Scrimping through the remains of September, Austere Autumn approaching, frugal friendly 'Fred

[Justanothermile]

Thought I'd make a new thread, I'll post on the old one and alert to its presence.

All are welcome, we are friendly folk.

Morning.

GOOD LUCK SEACOW! Enjoy the adult company and environment. It's one of the reasons I worked when the dc were little.

Brilliant news lonely, that's fabulous, especially as nothing is selling well at present imho. You will love Centre Parcs I am sure.

wreck, is the advisor independent, and you need to be aware of why the premium has increased so much, this can be appealed or quite simply wrong. But you really need an IFA for stuff like this, who will provide two or three alternatives.

No your 40's are not like this at all girlie, please don't think like this. Age is a number. It really upsets me when folk define themselves by age. Folk always wonder why I can run so fast 'at your age'. Why should I not train hard, eat well and remain motivated to keep going. You are but a slip of a thing

Ouch for the vet bill kitkat, I've have some HUGE ones in the past. I dread to think what we've spent over the years.

Made £12 on selling some joggers from Hollister that DS didn't wear.

Might be spendy today as I need to book hotels etc for the London marathon and look at flights for Boston 2020. The latter will be costed obviously, not booked.

It's medical jam that's why. We can barely afford the food shopping so def can't afford an IFA ah well. Dh can just work it out for himself if I die. Pretty sure he wouldn't care anyway

Wreck Don't you get death in service money working for the nhs?.

I'm fairly sure that some IFA will work on commission from the insurance company. You can also exclude and review conditions, DH's bipolar is excluded.

Don't think so fluffy

I can't really exclude my diabetes because if I die from a heart attack or anything like that they won't pay out. Also can't exclude my neuro muscular disorder because if I fell in the road and was crushed by a lorry they wouldn't pay out

It's fine I'm just not going to do it at the moment as we're clearly not in a position to afford it. Maybe next year.

If you are in the nhs pension scheme you ought to be eligible for death in service.

I would have thought so too fluffy, it's standard cover to provide DiS, unless the public sector pensions are vastly different to private ones.

Ah ok yes that makes sense.

Definitely get a spin dryer em and anyone else here. I had to handwash uniforms the other night, didn't wring them out just put straight into spin dryer & onto rail on radiator, they were dry for morning then with 2 hours heating being on. They're practically dry out of it.

Forgot 80c spend on pack of treble crunch to get more change for the laundry machine last night
Today €25 on a hoodie that gives €10 to breast cancer research charity and covers cost of hoodie & promotes a childhood friends business, and it's pink
Need to buy bulbs for dims of my car, upgrading to bright light ones so buying two bulbs when I only need one frugal fail? Will cost about €35 for two as opposed to €8 for one ordinary but improved vision and coolness

jam ds is going to return home to a room much bigger than the one he left with all the sales!

wreck I only have life insurance through mortgage but I've income protection and critical illness cover which would pay out if I was unable to work. Might review again after buying next house when I've got my single wage budget in place and maybe a year of it done.

Will look for a spin dryer second hand. I’m going to wait until we have the house and I can see what sort of set up there is. They need to be plumbed in? (No idea how they work actually. I remember my dgrandparents had one...)

We are a go for tomorrow. I’m mildly terrified and also relieved and excited. Aaaaaaaaaah!!!!

Re pensions etc. My work don’t offer one (legally they don’t have to here) but as a result salaries are slightly higher. We’re meant to pay into a personal one ourselves.

I was told by a pension person the other day that I should be paying 15% of my salary into my pension a year. I don’t think I do. I have a regular saver account (£250 pcm which pays out 5% after 12 months) and use this together with any bonus money I get and pay a lump sum in once a year. Work could do it monthly for me straight from my salary but there’s a £25 admin fee every time I pay in. So I’m saving myself the fees by just doing it once.

I have DiS benefit which pays out lump sum of triple salary plus an amount for every year I’ve worked for them.

My parents’ spin dryer just had a little spout at the bottom and we’d put a saucepan under it. Although the dryer did walk across the room a bit with all the shaking. I expect they are more high tech now :o

No doctors appts available till November 6th! Jeez

Cag that's awful! Might there be more released? It's worth ringing back each week.

On more positive news my consultant has agreed to fund the flash glucose monitoring system for me 🙌🏼🙌🏼 have to wait until December then I'll be on a six month trial. So happy!

Oh yay wreck that’s fantastic!

TBH that wait isn’t vastly more than normal. But they didn’t offer me a same day appt which is unusual, normally they ask if it’s urgent or not. I don’t even know if it’s with a nice doctor but when they said that date I thought sod it I don’t want to wait even longer.

Ah ok so they just have a water outlet thing. So a spout or a hose. Fair enough. So no plumbing. I couldn’t remember what dhrandparents had.

It may well be different now, the one we had must have been made at least 30 years ago. They may have a tank or something.

Soooo glad I froze a load of veggies last time I made couscous, I softened it all and bagged it up. Just reheated a portion, chucked couscous and stock on it, added feta and boom. So much easier.

What else could I do with couscous? Thinking some kind of tagine flavour thing? Can you freeze dried apricot once cooked?

Mmm we love couscous. We sometimes just have it as a plain side to lamb kebabs or grills. I think jam makes tagine

I just had one of those visits to the school senco where I get to see a form with all of ds's special qualities carefully enumerated, and by implication, my own.

Must remember never to schedule something depressing right before my clarinet lesson in future.

I'm going to carpet bomb my head with nice music from youtube and have a cosy afternoon in bed. Possibly also a feel-good film to watch with ds when he gets home and a mini magnum for him.

Ah sorry summer that sort of thing is never easy. How did it go otherwise, is he getting on ok at school lately? Did the SENCO have any useful ideas?

I am feeling really unmotivated and blah today

My spindryer brand new out of box in jan/Feb is exactly the same as 30 year old one described here! We've recycled ds's old potty to hold water being spun out!

Just worked out what I'm paying into pension is about 6%, with what work put in maybe 7.5%

Thanks Cag. You were just the very person that I needed. It's kind of you to take a minute to reply.

He's doing okay but is in that hard junior playground phase where the really intense social development happens. He's not enjoying it much, though he is learning to stand his ground. He's also missing the nice school lunches from last year, and I'm on my knees from all the cooking in the mornings.

On the plus side, his specialist skills are starting to become the doorway to better social success and he is really feeling the upside of that already. I just signed him up for a music course that he is technically two years too young for, and booked us into a holiday cottage that does not normally take children, because it is very naice. Both of these things are well within his range because he is very adult and musically able. I told him that, and he gets a big boost of confidence from that.

It's really not fun to read the to-do list though. Also, I really did too much this week. Must not do that in future. It does nobody any good, if I run myself into the ground.

Had a very difficult phone conversation with a customer who ordered wrong product and accused me of not knowing my job! Also had his wife ring and tell me the same thing, Had to get a work colleague involved who has authority on pricing end result they're paying a reduced price for wrong product, they were demanding a refund. It's not a win but my colleague had my back.

Finished work for the day & weather is currently calm before the storm so is absolutely beautiful

Will be very interested to read about your adventures in energy efficiency @em. We need to do lots of that work in our house too but haven't started yet, partially because its not the most interesting/exciting area of home improvement to spend our money on