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 also posted some pa meme on Facebook yesterday in French. It translates as “wait, you mean to say “Mummy” isn’t your real name...?!” Mil has recently friended me on fb. She liked the meme.

Girlie do I remember you mentioning that you might dip your toe into the dating field this year? Could you save for a nice ring for yourself? Not being in a relationship shouldn't make you ringless

Sunny well done how did it go for dh?

Christmas you're incredible I'd definitely be napping, although we as mothers just cope don't we. I did 2.5 years of those kind of nights with ds & it's a living nightmare! Sounds like you'd a lovely day yesterday- afternoon tea price

Em your mil has some neck

Today we wrapped until we ran out of wrapping paper, dd wrote some cards, filled some photo frames, tidied the Christmas wrapping stuff down to one box from two huge bags & tidied my floorrobe, I ate freezer surprise which was chicken curry & everyone had the bacon cabbage & mash. Not a nsd because I'm now in town to do grocery shopping and buy cold remedies from late night pharmacy.

Does anyone have iTunes membership?

I don't know how any of you parents do it. It sounds so hard.

Cag I think I'd pass. Being isolated like that wouldn't be good for you. The house sounds lovely but there will be other houses.

I'll do spends tomorrow.

Christmas is your dd on medication for her reflux? That sounds exhausting for you. Both my ds had reflux so you have my sympathies.

Had a spendy day today as went to the cinema and then out for dinner. That's our Christmas treat. £5.50 for a hotdog in the cinema

€166.17 at Aldi includes finishing off stockings, wrapping paper & gifts for au pairs grandchildren & all meat for week too
€16 Tesco pasta, flaxseed, shoe polish, massive bottle of sweet chilli sauce and lemsip cold & flu (paracetamol restrictions so had to buy in two places as both dh& I have under the weather)
€26.55 at pharmacy on cold & flu remedies, cough bottle for ds & zirtek also for ds.

Feeding five of us all meals for the week for about €150 when take away extras & cleaning supplies from bill I think this is pretty good.

Eek! Spendy day. Will post properly tomorrow. Just placemarking.

Yes mammy that was the plan maybe 2018 😉 tbh I'm happy single 99% of the time but recently I have been thinking of how nice it would be to have the security of another income coming in! It feels scary sometimes being the only earner, it would also be nice to meet someone for emotional support.

The thought of jumping into the dating game again though

Girlie is there room in your life for a significant other? What would dd make of it?

I slipped into some online shopping while dh had one of those gameshows on, all he seems to watch these days is gameshows and reality tv both of which I have no tolerance for Needed to buy another item for his adult goddaughter so bought her a necklace, then looked at earrings for upcoming wedding & it was buy one pair get second half price & I got a 10% disc also so €45 cost €33.75

Mammy thanks for asking. It was quite a week for him I think. He's doing a lot of sleeping :-)

In the meantime, my science grant requires me to make videos teaching photography, so I am learning how to do that. It's quite fun actually.

Ah had a really good nights sleep. Over 11 hours

We're getting our tree today! Hopefully dh will pay then this afternoon it's the village's children's Christmas party.

Should be nsd today. Yoga in about an hour then we have friends coming round for late lunch/dinner. Toad in the hole, mash and veggies.
Hopefully ds’ future godfather. We haven’t asked him yet....

He'll totally say yes em

I think the snow is going to miss us. This is okay, but I do like it, it hides the hideous state of the garden.

Have to pop out for milk and dog kibble today. But cracking on with the living room, hopefully to decorate tomorrow night. Having the day at the old shop tomorrow, dismantling things, and wrapping presents.

Aargh so our laptop isn’t playing any sound whatsoever. FFS. Any ideas? I have been right through all the settings. It’s practically brand new. :(

Re: the house. Rent will be much cheaper - £600 a month when we pay £900! For an extra bedroom plus garden as well, and market rent for our property is currently about £1100 so it really is a huge saving.

Energy efficiency is a good point. We will possibly pay more in fuel though as our current house has bugger all heating. #cold. It’ll therefore be more spendy if we suddenly have the luxury of a working radiator in every room! But still next to the rent saving I’m sure it wouldn’t be huge.

We are definitely going to have to visit. We are both desperate to move and I don’t want to discount it just because of fear especially when there are properties at this place coming up really frequently compared to the rest of town. The walk to the other bus stop (which has really good frequent buses) doesn’t look that long at all, especially now that I am managing better - it’s about the same as the walk back from the shops that I’ve managed recently, and it’s flat rather than uphill so even easier. BUT we need to see if it’s safe with decent pavements and good lighting as I will have a buggyless toddler in a couple of years. And a teenager who will want to go out without us. I think we have been rather spoiled living 2 minutes from a bus stop. Apparently they are working to improve the roads but again how long will that take.

