First Frugalling month of 2018 almost done , so Forging forward into Feb we go

[Laska5772]

...and here we go !
Welcome all!

Hauling myself back on the bandwagon! Caught the flu and then developed a chest infection and been barely functional for the last week and a bit. Barely managed to get kids to and from school and they’ve been living on take aways, mcdonald’s drive throughs and toast. Even now I have to have a half hour lie down after cooking. Between that, the doctors bill, the antibiotics and steroids, and then paying for the children’s extra curricular classes It’s been very, very spendy.
Still have dentist to pay for this week, swimming lessons next week, and I’m just exhausted thinking about it all.

Hi sorry was Lego but was having trouble with password so thought new start new name. Thanks for welcome. Yest was £9 milk bread few other things today Nsd

Sorry not strictly budget but, cag if you look on pop art really look at Ed place sub we tried last year £7for Sci, maths, English for the year this year £5 it's fab weekly email with scores. On look out for spin drier was thinking of one but definitely getting one now

@fluffy Slough is my neck of the woods! A taste card will do you well there's quite a few places her that accept it. What day did you need for and was it exclusively Slough centre you're looking to eat?

Shopping for next few days (still prevaricating on the food shop) £30, karate £10.

Sorted out money for DS £35 subs for police cadets (until Easter), deposit for DofE £23 (via police cadets) he needs these for tomorrow. Probably also need a deposit for his summer camping/activity trip with cadets total cost will be £180 (cadets are funding £200 of the £380 total) but he may not get a place.

Well, I'm hoping to stay in the new premier inn on an industrial estate, SL1 4QZ, I'm assuming central is better.

Due to allergies we can't do Indian, Chinese, pizza, fast food, or supermarket/ready made sandwiches.

Excellent news catface
Also to shirt. It sounds like it will be tight but you will be fine and as you get well it will improve.
Gws mammy

Great news catface
Aldi £116 for the month
Did £80 Waitrose .
Then just cash for meat (once/wk) and fruit
I bake my own bread .
Need to start planning veg garden

Great service from my gp, just called me there & writing a cert for me thanks lifelong

Ann sounds like hell

And so after the exciting kettle news yesterday ( it is lovely and shiny).. this evening I decided I would clean and descale the washing machine..

This is so not like me.....Ill be thinking of defrosting the freezer next If I am not careful...

Do you think I may be pregnant?

Whaaaat these threads move so fast these days .

Ann Oh that sounds awful, I hope you're feeling better ! Try not to worry about it being spendy, things are always spendy when you're unwell, but for me that's one of the reasons I try to be frugal the rest of the time so then when I feel ill I don't worry about it because I know I can afford to be more spendy then when I need to.

I have been unable to do mornings at work still due to lots of lovely morning vomiting sessions when I've tried. I saw GP today and they were really helpful and lovely and wrote me a detailed fit note recommending that I be allowed to work from home in the mornings. I gave it to my LM today and he's lovely but he has to get permission from his boss for people to WFH (she is a notorious micro-manager and generally very anti-WFH especially on grounds of ill-health as she thinks if you're too ill to come to work you would be too ill to work iyswim). She left early today so he told me he'd talk to her about it tomorrow and then let me know. Crossing my fingers tightly because we really need the money as at the moment I'm getting only half my normal wages with a tiny bit of SSP on top and it's really starting to stress me out. My wages this month basically covered our rent and nothing else! And our savings are really starting to dwindle now. None of my colleagues WFH at all though so I'm really worried she will say no .

NSD today as it is most days atm. Which is good, although DH is still spending most days so...but mostly is stuff we need tbf to him.

Self assessment log in: failed. As expected. Spoke to a (very bored sounding) chap who talked me through getting a password through the post sigh.

£25 massage £33 Wagamama's but my friend will give me back her share.

Laska

Nsd here today. Meadow have you and LM put a case together re working at home. Might be a good idea to present lots of positives.

Quite spendy today ..

£9 boots 2x Hair dye (on offer)

£8.49 Local hardware / gen shop (often cheaper than supermarkets and sells everything under the sun) - bathroom cleaning stuff, more de-scaler (2 sorts!!) , shoe polish, kitchen caddy recycling and bin bags (it was the descalers that were the expensive bits of that shop ).
Co op £11.12

Yummy Dinner out with friend £12 in a local Italian.. Not drinking makes it so much cheaper !

.. oh and £20 on a nice Breton top in another local shop's sale..

Laksa I cleaned the fridge today, looked at the kettle too 😁, but decided not to bother.

Ann sounds bloody tough, hope you feel better very soon.

Fingers crossed for you Meadow, if boss is not cooperative I would reiterate that this is what your Dr recommends.

Girlie glad DD’s finger is improving.

Catface I echo the others re building.

I have Pilates in the morning. Paid at the beginning of the month. Next month it starts getting expensive though as DDs, and a friend, are starting Pilates as part of their DofE. It’s going to at home, weekly, but the instructor is giving me a reduced rate. I’ll also need to buy mats for DDs.

Laska it's the Dry January nesting
I'm awake so figured I'd catch up with thread & budgeted my wages in ynab & my transfer to joint acc too
Still no refund on phone I purchased for dh & no replies to my emails either for over a week think I'll ring them tomorrow, it's just cost me €6.78 in interest now too

Meadow they might be afraid to let you WFH in case you start a trend but fingers crossed 🤞🏻

An sorry to hear about your tough time.
Meadow, hope your boss boss is accommodating.

Got a training course today above a supermarket. Need tomatoes.

Morning! Feeling tired and a bit achy today. Luckily just having an office day which might be a bit boring but I've got a little bit to be getting on with. I need foundation so might get some at lunch otherwise it'll be a nsd

I'm doing that too Laska. Yesterday I vacuumed all the places I can't normally be bothered with (behind heavy furniture) and cleared out another kitchen cupboard.
I've just applied a paste of bleach and bicarb to the bathroom grouting and I'm going to tackle the mildew on our bedroom window frame in a minute.

Ann that sounds horrendous. Hope you continue to feel better. Try not to do too much if you can. Everyone can survive a bit longer on easy meals.

I need to get to the bank today to pay in a cheque and I'm hoping to post those baby things to Cag at long last. It all hinges on what time the bloke turns up to service the boiler as I can't go out until he's been.

Good frugal news. We've managed to shave £30 a month off our horrendous water bills. I think they got really bad due to the constant baths and laundry with 2 small babies but that has eased now they are past the throwing up and nappy explosion stage! Hopefully our bills will go down a bit more when I'm back at work.

£10 off £50 with amazon expires tonight

£30 is an amazing saving with water, mines £23 a month & I can't get it lower.

Broadband changed. No cashback but 76mb fibre for £24 a month and no set up fee. Vodafone.

just place marking. Bought ds1's birthday present on amazon today as it was £10 off a £50 spend and he is desperate for the lego city firestation. I'm trying to find the cheapest way to buy him a lot of assorted lego bricks, but it seems quite tricky!

I'm grounded with the fruflu today, but dh working from home fortunately so that helps. It's odd, but it started at the weekend and is still getting worse rather than better. I'm pondering how to get things on the improving footing.