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.

I can't open my thermos food flask 😭😭😭 the thread has gone. I'm so hungry

Oh no! That doesn't sound good at all. Will someone large-ish nearby help?

We've all tried! It's not budging. Will have to go back to the office via McDonald's

Gosh that’s come round quickly Em! Exciting, I love moving into a new house.

I visited a nursery today and really wasn’t keen . I can’t tell whether it was THAT nursery or whether, fundamentally, my feeling about nursery as a concept has changed. I’m visiting another one tomorrow so we’ll see. It’s got much more expensive for a baby place than in DS’s day, I think because they are subsidising the free hours. Almost £600 per month for a 2-day week AND I’d have to provide nappies

Dd is covered in pea soup... literally covered.

6 bottles of bubble bath ordered for free using my boots card. I hardly shop there but I use the bonus points on their app when I do.

£3.50 15 white face cloths. They have 3 for 2 on towels.

£3 3 packs of beef suet.

Wilko face cloths. snuggly you wanted some face cloths didn't you?.

seacow it's probably worth checking out a few nursery's, are there any childminders about? I felt nursery would have been too much dd when she was a baby so went with cm, that worked out perfect for us.

Spent £44 in morrisons, a few things I didn't get as knew would be cheaper in aldi, did get a fair bit of dairy free stuff for dd to try. Have a £5 off voucher so actual spend £39.

£34 petrol, first time I've had to fill up in ages.

It's a beautiful sunny, warm day here 🌞 washing is out and I'm going to sit in the garden for a bit.

sea we pay £74.50 a day for ds. Three days a week. And have to provide nappies and formula.

For me the big things for Nursery were that they were near to work and all year round. One I visited was great but term time only which doesn’t help!

Other than that, were the kids happy. The nurseries here (or ours at least) suggest you pop in of a lunchtime. Or not when they’re expecting you. Our manager told me and dh to visit for the first time one day during the week next week and not to tell her when we’d be going. So we’d see them naturally. If that makes sense.

Good luck with the dairy-free experiment Girlie. The one really reliable dairy alternative that I've found is readybrek. It's chock full of added calcium and I can get ds his full calcium requirement for the day, every day, if I use it as as flour in baking, by making it into pancakes or scones. I make him a pancake every morning for breakfast and he likes it with strawberry jam on.

We tried a lot of other dairy replacement things but they all had odd side effects and eventually I gave them up. Hopefully your daughter will be much more lucky. All fingers crossed here for a successful experiment there.

Great news em. So excited for you! I bet you are counting down the days until you have your own space again

I remember visiting a nursery for DD1 and bring a bit meh about it. Loved the next nursery I visited, so different places do have different vibes seacow. £48 for nursery here (south coast).

Sat in the garden with a mars ice cream. Beautiful afternoon here, 2 degrees this morning. I ended up carrying DD2s big coat and cardy home.

Afternoon. Today can do one, work-wise.

Even I understood that science related explanation summer, so it must have been pretty clear!

Oh north, I wonder if it's worth going back to the GP before Friday? Your poor DS, he's had such a crappy time.

Anecdotal girlie, but the guy I do some training with very sceptically cut out mainly cheese, but a lot of dairy as he was getting so much mucus in the morning he was almost gagging (boak). Totally cleared up. His caveat was that for every study he read backing up the link, there was another to disprove it makes a difference it it's worked for him. Dd and I are dairy free with no side effects luckily, pm if you need any recommendations. Alpro soy yoghurts are divine and taste just like yoghurt!

Exciting news Em, getting real now!

DD has her first university offer! Here we go again. Ding ding round two.

NSD

Exciting em

I've had suspicions about dd and dairy for a while, she doesn't have loads anyway as never really liked milk to drink or cheese. Will see how it goes, I really like the alpro stuff even if she doesn't 😁

Am currently watching dd at her tennis lesson🎾

Thanks Fluffy. It turned out my mum had loads she didn't need and let me have them.

Great news Em!