Re flare ups they are gradual and it’s not really a case of suddenly being totally unable to walk - it’s more pain levels really so it’d be a struggle and then potentially being more unwell for a while. Finding out taxi rates is an excellent idea, I need to ask about car seats too. Current car seat can attach to the buggy instead of the carrycot but she will outgrow that after a while.

Should probably get up now. I slept so late yesterday but didn’t really feel any better for it! Must finish the Christmas shopping online, we’ve been dithering mostly over adult DSCs and need to make the decisions!

DS needs to choose something for DH’s birthday too (next month but we like to get things sorted before Christmas) but I have an amazon voucher that I cashed in from TCB. I really need to get better at using cashback sites, maybe even those shopmium things that Fluffy posts (now that I’m managing to get about more it would be more feasible to visit shops) and definitely get back to survey sites. Would give me something to do during feeds as Cagletini is a very slow feeder.

cag I think car seats while compulsory for private cars are not compulsory for taxis. So as long as you hold cagletini I think you’ll be ok in a cab sans car seat. I think. That’s how it works here anyway.

Em is right. Whilst it’s not ideal to travel in a taxi without one, it’s not illegal.

£19.50 Christmas tree

FFS. I got to the gym at 1020 for my yoga class at 1030 only to find out it actually started at 10. Ffs. Have just got home from gym. Figured I may as well work out while I was there.

No snow here. It’s unlikely that we’ll get any but I’m hoping for snow. It’s be lovely for ds’ first Christmas to be a white one. Doubtful though.

£21 eBay on a humongous bundle of 3-6month boys clothes. Hoorah. There must be about 100 items. So I’ve got a bargain there.

Ferries are cancelled here today. The French boat because of the strikes by the dock workers in st malo and the uk one because of weather (Although it’s a bloody miracle if the “fast” boat sails in good weather) it must be bad mid Channel though as the “proper” ferry (which takes 10 hours from Portsmouth) isn’t running either. Windy as hell outside though.

There are four provinces in Ireland the other three have a weather alert for snow, ours doesn't it's raining here for last 15 hours!
My parents have snow dc are very excited for them parents not so much!

Cag Is it possible that you are still in remission because you are bf? I think that happened to me and it was a bit of a shock after having a lovely healthy pregnancy and four years of feeling super-human while bf. I'm just thinking that if you are better in town if you do come out of remission again, then that might be a factor a little way down the line.

The new warm houses do sound lovely though. If you had all that extra money would you be able to run a car?

We have a whole bunch of snow here, it's really good.

I'm not in remission from the fibro entirely tbh. Joints are unbelievably achy lately and I feel very weighed down by it if that makes sense. My general fitness has improved massively though and losing weight has helped I think. So the walking I've done lately has been easy and not left me dizzy and achy and faint now has pretty much no impact. It's very odd. I am starting to feel like I am better when I am moving than when I'm resting at home. It's very confusing as that's the opposite to how it was before when I needed lots of rest. So far so weird. It's a good point about the BF though and I plan to let her self wean so could be a factor for at least another 2 years. I'm going to see what the doctor says on Tuesday (6wk check). I suppose really being still very much in the recovery bit (even though it feels like she's been here forever) it's too soon to really know. But the fact I'm managing to walk further (still not far by most standards but massive for me) is amazing! Sorry I'm waffling I'm distracted by vicar of dibley Christmas special :o

Cag I love my new little new build house but would be buggered if I didn't have my car as we are also about a 15 min car journey out of town. I can't remember if there was a reason why your dh doesn't drive but a saving of £300 a month maybe one of you could do an intensive course of lessons? I reckon one of you driving would be completely life changing for your family.

We have had a ridiculously lazy morning, the weather here is abysmal!! Very dark and stormy, no snow sadly that would be exciting. Was planning on doing some National Trusting later will see if we can muster some energy together to brace the elements!!

Sorry keep forgetting to say driving is out of the question for both of us physically for a few reasons. Not sure the money saved would end up being enough either if we want to save and clear debt? This has never been an issue really, public transport is fab here and considering how much we travel it's quite rare that I think 'man I wish we had a car' but the worry is that it's quite different if we are further out. But it may well be that the walk to the better bus stop (where there is a bus up to every 6min) is easy in which case it could be great. But I am being firm with DH that I have to really consider this as, with him being much fitter and used to walking/running everywhere and also not generally doing all the to and fro with the Caglets, it really impacts me much more than him. So if I say I don't want to move there then that's that. :) Just need to arrange to visit now. Great timing when we have soooo much else to do!

Cag That all makes a lot of sense yes. Thanks for explaining. It's good to know how things are going. I've found my health has changed radically in all sorts of different directions through pregnancy and breastfeeding and what I suppose must also be the perimenopause as I'm a little bit past 40 now. It seems to hard to know how things will change. A warm house does sound very good though.