit short of stuff. Very pleased with my haul and bonus is the lady is delivering it to me.

And during my decluttering I just found a £30 Amazon voucher from my parents that I think is from last year and which I had forgotten about. Bonus!

I read books in French to keep my language going, and my mum and I often speak in it, just to remember how. Mum is fluent and I almost am. There are some random words that I don't know, like last year I phoned up a chainsaw repair shop for my Dad and didn't know the word for chainsaw until I looked it up. I'm going back to France in September.

I bought more bread and milk today, that's it. The dc have eaten non stop all weekend.

The dc had roast gammon, I had quorn sausage, then we all had roast potatoes, cabbage and carrots and veggie gravy. Then we had apple strudel and custard. I even did the dishes myself, I feel I deserve a medal.

Christmas - I'd buy books 😍 although I'm reading some awful rubbish that is free on my kindle app at the moment.

Nsd (finally)

Snuggly, I loved breastfeeding but should imagine it would be very tricky with twins, both physically and logistically, and at least this way DH or a friend can help you feed or do it without you.

Cross posted. Snuggly the idea is worse than the reality iirc. I cried when DH went back but we found our groove. It was the lonely nights that I minded most actually!

Knitting that sounds like a successful day. You must be knackered just from all the cooking, never mind the rest!

Wreck we are very supportive indeed . I am sure DS greatly appreciated it too busy stuffing his face to notice

Snuggly bfing one baby is hard going so can completely understand why feeding two would feel overwhelming!

We have had a nice afternoon, went to The Range which is one of those places I love as they seem to sell everything I spent £30 and got loads for that including 3 lots of compost soil, 3 plants, a load of seeds as well as 19 loo rolls and kitchen roll!! Plan is to spend my week off at Easter sorting the garden out so plants and soil is in preparation for that.

Then went to the cinema, I liked the film although found it a bit long and not sure Emma Watson was completely convincing as Belle however dd and my mum loved it! Had tea in McDs £10.

Polka I still don't feel like a grown up I have a house, 11yo dd, car, pets and I am a nurse so probably should do by now!!

Nsd. Yay!!!

We managed to get another bag of crap out of the house and dh took all the booze in our house to my parents. He doesn't want to drink if I'm not martyr (I hid a bottle of gin in the spare room wardrobe as I know probably on Friday when he's been back at work a full week and jet lagged to hell he might want something...)

On the plus side he'll be able to drink his beers at my parents as he wants.

Would have been a NSD apart from buying a new dishwasher £280.

Can't remember who set the challenge, but to only spend £25 on lunches at work for the month. I have £4 left to cover my five days. But I do like a challenge so will see if I can do it (will eat lots of food from home).

I don't think you have to be grown up to be on here. And, quite honestly I can't see the advantage of it.
I think of myself as about 9yo .....just a bit older than my DGD.
Polka, you need to start congratulating yourself. You have managed far more in your life that most people. And you are a strong person. It takes strength to admit you need help and then more strength to accept help. You are doing brilliantly.
Wow, Meadow, only 23. You will soon have a law degree and a good future. And you have a great DH.
NSD
B&Q have a good range of compost. They sell it in 150litre bags. If you go on Wednesday it is 10% off as well.

Thanks for all your support again everyone. I told DH I felt sad about it and he said, quite rightly, that I'd be like a zombie if I was trying to breastfeed them both on my own.
I'm finding formula feeding very complicated though! Apart from feeling like we are constantly washing up and sterilizing we're starting to obsess over how much they've had and at what intervals. I never worried about that when bfeeding DD1 I just fed her as much as she wanted and ate a lot of cake without worrying about the calories!

Good result on the Amazon voucher, Seacow. I put my "normal" coat on today now I can fit back into it and I was excited to hear coins jingling in the pocket. Sadly it was only 25p in loose change!

Taking cat to vet tomorrow, hoping it won't be expensive.

Polka I don't feel like a grown up either. I had DD at 20. I just wanted to say though that what you are doing now is incredibly grown up - it might not feel like it letting your parents take control but IMHO it is really mature to accept that help 💐🌟

Hi to everyone and well done for races etc. I'm hoping to get to bed ASAP I'm knackered and dreading the next few days!

Seacow and Polka I am another French speaker here! I would have maybe bought your books Seacow, the only place I can really find French books here in the UK is the European Bookstore in London which you can order from online but you have to really wade through the website as its not very user-friendly and lots of the books once you click on them are not in stock. I have one that I bought around Christmas though that I need to start reading asap - molécules by Francois Bégaudeau. I read Chanson Douce by Leila Slimani a few months ago, won the Prix Goncourt, it was really great, I was hooked, but the ending was crap lol.

Thanks to those who gave me positive comments .

Today has been NSD after all.

Ok so now I feel super thick! How many if you are fluent enough to read books !! Not I. Can just about count and ask for things and say thankyou. Have just let dd1 drop her language gcse as it makes her unhappy! Plus the only place I have been to where they simply did not speak English was Chile, so my crap schoolgirl German was about as much use to me as a poke in the eye.

I am the grown up in my house. It is wearing sometimes. I became a grown up the day I moved in here with my 3 babies and cat. So when I was 31! 40 now. Dp is a bit of a kid (at 44) but he's brilliant at fixing everything, and is lovely with it; but yes, struggles to find socks (and we have so many). I don't make coffee though. His 1 regular everyday chore, every cup of coffee.

My french is passable. But I'm no where near fluent. And definetly not fluent enough to read proper french books. I have copies of Harry Potter and some fairy stories and other kids books in french which I have read. But I already know the story iyswim so slightly easier to grasp.

I'm sure if I moved to France I'd be able to get by.

Pay day tomorrow.

Back to work today 😭 But I'm hoping I find out about my payrise and bonus today. I think everyone else would have found out last week.

I can read children's books as Gaeilge (in Irish) and translate as I'm going along for the dc, got a fabulous set when dd was a baby it was being given free to encourage the spoken language. I enjoyed Irish but most people don't here & so it's getting left behind except in pockets of the country. It's mandatory up to leaving cert level however. Dds school is very pro Irish which she & I love.
I went 3 summers for 3 weeks to immerse myself in Irish during school holidays. It's now €1000 a go it was about £250 that time so it's about 2.5 times the price my dc will go too, dh doesn't entirely realise that I'm serious about this!

My French is only fair, I tried speaking it in France on holiday & was blatantly ignored by shopkeepers & they just spoke English to me