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

[needastrongone]

New thread.

My nails are too small for false ones. I know that's ridiculous but it's way too much to do myself! Not allowed it for work anyway

Very cute wreck.

I reckon a lot of minerals are hard to get in diet alone. Iron, magnesium & iodine in particular. I supplement dhs iodine otherwise he'd never get enough.

NSD.

I have bought a Boden Christmas jumper for ds for his school Christmas jumper day #CorruptedByFrugaleers

On way home from town. Wreck Cagletini was super snuggled in the snowsuit! :) Quite a staggering difference from my normal ohshitit'snearlyChristmas trip to town. I felt much more aware of what I was spending where normally I could've easily blown a hundred. I just need to learn to exercise control all the time.

£10.55 sainsburys on a few household bits and treats for strictly final (anyone got a particular favourite? I'm not fussed this year, although Joe is pretty likeable)
£6.09 boots on a drink and funny toothbrushes for stocking. Used boots points though so free.
£3.99 2 pairs gloves for DD1 in h&m, the primark pair she had unraveled already FFS but at least she now has a pair and a spare same as DS
£5.98 toy shop on two tiny Playmobil sets for stockings, think they're done now just DH will get little chocolates at work on double discount day.

Didn't get a chance to get my diary for next year but will go to paperchase next time I'm in town

Oh and £2.55 hot chocolate at the library. We popped in to say hi and feed in the warm and quiet! She got cuddled by more colleagues too.

Salmon risotto for dinner. DH's risotto is awesome. Not authentic but awesome.

Wow Em she really is surpassing herself now isn't she?
Circuits class, done.
Football, done. (And we won, even better)
No spends so far, but that will change as I'm now going out on the work Xmas meal.

Ok, so I have a full coat of paint on the ceiling! Will use up whats left doing another coat tonight.

We washed the ferrets today. Slightly frantic to underplay it. Dp and dd1 cleaned the outside pen and hutch (they now have a cosy layer of horse shavings down), while dd3 and I put them in the bath. 2" of warm water. Then into towels, then all hell broke loose. I still smell of ferrets.

Picked up dd2, spent £17 in the coop. Pigs in blankets for tea, with spagetti in a butternut squash and cheese sauce I found on pintrest, so easy, very yummy.

Fluffy it’s ok, it’s hard being on ML because I want to go to different thins with the baby so we don’t feel so cooped in. Generally I like to think I’m pretty good with money. OH is shocking though so it’s a work in progress.

I am rooting for joe or Debbie. But I am an hour behind because of having to put DD to bed. Looking forward to wine and crisps now while dinner cooks!

I cleaned my grotty bathroom today but not much more. DD didn't sleep for long at lunch and so was grumpy all afternoon. Feeling very fortunate not to have been grappling with ferrets though

Went to a national trust Santa thing today. V good.
£2 on tea, £35 deisel, £10 on tea, £4 arranging return of a £50 Amazon parcel i twitched on. £11 on last minute gift. £10 saved by cancelling a dvd pre order as it's moved from Monday to February.

Em, mwah she's a piece of work. Well done emdh.
Well done for getting more painting done lonely
Thanks for the tip sunny. Will try that
Nice nails, may nip to pradamark tomorrow.

I think Joe will get strictly

So.

Blow dry involves a wash first. And then a gazillion brushes. My hair was HUGE when I left the salon and gradually dropped. By the time we left for the party it was curly/wavy but small.

Mil is a piece of work. Dh is amazing and has ignored every textbhes had all day. She’s continued all day( her night...)

We are home from party. It was lovely. So lovely. Lovely food. Nice wine. So nice to catch up with colleagues.

Ds was lovely for Dm and df. He didn’t sleep. But “chatted” to them and was super smiley.

Finding it so hard to keep up with the thread and my budget. It's a real mindset change. I've "lost" £100 of money I need to input and I haven't a clue where I've spent it. I'm still trying though!
My Christmas present shopping is finished and I've got all my store cupboard stuff. Just the fresh stuff to get now, next weekend. So a massively speedy week but a LSD day yesterday of £4 and hopefully another today.
Frugaleering is exhausting

Don't worry about keeping up with chatting. Catergories for money saving.

Gas bill
Electric bill
Water bill
Telecoms
Food bill incl takeaways, coffees.
Pet care
Babies
Car
Personal care. Clothes, toiletries, glasses/contact lenses.

It's the same formula for all of them, how much do they cost? Can I buy it in bulk cheaper? Am I locked into a contract? How much are the competitors charging? Do I have to buy branded?.

A good programme to watch is, I think, called super spenders. It used to be on ch 4. It was hosted by a psychologist & the other presenter would show them cheaper places to shop. They really got down to the nitty gritty of why people spent so much. They'd usually end up crying when the psychologist got them to open up.

Also helpful is Alvin Halls your money or your life & eat well for less on the BBC but I don't think that's on iplayer now but YouTube might have it.

Pick a category per week/day/ whatever you can manage & attack it.

