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

I love a hand me down, dd used to live in hand-me-downs, charity shop finds and car boot sales stuff. I find it harder to do that now she is older annoyingly!!

Quite a nice day at work, weirdly quiet for a change which meant I could catch up on all the other bits and pieces I never normally get time to do!!

Had to give dd £7 this morning for carol concert ticket and sweetie money for after school.

Its freezing cold here but no snow wouldn't mind a bit, dd has a sledge in the shed that she has never used as the last time it snowed was about 6 years ago

Spendy day oh dear.

£35 in M&S but now have a huge tin of biscuits, some boxes of chocolates for people like neighbours, class teachers, some really good vegeterian nibbles for DD for Christmas which were massively reduced and 32 pigs in blankets for £2 also reduced. Should have been £40 but £5 off with an offer on my sparks card. If anyone is after biscuits in M&S its currently £2.50 cheaper to get the kilo tin of belgian biscuits (in gold tin) than the 400g one :)

Then went to look round charity shops in hope of finding a rug for hall floor. Saw absolutely perfect one only for woman about a foot in front of me to pick it up - gutted it was only a fiver :( Thought horrible thoughts about her then cheered up after finding a lovely box of cutlery for £3 - I have wanted soup spoons for ages but got those along with a quiche slice and six knives and forks - all proper sheffield steel. There was also a lovely silver serving spoon in the box.

Went to discount shop conveniently by bus stop and they had a huge box of hand knitted hats and scarves with kids at 5 for £1!! Bought ds 4 hats (he loses them all the time) and a scarf, myself two pairs of thermal leggings and some gloves, dp some gloves £11.50 the lot

Expensive day - nearly £50 but at least I have biscuits and soup spoons so can tick those off my list

I love a soup spoon lists they're satisfying in the same way as a cake fork. They would be lost on my heathen lot! Yet we use my late great aunts cake forks all the time!

Collected up ds' my fingerling from a bp garage I nominated, about as far from my house as I could have picked. I must check postcodes when picking these things! Morrisons for tea, £18 for 5 of us. But we had to wait almost half an hour. I guess this is normal, and the food was good, so next time I'll shop while dp waits. Then £27 on choc and dog food.

I have done half the kitchen. If you saw my kitchen you'd know this was epic progress. Three big bin bags filled and gone. All my amazon stuff came, all ok. Must check what I've bought before I get any more, I might even be done.

Meadow I hope your Guinea pig is recovering.

Yesterday was £32.50 cats booster, £5 donation to the cat rescue they work with. Cat needs a dental in the next six months so I'm on spending lockdown.

Today was £5 weekly top up.

£2 parking.

Free mince pies on checkoutsmart.

Tomo morn I'm lying in bed & catching up on this thread, at the moment I'm waiting impatiently for the Late Late Toy Show!

Spends today €7.50 on lunch €8 on 4 selection boxes one each for dc for toyshow and two for presents.

Colleague gave me €25 from her share of spends earlier in week on lily O'Briens

Is lily o briens the chocolate thing? I love the dessert set. We used other ones for our wedding favors too.

Who here uses Netflix? Now that I have a decent device to watch stuff on and I am up for night feeds (I have to wake up and get a proper feed down her or she just snacks all night and neither of us sleep) I am so tempted. How much do you pay and is it worth it?

Also does anyone use hi viz reflective stuff, I am thinking it'd be a good idea as it's so dark when we go to clubs in the evenings. But not sure what to use, don't want to sew anything as they don't always wear the same coat etc. Thinking something for each of us and something on the buggy perhaps?

Super proud of DD after watching her at ballet. DS has declared he would like to try tap class will see if he says the same after watching DD in a couple of weeks. Trying not to get too excited as I've wanted him to do dance for ages. He is always dancing. It would just be too cute.

@Cag we have Netflix here but pay £10 a month for lots of devices and 4k quality (no idea what that is) I would say it was worth it. We use it pretty much every day if not every other and it has a wide range of content so I can watch my Rom com's and dp can watch his more eccentric stuff. There's plenty we both watch together and I've never been disappointed with the series I've watched. I think they run a free 30 day trial to test the waters

I just have amazon prime cag for the money you get the delivery, tv thingy and free music streaming. I watch it every day. Haven't touched netflix as we have sky too. But if you already have prime for delivery, do download the tv prime too as it's all included.

