Festive Frugaleers gather round the (best value and carefully researched) Christmas Tree for support, advice and chat. All welcome.

[needastrongone]

New thread.

Sorry Sunny forgot to reply .
I have a regular twice weekly market near me plus several farmshops and a greengrocer.
I find its much cheaper for me to go to the market on a Sat morning .
For example -a big bowl of 6 red pointy peppers is £1 .
Waitrose or Tesco £1.99 for 2 .
We eat very seasonally -cabbages 50p,broccoli 3 heads £1 .
I dont mind and have the time to bimble about but I can see if you dont have much spare time why online shopping works better .

The silk definitely wasn't me (I live in jeans) but it's just people having different priorities.

We are not a thread about having to spend absolutely bugger all and being super strict, of course anyone in that situation is welcome just as any other situation is, I really think the best thing about this thread is that we are all in different situations with different priorities and yet we have this huge common goal.

I'm knackered and have a tummy ache so I've shoved a part bake baguette in the oven for the Caglets to fill with whatever they can find in the fridge (we had an epic roast at lunch) and we are watching Vicar of Dibley

laksa Where’s the “berate the frugal ones” thread?

This is a frugal thread not a 'you can only join if you're poor' thread. I'm better suited to the latter though

Anyway. Why am I desperate to go sale shopping? I feel like I'm missing out, I might pop into town to at least get some things to stock the present cupboard as that'll come in handy throughout the year.

Helllooooo!!!

I'm done... the last guest has left...it's been non stop house full from Friday evening until now, all good. My DF was also in hospital all day yesterday with chest pains (utterly and amazing service from our wonderful wonderful NHS, all hail you amazing NHS employees), DM decided she wouldn't come over tonight, despite my DB driving miles especially, because she'd 'already seen me once this Christmas', all normal stuff here!

Busy but lovely, and cheap. I planned one sale purchase of some Denby wine glasses, to replace my chipped and broken few and stuck to that.

£50 in Sainsbury's today, on milk, bread, essentials and a pile of reduced meat, salmon and turkey as I there early and it was all reduced. And 2x 12 crackers for £1.20 each for next year.

So, I'm keeping up from now, thankfully.

It was the "no spend January" thread, and it was just one comment...LLL pointed them our way as a brilliant friendly thread, and a poster clearly read a few posts, went wtf?? and buggered off! I'm a bit defensive about our thread, as you lot have helped me so much in this past year.

Yes, I'm doing a very tightly controlled no spend 2018, but I really need to, and I now have the tools to do a whole 365 days without falling off the wagon.

We'll still eat good homemade food, I expect a few random trips to maccyd's, and if the dc need anything, then of course I'll spend. But random yarn, plants, pointless overspending is gone. All credit cards will be monitored, over paid (I do this anyway, always pay at least £50 over min amount) as much as I can, and I'll penny sweep each week into the one linked to my bank account.

I will be tightly controlling my spends until at least May. Last big spend done today - gym membership £437. Dh says he’ll send me the money for it.

So as of now I’m budgeting and selling on eBay again. This will help with the house move. Every little bit saved helps right?

Absolutely em although I can't help wondering if you might need the baby clothes again soon

HAHA lonely no chance!!

We talked about it and financially we’d be worse off. If we were the planning type we’d need to wait until ds is 3 and qualifies for free nursery hours. Also I’m not sure I could cope mentally with two so young.

incidentally we haven’t you know since ds has been here no time just too tired!

Hi all. Sorry, have completely failed to keep up over Christmas. On my third NSD though so being a reasonably good Frugaleer.

Hope DD improves soon Seacow.

What a shit your BIL is Em.

I'm quite interested in doing a NSJ too. Might seek that thread out!

Wow, the thread got busy this afternoon!
Horrible for your sister Em
Glad your dad is okay need and hope the poorly dc improve quickly wreck & seacow

Had a lovely family day. Had a walk, a drink at the pub, tea at mum & dad's and played lots of card games at different points in the afternoon/evening. Cheat was the dc' favourite game, great fun.

Back to work today, need to get to sleep.

Travelling from house to house visiting friends & family today so I splurged on a takeaway - €24.10 rather expensive as it was just me & dc that it catered for, they didn't eat it either so I've boxed it up in the fridge.

Must check out that thread

Welcome newcomers!

Sorry to hear about your dsis Em. He sounds charming!

I'm having ict issues and it's stressing me out so today's job is to try and sort them fat chance with 3 "little helpers"

We haven't spent any money over Xmas since dh went out for cat food on the 23rd.

