The Friendly Frugaleers - Furtively planning Christmas, as August arrives

[StoogingOn]

Welcome one and all!

Well done Lonely, you're doing a brilliant job there.

You don't have any hints on the supermaket problem do you? I'm still garbage at that.

Good luck Lonely you’ll probably feel much better when you get the plan in place. Overspending on food is easy to do. You go into any supermarket at the weekends and there are people piling their trollies high with huge amounts of expensive foods. I always wonder if they use it all, or if like I did, they have to clear out the fridge to make room for the fresh stuff Not now though!!I am so much better at using things up, although my food shop is still more expensive than I’d like...

Sunny do you spend lots in the supermarket? For some reason I thought because your diet is so limited that you would be able to resist all the tempting expensive things.

I do born, thanks for asking, but I have the opposite problem. Because our diets are quite limited we can't buy any of the cheap stuff. So no sausages with wheat in, we have to buy the 97% meat ones. Gluten free fish fingers are 83p per 100g compared to the normal sort which are 38p per 100g. We can't buy the cheap pizzas, but have to buy the weird gluten free sort which are £3.50.

Also because ds and I have different limited diets, and dh has no limitations but likes a lot of flavour, we end up cooking three different meals every time.

The major problem with that is that it's hard to buy a packet that does for one person, but I'm getting better at buying things that I can easily freeze and take enough for one person out at at a time. Also dh is being more obliging about eating the same as ds these days. That was a frugaleer victory some time back.

I drink bottled water, which adds up, as I can't seem to have chlorinated water, but ds has given up having cartons of juice, which helps a lot.

We can manage the cost tbh, but I worry about people who are on a low income and have food intolerance problems. I'm not really sure how they manage tbh.

I've analysed out food bill inside out, and it's the meat that really adds up. We do like meat though. I just don't seem to work without it, and oddly, most of the critical vitamins are most abundant in meat.

DD I loves Mog! Our cat looks just like her and has many of the same character traits can't work put how to get back in when he goes outside. Some of the other Mog books are really funny. Mog's Bad Thing is our favourite. I love that your ds thought cats were female dogs Sunny. There were lambs and chickson TV yesterday and I could see by the looks on the dts faces that they had suddenly realised these were real, not just in books. I think a visit to a farm is in order.

Another 5 am start. It was still dark ffs. I've got up with them this time. Am watching the dts play. They really are quite sweet together. Ds keeps "hiding" even though we can see him and then popping up and shouting boo which makes DD2 giggle. So cute.

I was talking to someone yesterday whose son wanted a new game so she'd got him listing old toys on eBay to save up for it. What a great idea to teach kids about money! I will be doing this when mine are old enough.

I’ve got all the original Mog books in dparents house. We’ve bought new for ds (unfrugal I know) but I’m buying him a new book a month. Or new from the charity shop. And then can donate back.

The only one I won’t buy is goodbye Mog. I bought it for dsis when it came out a few years ago. She hasn’t read it (we were both mid/late 20’s at the time). We know what happens....too sad. We adored Mog when we were kids.

sunny can you get help with gluten free food? Here they do an allowance for gluten free stuff. I didn’t realise they did it. It was only when I went to the social security place while I was pregnant to sort out my Maternity pay that I saw the leaflet. My colleague had recently been diagnosed as coelicac but the gps never mention it. No idea how it works on the “mainland” as things are different here. But colleague gets £150 a month for gf food.

Todays lunch break jobs:

• drop bags at charity shop
• organise removals for the morning of the 17th.
• call a few more estate agents
• buy sandwich. No food in the house to make lunch annoyingly. We have no bread to make sandwich either. Grrr.

Dh’s job is to call the bank and get an in principle yes on a mortgage.

Lonely it sounds like you have really researched this and from what you say is the best option for you. Good luck with it.

Work today. Nsd planned.

I've never been brave enough to read Goodbye Mog!

Ds has just learnt to climb on the sofa and then dangle dangerously over the end. Now I can't leave the room for a second. Bugger.

lovely good luck with everything! If it gets you to where you want to be then it’s the right decision!

Gym today too. Meh. I’m exhausted. Ds was crying a lot last night and very restless. So very noisy. But hey ho.

Well that's me needing a new bike now too. Gears are wonky and one of the brakes has snapped. FFS. Anything else want to go wrong

Oh no life, not another thing! It always happens that way, one thing after another, doesn’t it? we’ve just had a spell like that, but at least there was more than a day in between!

Still, it’s stuff like this that reminds us why we are here trying our best to be frugal.

lonely great to hear you have a plan of what to do now.

DS1 has just gone totally crazy as he got his first solo win on Fortnite!

Lonely I think that all sounds really positive

Life that's shit! I don't have a bike but I want one.

Em no gluten free allowance here and they've removed it from the prescribing list.

My friend is coming round today and I've got the paddling pool out. Last hot day for a while I think.

Ds has just woken up. Dh has just gone in the shower. So ds and I are enjoying fruit for breakfast. He’s having a banana and I’m cutting up fruit for a fruit pot.

He’ll have a proper breakfast at nursery. Worked out maybe why he was crying last night. Wicked nappy rash. So possibly toof no 8 is on the way. Or it’s the heat. or all the sand be ate at the beach on sunday

I also paid £23 into my coop account yesterday. Here we get stamps. You stick the stamps on cards and pay them in or use them for shopping. If you pay them in and then take them out in vouchersyou get an extra 15%

We’ve got £287 in my account now. So that’ll be useful once we get the new house.