Have cleaned the cooker hood (it's now cream. It wasn't before) and the two shelves by it. All the spices etc have been date checked. 2015 was the oldest we found. I have 2 jars of mustard seeds. Why? And wtf do I do with them?

Also have the stockpot filled with the last stored apples, they were starting to go a bit, so bubbling away now to be frozen down.

We have amazon prime and now tv.

Today we're off to Longleat

We have Netflix and an android box and remaining free channels on sky box.
€10.99 a month vs €75 with sky!
Dh mainly uses free channels on sky, myself & dc use all three.

Mustard seeds are used in nigella's brine for soaking turkey afaik lonely made it one year, it wasn't work the effort

Cag lily O'Brien's are chocolates yes
What about those Sam Brown belts which are light to carry and could be stored in buggy? I run in the dark, recently bought primark reflective leggings also wear a hi viz vest (road safety authority & gardai give them for free here) a head torch & a snapband that dc got at Haven funcamp! But there's no lighting or footpath where I run.

Lists soup spoons are the best, dh doesn't get it at all. I eat cake with dc forks, maybe I need to get cake forks! Makes it last longer. Dm volunteers in a charity shop must ask her what kind of stuff they get in.

Have made an enquiry about getting my car valeted - I think it's about €80 so asked if he does mini valet also

Hand me downs all the way here, my dm has passed comments about what bag did that come out of but I know I wore my older cousins clothes & mine were passed on too

Em that's really annoying about rubbish bags, dh works in a waste collection place & is off today yet there's three bags of rubbish in shed why not bring them in on Friday

Speaking of dh he's off out for day for his grandsons birthday male bonding type day, myself & dc all fell asleep at various stages last night watching toy show so hoping they'll stay in bed a while this morning. Dd has a birthday party at two so there's no rush on us this morning

Need black ice is the worst - I've had two crashes ever, both due to black ice. Horrid stuff. Lucky though

Today I'm going to buy some stamps, primark gift vouchers, birthday present for party dd is attending, order online from Socksciety & perhaps book people and do my grocery shopping.

Aldi have hot cloth cleanser in, it has good reviews I love my Superdrug vitamin E one but might buy this or primark one as backup

wreck have a good day at Longleat.
need a lucky escape on the black ice, you have to be so careful at this time of year.
Hand me downs are fantastic. Our dc both had loads from friends children and it saved us a fortune. In turn, we then passed their stuff on, frugal and environmentally friendly.

Still busy here, but good. Church Christmas fair this morning so about to make some cakes, then circuits class. Gym Christmas meal tonight. Working tomorrow.

Good news this week, dh was back paid his 1%pay rise and a non consolidated bonus so that was a welcome little cash boost. Then our service was given winter pressures money so I'm going to increase my hours to 4 days from my current 3 until the end of March. It'll start the week after next so need to get the family on board and super organised!

I love Longleat Wreck. Have a great time.

DH has just nipped out for 4 items from the supermarket and I have told him at least twice to get own brand stuff so it shouldn't cost too much. That should be it for today. Library later and it's time to get the next size baby clothes down from the loft and wash them. They are growing too fast!

Morning all! Thanks for thoughts re my questions :) I forgot about nowtv and prime (we don't have that) is it much the same range on each?

Braving town today. Must be mad it's going to be heaving. But means I get out the house and DH is taking the Caglets to ballroom so I can just take baby and get a few Christmas things in person like their jammies.

I love hand me downs! In fact Cagletini has been wearing lovely clothes from seacow yesterday and I'm hoping to pass on clothes to meadow too :o DD1 is the tallest of her friends so mostly gets new clothes but most of DS' friends are 2 years older so he gets lots of lovely things and I barely buy anything except sometimes at Christmas and birthdays.

Frugal win - DS came up with a present for DD that I'd already bought so that can just be wrapped from him instead.

Organic grape seed oil can be used to clean skin. It just needs to come with Vit e to stop it going rancid.

I love hand me down south too. Dd2's clothes all belonged to DD1 and ds's have all been passed on from friends.

I will soon have a lot of 6-9 month clothes to pass on for both boys and girls if there are any takers?

cag I have these, they are not worth listing on ebay as they're pennies... I'm more than happy to post them to you. They are quite fun (good stocking fillers) as they are the ones that go straight and then snap round arms etc. You could put them round the pram frames. Might help a bit. I'd get little gilets that are bright yellow with retroreflective strips on them for the dc, big enough to go over coats etc. I gave an adults medium if thats any good for you?

