Frugaleers saving and chatting through April

[SunnyLikeThursday]

Newbies welcome to join us for a bit of chat about budgeting, saving, paying off debt, and everything else that comes along.

Life the fact you even considered going to the gym makes you un-lardy IMO :o

Thanks cag.

I love ikea for value for money

I highly recommend the trip trap high chair, an excellent piece of furniture.
Also recommend the Maclaren umbrella pushchair, perfectly designed.

£50 in lidl. £10 to last till Sunday. I'm trying to budget to £100 a week, instead of putting the whole month in the envelope. So far its worked. Hard though what with school holidays.

Talking about jobs...there's a PT job a dd school advertised, I desperately want it, it would suit me perfectly. I've applied, but I'm worried they wont want me due to my illness. Oh well fingers crossed.

Always worth a shot all you never know.

lonely that's a very encouraging thought. I hadn't thought of salt. I do have a microscope to hand actually. We were just using it today to examine ds's cut hand.

Christmas Thanks that's very good to know that you agree. I had no idea that it was the damp proof course. I'll ask someone to look at it. Fortunately our neighbours are very nice as access to the outside of that wall is only through their garden.

Things are a bit heavy going here. My train trouble yesterday turned out to be a fever that is still hanging on, so I'm not as good for lego battles as ds would like. Dh goes back to work tomorrow, so that's going to be interesting. Ds is exhausted and very bad tempered from all our travel.

Fortunately the weather is nice, so if I can tempt him outside then we can be cheesed off in a larger space.

No money spent today except Tesco. (So lots, in fact)

Evening everyone. Had a totally exhausting couple of days at work, and another one to come tomorrow, but so far managed to moderate spending. Yesterday £11 on drinks after work and £2 snacks on the train home, and today £4 ish on lunch. I don't mind the money on drinks as it's relatively rare and good to socialise a bit, it's the spending on lunch/snacks I would like to cut down on. Tomorrow I'm travelling again but will take lunch with me.

Sunny I agree that looks like salts rather than mould. If your damp proof course has failed it might be covered under guarantee. Worth checking paperwork. I had similar when I first bought this house. Glad your mum is recovering.

Go for the job all always worth a try. Good luck 😊

cag that's sad about losing your pupil for a while but it does sound like good timing as you have a lot on!

I didn't get the job . I was particularly sad when I drove past the road the new job was at and it took all of 10 minutes to get there this morning, before doing the rest of my 1.25 hour commute to work

Any way, the feedback was good. I was beaten by someone with better skills for that particular job (which wasn't really a surprise). But they really rated my management skills and asked if they could keep my contact details incase that job came up. So you never know.

Spent £7 on drinks and snacks

I had no idea wall salts were a Thing. This thread is so educational :o

Mmmm stir fry for dinner. Always nice to find something my fussy Caglets will eat. Straight to wok noodles are my friend. Put some aside (sans noodle as these ones have gluten) for DH. Really glad I found gluten free soy sauce!

Hi Holly Sadly our house was built in 1924 so I think it's probably out of guarantee. Your money spent on drinks and lunch out sounds wonderful. I hope you had a good time, frugality notwithstanding.

Aw sorry bacon :( that's a shame. Sounds like you did really well though and to be kept on file is a great thing.

Ugh have a bad case of PMT not helped by the sight of a large pile of cat sick in the living room when I came down from putting dd up to bed

To help matters I have broken into dds Easter egg stash

NSD.

Girlie, Easter egg stashes are there to tempt you. The one I have for DFCs keeps calling out to me to come and eat it. It's in the fridge and I can hear it.
Anyway you can replace it. And you are not well. And the dat's been sick.
Snuggly you are a star making cakes. Where do you get the energy from?
Bacon, never mind, at least the interview experience was good and it sounds as if you have done well.
Sunny, salt comes out of the walls if there is damp. There could be all sorts of reasons but the most likely is a breached or failed damp course. I had same in my last house. Easily rectified. But may be costly. Hope both you and DS feel better soon.
Thanks for the lentil info Creme. I never thought of making shepherd's pie with lentils.
And lonely for the egg info. So, I just separate them and freeze the yolks and whites. I have a lot of eggs. Dozens in fact.

bacon it's positive that they've kept your details, you might be like wreck, she got her new job when the first candidate dropped out. I know how you feel, I haven't been back into the butchers after I didn't even get an interview. I'm that pissed off as I would have loved a part time job there. Their loss as I spent £££ in there most weeks.

Oh poor you Bacon. But it all sounds very positive, just that there was a candidate that fitted the particular criteria more specifically than you did but you came close. So nothing negative at all and keeping your details is great.

Girlie You are doing your DD a favour, she will have too many eggs anyway.

Been a busy day today as we have our first competition at the weekend so I'm trying to get sorted for this. Plus I had a meeting tonight re my 3 Peaks Challenge and running club tonight.

Spends
£70 Lidl, but also bought lots of supplies for the horse box and 2 duvets for the box.
£60 Ocado.
£5 round of soft drinks at the meeting.

Fluffy You need to be proud of me, my Ocado delivery was a disgrace, driver came nearly an hour early with no notice and a tin of diet coke had spilt all over my shopping. I complained loudly to customer services and have a £20 voucher for my trouble.

