Frugaleers hurtling through November... is it too early to mention the C word? All welcome for money saving chat!

[Cagliostro]

Hi all, please settle in for chatting about all things frugal, and all things everything else :o

Amazon is a dangerous place! On top of the board games I got earlier I have also taken up the four for £10 offer (blaming laska :o), Paddington gift edition £9, pop up book making kit £8 and a baby toy £7 on lightning deals

Oooops

lonely When Dh plays with our cat I hear "Nooo, paws not claws" usually followed by an ouch and a "that's it, if you can't play nicely we're not playing".

Nothing I want is in Black Friday

Lumie clock
Led face mask
Aeropress.

Heated throw.

It's all smart lighting & alexas.

I want dinner. I just realised I hadn’t had any. Ds has been a bit of a monkey. He’s fine until I put him in his bed. Then he cries. So I’m sitting in the dark in our bedroom with him. I left my gin in the other room. Dh is out with our friends. I am jealous.

Also ds has started getting more control of his head. Sadly not full control as he’s head butted me a lot today. The last one made him cry too. I’ll be superbly lucky if I don’t have a black eye tomorrow. It’s bloody lucky he’s a cute one.

He’s made new noises today. Oooh’d and aaah’d and said something that sounded like “oooh nooooo”

I’ve just text dh to bring chips on his way home. Chips all for me. I do not want to share chips.

lonely inrepeatedly have to tell catface “we don’t bite our mummies do we?” She never listens though. She pads and pads and pads and I pat and pat and pat and pat and cuddle and cuddle and then bam. I get chewed.

She pounced me all night last night and I got hunted this afternoon.

Nobody should have to share chips! 😱😱😱

Today has been spendy! £85 at Amazon for Christmas presents. Thanks to Cag who noticed the Harry Potter scrabble in the sale, I've been wanting it all year!

£30 at The Works.

£20 buying dinner because I couldn't be bothered to cook for my starving horde so got them microwave meals (reduced ones though!)

Hope you got your chips em, and didn't have to share any.

:o I guess I am an enabler too. I am hoping DD1 will actually start getting into word games if it is HP themed!

What did you get in the works? I don't think I've ever managed to spend £30 in there :o

I forgot I also bought plasticine today, £2 - we were watching Trap Door earlier and DS decided he wanted to try making the characters. Too cute. He had a go while mum took DD1 to ballet. Oh also £8 ballet school t-shirt (they need it for the show apparently)

And I owe a friend who sells usborne £19ish for the complete Shakespeare stories book (I've seen it, it's AMAZING) and That's Not My Hedgehog which DD1 chose for the baby for Christmas :o ❤️

The Kane Chronicles 3 book set (by author of Percy Jackson), Star Trek pop up book, Quidditch set. I bought them online.

I get all excited when they arrive but can't actually open the boxes till I'm ready to wrap them as my boys are naughty snoopers.

BTW girlie you are so right about the waiting for the next attack thing. I am so anxious anyway and it has flared up big time since the birth and this on top of everything is just too much. I had just started to relax after the first one and then BAM! I am also confused as the first one was about an hour after eating, whereas the second was at 2am. I need to find out more about how it all works. It's just making me not want to eat and I'm worrying all the time, and I feel sick and achy a lot. But the scan person seemed hopeful it'd get better - maybe as it's just one little stone, I don't know.

Board games - hmmm I'd have a look at:
Callisto
Indigo
Marrakech
Kingdomino
Gobblet
Ingenious
Patchwork
Dragonwood
Forbidden Desert
Carcassonne

All quite a leap from the usual monopoly and stuff, as they aren't "roll dice and move" IYSWIM. So the instructions can be off putting if you're new to it. Worth it though IMHO. There's a whole world of amazing games out there :o obsessed much?

Star Trek pop up :o amazing. I got a pop up book for DD1 about kings and queens! Lots of random facts from 1066 onwards - hoping there'll be at least one thing in there that she doesn't already know from Horrible Histories and I'll have to check if there's inaccurate slagging off of Richard III as she will shout at the book if so. But for £2.50 (it was one of the four for a tenner) it must be worth a go!

I really need to order a new phone. I should've done it in town today but I hate changing phones at the best of times and I just couldn't face it when feeling crap. Uggggh CHANGE I hate change! Just want something cheap.

Time for me to confess up to my spends:
£60 in Tesco but included tree lights and other Christmas snacks
£141 on DP’s new tablet for Christmas but got 8% off the gift vouchers I bought to purchase it
£49.99 on a new kindle HD for me for Christmas

DP does deserve a nice gift. His tablet has just snuffed it. He says he can wait until Christmas, I wonder if he will

No one should ever be expected to share chips em

seacow your weight loss sounds great!

Still haven’t started the family gifts Christmas shopping. Ahhhh

I just realised my board game spiel sounds totally patronising sorry not intended. I'm just remembering the first time I played a game (settlers of catan - actually, add that to the list!) that wasn't like normal games. I was SO confused. Never looked back though. Aaaah games. ❤️

Also the original Bounce Off game is really fun. Always comes out at family game nights

I feel we are ready for a step up cag as I'm getting very bored with the current games! Have they given you any drugs to take incase of any other attacks? You need decent painkillers and I found buscopan helpful as well.

They said buscopan is good and she explained why it works which was cool as I get a lot of anxiety (me? Who'd have thought it) about taking new meds. Other than that it's probably just paracetamol and ibuprofen really because of BFing the baby. I have been using the TENS machine though, it distracts me enough to sleep! I need to order more pads for it actually as they are finally losing stick.

