Frugaleers dripping their way through a wet January...

[SneakyGremlins]

Hang on, that makes us sound like alcoholics

Welcome @moneyworries8, you will get lots of great advice here.

Spends yesterday:
£11 soft play.

Today is looking like an NSD. Have also tried on everything I ordered from H&M and everything is going back bar one skirt; need to send that parcel off
Tomorrow.

They should do sneaky

Sorry for multiple post earlier the iPad was being a dick. Hope all gets sorted sneaky x

So just got off the phone to Bibic, the assessment people! Phone apps booked for April (about 45min per child talking through issues, history etc which saves time in person and also helps them decide what screenings to focus on). Then it takes several months to get a face to face booked, possibly longer given we need two available at once! But should be done by the end of the year.

Finance wise, we have to pay half (so £450 total) a month before the F2F. Then you can get payment plans for the rest if necessary. There are also grants that can be applied for. Not really expecting that but worth a try, we will find out when they phone us in April.

£11 something instore at boots
£25 online

£5 M&S on fruit.

No more spends.

Having a tough tough day today mentally.

Told dh over the weekend that I am really really struggling with this pregnancy. In the sense that I wasn’t ready for it and don’t actually want to be pregnant right now. In my mind it’s too much to deal with and I feel trapped in a situation I don’t want to be in. I couldn’t go through with the other option either. So it’s be pregnant and deal with it.

Which today is stressing me out.

I will probably have to go speak to my gp about all of this. As because it wasn’t planned I am struggling to get my head around it. We will cope. I know that. But right now I’m struggling. Had a cry this morning and it sucks.

Apologies of this has upset anyone. I realise that I’m lucky to be able to do this twice and shouldn’t moan about it. So am really sorry if it’s upsetting. But today am not happy.

I’ll get there. I will. But it’s taking a lot longer than I suspected it would.

Oh em you're allowed to feel like that I completely understand. I've had two unplanned pregnancies so totally get it also it's such a rubbish time of the pregnancy; feeling crappy and tired with no special kicks to really speak of. I hope dh is being supportive.

Em you are absolutely entitled to those feelings. You’ve also come off your meds if I remember correctly or are due to do so. Definitely have a word with your gp and we are all here to listen and support you.

Cag good news on the assessment appointments and fingers crossed for a grant

cag that's great, sorry its going to take so long, but you've got the ball rolling.
sneaky cool you didn't panic, so glad your support workers coming tomorrow. A benefit check sounds a really good idea.
I've had a literally shit afternoon. Briefly, took digs out. One has long hair and has has runny bot and got poo stuck in fur, so I decided when I got back I'd take her up to bathroom and shower her in the bath. ( felt mean hosing her down outside with freezing water) anyway she was not loving it so she leapt out of the bath and shook bits of poo EVERYWHERE, so I have had a super fun afternoon bleaching and disinfecting. All entirely predictable!but it has meant I haven't been to the supermarket so nsd
Hi moneyworries8

Lots of good advice sneaky.
Meadow not sure about the list but but you can pm me if you want
Em, totally fine to feel like that. Yes others have shit and I'm sorry for then but that does not invalidate your feelings.

em I'm sending you a big hug. Don't feel bad about being honest about your feelings.

Aw thanks guys. I’ll work it out. Dh is supportive but I feel so so guilty saying to him I don’t want this right now. It’s the right now but I don’t want. Not the never again. He’s so excited. And happy. Etc. But on reality it’s not him who has to actually do it. So as much as he says he gets it. He doesn’t.
Yes have also just come off meds. It’s been 2 weeks now. So I suppose it’s all out of my system and I’m doing it on my own. Which is where I wanted to be. But meh.

I’m also sad as I had to decline a wedding invite today from one my my closest friends. Her wedding is on 23 August. And it’s abroad. If it was here I’d absolutely go even if it meant potentially leaving a 2 week old baby with my parents for the evening. It’s just not feasible for me to go. She understands. But I’m so sad. Waaaa. Also not feasible to go with new baby. No time for passport etc and I don’t feel happy travelling without vaccinations. Only other option would be me go alone. But don’t think I could handle that.

Hey money. Have you written down every penny you spend for a month to see where you're spend weakness are?

Ah bless you em big hugs. You will get there and there’s nothing wrong with feeling like this. I struggled with guilt for a long time with Rowan, because unlike the other two where it was a conscious “let’s stop using condoms and have a baby :o” (TMI) this one errrm wasn’t exactly like that. We were obviously ok with the risk but at that time of the month it shouldn’t have been a risk! I threw the test at DH when he came into the room. But he had this massive grin on his face and I felt awful that I didn’t, I felt stressed and guilty for a long time. I can’t believe now that I wasted so much energy on that guilt, you know?

Yes it’s a huuuge wait but considering I thought we would have to save up and pay for individual things, and particularly that we’d have to only prioritise DD1 this year as we couldn’t afford both. But it is sort of out of our hands for now and we can go back to focusing on other things, when I imagined it being a hugely stressful process.

My main task is to keep a journal of thoughts about their issues in preparation for the interviews - writing down any relevant incidents, struggles etc, so that I don’t forget them all when I get on the phone. I did this before with their ASD diagnoses and it really helped.

