Frugaleering, cakes and baby talk

[Taytocrisps]

Just starting off a new thread as the other one was getting full.

I believe the problems with butter stem from two things: reduced production due to crap milk prices driving farmers out of dairy production; and increased demand as consumers turn to butter rather than butter substitutes. I saw something on tv where an artisan cake maker was saying it is pushing his business to the brink. Apparently there's likely to be shortages of butter and cream at Christmas

Same girlie!

I know someone who from a few months old bottle fed in the day and breastfed at night. She did that for about a year, seems a really good compromise I think.

That's what I was aiming for Wreck because of needing to handle DS during the day as well as feed DD. But we introduced the bottle after about a week and it wasn't long before DD refused the breast. Too early for is but didn't have much choice. I gather some babies are fine with mixed feeding from the get go but it's a risk.

WE WENT OUT!!! IN THE CAR!! ON OUR OWN!!! Yaaaaaaassssssss!!! #smug

We only went to dparents and a coffee and a sandwich. But we did it. 😀

Midwife turned up at 1215. Stayed 15 minutes. Ds is back to his birth weight. Hooray! He peed on her scales (oopsy) and his bellybutton fell off. But all good.

They next come on Wednesday. I thought it was Monday. But not.

Ds wore proper clothes today too. No onesies here. Trousers. Socks. Vest. Cute tshirt and cardigan. Yay!

My stance on bacon sarnies are:

Beautiful lovely white bread. Smoked bacon. Butter (my fave for bacon is either lurpak or the french one (la providence/ la p something anyway... in the oval tub)). Ketchup on one side. Brown sauce on the other. Unless I've got a fried egg in there in which case no brown sauce and ketchup on the plate on the plate for dipping.

If bacon and sausage then just ketchup.

If BLT then no brown or ketchup but Mayo. And if BLAT - nothing. The avo sqooshes like a sauce. 🥑

sunny is there a way to refine only UK jobs on Upwork?

Spent £10 on Oasis jeggings

Have popped £170 in the Christmas / Bday account. Everybody seems to have birthdays between now & November

Well done Em. You have two things to celebrate now.

Dsis has just come round armed with three baskets of gifts for us/ds from her and bil/bils mum/dsis' best friends. So much generosity!!!

She also bought dh and I a bottle of gin. Lemons. A cucumber and some tonics. And some beautiful gin glasses. She's the best! Haha.

Hello all, I've been decorating the study today and even better, I'm using up pots of paint so it will cost me nothing. Hurrah! Hope to finish it tomorrow as new bookcases (IKEA ) are arriving on Monday.

lonely I'm so glad to hear you say that about the pumping. I never could get it to work.

We switched to butter ages ago because we realised that margarine didn't agree with us. Must be not just us then. Glad I'm not making epic volumes of flapjack now if the price has gone up.

Collie I don't know about finding only UK jobs. They're all meant to be done remotely so I just looked at everything. The help people are very good so you could try asking. Definitely worth a try especially with you being a web-dood. That's what most of the jobs seemed to be on there. The trick is getting rid of the low paid ones and finding the good ones.

We had a great time in the playground after school today. Ds was running and shouting with his friends and really strutting his stuff. I also saw that one of the older boys whose mum is out of commission just now was being a bit delinquent and pushing boundaries in the wrong way. I offered him a job mowing my lawn. He accepted and looked pleased and I felt good about that.

Dh has been given three more dates for interview conference calls and is wondering what the heck. These people really like to do interviews. This is him up to nearly two full days being interviewed by one company, with two trans-atlantic flights and 4 hours of taxis as well.

Busy couple of days. Which ended with a stand off with DD2 who refused to get in her car seat. So we waited in the car for 20 minutes. It only ended when she was sick down her dress. I bet my car now smells lovely . She then came home and had a nap but doesn’t seem ill

Pay day today

Spends
£184 to childminder
£20 on a skirt
£26 on some skinny jeans. Which were a size smaller than I have been buying, although I don’t feel any skinnier
£20 on the nails inc set in Boots
£52 sainsburys but my mum gave me £22 back as I bought her a new iron

My £125 gift card from M&S arrived yesterday for doing the current account switch. Will wait for a 20% off event to spend it.

I need to go through my recent clothes purchases and return the things that aren’t quite right this weekend

Glad it is all going ok em and that you won’t have to wait around for the midwife on your birthday

Has your husband decided if he even wants the job yet sunny? They are really putting him through it

I want a polytunnel. Why on earth am I sitting here googling bloody polytunnels?

£2.20 bacon roll crispy with a hash brown. No butter no sauce. Le yum.

