The Friendly Frugaleers: Saving and chatting as the heatwave rolls on.

[BestFootForwardAndThenSome]

Now that I've put that in the title, we will almost certainly get snow. LOL!

Welcome to nearly-August.

Oh and gibside

It's so good to be back, I'll try to keep up properly now!
Lonely I saw the pic of the yarn, gorgeous colours. How is the job going?
Seacow love the holiday pics, it looks beautiful there.
sunny that book is brilliant, good luck at Papworth.
cag how is the house working out?
Em how are you feeling now? Hope the ADs have kicked in & that dh is pulling his weight
Wolf hope your holiday was good.

So today is going to be about washing, ironing, packing, fitting the roof bars and box onto the car, etc, etc. From a frugal perspective it's about packing the right food for the journey as we will be on the road/sea for a long stretch. I'm going to make sausage/bacon butties & a fruit salad for breakfast on the road, then a pub lunch when we get to Portsmouth. The cool box is going to be packed with enough picnic type food for Friday tea & Saturday lunch, just leaving us to get breakfast on the ferry. I'll also pack plenty of drinks including a flask of coffee for dh & wine for the ferry. I reckon with the four of us (all adult eaters), it'll save us £60-£80. The ferry food is good, but just not what I want us to spend precious holiday money on, we'll save that for tapas, tapas & more tapas!
Dd and I are going to a circuits class this morning. Mine is paid for, dd will be £3. Last pre holiday class...

Totally agree we need a WW Frugaleer code.
Sale is over now though.
Not ordering anything until next sale,hope it will be Alpaca like last year
Have plenty to get on with .
The new Rowan A/W book is out ,have my spends left so will pop into JL at the weekend.
Looks lovely,so glad they have gone away from novelty yarns crap back to beautiful classics.
Felted Tweed is my absolute favorite and the colours are just lovely,an investment though.
Should be a NSD today.

North That's a harsh pay cut their suggesting there. Would he consider leaving the MoJ? the amount of work he must have put into training for accountancy its rather galling not to get paid well for it.

I do not envy you doing a prescribing course.

WreckCat has his vaccinations and health check today £££ that's going on the credit card unfortunately. He has a posh, pissed off, old man voice

Oh and I need to go to Tesco and get all the stuff they forgot yesterday unfortunately our nearest Tesco doesn't stock it all though

North good to see you back, sorry about dh's job. The prescribing course will be good!

Hey north yes the ads are taking the edge off a bit and dh is pulling his weight. He’s currently in the kitchen with ds playing “Japanese game show contestant” - it’s a stupid game we made up years ago after watching one too many Japanese game shows. Basically we do normal tasks but announce them in “japanese Game show” shouty voice. Only in the house though. It may be construed abs being a smidge racist to the outside world. Today’s challenge - japanese game show contestant (ds) must eat yoghurt in shortest time possible.

I’m in bed. I’m not going in today. I’ve been awake since 1. So am taking a personal day and will check emails now and then. I feel guilty for not going in but I’m exhausted. So I need to take care of me.

Good em take the day. It's good (without sounding at all patronising) that you recognise that you can't do it all today. A month or so ago you would have felt that you needed to go in.

north have a great journey today! Planning is the thing, and you've got that down. My job is ace. It's not the exciting career path to earn £££, but I'm doing arty stuff I enjoy and find pretty effortless. And it knocks spots of shelf stacking or cleaning, which was about all I was ever going to find. And I only need to earn money now, I have done the only carrer I ever wanted to do, loved it, and closed the box on it when I had dc.

Better get on. Will try to avoid the trip to the co-op after work!

It is isn’t it lonely to be fair if I had a ton of work on I would have gone in today. But I don’t. All the major things that I know about have been dealt with and anything else can wait a day.

Self care is needed today. I feel a bit guilty not going in but I need this. And am fortunate enough that I can just take a day. And they understand. I’ve been honest and open with the bosses about how I’ve been struggling. And they also recognise how hard I work. So it’s give and take and we’re flexible with each other. They know I’ll check emails now and then. I know they don’t see this as an issue because it’s a one off.

Today’s plans. Laze in bed with breakfast and some fruit and catch up on news etc. Then shower. Then just potter around the house. I may watch a film. Or may do some gentle sorting out.

I got WreckCat in the cat carrier first try! Given how big he is I'm quite pleased with myself!

Enjoy your holiday North. My children always want a toastie on the flight and I totally grudge paying the money for them, but somehow it has became a holiday tradition. We travel with family so it can end up really expensive.

em hope you and catface have a nice chilled day to recharge your batteries.

Lonely That's brilliant that your job is suiting you so well.

