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

[mammymammyIRL]

And so we continue ....

Sorry, been awol a couple of days. Busy at work and then I went on a spa day yesterday with friends. Lovely. Never done one before but definitely could make it a regular thing! We stayed over.

Fantastic cake seacow, looks amazing. I think you can cut yourself some slack weight-wise until your full sleep pattern is fully restored.

I'm tiny of nork and wear just a little elasticated bra thing.

Thanks wrecked, been meaning to make vegan brownies. I've been using my chickens eggs, I know this isn't strictly vegan but I know my ladies have a wonderful life. A strict vegan wouldn't but I'm not that pedantic, or I'm lazy or whatever!

I at your post fluffy, don't know why, it was so factual I guess.

Ouch mammy, looks bloody painful, broken or not...

Brilliant news about your DS too north, sounds like he's having a fantastic time as doing so well. Just what he needs. I'm glad for you all. Don't hang up about your weight either, you'll get back on track.

Spends.
£45 nails, toes and brows. First time since mid December and I feel better for it.
£160 spa day. Yeah, expensive. No excuses.

Spends were all about me me me ha!

Mammy it's got 100g of golden syrup in and 100g of dried fruit.

Need I've started doing spas/treatments with my friend. It so good for my mental health

Ah yes, MH - very important. We are plotting our next one!

Mammy I used to make something like flapjack with oats, grated apple, ground ginger, and something else, maybe butter or water or something. It was very nice, if a bit crumbly. If I made it with scotts porridge oats, it held together like a cake, but if I make it with coeliac oats it falls to bits. I suppose maybe the Scotts oats have wheat in them or something. It was very popular though, even with adults who normally would turn their noses up at non-shop food.

Girlie Yes, thanks, it's definitely a step in the right direction. The trick turned out to be that ds and dh went on the train and I went by car. Ds travels better by train, and apparently I get on better by car at the moment. It made everybody happy anyway, which is what counts. Having a whole load of luggage along in the car made things a lot easier too.

The rock we were on became an island so we'd to wade through maybe 45cm of water to get to dry land tide came in from two directions so dc going for baths now to warm up

I'll have a google sunny**

Sea that’s a beautiful cake. Well done North’s ds, fantastic achievement.

£40 nails brows and lashes, nice to have a face again.

Testing the slow cooker with a rice pudding. Unfortunately it took four shops to find one with pudding rice so I’m sure you can imagine how that went. I did by ds some new school trousers though as he has ruined the knees of his. My mother tells me his school shoes are falling apart - I could cry, he just doesn’t look after anything

sunny I much prefer non shop food. Especially cake! Love a cake me!

£27 Riding. Rode stirrupless today. Tough as.

Came home and dh ds and I went for a walk. My upper legs are now so sore!!!!!

Lovely day though!!

Spent £14 in M&S on bread, chickpeas humous, crisps and daffodils. £4.20 of that was daffodils!!!!!! Which annoyingly are too short for my vases. So I’ve had to pop them in jam jars.

Ds's treadmill has arrived and he is very pleased indeed with it and is feeling properly sporty. He just runs on it using his lower legs at the moment, but I remember I found treadmills pretty strange the first few times, so I imagine he will relax and run with the whole of his legs soon.

We've been doing our leg exercises while we were on holiday and it's done me a lot of good too.

I agree, seacow, the cake is brilliant! I can bake nice tasting cakes but cannot decorate at all.

You can make rice pudding with ordinary smart price rice. Some of its broken so the starch seems to leak out.

Lots of spa deals on wowcher et al Need, or you might get a cut price trial gym membership with a spa. I live right next to one of the Champneys, never been. It looks well posh.

Yeah, there's a few deals about fluffy, my friend is booking the next one, I'll mention it.

wolf, I feel the same having decent nails and eye brows again. Good to not spend much on beauty for a couple of months but I feel so much better feeling a bit more groomed.

I NEED a wax. Dh supposedly has Monday off but I’m loathe to book anything just in case...
Massage tomorrow. Can not wait.

www.buyagift.co.uk/spa-and-beauty/spa-day/north?Ns=LongLat(53.95996510000001,-1.0872979000000669)

You can usually get 25% discount codes for these, there's cashback too but using a code you might not get it but it's worth a try.

I am obsessed with this site at the moment.

Dh has drunk some of my posh pink prosecco but is bringing me a bottle of asda sparkling

seacow the cake is ace! My first thought was I bet she painted those shells! It's very good indeed. In London you could make good money if there was a gap in the market. Up here, no chance. What is the sand?

mammy your poor toe! It must hurt like hell.

girlie what colour did dd go for? I'm pleased you're happy with it.

Here are the pics of my new coops! The tunnel cost £80, with quite a bit of recycled wood, it is 2.4x1.2m (the girls in there are all bantams). The door is off dd3's playhouse. It will keep them dry until the spring.

