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Frugaleers saving and chatting through April

999 replies

SunnyLikeThursday · 28/03/2017 13:16

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

OP posts:
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39
CremeEggThief · 28/03/2017 21:02

Cheers Sunny.

needastrongone · 28/03/2017 21:43

I'm with you on that Creme. We can chat on this one like sad old buggers even if everyone else moves over, this one has messed with my mind at 970 - something....WinkSmile.

I'm glad you enjoyed your curry. Not a meal type I choose often, but tasty when I do.

Good for you wrecked. Rude man.

I'm watching the documentary about grief with Rio Ferdinand. It's really very moving and nothing like the pampered footballer you might imagine. He lost his wife to breast cancer 2 years ago, 3 kids. Still dreadful, what ever the circumstances, he loved his wife tons.

Waiting to collect DD from a rock concert in town, nervously....

ememem84 · 28/03/2017 21:52

creme need you do know this is the new thread right...?

needastrongone · 28/03/2017 21:59

Yes, I do at least. I meant I'm sticking here till 990 at least! Can't speak for creme, but she's too full of Jalfrezi anyway to care. Grin

Girliefriendlikesflowers · 28/03/2017 22:02

I watched that programme Need Sad so sad, bloody cancer Angry 34 is no age and three beautiful kids.

ememem84 · 28/03/2017 22:09

Aaaaah gotcha. Sorry. My bad 🙂

Oooh jalfrezi. With naan??? I want curry.

I've succeeded in most of my evenings tasks.

Tanned my legs while dinner was cooking then spent most of the evening in a hoody and just pants waiting for the tan to dry/develop/do its thing.

Forgot how good it smelled. Mmmm fake tan smell. Legs smell like biscuits now. Mmmmm

Couldn't watch art the rio Ferdinand doc. Too sad. 😭

Coppersulphate · 28/03/2017 22:41

Thanks for the new thread Sunny
Blimey, turn my back and we're on a new thread. I'm with Need and Creme. If we don't go to the 90's I feel like we have wasted space.😳, but glad I found you.
Welcome Strawberry.
Good luck at the interviews Strawberry and Toast.
Wow, Wreck, I bet you sound fierce. But bloody rude man deserves all he gets.
NSD. Can't afford to spend as paid final bill for bathrooms last night. Got about 2p left til start of month.
Em, your DH is a star. No question.

ChristmasSeacow · 28/03/2017 23:17

Found you all over here.... been a busy day today and I've not had time to Mumsnet Shock

DS's settling at nursery went a bit better yesterday (no fire alarms!). He starts after Easter. And dinner out with friends was lovely, £36 for dim sum plus about£6 for tube because I forgot to borrow DH's Travelcard. Not frugal.

I had a friend round for lunch today, made chicken Caesar salad, fruit salad and peanut butter cookies so quite frugal. She's hosting next time, we are being very good by taking it in turns and not going out! The rest of the day I have been trying to track down anybody in the local authority who can sort out the mess re. DS's EHCP. Too boring to go into details but suffice to say there is a really critical meeting on Thursday morning and no papers or reports have yet been circulated and they can't confirm who is attending Hmm. Grr. I then spent two hours going through the legal framework with a highlighter pen, preparing for battle. I quite enjoyed turning my brain on if the truth be told!

Snuggly I feel for you, one baby is hard but two is heroic. I formula fed after about 3 weeks of bf /expressing misery. I never worried about how much DS was taking (just assumed he'd regulate it and if not, eventually id notice he was a porker and!sek advice) but I do remember the amount they drink ramps up v quickly over the first couple of months or so so can seem quite Shock. He always took as much as he wanted, on demand at first and then roughly in a routine. He's never been overweight. I think they can put a fair bit away, you just can't tell with bf. Logistically ff is a bit of a headache. When out of the house when DS was small I used pre-made cartons of formula; when he got bigger I took boiled water and pre-measured powder in a dispenser thingy and mixed when needed (cheaper). My top tip is to try and get them used to having it lukewarm rather than body temperature. DS was such a slow feeder at first that it happened naturally for him (ie milk had usually cooled significantly by the time he made inroads so over time I stopped heating it much) but it was really useful when out as it meant I didn't need to bother with flasks of hot water to warm it etc. Or the waiting if he was in a hurry! The main pain is the bloody washing up and sterilising. Neverending. DH did a good job of helping though.

