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

[QuiteFabULousDahling]

New Fred

I just can't be bothered to do anything at the moment. The dts had an epic nap today and I could have done housework or caught up with some work from my job but I just watched TV. I did the same last night. I need to snap out of this. I'm getting really behind with everything.

NSD though.

Happy Birthday Girlie

Well I went into work and had a chat with the head about my wages and they said they will look into it and put it all in an email etc.

They then tell me that they have secured some funding and would I like to be apart of the inclusion team from January!

Spends
Lunch £5

girlie happy, happy 40th birthday!!! I find my 40's no different to my late 30's. I hope you continue to have a fab day.

jam you and my dd1 were very alike as wee ones! I simply did not know how to baby talk, so just chatted to her like a grown up, by and by she chatted back. What made her stand out was that she was so dinky, in 9-12 mo clothes at 18m, but could talk fluently and hold a conversation. In contrast dd2 had 12 useable words at 3. Neither child was of any concern to hv or speech therapists.

I bought lunch as was feeling crappy (sore throat) so about £5 today. But a productive day at work.

curvy so they are giving you a job? Bloody exellent news!

Blimey, so similar lonely. Dd was tiny and spoke early, she dropped off the centiles at one stage. Dd basically grunted until almost school age 5. HV wasn't fussed about DS and I rarely went with Dd as she was the second child.😁. Hope you feel okay soon.

Is this the minimum wage situation curvy? And well done re the inclusion team!

I agree with your employer em. It's only reasonable adjustment not have to have and there needs to be some sustenance behind the request.
Thank jam. I will did out my library card and investigate tomorrow. Can't gym as appear to have hurt my leg from my Monday falls.
Hope that is a job curvy.
Gws lonely.

£5.30 on crisp and beans and sausage. Saves a full shop.

Should add I’m in now way saying that all people are faking it. But surely you can’t just say I’ve got xyz and expect.

However if that works I may say I’m Brian going forwards and see what they do for me.

Em I think that she needs to go and have a formal assessment definitely. Just asserting that she has a medical problem doesn't really count for much as far as I know.

Oddly, I am also going around turning off the lights everywhere at the moment, but that's because LED lights give me a stinking headache and terrible nausea for a week after ten minutes exposure. If she had that going on then you would definitely know by now.

It may be a matter of degree though. Maybe she finds the lights difficult and has been hiding it. It's hard to say.

I still find all this asd stuff very weird. I'm grateful for the diagnosis though, because the degree of trouble that I have with LED lights is such that I couldn't take a paying job unless I could find one where my employer could find an LED-free nook for me, so that really makes a huge difference to my potential quality of life.

The place I went to today had no LED lights and that made me very happy indeed. I slightly want to apply for a job there now. I might just go and roost with my laptop so that I have human company, which would be much nicer than sitting alone at home all the time.

Thanks all
Yes they are going to look into the minimum wage thing.
Yes a job until July, and I will get training plus loads of experience.

Happy Birthday Girlie 🥳

Very very spendy day today. Far too scared to actually add it all up 🥺Nike and Adidas both had 30% off today so made very good use of that although had a terrible time with Nike as they wouldn’t process my order online kept coming up with an error code. Had to order it over the telephone instead and missed out on cashback

I have been watching I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here and Anne Hegerty from The Chase is on it. She has Autism and it’s really interesting listening to how situations cause her distress and how she copes. Watching how overwhelmed she is gives a real insight into how adults, who look to outsiders, like they are ok sometimes are not. I think there will always be people who pretend to have things that they don’t for attention, but my heart goes out to the people that struggle every day behind the scenes.

My DD1 was tiny too, but knew all the teletubbies names by 9 months and was having conversations by 13 months, she was just like a sponge and wanted to do the next thing NOW. Could spell her name by 3 and could outwit me by the time she was 8.

Christmas, my cousin, he is in his 30s now, didn't hit any of his milestones, my aunt knew something was wrong as he was so different from her first two and all the health professionals said he will be ok, a bit slow, but fine (sorry, but they were the words they used).
He couldn't hold his head up until he was a year old, didn't sit up by himself until almost two and walked at 3.
Anyway my aunt fought his corner all the time and did get him some help, but still he was mostly ignored by school. He was pretty much non-verbal for the first 7 years.
There were times that my aunt thought he will never be able to live alone.
But, he does live alone, has a job and a family of his own. He does have a learning disability and can function very well.
I guess what I'm trying to say is, you never know what can happen and always have hope x

Curvy I think that's absolutely right. I was sort of nice-but-dim as a kid and then surprised everybody by getting straight As in school and a lot of class prizes and medals at University. People are very complicated. I'm glad your cousin did so well.

Frugal win delivery refund on Amazon. And a £56 refund of a subscription.
Frugal fail spending £97 on Amazon and not realising there was a subscription going out

Happy Birthday Girlie . What lovely, thoughtful presents from your dd.
Christmas I can completely understand your worries about your dd, but she sounds like a bright little girl, try not to worry.

Have been back in work for the past couple of days. It's very odd at the moment as I have lots of private study days for my course so, although I'm now working 4 days a week, it doesn't really feel like it yet. I don't think reality will properly hit until April when I've finished my study (Hopefully in Jan) and caught up with all my annual leave. The extra money is great though!
After my major defrosting exercise on Monday, and freezer audit, tonight's tea was an odd mix of cornish pasty, sausage rolls and cajun roast pork and pepper wraps in an attempt to use up the random items in the freezer. Back to more conventional meals tomorrow!
No spends since Monday.

autumn but you wouldn’t expect 20 other people to work with no lights would you?

