The Friendly Frugaleers - Furtively planning Christmas, as August arrives

[StoogingOn]

Welcome one and all!

Done at the gym. Just walking home in the drizzle. It’s lovely.

I love the gym/exercising. Makes me feel so much better. That and eating properly.

I only eat meat maybe twice a week. The rest of the time it’s yum fish and veggie meals. Mmmm. Except for tonight. Tonight is a dirty Aussie burger. Brioche bun, cheese, pineapple, burger, fried egg, coleslaw, cheese brioche bun. Sweet potato fries.

Brioche buns are lovely Em. Yum.

Mmm burger and bun.

Wouldn't worry about going abroad. We had loads of great holidays in the UK and my DC always ask for camping. Abroad it's beach and a pool which can be done here at somewhere like haven, which is fine.
Nsd today

flappy don’t feel guilty. Whatever you do with ds he’ll remember. Whether it’s disney Ibiza Blackpool Home wherever.

I never went to Disney as a kid. I’m no worse off for it. Dh did. But he travelled loads. We didn’t. Dparents have a place in northern Brittany (an hour out of st Malo) and we spent our summers there.

I went to Disney when I was at uni. It’s not my fave place but it was fun. We probably will take ds one day but when he can remember and appreciate it. And go on all the rides! That said I’m saving for a mega trip to Lapland. To see Santa. Real Santa. I’ll probably be more excited than ds and will no doubt pee my snow pants. But the idea is to take him when he’s late primary school. So loads of time to save.

Home now. Dh and ds are at the shop. So it’s nice to have a few minutes on my own. Yay. They’re probably getting loads of coop stamps because ds is cute. Benefits to having a cute baby. Lolz.

One of my dds favourite memories was watching her grandma slip in a paddling pool 😅 she goes on about it a lot! Most of the holidays she has gone on she only vaguely remembers 😞

Her mate is still here, seems to be going alright....

Girlie That's fab. My Grandma used to be able to wiggle her hair back and forth, which was fantastic, and also once she got stuck sitting in my beanbag chair and had to be rescued, which was excellent fun. These are definitely the best memories. I'm so glad that we have grandparents here now. Massive sigh of relief.

Thanks everyone.

We usually do a Haven one and a weekend in a city every year so we aren't totally bereft of holidays and I should be more grateful. However, DS1 wantsto go to Spain and DParents often say how nice it would be for us too, which doesn't help. To be honest, I don't really fancy Disney myself, Ibiza on the other hand....

In other news, we just had strawberry burst grapes for supper. They really do taste like strawberries and because they are only the size of blueberries I didn't have to cut them up. Lovely.

www.wilko.com/en-uk/wilko-tension-rod-extendable-self-locking-white-40-60cm/p/0287706?nst=0&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI96jzhcXb3AIVDrXtCh3v_QBSEAQYASABEgLcefD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

If you get one of these, correct width, you can put it in your cleaning cupboards & hang your spray bottles on it.

Not frugal but frees up space & stops thing's getting cluttered.

Flappy Is Tenerife cheap? I went on a University looking-at-things trip there once and it was fantastically interesting. They have an actual volcano. On the plane on the way there you get to see Africa on the way past. We also saw a scorpion.

It might be worth looking at sunny. The only spanish island I have been is Fuertoventura and I had food poisoning 😷 As you can imagine I have no desire to go back there! I haven't been to many places in Western Europe. Weirdly, I have been to places like US, Oz, Canada...basically anywhere far flung.

flappy Ibiza is gorgeous. I’ve been three times. Once to the clubby part (which if I’m honest I was young wild and very care free, over indulged on the booze and possibly a bit of the other and danced like a maniac in the clubs...) and twice to the quiet part.

Flights can be reasonable. Dh and I flew out to meet friends a couple of years ago and return flights for a week cost us £400. For two. You have to be prepared to be on the plane out with crazy clubbing types stag and hens and the lads and lasses on tour types. Flights home are usually fairly subdued!!

It’s beautiful. Doesn’t have to be expensive once there. Food is cheap ish and delicious.

We went to a few bars did the obligatory sit on the beach at 4am and watch the sun come up. I’ve done it before. But was wasted. The last time Dh and I did it we took drinks and breakfast and had a very early breakfast picnic. It’s magical. Everyone is quiet. And serene. And calm. And oh the sunrise.

Do it. One day. Do it. or come to jersey it’s almost like Ibiza

Ds is so sad. His nappy rash is a bit crazy. He cried when I changed him. 😪 so we had a bath. A nice cool bath with a bit of lavender oil in it for healing. Patted him dry and have slathered his bum with metanium. Nappy on. Milky and story. Teething granuals and some calpol. And bed. I suspect I’m going to be up a lot tonight.