Picked up dd2, spent £31 in asda. £7.50 of that was diet coke. Chicken for 2 nights and crisps/more lollies. Stopped at the garden centre to look for a pipe fitting (no chance in pond department) and resisted buying tropical fish, so thats something.

Pizza pockets for tea - deep fried bread pasties, delish.

Mammy - looks very sore - owwwwww

Em if too short put a see through food bag in and the flowers can sit on that - makes them taller

Lonely - that looks great - I have chickens - so have coop envy

Spends - animal food 12 - essential - wine 8 - ok maybe not essential

Seacow amazing cake, well done! Yes Argyle are causing considerable excitement in this family at the moment. Around Christmas when they were bottom, we put a £20 bet on them. £2 to make the play offs & £18 to finish in the top half. If they finish in the top 6 we will get around £600!!
Lonely I'm so impressed with the chicken coop
Sunny glad you've had a good break
Mammy that looks painful!
Need the spa day sounds lovely.

Thanks for all your comments re ds, much appreciated.

Spent £12 before the football and on getting the bus home. Then £12 on 2 rotisserie chickens (am hoping 3 meals plus stock) and some goats cheese log which had been reduced.

£13 at Lazer quest, £10 present, £25 and £53 in Tesco. Fuck me it's expensive and I shop in sainsbury normally.

Amazing cake Christmas! I thought the shells were real at first!

Ended up buying a sandwich out. That plus parking = £7 today.

Life I agree about Tesco, I think it’s extortionate. I normally shop in Sainsbury’s or Ocado

wrong great idea!! Will remember that one!! I used to have pretty stones for bumping flowers up but they’ve been put somewhere.

Still. Nice to have lots of daffs around the house.

I am aching right now. Seriously can barely walk. Haha! Stupid horse riding. Haha!

Made veggie curry for dinner. Just watched an episode of Fargo and am now in bed. Hooray for bed. Hooray for ibruprufen to ease my aching back legs hands everything.

Love daffs. Pricey where you are Em but that's island life for you. Unless you bought 40 of them

North my dad is beside himself. He rings me just to tell me the scores. Also how many supporters they take to away matches. None of his children really cares but we all humour him

Life I find sainsburys the most expensive but then in Tescos I buy specific things that they do in massive bags. Or own brand that I like.

Mammy how did you get that injury? I must have missed that, looks sore.

Need . Never done a spa thing. I don’t like nassages but would love the rest. It’s on the list.

Lonely that coop looks fab. Re. Cake, the sand is soft light brown sugar. I coloured the base fondant to match as I didn’t want a thick layer of sugar on top, just some texture. And I wanted it that soft brown colour as it was meant to look like a British beach and not the Caribbean. Most sea-themed cakes I found on Pinterest were decidedly tropical. Or nautical. It wasn’t much help, unusually.

Thanks for all the cake love. Lemon drizzle inside, then covered with white chocolate ganache before decorating. It was about 6 inches deep, so massive! Birthday lady loved it, I am told. I made DS a ‘consolation cake’ with a little bit of spare mix (I thought he might be upset when the Big Cake was taken away). It was only just over an inch tall but he slathered it in buttercream and spare shells and was delighted!

Steam train trip was a success. £29 for tickets and no other spends. We had an early lunch before going out - apart from frugal considerations it’s a nightmare trying to feed dd on the move as she’s still so messy and insists on feeding herself. She’s not quite picnicking material yet.

Ocado came today but I can’t remember how much it was. It wasn’t a whole shop anyway because I got distracted and missed the deadline for adding to the order. I got most things but not milk or veg. Will send DH to the local shops tomorrow.

I want to sleep but can hear dd is restless so I await her summons...

I always spend loads if I go to Sainsbury's.

Back from friends, her half Spanish dh made tapas. We had potatas bravas, Spanish cheese, olives, fried chorizo, garlic prawns and bread with cured meat. Then a Spanish type pudding similar to crème brûlée.

I sometimes wonder if it’s just that whatever your usual shop is feels cheaper as you’re used to it and different supermarkets have new interesting things that you spend money on. Or maybe that’s just me. 😳😂 I find I spend loads in actual shops generally though as I usually shop online for food.

That cake and that coop! 😍⭐️ Such talented frugaleers we have here.

Up with a poorly Cagletini :( she was coughing up stuff again last night and now has a fever, no rash and she’s alert not floppy or anything so not too worried (honest...)

In late pregnancy I bought a cheap pack of 100 sterile 2.5ml syringes, to express colostrum as recommended to GD mums. Never managed to get any out before the birth though so we are just using them for medicine, must admit it’s nice not to have to faff about washing syringes in the middle of the night!