The Friendly Frugaleers - Furtively planning Christmas, as August arrives

[StoogingOn]

Welcome one and all!

LOL! That did confuse me a bit. We're the same. We eat well, and it does cost a bit.

I just worked out my numbers for the month, and I thought that by some miracle I had come out under budget. In fact I had just missed out a digit. Ratso.

@WreckTangled what loo roll? Is any as good as cushelle?

Stellen i can't say as I've never used cushelle! I just get a three ply one

Food budget is pretty much sorted now .
Shop monthly Aldi/Lidl/Ocado for offers/farm shop meat (DH loves Lidl 😂)for staples ,baking stuff is so much cheaper,tins,curry pastes,rice .
No one has cereal as its usually full of sugar so its porridge ,overnight oats or eggs.
Tea/coffee bulk buy
So its just fruit/veg from tiny greengrocer and milk via milkman-hardly use any .
Top ups are rare but Co op as I can walk there.
Always take lunch to work and I would scoop my eyes out rather than buy tea/coffee on the go.
We all drink water -from the tap .
I do my budget as I go along so adjustments can be made.

That sounds great. How do you find the time to go to so many different places Bandit?

£2.87 morrisons, 2 soya milk & wonky baby potatoes.
£4.65 Sains, toothpaste x 3, squash, yoghurt for dh to take his meds on.
£9.38 aldi, 24 loo rolls, cat food, thick bleach and milk.
£9.32 lidl 2 x bread flour, plain flour, cocoa powder, spring onions, peppers, sweet potato, lettuce, sugar, celery, microfibre cloths.

I prefer lidl as they use more paper food wrappings than aldi

The nhs pays way over the odds for gluten free stuff for coeliacs, I'm allergic to cows milk which cuts out a very easy way of getting calcium and vitamin d & I don't get any help at all. I need a plain calcium supplement as I'm pretty sure I'm using bone mass at the moment.

I would love to ban cereal Quite but DH is the worst culprit. The stuff he eats is so sugary I won’t let the kids near it. I had a major battle with him to replace full sugar Ribena with own brand low sugar squash but I really put my foot down over that. He has it with every meal while the kids and I drink water 😬. Thing is it’s hard for me to have the moral high ground when I’m quite overweight but his eating habits are like a kid’s in the 1970s. Which he was, but most of us have moved on! At least no one has a fizzy drink habit. Or fancy coffees.

Ill pm you Sea

I suppose it’s all about how we prioritise things. I would cut back in other areas like expensive clothes or cosmetics before I would cut back on food. There are certain things that I only buy when they are on special offer (certain cereals). I have a fizzy drink habit and eat cereal - there’s no hope for me 😂

I do drink lots of tap water too as our water tastes really nice.

I feed ds cereal with a shovel because he needs the iron. He's on a mandatory two-coco-pop-bars-a-day diet at the moment. I want one too, dammit

quite thanks for that....I’d just stopped stressing about the pox!!! It’s been almost 3 weeks since the Nursery outbreak....and someone helpful did say that the incubation period is 22 days... but it’s sand. And heat. And absolutely sand. And teething. Not the pox. --crosses fingers

Dh is very strict about food shopping. He does it. So this means I don’t have to worry. So he buys the un branded/branded stuff as applicable.

I eat special k (or super market equivalent) or porridge for breakfast. At weekends eggs. We try and take lunch every day. Failed today. But hey ho.

Your dh sounds a real superstar about food and cooking Em. Well done him. Sorry to hear about the sand.

Oh god sorry em foot in mouth
It was just an observation-I got hell off the HV for not changing her enough and cried until I found out it was CP
Sunny
I do Aldi,Lidl and farmshop once per month. All near each other.
Ocado delivery once a month .
I pop out on a weekly basis to the greengrocer .Milk is delivered.
Im hardly ever in a shop

Bandit that's impressively organised. We have zero storage space here unfortunately. We have to store the hoover in the dining room because we have literally no cupboard space. It definitely a tricky thing for frugaleering, not being able bulk buy.

At the risk of being boring, could I just whine very slightly about still having this sodding virus? I have my GP appointment to go and be seeing in actual person tomorrow which is my 43rd birthday. What the heck though.