Thanks for all the welcomes this is a friendly thread

We ended up getting takeaway last night which was £11. That makes yesterdays total spend £37. Before that i hadnt spent anything since the 23rd.

Have a £4 off £40 tesco coupon so booking a shop of tins etc for tomorrow on one of their four hour £1 delivery slots. That should hopefully see us to next week

That's a really good idea turkey about the tins, like that one!

north, he seems okay thanks, they were incredibly thorough and he was sent to another hospital at one point too as they had specialist equipment. The staff were nothing less than cheerful and kind (working on Boxing Day) and the doctor that initially saw him at the walk in centre actually phoned him in the evening to see how he was. We all knock the NHS, I think we expect an awful lot of it and don't appreciate just how amazing it generally is.

Our Christmas has been the same as yours north, DC are older but it's been lovely to have the time with them.

This is our first lazy day and I'm going to make the most of it. Planning to clean the bathrooms and make turkey broth (stock already make from the carcass, spare turkey split in to packs and frozen), have a run and that's it!

I'm going to make soap today. The lack of thermometer & mold was holding me back but I think I've got a loaf tin I can use & I found a method that doesn't use a thermometer.

The recipe for soap hasn't changed for about 500 years and I doubt tudour England had thermometers & they managed.

Palm oil free too. The downside is it takes 4 weeks to turn into soap.

Eugh my dc are in a horrible mood this morning. I need to go out and get a birthday present. Blah.

Food shop today. And then helping dsis pack up some of his things that he’s left behind.

How could I have forgotten to mention I got the JO 5 ingredients book for Xmas (and 10/10 to dh who got it for £7 in a book sale at work!). About to make polenta biscuits. Have had some polenta knocking about for ages so it will be good to use it up!

meeting Dhs extended family in Italian restaurant for lunch (MILs birthday) and also will catch up with DD and DGDs to give them their presents...DD is back at work tomorrow though.

We may drive back this evening in that case then , the M25 was totally horrendous yesterday so may be quieter this evening....

We haven't had Turkey! strangely I am craving some... but only as turkey and ham and pickle sarnies (may see if i can pick up any reduced).. We haven't spent any money since 23rd either except my £5 yesterday. dont think we need anything either except maybe some salad/green veggies

Couldn't agree more re NHS need I've had some great experiences especially recently when staff have been absolutely lovely. I did have a giggle today though as I found out after phoning to check an appt that they have got an old mobile number for Cagletini - have had current one for at least 5 years and obviously put that on the registration form so not sure how that happened! Sorted now though so I can get confirmation texts etc and they phoned me when they realized why I hadn't so that's good. She's got her first injections today eeeek.

Shopping arrived, about £70 which includes lots of buffet stuff for the next few days. All very boring stuff and I am so looking forward to hopefully being in a bigger kitchen next year and having actual counter space (currently there literally isn't even room for the chopping board unless I slide half of it under something). Cooking will become much more fun again! :)

Wreck is it an item your relative would've spent a lot on? It's really tricky to know whether to tell her or not. I generally think if a present is just 'wrong' it's still better to just move on, I was proud of DD1 yesterday as she was really grateful for a duplicate gift and didn't let on at all as she knew it was still a nice gesture and generous gift. DS would probably have said something not to be rude but his autism presents so differently to DD1's, he needs more reminders! Anyway I can easily sell it to HE friends and she gets a little extra spending money, but with a broken toy it's difficult as it's a shame to have spent her money on something that doesn't work and she may want to know so she can get a replacement or refund. Or if nothing can be done then it may just be pointless/upsetting. Would your parents/other relative maybe know where they got it?

Babies are excellent contraception em :o

I expect the Caglets will want to spend their Christmas money today, they got £20 each so feel mega rich (will let them go up to £25 though as it's pocket money day on the 1st anyway). Looks like I'll be browsing the build a bear sale with DD1.

I'm not fussed about the sales myself. My clothes fit reasonably (better than before pregnancy in fact so really pleased with that) although my coat is falling apart. Just can't be bothered to shop though! I have some Christmas money but meh. Maybe I'll change my tune if I go to the shops.

I like the idea of soap making fluffy
Not that I need anymore craft stuff.
What do you think of those melt and piyr bases they sell on Amazon?
They do a goat milk one -I love goatmilk soap and always have a bar on the go.
Im wary of ending up with £££ sacks of ingredients /pots/supplies to make a few bars of soap

I will confess that I used to make all my own cleaning products but eventually the smell made me heave and laundry gloop didnt make my towels really clean.

Em my heart goes out to your dsis

Checking in so that I’m in time for the next thread. I join and lurk every year and it all goes to pot in about July. I am determined this year that I’m going to be more committed