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!

Meadow that sounds tough not sure what to suggest but I think it's a brilliant thing you do.

Spent £3.20 in topshop
£12 accessorize

That's it Dh bought everything else.

It's not for you if you don't get the vibe imho Em.

I would like Creme or Snuggly would be good for suggestions meadow.

Love natural yoghurt cheers life.

Just been into the garage to get some gin as its too lovely for wine, rummaged around the drinks folk brought for NYE and found some Mead! Who the fuck brings Mead as an offering?!

Bopping round the kitchen to the NYE playlist with DD, YMCA anyone?

Ooh Atomic by Blondie, forgot what a fab playlist DH put together.

Atomic is one of my favourite songs ever!

Cag that's quite a surprise! Congratulations! I get why you have mixed feelings but it'll be fine, better than fine it'll be lovely!

Meadow I'm the first to admit that I'm not very good at planning for EAL kids but we did have some training at school recently, if I can find any resources I'll let you know.

Em my best maternity jeans were from H&M and best leggings were New Look. I had a lot of tops from New Look too but they didn't fit for the last couple of months so I bought a couple from Jojo Maman Bebe which had drawstring sides and expanded well. They have some lovely summer stuff actually, all mine was winter stuff. New Look had some nice dresses that were fine for work. Didn't bother with pjs as they were v expensive to wear for just a few months. I just got some from Asda in a bigger size and slept in DH's t shirt and boxers for the last month

I can understand the council baby rules really, as new babies don't need their own room anyway, I don't even know when we'd inform them? I didn't think it'd make any difference TBH. :) I imagine we would still be looking at a 3 bed and then once baby was older applying for a swap.

DH was talking recently about looking for a new job, he's really not liking where he is :( but he said today he would be better off staying because of paternity leave. I have no idea of the rules for that now either. Obviously no maternity pay for me but there was none when I had the Caglets either - with DC2 I was already a SAHM, and with DC1 I worked for a while in pregnancy but my boss made me redundant quickly and I hadn't worked long enough even for the statutory one. (She also denied my existence years later when I needed a reference but that's another story.)

Anyway! Sorry I have totally neglected the rest of the thread today 😳 must get back to proper frugal stuff! Sorry for derailing and thank you all so much 💐

It's in a blue tub need. The low fat one is not as nice.
I prefer aldi for crisps and chocolate. The baking stuff, cold meats and cheeses are much of a muchness imo. Haven't tried the household stuff. The fruit juice comes in much bigger cartons but not sure about the price per litre value.

Em you might find as you have good abs you might not show very early. I wasn't in maternity clothes until the end of may (same due date as you near enough). I got cheap leggings in bigger sizes and wore with longer tops.

Cag are you classed as self employed. Are you entitled to maternity allowance?

I am self employed yes as I registered my tuition business last year :) but the hours are minimal (adds up to maybe 4 a week average) so I assumed they wouldn't count for anything :)

Cag pretty sure you can still claim maternity allowance even if you hardly earned anything!

Dh has gone out for beer but I'm ready for bed. My legs and feet are throbbing from so much walking

Gosh well that would be something, I'll look into it thanks wreck and life :)

I can't believe this morning I was asking you all about Yankee candles 😂

I'm going to start a thread about dates so as to stop rambling on here 😳 Thank you all so much again though, it's made a weird day a whole lot easier. DH is off as well but it's impossible to talk out loud with two nosy Caglets around! 💐

Paternity leave is 2 weeks in the U.K. Cag. Rate of pay depends on company policy. In DHs company they pay one week at full salary and one week of Statutory Paternity Pay (i think the same rate as SMP, so about £140 for the week I think). Most places are more generous but I think the minimum is the SPP (i.e. SMP) rate for 2 weeks. I'm not 100% sure of the minimum legal requirements so worth checking.

Your DH will also need to tell his employer by a particular deadline (at about 6m I believe) and usually the company will require him to show them your MatB1 form. You get that from your GP of midwife after 20 weeks.

Wow, Cag, that's amazing news! Congratulations to you, DH and DC.

To tell you the truth, I'm a little drunk after lunch and FIVE cocktails for a mini-Hen this afternoon, so I'll check back properly tomorrow, wondering if I've dreamed about Cag and her news!

Re. Maternity allowance, you need to earn a minimum of (I think?) £130 pw for a qualifying period of 26 weeks within the 15 months before your due date. And I believe you need to have paid NI on it. Please do check for yourself but I have been looking to see whether I qualify because of being in full time work for some of the qualifying period but unfortunately I am short of the 26 weeks by just 2 weeks 🙁. I was hoping that the short term project recently in the offing would solve that but it wasn't funded so no go. And no maternity allowance for me.