Dropped dd1 at a DOE thing, posted my latest lot of ebay sales, and now to get on at home.

Hello. Interesting day yesterday. Spent some time talkin to police and have filed charges for assault and intimidation against neighbour. Long story. But I’m fine (bit shaken up but otherwise fine) ds is fine and dh is proud that i stayed calm (apart from when I was shouting my head off in the car park here to attract attention from nosy neighbours who live overlooking car park) Don’t want to say any more as public internets innit...but needless to say locksmiths is being called for chain lock and spyhole and apartment is being sold ASAP in January.

Had a lovely lunch with Dm and df and ds yesterday. Ds saw his first Christmas tree. He was cool about it.

Riding today (£27 - it annoys me that instructor has upped her prices. I know she’s running a business but I almost never have the correct money. So end up with pound notes floating around in my bag...which I then spend during the week and then never have the correct money on a Saturday. I never learn...?!)

And ££? On locksmiths. Dh says he’ll go to b&q and buy spy hole and fit it but while I know he will do it (eventually) he won’t do it today. And I want it done before Monday (when I’m on my own again).

I do know a lady who bought brand new for each of her dc even though they were all boys it always seemed weird and wasteful to me, but she was sure it would negatively affect her subsequent children if they had to wear pre worn clothes. I always secretly thought she was bat shit.

I had 3 girls, and was on my own for 2 years with them. I couldn't have afforded new clothes, but they would have worn hand me downs anyway! A hand knitted cardi or christmas clothes were about it for dd3. Poor thing - she doesn't give a crap about clothes. She's a fleece, tutu and wellies kinda girl. We were given a lot for ds, which is brilliant too.

I give dd1 my too big jeans (she loves bootleg and I only wear skinnies now), dd2 nicks all my tshirts, so the pattern repeats even once they're big.

I haven't been on this thread for days, I've probably spent loads! I've certainly had a lot of deliveries. I can't open them till I have wrapping paper as nosy children! I think I've mainly finished my Christmas shopping, just some stocking fillers and chocolates to get. Although I might just fill the stockings with chocolate as it's so hard to think of things to get them!

Cag we have Netflix, pay £5.99 for the basic one for one screen. We've watched loads on it so far so I'd say it's worth it.

Hand me downs are the best, I have 5 boys so they get lots handed down.

I've got to take smallest DS to trampolining later, then go back to the same place for a music concert that DS3 & 4 will be performing in. It's a 40 minute walk. I do need the exercise! £6 for a ticket and I will probably get them a hot chocolate from the costa next door after as they've worked hard and had 2 concerts this week.

Have a good time at longleat Wreck, We went there a long time ago (12 years!) as Animal Park used to be DS1's favourite programme.

em I do hope you are ok crikey. This is the crackers noisy neighbour? Get moved out asap. Even if it's not to your forever home. Be careful with shock, it can creep up on you slowly.

Oh no Em What sort of crazy person harms a mother with a baby? I hope you press charges & don't let the police intimidate you into going for a caution instead.

She sounds batshit. You don't need riffraff like that on the island.

Oh god, Em, that sounds awful, I hope you're ok.

Different neighbour. The noisy one has gone. This one was a man, who has up until yesterday done nothing more than be annoying and Park his car too close to mine.

He grabbed my arm and pulled me away from the car. So while technically assault not as bad as if he’d punched me or something. Not dismissing it by any means. I will be pressing charges. Dm was all “but if you’d not done xyz it wouldn’t have happened...” and “he’s only young (18) and was probably just being silly” (classic victim blaming right there!).

I’ve told his landlord. And our building manager and yes flat will be on the market ASAP. We can’t go before Christmas as next Friday is the last court date for property transactions (all have to go through court here). So in January it is.

I feel happy that I’ve done the right things. Happy that I stood my ground. And will not be intimidated. I am scared to be here by myself but will be ok. After riding will take it easy for the rest of the day though.

Em sorry to hear you had such an awful time with neighbour I hope you don't feel unsafe in your own home especially while on maternity leave.

Cag those snap bands that lonely pictured are what I was talking about from haven!

I've covertly brought stuff from au pairs room where dh decided to put them last night while dc were sleeping to attic, they're in the bath, why couldn't he have just made it w straight trip to attic

We had yummy pancakes this morning mine with cheese relish torn Serrano & spinach and seconds with 4 squares of chocolate melted in