Personally I didn’t mind the lights being off. My desk backs on to a window and I have all the daylight (I catagorically said I am no way giving up my seat). It was just the constant moaning and groaning and hugging and puffing to switch them off every 10 minutes.

I told her to maybe get herself a diagnosis. Or something confirming it and see what they do.

I am suffering at present. I have what I believe in Mn terms is called “javelin arse” I’ve had this before. But not for ages so it’s just taken me a bit by suprise. 🍑🏹

em I used to get “javelin arse” when I was younger (from about 15) it took me until I was about 30 to realise it was linked to ovulating for me. It used to stop me in my tracks it was so sore 😖

God yes, I get javelin arse with my periods (when not on the pull). I only realised a couple of months ago (from a man thread) that this was A Thing and not just me being a freak. I had no idea!

Curvy that’s a lovely encouraging story, thank you. And to others who have also been encouraging. I don’t in any way have limits on my hopes for DS; I am just preparing for the worst, hoping for the best. Sometimes he surprises me too. DD has got a thing about high-fiving people at the mo and she has been running up to her brother saying ‘high five [his name]!’ and he responds! Doesn’t sound like much but I got a lump in my throat seeing them laughing together this evening.

Great news about the job Curvy. What is the inclusion team, is that supporting the kids with additional needs?

Snuggly I was like that yesterday when DD napped. A million things to do but could not pull my finger out .

Tomorrow DM is here for childcare but I’ve got only a couple of hours work to do so I am going to hide upstairs from DD and try to finish sorting out my bedroom /clothes. I did the contents of the wardrobe a few months back but not the stuff in boxes.

Or I might start Christmas wrapping [santa]

ON THE PILL, NOT ON THE PULL. Ffs.

Christmas I was wondering how you stopped it when on the pull, was there a magic cure supercute seeing dc interact like that

Took me a while to figure out what you meant em but ya I get that too around my period

Just ynabbed this weeks wages & cheque my father gave me has cleared too, I was nervous as I didn't know if it was crossed or not so took a chance
Both mine & joint account looking healthier now.

Ordered another €10 book token from shop & scan so now I've €40 for Halfords & €30 for books.
A supersized trike ds loved is reduced to €75 for Black Friday in Halfords so only €35 to pay that off. Will use book tokens for dnieces present or maybe give one each to dc

Do you guys know Superdrug do free delivery over £10 for health & beauty club members? Just got my delivery yesterday & was thinking I could get delivery every couple of months kind of like my own Birchbox no Superdrug here.

Morning all. I ended up working late last night and have lost track of the thread. I will try and catch up on the bus.

Need to spend bus fare
Milk
Dinner out
Few drinks

Ouchy arse.
Yeah right sea, we know the truth now...... It's ok you are amongst friends. .

I made the Christmas thread title. I posted last night about black Friday being rubbish and more like a bit grey Friday. It's the little things.

Those with babies. Sit and relax and nap time. Noone will benefit you are run into the ground.... Self care.

Yes life self care. It is so important.

I’m just thinking about getting up now. Sigh.

Will probably need to grab lunch again as have been super lazy and haven’t done anything.

Dh is dropping me into work and ds at nursery today. Yay.

Today is a day for red trousers.

ROFL! Christmas that was hilarious.

Em no I don't make people sit in the dark. I just sit at home with no job talking to mumsnet in the dark by myself. It's not ideal though.

Does your friend get on with different kinds of lights? I get on fine with halogen lights so in extremis, I take a halogen uplighter with me, for example when we go on holiday to a rental cottage.

If she's struggling with photophobia she needs to see a good optician and a gp though as that can be a sign of all sorts of things. Not just any optician either because there are a lot of rubbish opticians out there. I've seen a goodly number of them in my time.

My life is quite nice btw.

Christmas OMG what is "javelin arse"? And please please tell me that I am never going to have to tell my dGP that I have it as I fear he would die laughing.

Another one with javelin arse. I hadn’t realised the link to periods but that sort of explains why I experience it less now

Em the other thing to know for your friend is that if she does have ASD then the other classic sign is having really abrasive people skills, so no matter how much she may need your help, she may not be asking in the right way (massive understatement). I think I'm not so bad at that stuff, but I will admit that I'm not great.

The classic sign of aspergers in adults was always that they tended to interpret people's word literally, rather than reading between the lines. I had a colleague who actually did that and I had to choose my words incredibly carefully when talking to her, as she would lose the rag completely if I didn't say exactly what I meant. The flip side is that people like that are really hard to offend, so if you want to criticise them, they are happy with with that, as long as you are really specific and accurate in your criticism. I think that may be the key to dealing with your friend. If you say to her exactly what you mean, she will thank you for it.

I don't have that stuff fortunately, and my people skills are good (she says hopefully). It's all just sensory trouble with me, and a tendency to invent fantastical contraptions and write long books.

I sense my day is doomed. Slipped on the ice on the step, didn’t fall but wrenched. Ouch. Had to pay double for the bus through the app as it wasn’t a contactless bus and I had no change. I’m stuck on the bus and my house alarm has gone off. My one evening out (read 2.5 hours!) and I swear it’s going to go wrong. Grumble grumble