Congrats cag super news. Healthy eating for you now, plus no drinking, but not sure if you do anyway 😊
em good to look at all houses to get a feel. Think about flow.
I love lidl far more than Aldi.
Spent £1.50 on a paper. DH bought flowers and a card for his mum.

Meadow no rush, you are very young yet! Plenty of time to enjoy the freedom to do nice things with your DH and still have a family pretty young - a result!

Sorry, posted too soon... what are the ages of your refugee kids? I will have a think. I didn't realise you were running the sessions - that's quite a commitment and brilliant that you are doing it.

meadow if possible you could do a keep fit session. Either do running, jumping, stretching yourself, with some youths to help (also youths at the back to keep the kids in check), or put a you tube video on. We used a guy that did sessions for school (year 5) and it worked a treat.
Also with any year, including yr 5 and 6 (have a small prize) do sleeping lions, get youths to be watchers. Works well. But put those that are out in a 'pen' so that the alternative isn't more fun!

Do party games, statutes, pin the tail, flour game with sweet, chocolate with gloves etc.

Card pyramid, board games, winking murder game, print a load of colouring in sheets - much easier than crafts, do weaving with strips of card, origami - practise was ones first - the cat/dog, pac man origarmi are good. Get chop sticks and pasta to pick up and run with.

Google alternative sports day.

Anyway...sorry for the long post.

Congrats Cag, that's lovely surprise news!
Bit of a spendy day today but DH and I needed a nice day out together as we've been a bit distant with the stress of an unwell baby and his crazy job.
£32 for lunch out
£15 new gym bag for DH
£7 coffee to drink on a walk in the sunshine
We feel much better now though!

Awh congrats cag!

Seacow Tbh it kind of fell on to me I went and the kids have some toys and books there and that and were just running about like mad and I started doing colouring with them and had a chat to the centre manager who basically put me in charge of trying to structure some activities for them ! I love it but I've never even worked with kids before - luckily DH has so he's been helping me a lot but next week he's at work. One of the teenagers there this week was very helpful so I might ask for her to specifically be there if she can be, she doesn't normally come and she was actually helpful unlike the others -rolls eyes- .

The ages are literally between 18 months (although he just toddles about everywhere I just have to keep an eye out for him to stop him eating crayons...) and 12 years old, which makes it really tricky, and then on top that we have the situation where e.g. there's 8-9 year olds with fairly good English who can read etc and then younger children and even an 11 yr old with very little English so can't understand stuff. So it is really a mammoth task to try and find things that everyone can do and enjoy...to be honest now that I've wrote all that out I think I've been doing better than I realised!

all I had thought of more active stuff - I think that would work well because there's a bunch of boys who just want to rough play and run around and burn off energy, but in the process they're annoying other children/occasionally causing tears etc. So I think we will deffo try something like that I might try next week. Alternative sports day type stuff sounds great. Our space is very limited for the number of children but I'm sure there are some things we could do. We do a lot of colouring in so far which goes down well with most of the kids, have started trying to start sessions with a circle time with a bit of a chat, today we made mothers' day cards which most of them really enjoyed and a new lady came who made these pom pom type things with some of the kids. What is sleeping lions?

Thanks so much guys, I know this isn't frugal-related too so sorry for clogging up the thread, I appreciate all the ideas I will write them down!

£8.50 on tights for me and DD2. NSDs most of the week.

Meadow could you take some simple children's books and get those who can read a little to share them with those who can't? If you used picture books it wouldn't matter if they couldn't read fluently, they could talk about the pictures.

Thanks again folks :)
Ah yes I remember you saying about the mat allowance Seacow :( really sucks that didn't work out for you. Thank you for explaining xx
All luckily I don't like most alcohol anyway and barely have any. I've also massively cut down on fizzy caffeine stuff (Dr Pepper is my main vice) since new year so I'm quite pleased about that. Oddly for a few weeks I've been feeling an urge for more fresher food and not enjoying junk food as much - I think that's partly because I am no longer running on sugary drinks, but here's hoping that continues as it was totally the opposite when I was pregnant with the Caglets

Meadow that's an awesome thing you're doing. Sounds tricky with the limited space. Do you have a Decathlon store near you? They have loads of cheap stuff that could be used for active pursuits.

My dc woke up even earlier today! 😴 currently having a pain au chocolat in bed with one dc either side on their tablets... Dh is working not sure what we are doing today yet.

I am the only one up Wrecked. So have made myself my Mother's Day coffee and pottered a bit.

Looked at the Hush website but shut it down, idle boredom browsing. I've ordered some special size batteries instead from Amazon for the electric fencing battery for the ponies fencing. This sentence alone will make Fluffy's day.......