February Frugaleers United in Saving Money, Swapping Recipes & Supporting each other in finance, friendship & family life : )

[mammymammyIRL]

And so we continue ....

Ooh, DD is definitely on the mend! Just one waking last night and straight back to sleep afterwards. ❤️

I forgot I did spend money on Sunday - a JL order for some new bedding for the spare room, pillows, cushion pads for sitting room (replacing some knackered feather ones that stab us whenever we sit down) and a birthday present for my mum. £119 I think, going to Waitrose to collect it today. I’ll try not to break the bank while I’m in there.

Ha ha I know the feeling Snuggly! I have to take the kids to get my click and collect order. It won’t be fast. And I bet there won’t be any parent and child spaces either, our Waitrose has a tiny car park. Which at least stops me going very often.

Should say the JL stuff was with vouchers so doesn’t count?

Maybe I'll get a chance to catch up on last four days posts maybe I won't but I saw your grateful posts so here are mine
views on my drive to work - snow capped mountains & the beautiful tide
Children who delight in simple things, today it was that the hens had laid some eggs yesterday to enable us to have pancakes tonight and that I had decided to buy choc spread now as they also have midterm rather than them waiting until next school holiday as planned
for a husband who restarted our boiler last night & provided heat & hot water last night & this morning
for an understanding workplace who are enabling me to ease myself back in work after flu
for healthy parents, dm babysat this weekend saving us €€€

I've made the style & beauty round up newsletter. No autographs, you'll only eBay them.

Pleased DD is on the mend Christmas. We had a better night too. Nobody woke up until 5.30! I'm getting the lurgy now...

Ooooh. Well done fluffy!

I’m enjoying a “what I’m wearing today” thread at present. It’s making me feel a bit more stylish. Nicer outfits instead of jeans and a hoody!

Famous of MN fame fluffy

Got woken up by the wind and rain. Heaving it down here so no incentive to leave the house this morning. Housework and film for DC likely. Hopefully might go out on scooters later to drop off a repeat prescription and buy milk. Need to get dressed soon though!

Every time we’ve moved em DPs and PIL have produced more of our stuff from the loft. Why they didn’t find it the first time is most frustrating. More frustrating is when broken stuff has been kept which is no use to anyone!

Lovely grateful lists everyone

If we make an apple and blackberry crumble today with fresh fruit, would it still be edible on Thursday? Don’t need to eat it today due to pancakes but i’m working tomorrow and no time to make it!

I should be working, but am waiting for the short track speed skating. It's the only winter sport I'd ever try. I know ice skating isn't as easy as rollerblading, but it's the nearest thing.

House is sluggishly waking up. I bloody love half term with no stupid shop to go to!

I have decided to home-make a poly tunnel now, and put the chickens in it until late spring. I've been watching some you tube videos, if those numpties can make them, so can I. The only properly expensive bit is the cover, so I'll build the hoops first and then use the calculator on the website I found to work it out will still get it wrong

Ooo speed skating, here we go!

Yes love just bung it in the fridge with some cling film over. And make sure it's piping hot when you rewarm. Nothing in crumble to go off quickly.

@ememem84 how's the house hunting going?

mammy slowly!! Nothing new to look at this week. Sadly. Keeping on trawling the websites though just in case.

I’m more confident that we’ll find the one though.

Ooo get you fluffy! ⭐️

£65 Sainsbury's. Blah. All needed though apart from the doughnuts
£20 fuel

Watched an old man reverse into a car twice. Got us number plate and told the man whose car it was

Whats the S&B round up ?Fluffy
Lonely thats sounds great.
My girls have been "in" for the past winter and this one and they look so well and happy.
Luckily we have a huge garden so they have a massive run (have 15) and its so easy to keep them clean and dry .
Lots of greens (I dont feed scraps) to keep them occupied #happy hens
I love the speed skating
I think we are very alike !

fluffy you've got to screenshot the s&b round up so we see confirmation that other people appreciate your awesomeness

em good to hear you were a bit overwhelmed last week

For those of you that have hens and dc you'll appreciate this.
Ds knows today is pancake Tuesday and likes to cook, especially in past month, he's 4. He looked at egg holder this morning and says but mammy we've no eggs, he wouldn't even think of getting them in a shop bless him.

So I said I'll go down and talk to the hens this morning and see if they have any eggs from yesterday for us to make pancakes with.