Funnily enough quite Nursery thought maybe chickenpox... he’s been sleepy all day and grouchy. 😪 I hope hope hope it isn’t though. And hoping just teeth heat nappy rash and tired.

Fluffy we were thinking about winter food today too. I've spotted ripe blackberries locally so I've been looking at some different recipes instead of crumble. Cane across lots of lovely autumn cakes and puddings in HFW fruit book.

Em we want to do Lapland too. Probably when the dts are 4 so they will remember it and DD will be young enough to still be really excited and we won't be paying nursery any more so might be able to afford it. It doesn't quite fit in with the overpaying the mortgage plan but it's something we'd love to do while the dcs are still small.

Spendy day today. £45 day out plus parking.

Oh poor DS em
Fingers crossed its not CP .
Can he have any nappy off time ?pee everywhere
Its really absolutely roasting here ,there are piles of cats everywhere.
Storm due 10pm
I want to lie in bed and listen to the rain

Ah em Ibiza sounds right up my street. Do you think I can leave the family for a night and go clubbing ha ha. DH would say yes too, bless him, he's good like that. I think having a holiday savings goal will be helpful in my frugalling daily decisions.

Fingers crossed you get a good night sleep. Bath, bottle and calpol is the holy trinity when they aren't feeling well isn't it. Poor baby.

Spends £10 DS1 monthly pocket money. I think he wants to spend it on fortnight v-bucks. Sigh.

LOL! Bandit Piles of cats sounds fantastic. I would love a storm though.

Nocutnocut was curious if i could get some kids play uniform cheaper trough the sites. Dd1 wishes doctor clothes, police uniform and a tool belt. As well as wooden food toys.
fluffy there's a Christmas tread? How exciting
girlie how did your dds play date go?
We have no.food allergies here but both dds are severely allergic to pencillin and dd1 is also allergic to codein and some forms of antibiotics, so its such a pain when they need meds be cause of it.
Dd1 also have restricted height growth
Spent today in total 18£ in park on a train ride, boat trip and parking. We had picnic with us which we ate while sailing.

........or come to the Isle of Wight , which is like Jersey but without the lovely shops and huge house prices, (and sadly the well-paid jobs or very rich people living here ) and nothing at all like Ibiza except in Cowes at Cowes week, which is going on now

..although there are some who do live here and some other very rich people who have 2nd or 3rd homes here , and big boats .. (not me though, I have none of those, not even a dinghy!)

quite we did some nappy free time. He usually loves it. He likes doing “yoga” and can almost get himself into “downward dog”. So generally it’s nappy off bumcheeks up! Haha. Today he wasn’t bothered. But we’ll do more tomorrow as soon as we get home.

Nursery won’t do it (which I totally understand) but I will ask them to slather the magic yellow cream on and make sure nappies are changed frequently.

And yes! All hail the gods of calpol. Hes Sleeping so is obviously tired. He’s managed to get himself down to two naps a day purely by being at nursery and by being too nosey so refuses to nap for fear of missing out! Haha.

He’ll be fine. If it’s chickenpox it’ll be bad timing. But when is ever good timing?! But we’ll deal with it.

I might do another nice cool bath with him tomorrow evening and do the porridge bath thing. It’s meant to help chickenpox redness and itching. So must do the same for nappy rash? Lost nothing by trying have I?

I’m getting blackberries on Saturday. My riding instructor took a ton of brambles away to the dump this week but saved me the blackberries. They’ll go in DMs freezer so I can make jam. We had enough berries last year to make 12 jars. I’m going for 15 this year.

Why are the two islands so different when they are so close by? Is it historical?

Oh re travelling. We been a bit here and there. Dh is asian so travelled trough Asia. While living in the UK we tried to see as much as possible of the UK. Now back in Denmark we mainly been inland, Germany and the Nordic countries.
I can track all our spends on my online banking app. Ill try to see if i can add a pic of it in. It gives a good overview.

The one time I went to Ibiza it rained and the beach ended up all seaweed also our apartments were rubbish. It really put me off and I have never been back since. I love Majorca but you have to be careful as some places have a lot of stag/hen parties - its funny how that would once have been the attraction #oldfart.

Jersey and iow? They’re fairly far apart....

Jersey is 14 miles from France. 108 miles to IOW.

It takes me 10 hours by ferry to get to Portsmouth. 1 to France. IOW ferry to Portsmouth is what, 1 hour tops?

Jersey used to be part of France. But coastal erosion...

I took the plane that goes to Florence once and it was full of young couples looking soppily into each other's eyes and looking at big engagement rings on the girl's finger. It was kind of weird.

Our spends this week