Hang on in there. I hope you have a better night Flowers

Strawberry and bacon good luck with your interviews. Together you sound like a novelty jam.

HopefulHamster · 28/03/2017 23:50

Hello, I haven't been on these threads before and I'm wondering if you might be my people?

My husband and I have just got a joint account after 14 years of marriage. Until now we've just split the bills roughly in proportion with salary and spent what we wanted (without going overdrawn) after that.

Now I have control of a mega-spreadsheet, mwahahahaha, and obsess over it all. But more seriously, most of it goes into joint to cover bills/groceries/childcare/family spends and savings, then we get a small amount each to put in our private accounts to cover personal phones/hair/clothes/tat/whatever.

I keep a record now of everything I spend, because I used to always go a little bit over, and now I want to develop a bit of savings even in my own private account (I need a new computer).

Today I spent £1 of my money in a book/music shop to put towards DH's birthday presents (two vinyls, it was buy one get one free) and £12 of family joint money in Home Bargains, which covered a Frozen Kinetic Sand kit reduced from £20 to £7 which will make a birthday or Christmas present for Frozen obsessed two-year-old DD, and a few cheap groceries.

lifelongfrugaleer · 29/03/2017 06:22

Welcome hopeful.

PolkadotPony · 29/03/2017 06:55

Hello ladies and hello hopeful 😊

I've woken up before the dc so I'm going to enjoy a quick coffee in bed before getting them up and going to work.

Dc3 is off to camp today, she is excited and I am nervous for her. She is very keen to go but she's such a quiet little girl I do worry sometimes.

I'm still being very sensible, although I'm hoping to go on a night out on Friday for the first time in a while.

WreckTangled · 29/03/2017 07:13

Welcome hopeful!

I have to say I'm the least ghetto person around, I speak the queens English don't you know Wink

Not sure what I'm doing today. Was meant to go to town with a friend then lunch but her dc are ill I think so might go to a local farm park with another friend.

SnugglySnerd · 29/03/2017 07:22

Welcome, Hopeful.

Thanks for everyone's advice. After 2 nights of no sleep at all DH suggested that we take a twin each to feed etc during the night and that we swap babies each night so we bond with them both. Last night they both synchronized waking up so it was much easier and we got about 5 hours sleep each.
Actually I'm still in bed which I'm going to regret if DD1 wakes up before I've had a shower.
Not very frugal but I think we're going to get a couple more bottles so we don't have to sterilize any over night.

NSD yesterday. Eating meals out of the freezer, so pleased I did some batch-cooking a few weeks ago!

needastrongone · 29/03/2017 07:23

Welcome Hopeful. Looks you are pretty organised with your spreadsheet and have a pretty decent idea of things anyway i.e not completely 'head in sand' type. Have you checked your bills and utilities to check you are on the best deal? Meal plan? Also, use TopCashBack or similar sites for spending and changing utilities, all adds up. I've had quite a bit over the last year that way.

Sorry, bit rushed that! Smile

Your'e doing brill Polka.

needastrongone · 29/03/2017 07:25

Sorry for typing and grammar, speed post.

PolkadotPony · 29/03/2017 07:30

Snuggly my (well I suppose ex) bf has twins. They did a baby each in the early years, he speaks fondly of it and the bonding twilight hours. One of theirs wouldn't bf, so they had one bf and one bottle and he would do the bottle baby (obviously 😁). I think he is emotionally closer to that child now as a result so alternating is a lovely idea.

needastrongone · 29/03/2017 07:33

Brill news Snuggly. 5 hours will feel like a full night at this stage. Good plan.

ememem84 · 29/03/2017 07:50

Nice one snuggly I'm struggling to imaging what it'll be like with just one baby. Can't fathom two. 5 hours must seem so blissful. X x

polka you're doing so well x x

hopeful hi!! Sounds like you've got complete control!!

My leg tan is a bit darker than I meant it to be. Oops. Thank god for tights. Haha!!

house viewing today. Eeek.

CremeEggThief · 29/03/2017 08:08

Great idea to to do that with your twins, Snuggly.

Welcome HamsterBrew.

