Countdown to a Frugal Christmas, The Friendly Frugaleers still knitting,nattering and money saving!

[QuiteFabULousDahling]

New Fred

Here here unescorted, and hi meadow always lovely when you pop by. Honestly, by the time your dd starts school, you will look back and barely remember the first few months. I sort of say that dd1 was a bit whiney at first, when in actual fact I think she screamed or fed (sometimes at the same time) for the first 4 months.

Huge, huge bargains today. Spent my £60 nectar points, on £120 worth of clothes for all dc, and a bit of makeup for dd1. All free (£10 from surveys, £14 from scan and win etc). Loved the double up, thanks for the heads up.

Also picked up 3 lots of 3for2, so £64 free. Am so chuffed. I have broken the back of the christmas shopping! Also 'won' a 3ds for dd3, with 7 games for £85 delivered, on ebay tonight. Hers has 3 broken buttons and a hinge gone, she has asked for one. You can't buy them new in shops anymore.

I shut down last night and slept from 2130 until 0720! So very tired.

Hey meadow, glad things are getting a bit easier. I also promise it gets easier x
I'm in London too.

meadow! nice to see you again and glad things are getting easier.

Here in surprisingly sunny Jersey we’re onto a game changer. Ds is starting to walk. Eeee! So it was easy. Ish. Now it’s just got interesting. We do books at bedtime too. I love books. Dh not so keen. But luckily ds’ books are within dh’s reading ability 🤣

Last pt session went well. I’m sad to leave her as she’s so nice but we’ve achieved what I set out to. I’m no longer afraid of the gym. I have the confidence to do it myself.

£16 in paperchase today on ridiculous Christmas tree decorations. Two dinosaurs and a lion. And £3.65 sandwich. It was freshly made and massive.

em I nearly wasted wine with that. At least the alcohol cleaned the screen. Here is to you and your books.

Oh I love paperchase Xmas decs they are the height of bizarre coolness. Last year DS got a croissant and DD an avocado :o I’ve seen an amazing narwhal that I neeeeed.

Thank you all so much for the lovely comments. I haven’t caught up fully but hello meadow I am really glad things are getting easier!

And born thank you re home ed, I guess I kind of forget because most of my friendship group is obviously home ed mums too and a lot of them have kids with extra needs too so it’s the norm for us to be stressed to the eyeballs. It was lovely actually that the doctor wasn’t horrified when I said about home ed, it would be all too easy to say “well send the kids back to school then” but he understood it is totally not that simple because they couldn’t cope in mainstream at all and yet their needs aren’t severe enough on paper for the (extremely rare) special schools. And actually the last time I was horrifically stressed was when I was trying to drag two unhappy panicking children into school where they weren’t safe 🤷‍♀️

Anyway. Felt mega dizzy and spacey earlier (the same feeling I’ve had on sertraline, which is the same type of AD and should wear off in a day or two - luckily DH is off till Friday now) and lovely friend took Caglets to tap with her DS, normally they would go home after but instead I asked them to come back here and we shared a takeaway (I really should’ve planned the food to allow for me being ill but that didn’t happen). So nice to have the company and the kids played till late. Really helped me through a rough day 💐 as have you lot 💐

Hello, to those who need any or all of the above!

I'm also in the North West these days, but hoping to find our way back to Scotland someday...

£40 on Sunday, lunch out and new ankle boots because DH left his coffee on the arm of the couch and ds accidentally dumped it on himself and all over my boots that I only got in August.

£7 Monday on coffee for me and a wotk colleague because I owed her one.

£1.90 today for the bus home from childminder's house.

I am south West and think girlie is too and thought someone else? Today's spent a petrol ⛽ and dog training.

Morning all. Happy frugal Wednesday

I think wreck is South West.

Crème and I are North East. About 1.5 hours drive from jam North and 1.5 from lonely East.
@cremeeggtheif is about 30 minutes away but we have never met.

@cremeeggthief

Spelt it wrong

I’m about 30 mins or less away from Jam I think and about 45 from Unescorted.
I think if you drew a straight line from Lonely down to me we would divide the northern frugaleers in two

What has happened to cremeeggthief ?

I'm the only East Anglian maybe? But sort of in the middle of everybody else.