I am also lazing in bed today. damned virus. 27 days and counting.

Em good call. Have a chilled day and see if you can nap on the sofa during the film.

Loving all the cat voices. When I was a teen one of our dogs went pretty much entirely deaf so sign language had to be employed but I can’t remember us ever having voices for them although they have all had very distinct personalities. Their current dog is my once in a lifetime dog, I adore him.

Second load of washing on. I’m going to see if dparents will let me put it in their rumble drier although I feel a bit guilty asking as they have clearly done so much round the house while I was away.

Did a bit more tinkering round the edges of the finances last night and this morning. Would like to buy a few photo frames today for some pics ds and I had taken on holiday.

North it’s lovely to see you.

Sea if you stay north of Newcastle then the beach at Bamburgh is lovely and because it’s so big you can find uninhabited bits! No amusements, just sand.
Beach near Dunstanburgh castle also nice from what I remember
Ds goes to Roker beach with Dgps quite a lot

Sunny has the doctor found out what your virus is yet? 27 days is a long time. How are you coping with the school holidays?

Wolf my oldest cat (21) is completely deaf, but he still has a voice For some reason he speaks with a strong Scottish East Coast accent even though we are from the West Coast...

Born I think I've just got a a gastro bug, but it's hitting me really hard as I have a chronic fatigue syndrome type of thing too and I've been totally failing to pace myself recent. My GP found out recently that I was short of Vitamin D, and I can't take supplements, so I started dashing around in the sunshine and ran myself into the ground. (Ooops). I just need to use my common sense and stay in bed until it goes away I think,

School holiday is a bit tricky. Dh got a Nintendo Switch for his birthday last weekend and ds is just playing on it from 6am until 7pm every day. It's not exactly fabulous parenting, but I'm literally too socked out to sit up in bed most of the time. It surely can't last much longer though can it?

Thanks for asking. It's never been this long before. My previous record was three weeks.

Born I phoned up and asked for a phone appointment with a GP. You're right, it is a bit of a long time.

Lovely to see you North sounds like you've been busy!

Sea I was going to suggest Bamburgh or Seahouses! Absolutely love Northumberland. We're going to go back when the dcs are old enough for stargazing etc as Kielder is brilliant for that.

I just made an EWFL recipe for lunch. It's the ham and cheese muffin things with quinoa from a couple of weeks ago. I'm veggie so I just used peppers, cherry tomatoes and grated carrot. We had a bag of quinoa taking up space in the cupboard anyway. I hope the dcs like them. I think they will as they love frittata and these are similar. I'll report back.

Thinking of going to visit an urban beach later although ds ate sand at the park yesterday so I'm not sure if a beach is sensible.

Sunny you have my sympathies as I have had low vit D and felt dreadful. The muscles in my thighs sometimes felt as though they weren’t strong enough to get me from sitting to standing. I took a sublingual spray from Amazon as my GP was crap and didn’t prescribe me anything, and I try and sit out everyday if it’s sunny even it’s its only for 1/2 hour. I also have periods where I don’t wear sunscreen.

Maybe you need to send in a stool specimen in case you need an antibiotic.

Enjoying the beach today. Will check in later.

Thanks Born. Maybe I need to work hard on the vitamin D then, as that does sound like me. I've been sitting out for an hour a day in shorts and t shirt in the boiling sun to try to stockpile vitamin D while I get the chance. I wear a hat to keep the sun off my face. I never wear sunscreen. I also eat fish nearly every day.

The GP did test me and it's not bacterial, so definitely a virus. I think I might have got my salts messed up though as it's been a long time so I will ask. My own GP is very good but is not there at the moment, but the other GP that I spoke to was also very helpful. Fingers crossed she might have an idea.

sunny are you taking a probiotic?

I’m watching old episodes of friends and drinking loads of water. My tummy feels a bit wibbly.

Have spoken to my lawyer today. He’s going to suggest 17th August as our sale date. Eeeeee!

Lovely picture Scandi water looks very inviting.

Hope it settles for you soon Sunny as you must feel even weaker if you’ve had an upset stomach for that long.

Gosh Em that’s fast! Sunny I have a severe vit d deficiency, luckily I can take supplements as long as they don’t have gelatine in but simply sitting on the back step or on a park bench with your arms exposed for ten minutes will make a difference according to my doc - no need to be physically active. Some of the things you’ve been eating, like sardines will also help boost your levels

Thanks Born I'll keep at it then.

Em Thanks for the thought. I can't take probiotics though. My digestive system packed up dramatically post-baby and I live on a diet of bland and more bland and no supplements. It's pretty thrilling.

Dh is going on a mission to find me some potassium.