The Friendly Frugaleers Keep on Chatting (and having babies!)

[WreckTangled]

New thread, everyone welcome!

Ooh, I’ve had a NSD too, bonus!

I’m in bed. Was clever enough to give dh a lie in this morning so he has to get up tomorrow when the clocks have gone back

Someone has been letting off fireworks for half an hour. Crap ones too.

My mission this week is to memorise my credit card details so I can stop paying the 2% surcharge on paypal. The first hurdle is that I'm too lazy to get the card out and look at it, but I'm working on that. Zzzzzz

I did that too Wreck . I dread to think how early the dts will be up. It was 5 am today.

Em dh suddenly produced a bottle of Malbec this evening to have with our veggie chilli. You are quite right it is indeed delicious. I had a very small glass as I'll probably up half the night again.

Just finished Strictly and am in bed. Send positive sleep vibes to us please!

I'm imagining three sleeping children and sending the vibes your way.

I looooved Debbie's charleston snuggly!

fluffy no they don’t. I should probably send them an insta-tweet-book notification. Ha!

snuggly enjoy the wine!! Jealous. I forgot I had about half a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc (shearwater bay I think) in the fridge. Am already in bed feeding baby. Dh said to shout if I wanted anything. I doubt “anything” stretches to wine. Will have a glass tomorrow.

Ds is asleep. Thinking about it he’s barely napped all day. I’m not telling you what I’m hoping for. But will let you know if it happens. (Ps it’s not a full nights sleep. I’m not daft).

Sending full night sleep vibes to all others with baby ones.

cag oooh me tooo I love strictly. Secretly I want to go on it. But alas. I’m neither professional dancer or celeb. Actually I just want the sparkly flapper style tassel dress the tan and the glitter.

DD is desperate to learn the charleston herself but her ballroom club don't do it. Need to find someone else to teach her somehow.

£75 is a heck of a "buy local" price increase em :( but glad you have a good fit.

So I might have to return to postnatal ward tomorrow. Spoke to a lovely lovely midwife on the phone as still passing big clots (TMI sorry) - if anymore overnight I have to go to get checked out. Blaaaaargh.

That's annoying Cag - it's a fair old round trip for you, isn't it? Probably fine but better to be safe than sorry. I think the whole time around birth is so strange - like your body isn't really your own. Just there for the inspection and prodding by dozens of strangers! I hope your blues aren't too bad and you perk up soon. Birth is a massive thing to go through and the hormones are a wild ride!

Lots of poorly frugaleers, hope everyone feels better soon .

My DH has come down with a cold so I am on children duty tonight. Haven't managed to sleep at all yet thanks to DD but doubt I would anyway thanks to the rather gruesome noises coming from DH. I wish I'd thought to banish him to the spare room but the bed is covered in laundry

I am feeling pretty knackered right now and very of those people who were in bed at 9pm.

Still, fake diet KFC thingy was lush! Come to think of it I could eat it all again right now. Being awake all night makes me hungry.

I never did get those bulbs planted. Went to Homebase though only to find my regular branch is closing down. Got what I went for and a few things were reduced on he clearance too. Still £40.

God I really want to kick DH right now. Snotty snoring is grim 😬😷

Sunny we had quite a good night. Please can you visualise them all sleeping every night?!

Debbie's Charlston was indeed fab. Also love Alex and Aston and the bloke off Holby with the spiders. That twisty thing he did on the floor was cool!

seacow Eugh it’s the worst. Poor you.

I also enjoyed Gemma’s jive. I’ve been looking online whilst feeding ds. There are tons of dance classes I could take. Both ballroom and Latin. Maybe in the new year...

Awake again with ds. Tonight has been (so far) a bit easier. Bedtime at 1030. Awake at 230. Awake again now. I’m hoping dh sticks to his promise and takes him at around 730/8 so I can sleep in. It’s doubtful as hell probably sleep until 10.

Catface will need feeding in a bit too.

Nsd today. Yesterday was spendy.

I'd love to learn to jive Em. I'm not sure my knees and back would enjoy it very much though.

Just trying to get my head round when to do bottles/meals/naps today so the dcs don't all end up in bed at 5.30. I think we've just written today off really.

Oh no cag that will be horrible for you hopefully a quick check and they won’t keep you in.

Well I slept from 8:30-6 the dc have just got up.

Tango is the one I’d love to learn. Argentine tango.

Ds just got back to sleep. Then I heard the noise. It wasn’t just a fart. It was what our family term a “master blaster” not quite as severe as a poosplosion. But bad enough for 6am....

Unhelpfully he’d also wet through to his sheet. So. Because I’m a genius and left the spare clean bedding in the spare room where dh is snoring away ds’ basket is now made up with a towel on top of the mattress. Classy.