I'm getting spectacular sleep at the moment as ds has gone to sleep in his own bedroom. It's getting really weird to have so much sleep. Dh is in charge of this move. Zzzzz

No exam result yet this morning...

Ha ha, I’ve never been called a glamour puss in my whole life! Clearly it takes someone who has never met me to think that... 😂😂😂

But yes, London here. .

Nice to see you Meadow!

Cagit's good that you have some lovely friends to support you. Take care.

Am I the only Midlander? I didn't think I was but I forget who else is!

I'm a Northern Lass. Hard as nails, tattoos of love and hate on my knuckles me. Gods Own Country, as they call it.

autumn, I reckon if doctors could prescribe sleep, in a bottle or something, then there would be a lot less illness in the work. It's power is incredible.

Lovely to 'see' you meadow.

Good to see you a tiny bit brighter cag.

That's a good haul lonely.

Oh the joy of the little things seacow, it was Holby City and a glass of good red last night in my jammies.

I've just done a big Sainsbury's shop for delivery, as we are seeing DS on Saturday and I'm doing a shop for him too. Original value was £130 but I had a lot of online vouchers, including a £13.50 off shop and it's reduced to £100, for two shops basically.

I'm going into work now, a little later as dropping the dogs at the groomers.

£60 groomers.
£5 class yesterday
£16 mascara (the only one that works for me).

In terms of glamour, fluffy once summed up my life too, I need to buy clothes for the life I actually have, not the one I think I have....dog walking, running and casual work...

*world

I’m East Midlands, but have family in both the NW and NE. So could defo travel for a frugaleer meet!

Fairly low spend day today, just need to get my brother a birthday present. There’s a micro brewery with a shop that recently opened in town, so I might get him a few weird and wonderful beers to enjoy.

On that note dh bought me the joules slippers I want for Christmas last night 😀 I like to be cosy. He’s miffed I don’t wear the white company silk jammies he bought me two years ago but their hand wash only and I like a clean pair each night. I will wash them today. I will.

I’ve seen a pair in Asda I like but he’s refusing to buy them.

Waitrose sent me 6 £15 off vouchers so I guess I can use them again now. Halifax are offering 5% cashback on spends over £70. I’ll do two shops, one will have dhs Christmas whisky in it and some food.

Brilliant sainsburys shop Jam I’m sure he’s looking forward to seeing you all.

My favourite jammies cost £3 in primark fluffy 😂 they are so fleecy and cosy!

I have had a very productive morning, house hoovered, bed linen stripped and in the washing machine, bedroom dusted, bird feeder cleaned (it was pretty gross) and I've just mowed the lawn

Am waiting for washing machine to finish and will then go into town, need a few bits and need to go to aldi as well.

I'd be up for a frugaleer meet up, would be so strange to see if my mental image of you all is anything like the reality 😁 I'm south west.

I think you're right Jam. Sleep is the way forward. Just now I am doing the 6am start and dh is doing bedtime, which is good because ds needs less sleep than both of us, so teamwork seems like the way forward.

I've been doing this graph of my energy levels that Cag suggested and I think that a big part of my health troubles is a gastro reaction to stuff that I am putting on my skin. Isn't that weird? I've started washing my hair in the shower instead of the bath and it really helps.

I've now had 6 good days in a row, which has never happened before.

I bet they’re machine washable too Girlie. I got bought hand wash only cookware once by his family. The dishwasher killed them.

Lots of eye rolling and “is it too much trouble to wash a pan?”. When you’ve had whiplash twice yes.

It's definitely too much trouble to hand wash a pan.

We don't have a dishwasher, so everything is washed by hand. Maybe someday when we have our own dream home tiny flat that will still probably cost an arm and a leg because we can't seem to save much every month.

So, I've messed up my budget again by underestimating a bill, which now gives me £80 for the rest of the month unless I use my credit card (already £200 on it, but paid off monthly at least!) or transfer over from savings. Or rely on DH to pay for everything, which isn't fair and is counter-productive anyway because we are both trying to save...

Can I do it? As a student, I would have been fine, but now with 2 other people and a cat in the household, I'm not sure. At least we do have some food stocked up, which helps. Hmm. I've brought lunch and coffee yesterday and today, so that's good. But I should do a proper meal plan for dinners, too.