Keeping our Fru Year Resolutions! Frugal January thread two (already) - all welcome!

[Cagliostro]

Eeek so the other thread filled up fast. January 10th must be some kind of record!

I've had a day...following unescorted's cysty scare I thought I'd better check (I guess we all did?) And found an area of lumpiness. The gp on tuesday said it didn't feel nasty, but referred me anyway. Three days later and I'm spending the morning in the breast clinic. My lumpy bits are just lumpy bits. Breast tissue. But worth checking apparently! So I've been squished in the mamogram machine. So, the 'broken' nhs is utterly amazing, our 'needing improvement' just out of failing hospital is ace, and all the staff I saw were just lovely.

So, £3 parking, £19 lidl, mostly on dogfood, and about the same in morrisons, got £10 coupons out for next time. Also £10 in hobbycraft, 3 tubes of food colour, glitter and a cakeboard. Galaxy mirror cake here we come!

wreck I'm pretty sure they can stick crowns back in. The emergency tooth kit should hold it for a few days.

My mirena has pretty much stopped my periods, it's why I had it put in. The pill makes me properly crazy. But I was when the gp said I'd not need another as I'll be too old when it needs to come out. I'm not onboard with ageing at all!

good to read your appointment went well Lonely ...

Mammy - thank you and yes some kids are brats but at least I know that mine wouldn't hurt someone else like that....

Polly wont the school do anything ?
My DS had something damaged and they came down like a ton of bricks on that sort of thing.
Zero tolerance for bad behaviour/bullying

Had an absolutely horrendous day, feeling very sad and sorry for myself and my friend is feeling the same way so there are about to be some unplanned spends in the pub

What implant are you on Fluffy? I need to sort some contraception DD has taken care of that recently, 100% effective

I’ve done a big Ocado shop for tomorrow, £112. Next week I am properly logging top up shops. I think it’s going to be a shock. I’m going to ask DH to log his lunch spends too. He’s not at all on board with a packed lunch

I can’t clean the house for ‘stuff’ everywhere so have sorted several boxes and am going to ruthlessly list on fb and then take to the chazza. Outgrown baby stuff is going too. Meadow is it too early for you to want anything? I have a soft sling in pristine condition that you’d be very welcome to. I can put it away and mention it again in a few months if you’d prefer . For some stuff that is valuable but not necessarily for a local market I really should get to grips with eBay. I’ve never done it.... I haven’t heard much good stuff from sellers so I’m not excited. And as a new seller I have zero ratings.

On other frugal matters I’ve made an appointment to open a savings account for baby dd next week. We get the occasional birthday /Christmas money so it’s good to stash it away for now. When I’m back at work we may save a bit for them too though we’ll probably prioritise overpaying the mortgage (if there’s anything left after childcare 😬). We’re very lucky because PILs have set up junior ISAs for their grandchildren and they save a couple of thousand pounds a year for each towards a university fund. I expect we’ll still have to top it up but it’s a massive load off our minds.

Cross posted. Sorry Wolf

Also MissA sorry about AF. It took me 2 years to conceive DS, my first dc, and I found it really tough. I echo what others have said about ovulation kits. You can buy cheap ones in bulk on amazon and they do just fine - no digital readout but same principle as the clear blue ones.

Love I posted a while back that I had found my ClearBlue ovulation monitor, which I think you had been interested in? Might have been that you were not keeping up with the thread at the time but offer’s still there if you want it. I can’t find the instruction booklet but am sure it’s online.

Nexplanon Sea. I 💗 It.

Ooooh yes please seacow. Will pm you my address. Have just started on that road again, three year old and life being busy is good contraception though sadly

Hope everything is ok wolfcub. Sounds like the trip to the pub is an essential spend today

Evening all ☺

Busy day at work, spends £1 on some chocolate. I'm working this wend 😭

Lonely Glad appt all went well . I never check my breasts so I signed up to Coppafeel's free text service and they send me a reminder text every month.

Wolf I hope you feel better soon

Seacow The sling sounds great, we are wanting to buy one for definite so that would be great, thank you! If you really need to get rid of it as part of your declutter then I will take it now but I would rather wait a few months if that's ok, I feel a bit anxious about having baby stuff in the house atm, just seems too early. I'm not really superstitious about tempting fate but I do still feel like if something went wrong at any point over the next few months I don't think I could bear it as it is especially not if we had lots of baby stuff around.

So I survived my first week of afternoons at work. Was rough around Wednesday but picked back up again. Had a little chat with LM and he's happy for me to continue just doing afternoons next week and review again at the end of the week with him and he said he'd tell HR, phew. He is a really good LM and a lovely man, I am lucky. He just wants to talk about baby stuff/scans etc now! He has two kids of his own.

Have managed to go in the fridge today properly for the first time in months and found a lot of out-of-date things which had to be binned. I'm a bit annoyed as DH has been doing all the food shopping, cooking etc for the last few months what with me being unable to open the fridge without vomiting for months and I do regularly nag him about checking dates on things etc but he's rubbish at it and we've wasted so much more food over the last few months. It also just highlights another 'mental load' thing that I normally always do without realising it because generally our food wastage is very low. And obv that's very unfrugal, grr. I will moan about it when he comes back from his mum's later although he will be in a bad mood because she is Hard Work.

Meal plan for the next week...

This is all from stuff I already have (apart from the pizza! That's for swimming night) so just need to do a small shop tomorrow for lunches, I think I'm even ok for breakfast things. I'm not sure what to have for lunch next week, it's meant to get cold again so maybe soup as that was working well.

