March Frugaleers continued. In which we report spends, share money saving advice, chat about pretty much everything and post pet pics.

[Cagliostro]

Welcome one and all! Newbies and lurkers always welcome 💐

I'm still at the bottom of my band so it would be good for me....

Oh seacow that’s devastating, I’m so sorry :(

Love both my DDs’ inductions were 3 day affairs (actually more like 4 with Cagletini ) and they were only just talking about CS then after several pessaries, waters broken, drip etc. She has my sympathy, inductions are shit. Fingers crossed something happens soon!

Exactly lonely I don’t believe that our lawyer believes the sale will happen. So when I speak to him that’s my first question. “Do you think this is going to happen?” If his answer is yes I need to know what he’s going to do to make it happen. If it’s no then we change lawyers to the ones who sold the apartment above mine two weeks ago.

I’ve said in my email we want all attentions focussed on selling on 6 April. I’ve said to dh this all hinges on us getting some communication. Things have been mooted but no decisions made. I want decisions. If we get to mid next week with no decisions/communications it’s not happening.

If we get some answers and we have things we need to do we can work towards this.

I’ve reminded lawyer that his engagement letter states that we pay him on the satisfactory completion of the sale. This is no where near satisfactory.

In other news dh has just taken the bins out. Bin bag had a hole in it. And bin was dripping milk/cream. Through the kitchen, living room, hallway, dh then realised it was dripping and brought it back to get another bag to put it in. Ffs. So steaming floors is on the list today too.

That's useful to know Em My parents are doing the same thing just now.

Girlie it's good to know that GPs are decently paid. They work hard enough for it.

Thanks for the welcome.
Fluffycloud I am I think as I seem to remember claiming it a long time ago. Or do I do it every year?
Sea sorry to hear your news. How upsetting for you all

Oh Sea really sorry

emIm not a lawyer but I dealt with all our house moves and didnt take any crap !
Day off !
Aldi and Pet shopping I lead an exciting life.
Payday tomorrow- wont be able to save quite as much as back to paying bloody council tax.
Mushroom and cheese omlette for breakfast

seacow I am so sorry, terrible news

W
ell done em kick ass! but really its appalling that you have to come over all 'one of them' you are paying this person its their livelihood and they should ruddy care!

welcome Elvis

girlie yes its a hard one we in local govt have been 'awarded' 2% , which in effect is a paycut still after all the years on .5% or 1%.. but although the union is against , i think it will be carried, people are just so fed up of nothing that 2% looks good!..
My pay is actually still about £2000 less than 5 years ago , (when we were 'restructured ' in the name of 'efficiency' into different ( and for most of us, of course) lower paybands.

love yes but its local govt - HR do things in their own time.. i have 'reminded' boss again!,

Has anyone spoken to Need? if not i may PM her.. but i know she cant pick messages up unless she fires up her laptop.

hopefully she is ok..

Seacow very sorry to hear this. Be strong, this is tough.
Have not posted in awhile. Have had endless house expenses, plumber, drains treatment, electrician, looking at around £600 when all finished
Keeping shopping (other than food) & fun to zero, and am trying to save up for a week in Italy this summer. I am just hoping there are no more house emergencies. Running a house is expensive.
If anyone recalls my London meeting from 2-3 weeks ago ( where I got my hair done so I would look presentable) after a loooong silence, they have come back & we may we’ll get it. Not decided yet, but they are asking for final price, which is a good sign. Great, prestige project, name client.
This does not help my personal situation, which is tax constrained, but does help business & staff morale. Also, wonderful tho a new project is, it can put incredible strain on cash flow; the first payment is always very slow.
ememem see not much has changed in your life ( re flat sale) Commiserations

So stressful moan. Still you’ve got to be in it to win it. I agree about houses. We’ve got a leaking sink & it’s concealed fitting one suspended on two springs. It looks a total wanker of a job.

I’ve got £19 coming from cex for an old mobile I had in a drawer. It’s a Huawei so not posh. They didn’t want my old sat nav

I’ll put it towards decorating the hall way. I want chrome switches and sockets

Unescorted we have clay soil too which is a nightmare in the wet NW. You put me in a spin mentioning pressure cookers, so no decision made yet going to look into pros & cons of slow cooker v pressure cooker.
lovea I had 3 pessaries with no effect (over 3 days) before they decided on c section, but that was 17 years ago. Hope it's more effective for your sil x
Secow I'm so sorry to hear that about your dad, it doesn't matter how much you have prepared yourself for news like that, it's still awful. I feel a bit of a link with him thanks to his and my dh & ds' football allegiance. Virtual hugs to you.
Em sorry you're having such a nightmare with the flat sale
moan typical of all those things to come at once, cashflow nightmare.