Completely for got about the clocks so celebrated a lie in that wasn't.
Dd is much better so we are off to Whitby this afternoon. Won't be cheap.

Pleased people managed to get sleep.

I have to go food shopping today. Really don’t want to.

snuggly I'll give it a go.

I forgot completely about the clock change. Thanks for mentioning wreck

Morning.

I've only skim read as yesterday we traveled back down from beautiful Scotland and then spend the afternoon getting sorted, therefore millions of piles of washing, supermarket delivery, unpacking blah blah. Lovely friend cooked tea though.

Sorry so many of you guys are having sleep disturbed times. Not good. Those early years are certainly tough.

Life, I'm glad you are okay and just busy, I prefer a quite morning update please to ease my mind

Girlie, I didn't settle to having a dog at first either. It actually took a few months although granted that was also cos he was a puppy and they are hard work in themselves. Being honest, I wouldn't continue with the pony, I'm sick of early starts, mud, vet bills and constant care. But I couldn't ever take that passion away from DD while I have the means to do it. The dogs have probably done more for DH's mental health than any pill. I love the stupid sods now though and they made the holiday. It's a very tough call. Do what is right for you are your little family alone. That's the only advice from me emotionally, I've tons of advice on the practicalities. You are the sensible sort and will figure it out I'm sure. X

Today will be NSD.

Yesterday was £194 at Ocado. Ouch. All meals, bar one for all four of us all week, plus beer for DH and trick or treat sweets.

I came in £60 under my weekly budget, including buying a fair few Christmas presents. No beauty advent calendars (don't need) but came close to buying DS a pork scratching one for a joke

snuggly, the paneer and spinach curry in the new JO book is bloody amazing and takes minutes. Try it. Quick meal when time pushed for sure, so simple.

That's excellent value Need, £200 is my monthly budget for us & the cat although last month was less.

I'm only spending my half of the months food bill now so dhs part won't be needed for three weeks.

£91 in Waitrose for three weeks food & cat litter, one weeks cat food. I have enough Amazon vouchers to do a cat food order of 96 pouches using the subscribe & save 20% off voucher for about £2 later.

I used the new shopping account with Halifax to get 10% off my Waitrose shop in cashback.

Mobile expressions need me to uninstall & install a new version on my mobile. If I do they'll give me an extra £10 Amazon voucher so I'll use that for dhs present.

I just tried to exert myself and pay for something by credit card instead of paypal to avoid the fees, but the credit card link just sent me to paypal to make a new account. That was a bit surprising.

Fluffy I'm just waiting for my Sainsbury's credit card to come and then I'll be using them exclusively to maximise the points for the first 3 months. I forgot that I just also need tea, have a voucher for 250 extra nectar points for Yorkshire Gold, so deliberately didn't order from Ocado.

One thing which I like re Ocado is the Flash Sales at the checkout process, I got my chicken for the week half the price of buying even of promotion. Veggies often come up on this too, and ham for lunches, bread etc.

That's fair going under £50pw last month.

I've a few minutes free now so going to look at my Amazon S&S items, haven't checked for a while.

HAve been dozing on and off since 6. But have just brought tea and toast back to bed. Pastries (from the farmshop on Monday) were on breakfast agenda. But I just had a baby and have bf him through the night. I can have two breakfasts right?!

Since he’s had his cold I’ve been bf more. It seems to be helping him. Also he lifted his head right up earlier and slammed it against my boob. So probably got a bit of milk up his nose. He is strong for 5 weeks.

My toast is lovely. Granary bread with the “cheap” jam on it. I think it was 40p a jar. It’s polish strawberry jam. Much nicer than Robertson’s or a supermarket one. Gigantic lumps of strawberry and it’s that red/brown homemade jam colour. And less added sugar. Oh and it’s sweet. Yum. And we have the lovely French butter. Mmm.

Catface has been fed. Ds fed and sleeping. Dh sleeping. I’m in the middle of the bed. Loads of pillows. Yay.

Turning to Christmas. Dsis has kind of thwarted my plans for presents for our parents. But she’s come up with a great idea for them as a joint gift. Smart tv.

Dad moans about how teeny their tv is. It’s seriousky tiny. He moans about the cost of sky. So. We’re going to smart tv them. We think we’ll get a pretty good one for around £300 which split two ways (dsis and I will stump up the cash) works out at roughly the cost we’d spend on their presents anyway - we tend to go overboard on Christmas because they do so much for us throughout the year.

Ooh that's one of my favourite meals Need. I think Father Christmas might be bringing me the new book so I'll look out for it!