Sadly DD2s thumb sucking has definitely moved the top plate in her mouth. Top teeth have definitely moved and she’s only just turned three. The mavala stuff works. We put a tiny bit on while she was asleep as she wouldn’t let us do it while she was awake

Miss A sorry to hear that.
Cag I can't post photos of the inside of our house.... It is like a bike shed. I am in awe.
Wolf sometimes you just need to go to the pub.

A colleague wanted a rant today so I got a free coffee. He also needed some help on a doc for the big cheeses -organisational baselining methodology. Not my specialist subject but meant I avoided doing the audits I have been putting off for months.

We've tried all of that stuff with dd she just didn't care! Kept sucking it and it's really affecting her test

Oh and mammy re my living room always looking tidy...that was a carefully taken picture. Behind and to the right of the irnoning board was a pile of laundry unwashed dishes etc.

Love you are very welcome, I’ll post it next week. I hope it brings you success, it comes with a good track record . Though neither of my babies has been good sleepers so be warned!

Meadow I completely get it. I’ll pop it in a Meadow Box in a cupboard along with any other nice bits that we hadn’t grown out of in time for Cagletini and save them for a bit. I’ve got a couple of lovely hooded towels for newborns, stuff like that. Just give us the nod when you’re nesting.

DD is completely delightful at the moment. She’s so excited by solid foods and suddenly taking milk better too (I think eating solids has sorted her overactive gag reflex straight away and she seems to be able to take bigger milk feeds). She’s also really chatty and interactive at the moment and her personality is really coming out (she’s feisty!). Night time sleep is still crap but I reckon she’s in a good place to sleep train so I’m optimistic. Sleep lady is coming a week tomorrow and in the meantime I’m logging everything in an app for her info. If I can get more than 3-4 hours sleep I think a lot of other stuff will fall into place (house clutter, mental clutter, crap eating habits). 2018 is going to be good!

Lonely glad it was good news and thanks for the reminder. I must admit I don’t really check my breasts properly because they are really big so it’d be like a needle in a haystack. Or maybe like the princess and the pea?! Anyway, I should do it properly. Maybe I’ll have a prod later.

I’m itching to indulge my shopping weakness: scouring charity shops, which is actually a very expensive hobby when it’s all added up. I’m going to try and set aside a little bit of cash each week and then go for a wander on a strict budget once a month or every 6 weeks. I’m hoping if I make that kind of shopping a treat to anticipate and look forward to, rather than an emotional release it will be better all round. This thread has been amazing at opening my eyes to where my money has been leaking!

I have to meal plan and make a proper check-everything-properly-before-I-go-shopping-list for Monday. Meal planning is still very woolly but I’m keeping track of what we’re eating and hoping to build on that.

Next thing in my sights is reducing the electricity bill. My big weakness is tumble drying straight from the washing machine so this weeks challenge is to rack dry, and then just do a quick airing after. I don’t really have a space where the rack belongs and isn’t in the way which is part of the problem (though laziness is a bigger part)

Now off to make tea and catch up on this thread.

Food planning

Saturday - hoops on toast for boys (out for dinner)
Sunday - homemade pizzas
Monday - nuggets and waffles (gymnastics)
Tuesday - meatloaf
Wednesday - sausages
Thursday - spaghetti
Friday - chicken pasta bake

NSD, I still haven't done the food shop.
Wreck DD1 still sucks her thumb, she's almost 11, it is finitely affecting her teeth. Oreviously the dentist has asked her to cut down to just in bed. She is seeing him again in about 3 weeks. Let's see what he says then

The crown repair stuff isn't working it won't stay in place guess I'll be spending all weekend chewing on the other side. Humph.

Audit let me know what the dentist says! I'm at a loss as to what to do. She thinks braces will be cool

Oh unescorted I wish that was my house in the photo (it's Em's). I wouldn't even be able to take an artfully angled tidy photo ATM!

Well this evening turned out accidentally frugal. Was a rush for ballet as I had fallen asleep with the baby (the six hours of the previous night was a one off it seems), scrabbled around for bus fare etc. Was supposed to go to Iceland for milk and cereal after... then realised that in the rush I'd left my bank card at home! So couldn't even get cash out for the bus home (Caglets had their passes - must remember to find out when they'll expire and write in diary!). I could've bought one on my phone but it's more expensive than the short hop fare. So we walked. This is a big achievement as I haven't done that in years (since getting ill). Tired but happy! And spends were only £1.70 today.

I will have to sort out the living room though as I got halfway through sorting children's/baby clothes. Got stuff going to charity tomorrow and need to pack up things for a couple of smaller friends. And baby clothes! Cagletini has gone from still fitting bigger newborn stuff, to outgrowing some smaller 0-3m, in about two weeks one of her nicknames is Chubster :o

Sorry about the shitty news some of you have had with family and TTC.
I'm not name checking much as I can't recall so just going with general themes.
Hello more new frugaleers.

£10.40 in Morrison's today as I won't be able to food shop this weekend. Might arrange an Asda delivery for Sunday.

Small survey - how many of us have cluttered homes vs uncluttered homes. Mine is incredibly cluttered there's stuff everywhere, and just when I'm getting places in one part of house, somewhere else gets bad. I think a year out of work would sort it dh thinks putting stuff in attic is solution, reality, this is just not dealing with it & putting it out of sight out of mind. I need to get house sorted though before I tackle attic.

Cluttered. Very. Like the hoarder next door bad.

Not cluttered here, just the usual I think, a few of ds' toys in the corner and some paperwork on top of he microwave! Otherwise clear surfaces and floors.