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!

Ps - it will get better, promise xx

Thanks for reassurance on dd and the dog! This springer is ball obsessed, she even sleeps with it 😁 not sure she worked out it was the fence that got her.... possibly not the brightest spark 😉 bless her.

Sunny If these halogens are 120v the mains current needs to be stepped down to power them. Somewhere in the ceiling there will be a plastic box inbetween your ring mains & lighting circuit. If they are 240v spotlights you can just swap them back to halogens. The voltage will be printed on the side of the bulbs.

North Poor ds is going through the wringer isn't he?. At least it's all fixable.

£6 for 55lb of potatoes.

Brilliant, thanks Fluffy. I've really knocked myself over with these LED lights. I was all excited to go and see the house and now just an hour of being in there with the lights on and I still feel like garbage 24 hours later. It's rotten luck really.

I've bought some halogens so we'll see what we can do when I'm next in a fit state to get there.

I just checked and the bulbs I bought are 240V so that's good. I even got the right ones for dimmers, entirely by mistake. Yay!

Fluffy bargainous spuds! My parents used to buy them by the sack, great value.
Girlie I second exactly what Need says re dd. it is heartbreaking, I've never met you in person but am willing your dd to find her place with friends who make her life better.
Slow cookers often provoke Marmite like responses on MN threads. I love mine, but always add less liquid than the recipe.

Thank you for all your kind words re ds, it's strange how words from a group of people I've never met and yet feel I know have made me feel better, this thread is great in so many ways . Ds is taking it easy today, we'll just take one step at a time and get there in the end, I feel much calmer today.

We have just done Christmas presents with the Pil and we now have our GTech handheld vacuum for the stairs, car, etc. not a glamorous present but one we are very happy to have [sad and old emoticon]!! The pil have stuck to what we'd agreed for the dc too, one gift that they chose and some money, so everyone is happy.

Spends today £20 on pasties and cakes for everyone (diet will be back on track next week!)

May just sneak off to look at the slow cooker bashing thread....

I bought some Aldi mascara to try, it cost £1.98 and so far I have been really impressed, it looks nice and doesn't smudge! Ideal for every day use, spent £9 on a maybeline one which ended up over most of my face rather than just eyelashes

Impressive need... A single man with a decent dinner service? I can see why you married him!

I bought a mascara the other day. It was £7.99 but I used Boots points. I might give the Aldi one a try next time as I'm pleased with their concealer.

Had to buy some diesel £20. But only because dp has fixed the car! Yay! It now stops exactly where and when we want it to. He spent £87 on 'performance drilled and slotted' or some such nonsense discs and pads. I wonder how much a garage would have charged to do the job? Will do the (in much better nick) back brakes as soon as he's got the cash for the parts.

We picked up 2 bikes for fixing, 2 more to collect tomorrow. So hopefully he might be more busier than we feared. Did a tip run, dropped 6 bags of clothes into the charity bin thing, old paint, bin bags. Felt lighter driving away.

north I love my gtech hand held. 18 months old and just as brilliant as first go. I also love my spiralizer! I even have an electric one I do courgettes and butternut and steam for noodles, carrots just so they cook quickly, all veg for soup going into sc as I can't be arsed chopping, and worst of all potatoes to be deep fried. Utterly delicious. It was bought with birthday lakeland vouchers.

Tea was a creamy pasta with peas and bacon (a bit too crispy!) With oven crisped halloumi on top. Ds had little fishies and chips (sigh).

I forgot to say, but Waitrose priced my delivery in dollars today and had a lot of very funny stuff written on their website. Photos attached. (Edited by MNHQ as contained identifying info)

Oh dear sunny looks a bit glitchy! Maybe the tech guys had a boozy lunch.

I forgot I was owed €40 from petty cash in work since before Christmas. That was a nice surprise when I remembered .

I got an extra €3 in my payslip yesterday.

I almost bought a duvet set in Debenhams. They had loads of 20% off signs all over the bedding section and I've had my eye on a particular duvet set since around November. I got a voucher for Debenhams for Christmas and it would have covered most of the cost. When I queued up at the till, I discovered that the sale only applies to certain designs . So I left it.

Tayto There is an article in the paper today saying Debenhams is in dire trouble financially because no one is buying anything in the sales. Sounds like you have put your finger on the reason.