We have lots of storage space -a proper pantry,lovely and cool with shelving .
A chest freezer in the garage ,an american style fridge freezer in the house plus 2 sheds,one is housing pet feed plus my loo roll stash,jam jars which Ive washed and saved.
I agree if you have space you can take advantage of offers and bulk buy .
Nothing dry/tinned is ever purchased full price, always on offer ditto catfood .
Im not actuslly that organised just I CBA going shopping all the time and hate supermarkets and the waste/overspending they generate by getting us to buy,buy,buy

That sounds like a good plan re:GP Sunny
Did they tell you what the virus was?
Its really unusual to have a Gastric virus this long -push for other investigations.

Sunny hope your GP gets to the bottom of it. Not knowing what’s wrong with you makes things harder to deal with as some people lose their sympathy after a while unless you have an actual diagnosis (speaking from experience here 😨). It shouldn’t matter what other people think but unfortunately for most people it does. Can your parents help you out now that they are living closer?

It’s ok quite I’m sure it’s nothing...just the normal nappy rash....! Poor babboo.

He would be just the type to get sick now though. Now we need to get moving with things...! Haha.

Anyway.

£23 at the storage place on mattress covers and sofa covers and armchair covers.

Removals booked for next Thursday. Eeep. £75 an hour for one can three guys. They reckon they can move us in 3 hours. That’s packing everything into the van (I’ll pack everything and dismantle stuff. They’ll do the lifting and then unloading into the storage space.

This weekend is the time for organising and being ruthless.

Then as they move things I’ll clean. Dh is taking Thursday off work as well so he can assist the removals and I’ll do the cleaning. Then it’ll be nice for the new people to come straight in on Friday after court.

It’s going to be sad to leave. I can’t go to court - too sad. So I’m going to be at work.

Born yes it would be great if my parents could come. I'm just really nervous of passing this on to my dm, but maybe I'm not infectious any more? I think I will ask the GP what she thinks.

Bandit thanks, yes I'll do my best.

I don't mean to go on about it on here so I'll go back to frugaleer talk now. Thanks for letting me get it off my chest though,

Have you thought about a thread regarding your health issues Sunny?

Things like chronic hyperventilation and your food issues-Im sure there are others who might have experience of this on MN and could give you help/advice ?

I hope you get it sorted-the bug thing,its been going on a fair while for them just to ignore.

em is there a different system there?

The court thing -not heard of that before

Interesting chat about food budgets. It’s working OK for us at the moment. I’m budgeting £200 a month for food, toiletries, cleaning stuff, bin bags etc & if we need over the counter meds from the supermarket etc. I’ve switched to doing a Tesco online shop (used to shop at Lidl in person but I’m getting tired & breathless this time already even though only 21w preg). I’m actually finding I’m spending less than I did at Lidl as I can see the total & am ruthless about sticking to budget whereas in person I tend to have more impulse buys.

We rarely need a top up shop now as I buy 2x loaves and freeze one for mid week (I often bake bread too) and I’ve found that buying 2x 4 pint milks (rather than one big one) the way to go as it lasts all week then with the second one being unopened til later on (a revaluation to me as I’ve always had to top up milk later in the week).

I don’t have to buy nappies or anything at the moment but we’ll probably only use disposables for the first 8 weeks with this baby & then get the cloth stash out. Baby will be breastfed too and I just feed them what we’re having once on solids (I find bought baby snacks etc too pricey) so hoping we can stick at the £200 budget for a while yet.

Meant to say that budget is for two adults & a 2.5yo (potty trained & a big eater but eats our food) and also includes cat food/litter. Doesn’t include booze as DH likes his beer but it comes out his “allowance” 😂

quite yes. So we don’t do the exchange and completion thing quite like you guys do.

All changes in title have to be registered at the royal court here. So for it to be official you sign your paperwork a few days before and then meet your lawyer on the court steps at 230 on whichever Friday is chosen once all the legals are done. Then you sit and listen while the “ceremony” for want of a better word is read out in jersey French and you wait for your name and then stand up and hand up.

It’s a formality thing really. But it’s nice. We’re not going as it’s not as exciting unless you’re buying. Then you collect keys and then go to the pub and have obligatory photo with keys taken on the court steps.