Wow at all the interviews Sunny I am guessing this is a very good job!

Love eww at the smell of sick in the car, lots of febreeze?!

You do get given loads of stuff for first babies Em make the most of it as according to friends you get mostly ignored for subsequent babies

I ended up spending £45 on Amazon, Christmas stuff mostly. Dd wants this particular jellycat teddy which you can only get in USA, its on Amazon at £72 looked on eBay and thought it was loads cheaper but actually it will still be £50 once postage etc added on. Really not sure I can bring myself to spend that much on a soft toy!!

Girlie put out a plea to American mumsnetters they might get one for you? Or try amazon.com? Which one is it?

Blimey that must be one special teddy!

Em you are totally rocking mummyhood ❤️

I had my first raspberry leaf tea today. Yuck.

Thanks sunny. Just had another look at Upwork. I'm just not brave enough

Its this one Wreck www.amazon.co.uk/Jellycat-Cordy-Roy-Hound-Medium/dp/B00RUEPL4O/ref=sr_1_14?ie=UTF8&qid=1506716241&sr=8-14&keywords=roy+jellycat+cordy&tag=mumsnetforum-21 its now £81

How do you find American mumsnetters?!!

£30.57 delivered on amazon.com.

Just start a thread in chat and ask? Amazon might be just as easy though.

Thanks Wreck have just ordered it on Amazon.com £30.57!! Still loads for a teddy but dd will be thrilled, she thinks she isn't getting it as I told her it was too expensive thank you

love he's getting less and less interested in this job, the more interviews they give him. He's torn between two, but the other job only had 7 hours of interviews and no transatlantic travel. It's all really weird. I have no idea why they think that that many interviews is going to help.

Collie I reckon you could definitely do it. A lot of the jobs are just proofreading English for people who have it as a second language. There's a ton of really easy stuff on there, and a lot of pays about 8p so you wouldn't be under a lot of obligation. I reckon it's definitely worth a try. My first job paid $8.50 in total. The whole point of the upwork system is that they will sort out any problems between the employer and you as well so there's no conflict that you have to deal with personally. Good luck if you do try it.

My ds is really highly strung at the moment, but his best friend's Mum said he is the same. We're wondering if we're on the cusp of some massive developmental milestone. The two boys were born 24 hours apart. Today they were playing totally differently from the usual. More like pack animals on the savanna than like their usual muttering Guinea Pig behaviour. Do you think 7 years and 4 months is a turning point?

Excellent frugalling Girlie, I think Cag ordered off us Amazon & saved a bundle too.

Baffles me how companies don't take advantage of video conferencing more. It would save them so much money.

Free Schweppes tonic on checkout smart, extra 35p on green Jin app. Sainsburys only.

Morning. I'm sitting having a cuppa but already swapped washing over and pegged 2 loads out. I'ts a nice day here but will need to be out all day to dry at this time of year.

I've also done the finances (brought them up to date) and checked them all. Went a bit over my plan last month but this month isn't looking as busy.

It's always been butter here. The posh french stuff is on offer at Sainbury's at present Fluffy, or was. Big tubs. I bought one.

This week has been tough and doing hill reps at 5.30 on a Friday evening to fit all my training in was not my idea of fun last night....ha ha.

Anyway, quieter day to catch up. I've so much crappy housework to do and few complaints emails to write

Does anyone utilise Amazon subscribe and save to good effect? I can't figure if it works for us or not.

Fluffy Yes I feel that too. I used to work in a trans-atlantic group and one of the great steps forward was when I convinced them to use video conferencing rather than keeping sending us all to the US. They thought we only lost 2 days work each time, but the reality was that we were all out of whack for weeks afterwards.

It was good to meet people face to face though. It's hard to really replicate that over a phone line. It's the casual chats and the water-cooler discussions that are lost when people don't meet up in person. I've never worked out how to solve that problem.

If it was me I'd have jumped on the video conferencing too. It's logical. Some complete bell ends interview really well. One of Dhs bosses is totally out of his depth. He got the job because his mate hired him

Offers ended Need. I'm doing a pet food order on s&s later. Extra 25% off for first s&s order. Then I'll suspend deliveries.

Oh pleased you got it girlie

I've just had my bacon sandwich bacon super crispy obviously.

This morning ds has football training then I'm going shopping and to hobbycraft. Dd needs to make a pyramid for her homework.

I also need to go through our finances our money is just disappearing at the moment.

I might apply for a house from the country estate. They have about 250 houses. Rent is cheaper than market rent and my dad has contacts there so he's going to have a word. If we could get our names down and get something in a couple of years that would be great.

I think I'm going to have to take out the money from my betfair exchange account later.