There was a teenage girl in the paper a few months ago who had to take over all the food shopping & cooking because her DM was very ill & she got the food bill down by buying in bulk. Huge sacks of rice & pasta, big orders of meat off muscle food. I'm sure she was feeding 7 for under £20 a week. She had no preconceptions of what to do so she'd done it differently & treated running the home like a business. Would a business buy one ream if A4? They'd buy hundreds and get a big discount & they wouldnt be using the posh 120gsm with the water mark for everything either.

One of last areas people will compromise on according to money saving expert is branded household cleaners. They'll buy smartprice food before a smart price loo cleaner. What they feed themselves & their children is down graded before what they wipe the worktop with.

Cheap household cleaners;
Laundry gloop for clothes no borax needed & its banned in the eu.
All purpose cleaner diluted 50:50 with water in a spray bottle. Does the bathroom & the kitchen.
Soda crystals for cleaning the inside of the dishwasher.
Caustic soda for sink traps.
Citric acid. Best descaler ever.

Glass cleaner for anything shiny like gloss kitchens & stainless steel.
Washing up liquid for stain removal. I've got curry out of coloureds using a blob of wul & leaving it for 10 minutes before the wash starts.
Smartprice bleach for the loo.
Smartprice furniture polish.

Cheap e cloths.

Love Alvin "pay yourself first"
Changed me completely and his voice is gorgeous
On the train -its freezing !

I’m going to try washing up liquid for stain removal. Something has left blue stains on one of ds’ favourite my favourite tshirts. Hadn’t tried washing up liquid.

I’m spending today (or a bit of it at least) overhauling finances where I can. Electric bill we can do nothing about. We cannot switch. There is only one provider here. And we are on the cheapest tarrif.

Insurance I think we are at the cheapest we can be.

Baby stuff - I’m trying to reduce costs but we’re only 3 months in so I imagine it’ll take time to work out how much of xyz were using. I’m trying where possible to buy from boots as I get points so can use them if I need to.

Food shopping is our big one. I’d love to buy things in bulk but we have nowhere really to store things. I may look at amazon pantry though. See if I can get things cheaper online

I loved Alvins take on treats. If you've been to work all week you do not deserve a treat. Everyone has to work. It's the bare minimum.

I also love his voice

I deserve a treat. I’m a smidge hungover. Not hugely. But a smidge. Maybe had 3 glasses of wine plus a couple of bubbly I didn’t feel drunky drunk when we got home.

Dh is making bacon. Yum.

Morning all. fluffy you are brilliant. You know that, right?

The only pot I have to work on is food, and sometimes fuel. Dp usually buys the petrol, but when he's very skint, like now, I have to buy it or we would be marooned.

But the food is down to me, and how lazy I am. I have a chest freezer, a 6' upright freezer (and matching fridge, they sit together looking like the largest larder fridge thing), a costco card (thanks mil she pays for that) and space to strore endless dry goods. But I am lazy, unorganised, and just say fuck it and thake the dc to Macdonalds a lot more than I should.

2018 is pay down my eyewatering debt year, and I have to do this by meal planning and shopping smart, as my earning potential is kind of capped.

For this year, I need to do one more food shop (Morrisons next week, have £20 coupons to use, and will get £5.50 back in coupons) for fresh stuff, cheese, treats; and a turkey on Christmas eve, £25 asda coupon to help with that. Their finest bird was just delicious last year, and beats the £90 one we used to buy from the butcher.

em win win with your party. A good time had by all. Not sure I could cope with the hairdresser fussing my hair though. I have a real sensory thing about it I think. It's why my hair is stupidly bum length now.

Maybe I’m more than a smidge hungover. I’ve just started feeling sick. Great. Although maybe I’m hungry....

Got any anti acid tablets? Ranitidine is non prescription. It's worth keeping it in this time of year. Dh gets prescription only ones so I pinch one of his.

Lonely Ta muchly.

BACon and peppermint tea seem to have helped. For now. I’ve had a rehydration sports drink thing. And will be drinking buckets of water. Ffs. I forgot what hangovers were like.

Em I'd my Christmas party last night to

mammy I hope you’re feeling better than me!! I forgot I hadn’t drink like that (at a party where the wine was on tap) for a long time!

Have paid off my credit card. Eek and will call gym tomorrow and pay for next year (on credit card but will pay off immediately) Double eek

Ds is napping. He had zero naps yesterday. So was grouchy as anything. Today we must get back in the nap habit.

Em I'm good
Dh has taken dc to town I'll wrap Santa while he's gone I think will watch an episode of emmerdale first it's rare I get house to myself!

Dh's phone met a watery end last night, debating buying him one for Christmas now

You drunken bums.... I've been in the freezing cold and run 15 miles.. you never catch me drinking.... (lies through teeth..).

Had a lovely impromptu evening with some good friends at the local last night, just a couple of drinks but good to catch up. They are going to Florida today, their middle DC is currently working out there for a year before Uni.

Spends have been minimal this weekend.