Re the NHS payrise, I'm not over excited about it either. There are really big increases for those at the bottom, including the lowest grade qualified nurses and allied health professionals (Band 5) but that just means that the difference between the bottom and the top of clinical grades closes. I've been qualified for 25 years and am at the top of Band 7 (with no prospect of clinical promotion locally) and have been for a long time so don't get any incremental rises, just the 6% over 3 years. I appreciate that that sounds good in the current climate but 1% of next year's increase is a non consolidated lump sum and who knows what inflation will be like in 3 year's time. I would prefer a one year at a time approach. Rant over!

Busy morning here. A couple of hours in work catching up, circuit training, aldi then Booths for big food shop, railway station to pick up tickets and railcard for dh & ds' weekend football trip to London. Dd and I are having a girls weekend at home.

Love I had an induction and it was all over and done with in 1 hour 53 minutes, with minimal pain relief, so it's might be good. Just thought a positive story might help.

Have just been to garden centre to get compost and tomato seeds ( v late this year but they always catch up) .£16.50 then co op ,for food for weekend £21.50
I ordered a skirt today , but also received £45 in quidco funds from our house insurance and refunds on other stuff of over £150 , so in fact am in credit even if i keep that skirt..
I MUST remember to but diesel tomorrow or will be in trouble ( dont buy it at my local garage unless absolute emergency as its about 10p a lt more than in town.. ! have stuck post it on steering wheel ..

My weekly pay today after tax, prsi, paye, usc, pension deduction and €30 to Christmas club left me with €623.31 which I budgeted like so in YNAB - €405 to joint acc, €70 credit union loan, €5 dc savings, €38.00 contact lenses, €29.80 cc1 payment, €27 fuel card payment, €5 cc3, €6.35 cc2, €55 nct, €1.80 Sat newspaper and remainder for parking & food on my day off next wed. cc1 payment clears the vitamin supplement I bought on cc earlier this month and means the remaining balance is joint account spends.

With my transfer to joint account of €405 I budgeted it like this - €10 charity donation, €40 credit union loan, €130 aupair, €150 groceries, €40.48 cc payment and remainder went on stuff we'd gone over budget on last week - food & unexpected activity payment for dd

Oh yes, yesterday i bought a new large wheely duffle travel bag in TKMaxx.. had old one 12 yrs ..( know this because i bought it for my honeymoon!) and it got a bit ripped last year in baggage handling . V pleased with new .. its an Antler and reduced from £165 to £65! (and they still selling it on Antler website for £165 reduced to £95 in their sale and also the same in HOF)

Sometimes TKmaxx is the DBs!!but you do have to watch them , often their prices are not as good as you think...

North I also noticed that they're getting rid of the increments for bands 3 and 4 meaning that a newly qualified assistant practitioner (for example) would be getting paid the same as one with ten years experience

Spoken to lawyer. Gave him and his superior hell. They’ve apparently agreed things we’ve never heard about. I’ve asked them to send me the emails where we instructed this. Funnily enough they can’t find them. Have said we’re not paying their bill.

Dh is adamant we will sell. I wouldn’t care now if it falls flat.

Go em

Mixed day here: got my formal offer so notice has gone in. Eeek.

Funeral this afternoon. I never met the person but she is my sils man so went for my brother and sil to support them.

£2 collection, £20 owed to dm, £65 Aldi £4 Iceland but that's it and it's my weekend so early.

What sort of things Em?

life handing in notice!! .. I dream of that day!

em or anyone have you got the britax roma or however it's spelt. It's being re called

Sorry britax romer

Em Very stupid of them to lie like that. You’ve got more house purchases ahead of you too so their missing repeat business.

£6 white emulsion
£2.50 cat food
£1 Dolmio
£10 petrol.

laksa saying we’d agreed to pay for a report to be done on the building if the bank will accept it. I’ve since gone back and clarified that if the bank will accept this I will get a report on our apartment only. As have no access to the rest of the building. But I’m not spending any money until I know of it will be accepted.

Ridiculous thing is, I’ve spoken to our bank today and our mortgage will flip from a fixed to a variable rate at the beginning of April. If we don’t refix, current interest rate is lower than our fixed rate, and we have no restrictions and can overpay overpay overpay. And could probably reduce the balance by 50% by the end of the year. If we don’t sell.

I found brown rice at the back of the cupboard...cooks in 20-25 mins my arse. It's been on for 40 and has barely softened up. Tea is going to be very late tonight.

Nsd, but dp is currently loose in asda with my credit card the last time he phoned he was choosing easter eggs. I asked for cherry tomatoes and chicken goujons.