I forgot to say well done on weight loss seacow that's amazing! ⭐️

Sounds stressful waiting for another attack, I hope the doctor can help Cag.

We already have one Star Trek pop up book we got from the car boot sale a couple of months ago. The only problem is I buy these things without actually knowing which child I'm going to give them to! 4 out of 5 are Star Trek fans!

I bought Exploding Kittens from Amazon as it was in the sale. No idea what it's about but DS3 & 4 wanted it ages ago.

I'm the same about change. I've only just updated my iOS on my phone after 3 years as it wouldn't let me update loads of apps and kept throwing me off others. It's all different! 😱

You know the older I get, the more I realise how much anxiety I have (probably always had). I too never update my phone/tablet. The fab phone dp bought me for my birthday is still unused. I'm "just using up my credit I've topped up twice " on my ancient galaxy 3. I have trouble spending odd coins, 50p's and £2 with non standard backs. I check each coin. It's tedious. I have very set routines for door locking/checking. I panic at smells, especially chemically ones, and cannot deal with adrenaline at all.

This year of frugalling has done me the world of good. I was right on the edge of totally out of control money wise, and now I'm not. Now I know I'm ok. The support you lot have given me is monumental. Honestly, you're all amazing.

I hear ya!

When I was diagnosed with CFS/ME, part of it was a mental health assessment. The professor asked me if I felt anxiety or panic and I said no. Two days later a psychiatrist told me I probably have OCD. The thing with anxiety is, if you are so used to worrying about EVERYTHING, you don't even know you are doing it. It's like your baseline. I have always worried, assumed the worst, gone through millions of scenarios in my head etc. Always. So I genuinely didn't think it was anxiety. It was somewhat lifechanging to realise it. I've always been treated for depression but I now understand and accept that that's secondary to the fact I'm worrying all the time, and in the past would get upset/guilty/ashamed/angry at myself due to worrying. Meds never worked and now I understand why. I am expecting a conversation about meds on Thursday with GP, for the first time I will be specifically asking about anti anxiety rather than the usual ADs I've tried. But not sure if it's time to take them yet.

I agree this thread is amazing - really glad it has helped you gain control. Money is such a massive massive deal and getting that sorted really is life changing

I'm back!!! Need a mega catchup

Hey mammy

Girlie I forgot Pentago on the list. Specifically for two players, like a grown up fancy version of connect four.

I've heard great things about exploding kittens! (That's a weird sentence out of context.) Not tried it though.

Just waiting for baby to drop off again. She's been in the same routine since a few days old - feeds around 2 and 5. Need to work on going to bed earlier with her though but I'm lame and miss DH so wait for him to get back from work and also trying to get her to sleep on her back rather than propped up on me!

Hoping I might finally get to go to ballroom so they can meet DD2 today, we've been scuppered every week so far.

Cag ds would only settle on me so eventually I have in and put him down on his tummy. He settled then.

Going to see little mix today with dd and my friend her her two girls. Dh taking ds to air arena with my friends husband and son. Should be good.

Glad to hear we're not the only ones on the comfort food here. Crisps really are great winter food aren't they?

Lonely I know what you mean. We just had to fill in a disabled access questionnaire at our primary school and I plucked up the courage to say that I find the strong smells there difficult to deal with. I think that if people were absolutely honest we'd find that the "normal" level of worry was much higher than we're led to believe. I don't think the tv news and newspaper headlines help.

seacow great weight loss
lonely great news on the yarn sales. I sold some fabrics a while ago and it was the genuine vintage (1940s) stuff that made the most, strange designs and not something I would've ever used but definitely saleable.
Cag glad you have a diagnosis now
I've been struggling to keep up with the thread for the last few weeks. Life has been so so hectic & I'm not entirely sure why!
This week I've just been managing day to day with a list of jobs made in the morning although work gets in the way of that . Dd had her birthday and her drama show yesterday so that was chaotic. How did she get to be a teenager?? Anyhow, she was very happy with her day, today is the drama show matinee, then it's all done & we're having a birthday tea. I plan to partake in a glass or five of wine! The show is made up of pieces from several different shows. She got Maria in the Sound of Music & sang Edelweiss beautifully, bless her, it brought tears to our eyes. It's one of her favourite films & she knows all the words so she was in her element.
Her request for a birthday cake was for a carrot cake so that was made after the show last night and just needs icing today. Then I'm going to do a raid on Aldi for frozen party food I can just heat up later.
Circuits class first at 9, can't wait

There's only three weeks of school left until Christmas now, and tesco Christmas booking slots are open for reservation tomorrow. It's weird how this period of September to Christmas goes so fast, and January to April goes so slowly.

Sunny we don't break up until the 20th for school. I agree with you about it people were honest it would be more normalised. I think it is getting that way, I'm certainly more honest about it. I do want to come off the sertraline though as I feel much better than ever before but I'm a bit scared.

Wrack I had no idea that you were on sertraline. You do so very well. Counselling might help to just sort out the last few bits if that was an option.

I've been seeing a listening lady for a couple of years now and talking through all of my various life influences has really made me realise how some of the expections placed on me before were just counter-productive.

At the same time, as a Mum I can see all the same expectations and much much more being placed on the children coming through, which really concerns me. Life can be such a tangle sometimes.

I'm glad you're feeling so much better.