Nearly November; Friendly Frugaleers Navigating (K)nitting, Nattering and Nuturing our Pennies

[WereWolfcub]

New thread. Happy end of October/Early November frugaleering. All welcome we are a friendly bunch

I've got a hydrangea in the front garden em and it's been low maintenance so far, it does need a lot of water so is best placed in a damp, shady area if possible. I also love pansies, they are surprisingly tough little flowers.

Had a really busy day at work, had a new nurse start so that's good and should help us out a lot!

Hope you're not in too much pain cag poor thing.

I've had quite a bit of gastritis pain today 😦 will have to go back to the Dr's again I think.

Do you have bottle gas to heat the house Mammy?

Nsd.
My lovely colleague made pumpkin pie, but made it vegan so I could have some too. And bought vegan ice cream, it was very yummy

Today was an NSD.

Busy day with DC, got quite a bit done around the house too, been on my feet all day though; I'm looking forward to going to work tomorrow and sitting down at my desk

After work dd1 and I raced to Debenhams to pick up my click&collect...we got there 3 mins before they shut! 5 lovely beach towels £9 each (reduced from £20) and 4 cossies, two for me, 2 for dd. Theg all fit me with extra boob room, so will fit dd1 hopefully too (same body shape & size as me, just 3 cups and 26yrs younger bigger boobies). So all keepers.

We then spent £17 in aldi, went in for milk, but got extra top up food too, and £6 subway as we were starving.

I'm not an overcompensator with regards to buying nice stuff, I just have a thing about yarn and crafty stuff...if I don't buy it right now I might not be able to ever get it again. I now recognise the silliness of this, so thats something I suppose.

Dh’s Amex arrived. To get a gazillion avios points (which we can then use for flight upgrades) we have to spend £2000 on it in the first 3 months. Easy peasy. Dh has linked it to his Apple Pay and has given me the card. From now on all my spends will be on said card. As long as we pay it off we can rack up a ridiculous amount of avios.

Given that Christmas is coming, and we’ve got some house spends still etc

Okay, now that my heart rate has settled down after the exam, I'm back! It was okay but I was really stressed when i got in there, after having been calm beforehand. I can only afford to drop 5 marks out of 25 as the pass mark is 80% and I know I've got one multi choice question wrong, so really not sure. Back for a couple of Uni days tomorrow and Wednesday and back to esay writing...
Tonight I've been helping dd declutter her room. She has her birthday and Christmas coming up and has been buying too much and hoarding a bit over the past year or so. She's thrown herself into it and is loving it. We've got a box for spares, put some small skincare products into a washbag for travel, found lots of things she hadn't seen for ages and have filled the bin almost twice over! Hopefully she's learning some good lessons for the future.

Oh north I love a good declutter.

We have fireworks near us. Catface is a bit twitchy.

Ds fell asleep in the car from dparents so I popped him Straight to bed (managed to do coat off nappy change and into his jammies while he was still soundo). He woke up about an hour ago and wanted his milk/cuddles/just wanted to be up so we turned the lights off and watched fireworks from the window. Lots of “ooooh” from him.

Dh has also taught him to howl at the moon. Like a wolf. Which is pretty cute. And funny.

I’d noticed yesterday too that whenever ds picks something up he makes a noise. Like a clicking sound. Could not work it out. Dh however things it’s because if he (ds) drops something while he (dh) is holding him dh lowers him down to pick it up (baby crane) and clicks....

Pansies appear in the chippings outside my front door think they were once in hanging baskets 

@AutumnLeaves12 no for the gas hob. Need a refil about every 12 weeks or so.

@Curvy & @Jam having one vegan to my Christmas night chez mammy, any recommendations? I'm probably doing curry or lasagne for everyone else. Vegan version or something different

Lidl kids thermal socks made 2016's winter boots from primark wearable again
Going to check if dubarry will offer me anything I expected their boots to last longer than one season.

Em I loved those transfer from car to bed evenings

North fingers crossed for your exam
Well done on the decluttering

Ooh mammy, quinoa curry is nice and easy and you can adjust the heat.

Tonight for dinner I had one of Hugh's recipes, I got the recipe from the site Newcastle can. It was lovely, it was potatoes, carrots, red onion. I didn't have any parsnips, but did have some raw beetroot so added that instead, apples, garlic and kale. Sounds a bit weird, but it was delish.
Have a look at the site, there are a few good vegan recipes, or ones that could be adapted

Will do
Definitely can't do quinoa - brings back awful memories which don't need explaining here

@mammy
vegangela.com, is a really good site for vegans and that is where I got the quinoa recipe from

Ahh ok forget the quinoa then, it is still an ace site though, as is minimalist baker

Not caught up yet.

