We’ve had our Merry Thriftmas, now bring on the Happy Fru Year! All welcome as we Frugaleer our way into January 2018.

[Cagliostro]

A new thread in case we are too tipsy (or in my case, asleep on the sofa) to remember later.

This is a friendly group where we chat all things money related and all things everything else related. Everyone welcome so settle in and let’s make 2018 the year we save money!

Sorry to hear about your DS, North. It's not easy, is it? Sometimes all you can do is hang in there. Kudos to your DD for being so helpful. Enjoy your time away.

I remember when you fell off the scooter, Laska. Glad to hear physio is helping your sciatica.

My boiler's back on and working for now. I was initially told they couldn't send someone out until Tuesday afternoon, but then apparently they had a cancellation and there was someone in the area already. Hurrah! The engineer has arranged an appointment with Gloworm for me for Monday, as he thinks it needs another part.

Right, off to have a shower and get ready for lunch with some friends. After that, I have to accompany DS to a gp appointment.

We used jelli baff once. The dd's loved it. Iirc it had a sachet with it that you put in after which turned it liquid again. We certainly didn't have to bail it out or anything! It was years and years ago though.

Been out. Ds fell back to sleep in the car (lazy boy) so I missed b&q yay. £4.99 in aldi on the three things we needed, plus dome halloumi to fry up to go ontop of tonights pasta (all store cupboard). It is very strange not doing a 'shop'. I feel I should, but know there is nothing we need right now.

northern your poor boy. One stage at a time, it's clearly going to be a long road for you all.

Yes, it is the baff one I have bought and comes with the sachet to dissolve it. I heard about it at a messy play class, hoping it will be fun!!

Hi all, sorry I haven't been keeping up!

Still tracking my spends in my little notebook :)

Tuesday: £8.45 ( breakfast, lunch, coffee and a kindle book)
Wednesday: NSD :)
Thursday: £5.89 (coffee and a M&S sarnie)
Friday: so far a NSD.

Going to tesco later but any food shopping comes out of joint account which husband 'looks after'. We are trying to keep food costs down but I am only tracking personal spends at the moment.

Did a 'chuck it all in the slow cooker' dinner last night which turned out really nice. Frozen vegetable 'base mix' from Asda (£1), frozen Quorn mince (£1.50),couple of handfuls of frozen peppers (about 40p), 2 x tinned tomatoes (68p), fajita seasoning (about 30p). Made 4 portions so I have the spare one for lunch today.

Have popped £87 into munch savings account. It brings my current account balance to a nice round £300.

I do not need to spend today (other than maybe catfood if I can be arsed to go to the pet shop - we have wet food so catface won’t starve, it’s just the biscuits we don’t have)

Ds is napping. I’ve set up the baby monitors. What a revelation. Now means I don’t have to traipse to the other end of our flat to Check on him. Genius.

Christmas decorations are down. The tree is still in the living room but I’ll take it outside tonight and will hoover tomorrow morning. Can’t hoover here past 8pm and no point in doing it now as tree will shed needles on the drag downstairs.

Thanks for sc advice. It already has lentils in so I have added some more and will see what happens.

Off to Google jelli baff...

Your poor son north, sounds like he is coping well, DD was a star and yes you deserved a cry

Great to here you may be back on the scooting soon laska

I had another look at the potential job fluffy, but where I thought part of the job was dealing with written complaints (which I have the skills for), reading the job description made me realise it would also be talking to complainers. Did that in a previous job- never again!!!

Spends
£35 Tesco
£11 M&S
£1.50 Wilkos
£2000 making a capital payment against the mortgage (so a frugal spend ). This reduces the term by 8 months on part of the mortgage. I’d like to say I saved and saved this money but it was part of a gift from family.

North I just read back. I'm really sorry to hear your son is having all that to deal with. We've been through patches when it all seemed to come at once, and also had the teeth trouble. Hang in there.

Is there any chance that you would have the teeth done under GA? That's what we did with my ds in the end and it was a lot easier for him. Cost a bit though.

My ds really was helped by having a stack load of iron in his diet, as he was also struggling with infections. Once we got him up to 11mg a day every day, many things got easier.

Quick pop in !
Slowcooker -i take the lid off for a bit so the water evaporates or mix some cold water and cornflour and stir in.
Its funny there is an anti SC thread running atm
Its totally different to how you normally cook and have to time/add water carefully.
I love mine

Home bargains £8.50
Aldi £12.85
Iceland £22.50
Bill £15.00
Going for Sat/Sun/Mon NSD hopefully, but it's food & Laundry for month. All tracked and planned, on schedule, no bank balance dread. Much happier...

North - good luck to your boy he sounds a credit to you and your daughter as well, hope goes okay we'll done on being strong for him, I find the dentist really hard...