Odd discussion here. Our church has bought massive, eye-searingly bright screens to display song words, and they do bad things to my eyes. They seem to be here to stay and so dh and I are examining whether to move to a church elsewhere.

It's interesting to think about what anchors us to our community, and whether we might be better off elsewhere. tbh I think a different neighbourhood could do us a lot of good. It's a big thought though, the idea of moving away even just to a new church community.

Our current church is about four doors down and very pervasive in our lives in many ways. Ho Hum.

sunny that's a real shame to have to leave a church community because they use screens that are too bright. Understood about the house i never knew they put damp proofing in that long ago. My house was built about 1900 but damp proofing was a much later addition.

Holly That's good that they were able to retrofit a damp proof course. :-) Some of the older buildings here also have no foundations, which is a very strange notion. They seem to stay up though.

LSD planned today. Gym and maybe some apples.

Sorry about the job but it is positive you are being kept on file. That commute sounds brutal.

Good luck for the comp need, pony and need DD.

Nsd yesterday. LSD planned today. Dh is driving me crazy with house moving stuff.

This weekend (again) he wants us to spend time readying our place for market. Because it's a state. Again. The last 4 weekends this has been the conversation.

He's fixated on the broken roof place and won't entertain looking anywhere else. Won't put ours on market until it's perfect. And wants the agents to lower their fees for us (again - they've akready dropped by .5%)

I've just had early morning words with him.

And have lined up more viewings on slightly higher priced properties (only about £25k higher not in the millions) to give us more options.

God I'd forgotten how stressful moving was. And we're not even moving yet.

He suggested yesterday we hold out until July. To wait for roof house lady to be desperate. Had to point out the timing for us with that one won't work. (End of July + 4 weeks legal at a minimum + heavily pregnant wife does not = happy house move).

RAnt over. Have good days y'all x

That does sound tricky Em. Puts our car shopping into perspective.

Do you have an option there to put a lot of your stuff into storage while people are viewing your house? Pickfords here do a thing where you can get all packed up into crates in their lorry and they will store the stuff for a while fairly cheaply and then drop it all off at your new house. It might help with making your flat look tidy and spacious for those few weeks of viewing.

Good luck there anyway.

I'm looking after ds today while dh is back at work. I have a temperature and ds is tired and crabby. I'm bracing myself.

em moving house tests people at the best of times. I can't imagine doing it whilst pregnant.

Older DD wasn't well this morning but DP and I both had to go to work. I doubt the childminder will take her so think DP will have to take her to work with him. She was really tugging at the heart strings when I left

Planning a LSD. Last day at work before two weeks off. Woo hoo!

Gah sounds frustrating Em!

Aw Sunny that's a shame about the church :( I assume it's not even reduced by sitting right at the back? It must be really super bright and you've mentioned before how badly that affects you. I'm assuming keeping sunglasses on would appear disrespectful (no idea as not a church goer). It's so unfortunate when something that is designed to help most people is actually unhelpful for some. At the library since I've left they have changed the computer desks on the ground floor to standing height desks. I know this is partly because the ground floor ones are designed for quicker use (just printing a boarding pass or ticket etc) - for longer slots you are directed upstairs. However my first thought was, however selfishly, that I wouldn't be able to use them - five minutes standing is often too much for me and I risk fainting. However my second thought was... what about the many people in wheelchairs or mobility scooters? They wouldn't be able to use them at all. :( Granted there are lifts to other floors but they break down often and it just seems a bit... backwards. To suddenly be less accessible to a large part of the community. They must have weighed up the pros and cons though I guess.

My turn to say rant over sorry

Anyway! LSD planned, had to sneak £1 to DD as I fell asleep too early last night thankfully she's not a tooth fairy believer anymore herself and is just keeping up appearances for DS. Need to get my blood test done so will wander into town with the Caglets later. We are all having a lazy morning before DH goes to work.

Relative is leaving hospital already! Incredible progress.

Sorry been a bit tied up in work etc for the pass few days so haven't been around
Bacon Sorry about the job, its frustrating to know they were keen on you but went with someone else but really positive they will consider you for other roles. I still haven't got a decision from mine, sent a very polite message yesterday asking when we might know and have been told we'll find out today or tomorrow so still fingers crossed but I imagine they're offering it someone else and don't want to confirm with the rest of us until they've accepted
Em It sounds really frustrating, good luck with everything in this pre move stage
Sunny I completely know what you mean about bright screens, I can't stand them. There must be more people in the congregation who are affected by it, perhaps the brightness could be reduced but the screens stay? Or are you feeling its time for a move of church communities anyway? As you said it's a big thing but it can make a huge difference

Since Monday I've spent no money money but I have renewed my phone contract and will be paying £45 for a new phone as my old one is nearly unusable now. I thought long and hard about getting a second hand one but wanted to get a fairphone2 so (hopefully) in future I can replace modules of it rather than the whole thing- hate the waste of tech!

We've got a couple of bits we need from Ikea (lamp has broken, duvet set etc) so considering an evening trip combined with the restaurant offer they're running but unsure we'll have the resolve to not spend a fortune

That's good news about your relative, Cag.

I have an hour to get ready to go and meet a friend. I am hoping the babies will go to sleep so I can get in the shower but it doesn't look like that's happening.

Should be NSD today. Not being able to drive is great for our bank balance as I can't just nip to the shops when I feel like it.