Mammy I made my first yesbebe purchase tonight :o as the spectra needed to be ordered by today to get here in time for Christmas! Wooooo! (Also totally outing myself there once my post about loyalty points on YBB is approved 😜👋) used PayPal money for it.

No slots available for Tesco when I tried earlier 🤦‍♀️ and haven’t managed to find my boots card to make the most of the points offer to order the stair gates 🤦‍♀️ but at least I can order those on amazon and it works out pretty much the same when considering loyalty points etc

Morning all. Happy frugal Tuesday

I will try Instagram for my fix. I find Pinterest a bit annoying. Also good food and delicious website.

Nsd planned today. Actually that's a lie. Pub for tea as DS a date. It's so cute they have been sweethearts all through school so far

mmy to make it easier for you could you not just do all vegan food?

I’d imagine Dubarry would do something. Aren’t they meant to have a 10 year guarantee?

Hopefully no spends today.

Recieved my sick pay into my account. A paltry £22 for each day I was off. Because I was on maternity leave until the beginning of May I didn’t pay my contributions to social security (probably should have thought about this...) they look at two quarters previous to determine payments.

Transferred £20 to my other account to keep it out of the way.

No mammy I didn’t manage the cupboard of doom . I wish I enjoyed decluttering but I hate it. I get caught up in the guilt cycle of not wanting to throw things out that have sentimental value or that I haven’t got round to using yet but still might.....I won’t have time to do it today and doubt I’ll want to face it tonight 🙈

Nsd yesterday apart from a couple of Christmas presents online.

Morning all. Today has already been spendy as someone on local site is selling board games 😂 got Pandemic and Cathedral (astounded at the latter it’s quite hard to get hold of and worth much more than £9) but he also said he may be putting more up in future as he’s still checking others. Oh dear 😳 but I’m only going to be getting ones that are already on my must buy list. Which is quite long. 😳

Just off to GP now. Hope everyone has a good day.

Pandemic is fab Cag. Good choice

I have only played it once when it was first out! It’s not the coop I’m most after (flashpoint fire rescue, I adore that one!) but it is a true modern classic and will definitely get a lot of use. I think DS will really like it too (he loves “working together games” as he calls them)

@lifelongfrugaleer I managed to get a cute dress for £15. I was losing hope, as most of the dresses seemed to have 'my big fat gypsy weding' theme, but there it was white, simple and sparkly just when I was giving up.

@mammynowanauntyIRL Thank you :). I am as surprised as anybody that I went for the second one, as the first one broke me. It took me 1,5 year to feel like a human, but something clicked and just idea of having second and see both kids interact seemed right? hard to explain :>

@northender - hats down to you. I don't think I would be able to go back to do any exams this days. Even though of having to go through it again gives me shivers.

@Bornlazy - hear,hear! I start cleaning it up and then spend 3h down memory lane, looking through things I didn't saw in ages and convincing myself that they are useful

So yesterday was a spend day for sure:

• £30 dinner in nandos for 3 of us
• £15 dress for ds
• £20 present for friends birthday

So nothing unplanned. Fortunately nausea stopped yesterday, so no unexpected crackers purchase. Seriously, every time I am pregnant I think I am raising profit margins of crackers companies...

I have a small collection of cookbooks too. They are so pretty, gathering dust on a shelf. When I need food ideas I always end up on internet one way or the other. Jamie Oliver books are annoying, food is great, but takes ages to make and kitchen looks like something has exploded in a cupboard afterwards XD.

What about this guys Happy Pear Vegan Beet Wellington If it wasn't for the mushrooms I'd eat it myself. Might make a trial run with some sundried tomatoes instead of mushrooms just to make sure it goes ok.

em some of the guests definitely wouldn't think they'd been fed if it was all vegan.

I didn't do any decluttering yesterday - so the spare room is first on list tonight and then my clothes off the floor or maybe vice versa, depending on dc.

I nearly always end up googling recipes too.

Hi everyone, hope you and yours are all feeling better.

A very expensive £215 weekend in Edinburgh for a conference, but I'll be able to claim £115 Of that back from work. Feeling very stressed with too many demands and deadlines, with never enough time. Doesn't help that we're all still tired from travelling.

Does anyone have recommendations for potty training a 21 month old? We've been taking his lead but he hates his nappies and is asking to go to the potty for both wee (sometimes) and poo (more often than not). Are pull-ups the next stage, to have some safer practice before moving to real pants during the day...? I'd guess his bum is too small for pants to stay up yet!