Great news on the assessment cag.
Ah em. That's rubbish. I feel a post wedding baby cocktail hour coming on. In oooo October. Wet the baby's, bless the wedding type thing. Maybe?

MoneyWorries - in your budgeting and checking electric gas etc have you looked at what is allocated to non-fixed bills. As Life says it’s about finding where little bits of money is leaking away but one of the other things I’ve found really useful from this thread is paying myself first so divvying up the pay into pots for things that I would pay annually for example and then stashing them in savings accounts.

Welcome moneyworries

Em it took me a good month to feel better off my meds I had some days where I really struggled and actually it probably was about two weeks after that it was as its worst.

£2.70 soup for lunch
£26 ds swimming lesson.

Oh and in positive news we got our six monthly water bill and are £7 in credit so monthly payments aren't going up. We use the same amount of water as 1.5 people in a one bedroom flat

Yes good point about coming off meds. I have had major mood crashes lately even though the meds weren’t particularly helping 🤦‍♀️ All change in brain chemistry is going to mess things up. FWIW I was told sertraline is really ok in pregnancy especially after the first trimester. If you feel you needed to go back on.

I hadn’t considered that coming off meds would have this effect. Hmmm.

Am seeing midwife next week so might ask gp to come in to the appointment (both at the same surgery) so may be worth speaking to them both together. Saves saying the same thing twice.

Picked Ds up from dparents. Had a chat with them. Dh was there. Ddad told me to “come on” meaning “get over it” Dm wanted to know what she could do to help. I said nothing. We don’t need practical help. I need to sort my mind out because it’s all over the place. and Dm can’t help with that. Ddad also suggested maybe it would be best if after no2 arrives I stop working. Because obviously it’s work making things bad for me. It isn’t.

Dh made sweet potato burgers for dinner. Mash up sweet potato with kidney beans onion garlic and cumin. Fry. Mmmm. We had them with salad and wraps and Nando’s mayo. Mmmmm.

Watched only connect. I was so good at it today. Yay!

Ememem, those sweet potato and kidney bean burgers sound amazing! Is there an official recipe? I hope you're feeling ok, it's a lot to deal with. Do you have nice midwives that you could talk to? There might be extra support for being off your meds (or is that not the NHS reality?).

For me it's been a spendy day when I was trying to have a NSD:

1.70 coffee at work
4 second hand Zara kids puffer gilet for DD from local FB site
4 pasta for dinner & crisps (I should not have wasted money on crisps).

Watching the invisible children programme on c4 like

Thanks for the welcome everyone ☺️

Hey money. Have you written down every penny you spend for a month to see where you're spend weakness are?

DH and I have set up a WhatsApp group. In their we log every single penny that we spend on a day to day basis. Started this in December and in all honesty, we don't really waste much money I don't think. We don't have takeaways, we done but teas & coffees on the go. Although I don't know if we're frugal, we had our first DC when we were 24 and have been on one wage single so I suppose we've got used to not really treating ourselves much. Anything we do but is sort of essentials. Clothes & shoes for DC and for us when we need them. Hair cuts as required. We always use club card vouchers for days out and take packed lunches. I do buy a couple of luxury items (Elizabeth Arden SPF and foundation), I also have my eyebrows threaded & tinted once a month usually. Whenever we buy things for the house it's because we need them. At the moment, we have no downstairs hall light shade (and we've lived in the house for a year) so we'll need to get that at some point. I know they're cheap to pick up but I know what I want to get and haven't seen one I like at a reasonable price. I hate spending money on things I don't like so I'd rather wait than buy one to make do with.

We do have extra channels on sky which I suppose is another luxury but I'm confined to the house in the evenings so much that we definitely utilise these. DH is sport mad so we do have the sports package which bumps things up considerably. I just want our debt gone though but find the prospect of cutting the few extras we have quite demoralising. We can make ends meet on DH's pay normally and he had a small pay rise which should help shift the debt.

I'm interested in trying to minimise small spends for example, using what I have instead of buying new. Evening meals is a good example. We do have some food wastage just now which I can try to stop. Hopefully that'll give us a small saving.

Do you think we need to scrap our luxury items? Or should we keep them?

Sorry for the essay 😅

Hello late sign in, very busy here 😩

em I wondered if coming off the meds might be effecting your mood, definitely one to chat with your Dr about.

Welcome money treats wise I think it depends to a certain degree how skint you are. When I was very, very skint there was no money for any treats but that did make me miserable! It's important for your mental health to look after/treat yourself so you feel nice.

I wondered if you'd watch that cag not seen it but saw an advert. Is it worth watching?

Managed to forget my pack lunch today, frugal fail. £3 on lunch.

I think sly tv is extortionate we don't have it anymore. We do have now tv and amazing prime though. Also Netflix but mil pays for that

Ds woke up at 3:30 asking if it was morning. He's gone back to sleep but I'm still awake

Money it might be worth looking to see if you can get the same, or nearly the same, channels for less with now tv

I’ve been awake for hours too Wreck, bad dreams

Hi battenburg have you tried any jack Monroe recipes, they're super cheap and the ones we've tried taste good.