£4 on coffee and cake
£13 on lunch. I ordered off the kids menu.

£20 nails. less than £15 in Lidl for veg and bits missed from the Ocado shop

I was reading that thread too pink. I love my sc too. My mistake today was that I put in the right amount of water then found a bottle of HP that was down to the dregs and decided to rinse it into the shepherd's pie only I put too much water in the bottle.
It smells nice now so hopefully it's OK.

Just got car tax reminder. It's only £30 but it catches me out every single year!

north sorry to hear about your DS . I had glandular fever .. i do hope its not that on top of everything else.. Poor lad.
£67.12 in the Coop (with £3.50 off as i had a voucher) , although 26.25 of that was cat food on offer and 5.34 was on the Marmite mortgage!! (largest jar - always a painful experience ).

Also a ginormous local free range chicken was in that bill - £11.53.. but definitely worth it.. at least three meals for three of us over weekend plus sarnies and soup .. .. I will MN the heck out of it of course..

DGS coming for the weekend (he makes a fourth but wont eat much chicken) so i did pick up a few things i dont usually.

This was my first real shop since christmas also ..

I just tried shopping in person which I almost never do. It was not a great victory, if I'm honest.

I went to waitrose in person to buy a particular variety of potatoes that I like, so I wouldn't have to add a lot of things to my shop to get up to the minimum delivery value. I thought it would be cheaper to just buy the potatoes in person.

Anyway, I got there and they didn't have the potatoes, but I did buy two other things, and then I got sucked into the Works sale and bought a spiralizer for 75% off. (£10) I also had to pay for parking, when delivery would have been free.

I should have stayed at home shouldn't I?

sunny you must inspire me with your spiralizer and what you create. I currently have a new one sat in my unwanted gifts box... Funny how one persons unwanted gift, is something someone else wants!

north, your poor DS, he is really having a tough time. I would have had a quiet weep too. You want to take away all the upset don't you and have it yourself. I'm sorry x

laska, I see the plate size thing has been covered. We've had ours years too, when I met DH he had a full set, including all the casserole and salad and serving dishes, mugs, cups etc. We've kept up with it over the years and I replace things if it goes to 40% off and we need replacements. So, 20 years of daily use, not being particularly careful and still fab. For me, that's actually frugal.

Spends today
£30 Sainsbury's.
£5 feed shop.
£20 cleaners.

I've had a run. DH is off and taken the dogs out. I'm tired today so having a quick chill, then I'll tackle the ironing.

love that's funny isn't it? I only bought it because ds lingered over one repeatedly at the garden centre in the holidays. He's not really into cooking and I thought it might be a way in. The works one was £10 reduced from £39.99.

There were really a lot of homeless people in town. I'm a bit worried that history will look back at this time as another thing like the great depression.

So many people are unable to access healthcare, and so many kids out of state education because of lack of support for special educational needs. So much homelessness, and then the food banks. I feel as though we can't see it while we are in it, but it feels to me as if there is really a problem, and it a problem of economic mis-management.

Your poor ds north and it's awful watching them struggle, I had another difficult evening with dd as she was sore from the trampoline park and had a meltdown at bedtime over it. She has sensory issues and feels any discomfort v difficult. Thank you for the reassurance re friends, really hoping she makes some new mates soon. I feel her current 'friends' use her when convenient and dump her when not.

Any how had a nice day today, borrowed my friends dog a mad springer (is that what you have need?!) She is great but nuts!! Took her for a walk and she managed to find an electric fence to run into! Lots of yelping but she seems okay, anyone else had this? Anything I should check for?

Spends £5 two hot chocs.

£33 petrol

£5.50 car wash - first time it's been washed since getting it in August! !!

sheep I use a notebook too to track spends.

I also have a spiraliser that has yet to see outside the box....

Girlie my ds has been having trouble with one particular boy for weeks, and we thought hard over the holidays how to deal with it. Ds went back and totally silenced the boy by asking him very emphatically if he would come to our house for a playdate. I have promised to teach the child manners if he can be brought here.

Anyway, the lad was totally dumbfounded and ds has had a good couple of days. LOL!

girlie a springer and a cocker spaniel. Just for good measure. I've missed walking them over Christmas as everyone else has given me a break. Re the fence, she will be fine, just won't do it again. Ours did it once. The pony did too and he properly is scared now

girlie the friendship thing is nuanced at that age isn't it? Definitely an email wouldn't hurt to school. It's heartbreaking to do, but we tried to stay out of the actual day to day intricacies. DD had to learn to sort it herself (unless bullying was involved of course). She eventually learned new strategies and Y8 established the friendship group she has now. She now understands that the qualities these kids have are far superior. It's awful watching them being 'used' though.