Morning!
Slept until 7.30 and had chilly legs when I woke up
Hens and Dcats fed and Im having a coffee in peace.
Some areas still provide GF stuff on prescription if you are coeliac here .

em bad nappy rash was the first sign of Chicken Pox with DD 😒
We have those Coop stamps in the run up to Christmas or we did,I must ask.
We have the 5% cashback thingy here so I do any tops ups at the Coop as its so close ,I save it to buy nice deli things at Christmas.
Another pottery day here ,need to clear up all the dead plants in my garden

On way out of London towards work. Early start today and it’s due to be 32 degrees here yuck! I’m out with work friends tonight so likely to be spendy
Have a good frugal day everyone

I'm pretty sure gluten free prescriptions are only for people with diagnosed celiac not food intolerance.

Just waking up here, need to clean the bathroom this morning as it's really overdue! Also need to pop to aldi, got dds friend coming later and am hoping that goes okay, dd was in tears Ystd as worried about it 😕

Plan is for them to go swimming and then come back here for tea and a film maybe so should be fine...

Goodbye Mog is sad but it's okay, quite a good introduction of the concept of death for children. I also loved Fred by Posy Simmons as a kid, that's about a much loved family cat who dies and the children then discover he was a famous singer in the cat community! ! Not sure if I've got the title right but it's def got Fred in there somewhere 🐱

Ooo I forgot I'm going to the theatre tonight. It's called me and my girl and has got matt Lucas and Caroline Quentin in it

em we use calendula creme for nappy rash with great success. Actually use it for most stuff because its absolutely great. www.weleda.co.uk/calendula-nappy-change-cream-75ml-105009
On our way to Jylland to see dd1 eye doc, we don't have one specialised in kids on Funen. But we packed lunch so going to either safari or the kid park after. So be lsd, only need the happy meal that dd1 gets every time after the appt...

scandi what are you looking at on wish/aliexpress? I've bought little toys before and they were terrible quality most broke within hours. I've bought a few teddies and kawaii stationary that's fine. For dds advent I bought a bundle of shopkins for £5 from eBay so they can have 1 each a day in the calendar.

We love mog books I bought the whole set from the book people. Not goodbye mog can't bring myself to read it. My favourite is the tiger who came to tea. Have you read any Sue Hendra? They are brilliant dd2 loves Dave the cat and supertato. They are all colourful and funny. You can get the whole set on the book people quite cheaply.

I'm also on a limited diet - bad IBS so been following the fodmap diet. I've worked out wheat, dairy, onions, garlic, eggs on their own (like an omelette but in a recipe is fine), windy vegetables and honey seem to be problematic so far. I eat alot of potatoes and plain meat 😂 we budget £300 per month for food/household but have been going £50-60 over the last couple of months. Need to cut back a bit on the snacks and stick to the list 🤣

Nocuts I'm a potatoes-and-plain-meat person too.

No gluten-free allowance for us here. We're just gluten intolerant, not coeliac, so wouldn't be eligable anyway. Tbh it's a tall order even getting the non-wheat school lunch for ds even when we're paying for it, as he has no formal diagnosis. People are very keen to assume that the mother is an idiot and that the child is fine.

Last boiling hot day here today. Trying to imagine what it will be like to wear trousers tomorrow, and failing.

There seems to be more gluten free food available now, but you’re right it’s much more expensive. I wonder if it will become less expensive as it becomes more popular as I think lots of people are discovering that they feel better without gluten. I know when I’ve been on a low carb diet I feel much less sluggish and bloated, however I love bread and pasta too much to make this a permanent thing.

We spend loads on food. Really a lot, I don’t really add up the top up shops, I should track it. I’ve cut down massively on waste and buy very little convenience food, just pizzas for DS really. I mostly cook from scratch and chop all my vegetables myself . But we spend on good meat and fish (I’m happy with meat-free meals but DH is not on board with that at all ) and a lot of berries and other naice fruit for the children. We do eat pretty well. I think I need to look at the branded stuff we use though as I am sure I could save there without noticing... I don’t buy branded everything but am in a rut with some things (condiments and cleaning products for example) and might not notice a swap. DH has expensive cereal, even the own brand ones are pricey. We don’t tend to buy things like crisps, chocolate biscuit bars unless we are going on picnics (that’s a big holiday spend atm!) but at home I bake a lot too and that adds up. I find summer more expensive than winter for food, I think it’s the fruit and salad, which seems to cost more than casseroles and the like.

Love the Mog books. Must get DD into them.

I had a frenzy of cooking last night, in spite of being knackered, as needs must. I made a big pot of tomato and veg sauce for the kids and froze portions... DH would live on this stuff if he could and the shop bought tomato sauces were not well received (and full of rubbish). I also made a massive pot of smoked haddock chowder for tonight’s diner - getting ahead for DMum’s arrival today. We’ll have that with crusty bread. And I made spicy harissa chicken for our dinner.

We’re off for a wander about this morning and then back here for DD’s nap and a tidy up before I meet DM at the airport. So a relaxed day but getting some stuff sorted out.

Coop stamps in a book- that takes me back!

That’s DS that would live on tomato sauce, not DH. ‘Where’s the meat?’ 🙄