NSD today. will need petrol tomorrow. trying to use food wisely so last night made a dish which included spinach. about half a bag left so instead of shoving in fridge and eventually binning have googled and we are having a different dish that includes spinach tonight.

£4.60 in coffee shop. I got too cold and really needed to warm up before heading home.

£25 Iceland stocking up my freezer, £35 Aldi. 3 things needed from sainsbury . £15 cleaner. £1 cards, £5 Morrison's.

£8 made selling stuff.

£42 on ocado, pleased with that, pork mince, beef mince, pork steak, beef steaks and chicken thighs in that.

£15 on a watch for DS1 and £8 for soya wax pellets to make cloth food wraps.

I'm not surprised about Debenhams sadly. I used to love it but I think the women's clothing selection has gone downhill. The stores are dated and tatty and there always seems to be too much shoved on the rail so it's hard to browse.
DH used to buy all his clothes there but he complains about it too now.

I think we're in for a bad night with DS. I've already been up to him twice.

We have a sort of pencil sharpener spiralizer but irs not really up to anything more than courgettes. Now im back on the diet i think ill look for a better one. Is the lakeland one good?
Dgs (5) is here! You know what? I love him very much but i cant get him to listen to me at all. .. its all ' but mummy says' . Ive forgotten what to do! Every time i say im not doing it again..but .

Hi all can’t believe I had 6 pages to catch up on 😱😂

Spends
Yesterday
£9 bus
60p tuck for Badgers club
£8.85 dinner... I sat in Wetherspoons while the Caglets were at Badgers and wrote some frugal/organisation to do lists
£11.24 Waitrose on some treaty things, that place is dangerous to me 🙈😳
Today
£9 bus (seriously need to sort out bus passes)
£2.65 hot chocolate for breakfast
£15.84 lunch at Burger King

Today was so lovely, we met up with a load of home ed families, lots of close friends and some newbies too. £18ish for DH and Caglets (he paid and I’m only tracking my own spends ATM) but it was so empty (other than the big group of HE kids) they let them all stay on for the next session too! So they got about 2.5hrs. Some of us went for lunch after so it was a good chance to catch up after Christmas 😊

Was struggling to think of dinner ideas but resisted takeaway and did rice, cheese, coleslaw, steamed veg with boiled eggs added for me and DD. They seem to get on well with that kind of dinner really so I should plan for it

Sorry to hear about ds Snuggly. I hope he settles and has an okay time there.

I'm not surprised about Debenhams either tbh. I've given up going as they always seemed like a clone of John Lewis but with all the wrong versions of everything, iykwim.

I've still got a headache and dodgy stomach after being under LED lights for one hour 3 days ago. This can't really be fair. Phooey, say I.

Seems bonkers doesn't it cag but thats a good tea really, all food groups covered! My dc eat teas like plain pasta, veg and a bit of meat (like plain chicken or some ham) better than a lovingly made from scratch lasagne say. I should do really plain stuff more often (it's usually cheaper too), but I feel like I've cheated somehow.

laska my electric spiralizer is great! It was reduced to £40, hideous - it was all of my birthday vouchers (used a code to get £5 of free licorice too), thus saving myself from more rusty bakeware!

I'm bored and tired, but sitting reading threads on here instead of tinternet shopping, so thats something.

Probably my first spendy day in almost 2 weeks.
Bus: £2.20.
Brunch out with 2 old friends: £6.99 (veggie full English and 2 lattes).
Hot chocolate for me and DS after his gp appointment: £4
Home Bargains (washing up bowl and clothes airer): £13.78 (credit card)
Bus fares home: £2
Cash: £15.19.
Total: £28.98

My online Sainsburys order came too, so that will be £45.09 out on Monday.

DS and I are off to York for the day tomorrow and meeting up with old friends, so looking forward to that.

Have a good weekend, everyone.

Despite my love of beauty products MASCara is something I don’t spend on (unless it’s my birthday and I’m treating myself to a fancy Dior one - love the plum coloured one and fuchsia...) I use bourgeois I think it’s about £4.99.

Spends £17.99 on cat biscuits. So annoyed outs haven’t arrived yet. I usually pay £9 on amazon for the same amount. Sigh.

On the plus side I finally dressed ds up in his darth Vader sleep suit. And walked him into the living room to the Star Wars imperial March. Dh didn’t think it was as funny as I did.