Just found the time to read through for the first time since yesterday evening - so much chatting! Too much to reply!
We finally caught up with Bodyguard - so good in the end!
October still seems so far away, I'd put aside £100 for topping up petrol at the beginning of the month and have had to crack into this for food spends. I've still got £70 left which should fill up ready for the new month. We've only used 3/4 of a tank since the end of August so not feeling so bad about using this money (I don't use ynab but do have little 'pots' for things)

Really exciting Em. In some ways it's a bit like Seacow's job, happening so quickly, no time to get too stressed!!
Great news for your dd Jam. Where is the offer from?
Wolf I'm now trying to remember whether I know roughly where you are. I have a little frugaleer map in my head, but name changes confuse me!!
I'm going to wait for Friday to see the GP re ds as it's a bit better today since we stopped the eye ointment which seemed to be aggravating it. He hasn't missed any more college so that's good. After what happened in GCSE year I just don't want him to fall behind with his work. The subject he is most worried about is maths, but one of the cricketers he plays with has just finished his maths degree & has started teacher training so I know that if ds starts to struggle he will help. He is still taking Vit D supplements but I am going to ask for it to be checked again as well as everything else.
£1.17 again today on soup at Uni. £2.40 on car parking but I'll claim that back.
Currently on hold with Virgin, trying to sort out our wifi. The download spped is fine, but the upload speed is woeful & seems to be causing problems.

North we've had real issues with virgin recently - had to have a new modem just last week.

Sorry about the rough work day jam hope it’s a one off!

Wreck I’m intrigued about this glucose sensor thing. Is it instead of a finger stabby thing?

Spends today, brunch with DH was something, went to ice cream place for friend’s birthday £14, £2 Boots, £10 art class, £19 tkmaxx on Epsom bath salts and a sleeping bag for the baby, and then £164 on quarterly bus passes. 🙄🙄🙄 Should really play the dance invoices too.

Summer can I just say thank you for that explanation on cancer cells, you explained that far better than anything I have ever read or heard about it and I actually feel like I get it now.

Yipppeeeeee for the house news em! Yay!

Yes cag and it takes readings every fifteen mins of so so can give you a graph for the last 8 hours. Unfortunately the DVLA still won't accept it (you need a blood glucose level within the last two hours before you drive) because they're idiots but hopefully it won't be long.

Wow so do you wear it all the time? I’d heard about something you need a sort of implant for or is that different? I May have imagined it

Not sure about implants. This is attached on the skin with a small plastic tube placed under the skin which measures the glucose in the fluid. If you google freestyle libre you can see the pics. It's about the size of a two pound coin.

Aah ok I think that’s what I was thinking of then. Sounds amazing. And although expensive it does remove the need for sharps and those flipping test strips that cost a bomb

That's interesting Thistime. After being on hold for 35 minutes, I got through & have an technician coming out on Friday between 4 & 7 (no charge). The Indian call centre was driving me mad but this time I went through the system as a person wanting to leave & got through to a UK call centre which was far more constructive. I'd read online that doing that would get you through to a UK centre & it worked....worth knowing.

Cag The prime minister has one (blood sugar monitor).
£21.60 dentist for me. Ds is being referred to the orthodontist

£7 Tesco as needed milk for home (thanks to all the porridge) and milk for the office as I have visitors. I also bought a few bits to pad out the chana masala for tomorrow

North I’m about 40 miles east of Unescorted and, if my frugaleer mental map is correct (and it might not be) I’m probably within 20 miles of you or Jam, if not both.

I am considering buying a monitor. Basically as you know I had GD, but I had my HbA1c a few months after the birth and when I phoned the surgery for my results they said it’s fine, you’re clear. So as I was mid declutter I got rid of it all.

Then I saw the endocrinologist (for different stuff) and he said, your blood sugar is too high, I could put you on metformin now. 🤦‍♀️ I said not yet as I want to find out more about it, and he’s going to write to the GP to get me another Hb, and we will see where we go from there. It was 39. I’m hoping to improve it myself, after all I stayed diet controlled in pregnancy by following the correct diet, so I can do it although the incentive of keeping baby healthy in utero was much better than just looking after crappy old me. Being aware of my sugars after meals really helped me and I lost a shitload of weight too. So I wish I hadn’t got rid of it.

(I know that is nothing remotely like your situation obviously as it’s T2 not T1!)

I work in old money but have used a conversion and 39 doesn't even seem to be in the pre-diabetic category? (5.7%?). Pre diabetic would be 6.0-6.4% and diabetic would be =/>6.5%. That's what it was when I was at the drs surgery.

Anyway NICE guidelines state that those who've had gestational diabetes should be tested annually so I suppose you'll be due another one soon regardless?