Dd (7) then joined in the conversation, and I arrived in again from outdoors eggless. She says oh no, have we no eggs, I said I'm just getting the extra food for them because they said they wouldn't give me the eggs until I gave them their treats.

I came back up with 2 eggs and said to the dc that the hens said they were delighted with the pasta, potato skins and apple cores and would give us more eggs this evening for extra pancakes. Ds was just very happy, but dd called me aside in the bathroom to know did I speak hen, so I told her no they speak human sometimes. She was happy with that. She's 7 ffs, she should be able to seethrough that story ds would

I'm just about to make a call for a chargeback on my cc, ordered item 17th Dec, cancelled a few hours later, received confirmation of this on 18th Dec, when I got my cc statement I noticed no refund so I contacted company and they assured me they'd follow up with accounts dept, and since then no one has replied to my emails. I registered for app for my cc to monitor it.

This is my first time ever having to do this since I started shopping online about 15 years ago
Hopefully it'll be straight forward

Watching speed skating here too. Go Elise! What a crazy sport.
Wow, a MN celeb in our midst fluffy!
Lazy morning here, reading & watching tv. This afternoon dh is going out with his dad to a museum exhibition he's interested in while I take dd to see The Greatest Showman. Mil isn't well so has decided not to come with us but is going to pay for our tickets.
Then football for dh tonight, dd and I are going to go and "help" with dnephew's bath & bedtime.
Driving back to Lancashire tomorrow, hoping for a good journey.

Our Christmas present for sil & hubby was a voucher for a hotel in Ambleside and offered a night of babysitting. It will be the first time they've had a night away on their own since dnephew was born (he's 2). They've booked it for 2 weeks on Thursday so dh & I will have him for the best part of 2 days. When we live so far apart it's good to be able to do something like that for them.

Lunch was le yum. Mackerel with chilli and lemon rubbed in (could’ve been braver with both so will do more next time) with courgette pepper and brown rice. Also sort of frugal, as I often get things like nice fish (although only a quid per fillet!) and then don’t get round to using them and they go to waste.

Caglets are making themselves toasties 🙄😂

Need to get ready as getting picked up soon for a play date (no public transport goes anywhere near them) and need to phone Tesco as there was an item missing. Sometimes that happens and I don’t realise until too late because I don’t check the receipt fully, but that shopandscan thing is making me more aware 😳😳😳 little changes like this will hopefully add up to better food spends

Chargeback call was very straightforward, will need to fill out a few forms but looks like I'll get my money no problem.

north that's a lovely thing to do, we did similar for dss and his wife, but were not taken up on the babysitting offer, they deferred the hotel date and I don't know when to, haven't heard anything since so I assume they don't want us to babysit.

cag I also do shop and scan, it's tedious at times but you get faster at it and the vouchers make it very worthwhile

Fuming !
Just did meter readings and despite turning every bastard thing off,turning the heating off -only on if it goes below zero,not using the tumble dryer at all and only washing 4 loads per week
The bloody bill for past 53 days is £329
Broken down thats £136 gas and £193 electricity .
WTF!
We are lowest tariff
If I find out that the others have been turning stuff on while Im out there will be murder might save money
The only thing I can do is not use the dishwasher but I loathe washing up and its not hygenic unless you use very hot water which probably costs more.
Help me wise ones
Have smart meter coming which will tell me every 30 mins what is being used 😈

Quite that's more than ours and we are all electric, no gas or oil etc that's crazy I'm not surprised you're fuming

At least once I have the smart meter I can break it down.
Dh is very good about moaning but doesnt really think he should turn anything off.

Evrryone I know has their heating on all the time
I just dont understand why its so high

Our heatings not on all the time. Is your immersion switched on all the time? Our builders left ours on when we bought the house. Washing up by hand costs more than the dishwasher. Our Eco cycle only uses 9l of water & 900w of electric. There's no way I could wash up and rinse all our crocks in so little water. Your gas is reasonable for the winter quarter. It's your electric that's high.

£41 hair
20p soda crystals, Valentine's card. Paid the balance on nectar
£10 fuel, paid nectar to counter balance yesterday's cattery deposit.
£1.50 tin opener in JL, paid on a voucher.
£4.30 cat litter.

Oh and £12 on a vitamin d supplement that doesn't contain anything I'm allergic to.

Allergies are surprisingly expensive