Glad you had a good night out too, Seacow. I hadn't had curry for absolutely ages (November?), but I was really in the mood for one after Need mentioned hers. I had vegetable dumplings in Bhuna, my friend had pumpkin, and we shared onion bhajis and spinach pakora to start, with the best salad I've ever had in a curry house, pilau rice, saag aloo and a plain Naan. There was even enough for a doggy bag for DS. Yum!

SnugglySnerd · 29/03/2017 08:55

Yes I feel much better today, if we could just get 5 consecutive hours that would be even better!

Strawberrythief87 · 29/03/2017 09:02

Morning everyone
Thanks for sending luck for today, we'll see how it goes, spent last night making mozzerella from a kit we got for xmas, not very frugal really as it takes up so much milk but a fun experience, nice to know we'd made the cheese and dough for our pizzas and totally DP trying to distract me from getting too nervous about today, he's a goodun

Seacow It would need to be real novelty jam, sounds auwful but you never know, might work? Confused
Thats a great idea Snuggly glad you've managed to get some more sleep as well
Welcome Hopeful sounds like you're on it but always good to have more people to chat to about it all.
Em Oh no about one darker leg! Do you have more you can add to the lighter leg or do you think it'll make it even more uneven? Confused

LonelyOversharer · 29/03/2017 09:22

Good luck with your second viewing em I hope you feel it as soon as you get inside ('it' the mythical house buying vibe).

Forgot to say to need phew, about the tax inspection, and well done.

snuggly that sounds like a really good solution, yy to buying more bottles!

Got our first time trial tonight (sorry more cycling, yawn!), not time to get home and back, so the kids will have a maccy d's for tea, this should be my only spend. I'll go home at lunchtime to walk the dogs and bake cookies for afterwards. The blue sky has been replaced by rain. The spring was nice while it lasted!

SunnyLikeThursday · 29/03/2017 09:49

That's really interesting that some of you love to go right to the end of a thread. I hadn't thought of that at all. Smile

I only change them early because when I was first on a frugaleer thread I really enjoyed it so much, and then the thread hit 1000 and stopped accepting posts and it took me such a long time to work out where everyone had gone. I was totally confused about where to find them.

Ever since then I am always careful to make sure that a new thread is made before the end in case we lose other new people.

I did it early this time because I will be away from email contact tomorrow and possibly Friday and didn't want to risk losing newbies if I was not there.

In future I will not start new threads before 990, but I would be so glad if we could make sure to post the new link before 1000 so our new pals don't get lost. Smile

I'm busy busy busy today getting ready to go to our far distant pediatric dentisting tomorrow. Getting packed and cleaning the house so it will be nice to come back to.

It's going to cost a bomb, but it will be worth it if the tooth gets fixed.

OP posts:
SunnyLikeThursday · 29/03/2017 09:58

Snuggly I used to hang out with a bloke who was primary carer to a baby and toddler (his daughters) and had an autistic son. He had time saving pretty seriously sorted, and the way he coped was to buy formula milk in little cartons and to have lots and lots of bottles.

He would fill a lot of bottles in the morning and put one in every pocket of his combat trousers and his very expansive jacket, inside and out. Whenever a child cried he just reached into one of the many pockets and pulled out a pre-made bottle which was instantly ready to go.

In emergencies he just ran into boots and bought a new bottle and a new carton of pre-made formula, poured the one into the other and then stuck the bottle in the baby's mouth. On a really bad day, he also poured in a random splosh of calpol for good measure, without noting the time or amount.

It wasn't probably very cheap, or entirely ideal, but it did seem to get him through.

I knew another Dad who at the age of 52 had taken full responsibility for all baby night feeds from newborn to sleeping through, while also holding down a professorship and head of department role in his department. He also did the trick with the bottles and pre-made cartons of formula. I think it's quite pricey, but in a time-saving emergency it really seems to help.

Good luck there. It sounds like quite a job. Do they have a twins doula near you? There is one here, who can be found through the LLL and I've heard that she is very good.

OP posts:
ememem84 · 29/03/2017 10:00

strawb I have more tan. But a different brand 😭😂 I'll give them a good old scrub in the bath later. Could do with using up some body scrub....

This is why I started with my legs. It's not warm enough to bare leg it for work yet. So thankfully any mishaps Can be covered by tights/trousers Haha!!