Friendly Frugaleers Furtively Ferreting Away to Find Fabulous Savings

[Wolfcub]

New fred

We had fun at the Lego Movie. Nice to get out. £4.20 parking (2 cars, 3hrs each), £23 on slushies and popcorn. £5.70 sweets in tescos getting change, and afterwards £32 on a Maccyd's for 6. Treat for February, done.

And £10.70 on Ovex again.

I have gifted Dd2 my 8 hole dove grey nubuk DM's. I never did much more than break them in. She is over the moon with them, but we need some new laces. Properly vintage, bought in Singapore circa 1999!

We survived the birthday party. Ds has a great time actually. I made dh come with me. He wasn’t going to initially as he had work to do and the plan was we’d drop him at work go to the party and swing round and get him on our way to dparents. However I asked him to come as am now taking the antibiotics and they can make me go a bit floopy. He came. He took ds on the bouncy castle again and again and again. Ds loved it! And it was nice to see him super enjoying himself.

I managed to catch up with some friends who I used to play netball with too. One is mega preggo (like a basketball stuffed up her jumper preggo) and is due in 5 weeks. Eeek. But we’ll be off at the same time. Hers was also a whoops baby. Her first is 2.5 but she said she still isn’t ready for no2!

Nice afternoon though. Unicorn rainbow cake to take home and a bit of party food while there.

Dm cooked a korma. Which was delicious.

I love curry at their house. I’m sure it’s a 70’s/80’s thing but she always. Always serves salty cucumber slices, sliced banana, minty salty tomato slices and peanuts with curry. In seperate little wooden bowls on the table. Plus poppadums and naans (although never a peshwari naan...). The wooden bowls of salad have always intrigued me. No idea why she does them (especially the banana). But I love it.

Also home made apple pie for dessert.

lonely I just googled ovex. That’s a thing?! Seriously?! Ffs. I knew about bits. But not that. Waaaaa so that’s a possibility that may come to us?! Waaaaaaaaa!

nits not bits.

Em my niece and nephew seem to constantly have worms. Luckily they're not close by and we have never had them 🤞🏼 you sound a bit perkier today, it's nice you got to chat to some old friends at the party.

We have been buying shares in Ovex at the moment - lonely I feel your pain. Nits are simple - bottle of conditioner, nit comb and time. Worms requires every towel, sheet, pair of knickers, cycling shorts and anything else that may have come into contact with the precious bums to be boiled washed. Everyone needs to co-ordinate the taking of the tablets (DH I know you didn't take yours last time you dumb arse) Otherwise they came back again and again and again. em be afraid, very afraid.

wreck I feel a bit perkier mentally. Feel like shit physically. But I’m over the mental hump I think. For now anyway. Amazing what a good sleep will do.

I’ve also booked myself in for new eyelashes in a few weeks. I’ve been a bit stress and have started thinning mine out again. So am going In for some infills. Spendy. But dhs credit card as it’s his treat to me.
I’m so glad I’m signed off until Wednesday. It’ll be nice to have a proper rest. Tomorrow all I have to do is roast a chicken in time for dh to come home from work.

Glad you are chilling em

We’ve done a Tesco order with meal plan for lunches and even some nice cooked breakfasts etc to use up some of our freezer stash too. Took so long to do it though, between the baby (grumpy little madam ATM, molars and bum rash) and my brain feeling like it’s full of golden syrup.

And I had a bath. That is the sum of today’s achievements.

Cag those sound like some decent achievements to me. Everyone clean and fed that’s the aim of the game

Morning all. Happy frugal Monday.

Cag you'll be so pleased you did it once it's delivered though and you're needing something quick for dinner!

Should be a nsd today long drive though.

Oh I made curried sweet potato soup yesterday. Six portions out of one potato so really cheap.

Ooh yum I’ve not tried that. I like curried parsnip soup though.

I find meal planning overwhelming and exhausting. But we really need to get a grip as we’ve been spending fuckloads on crappy food. Between living super close to a huge Asda and a local Tesco, and deliveroo being available, moving house has not been so good for the food spends.

Today is:
Scrambled egg bacon and veg for breakfast (we don’t have time for this sort of thing every day due to clubs so just having it when possible, we have a dozen eggs that need using up!)
Leek and potato soup with part baked rolls for lunch
Freezer stuff used up for dinner

Tomorrow’s dinner is risotto using up sea bass that’s in the freezer. Caglets will have fish fingers 🙄
Also planned in a packed lunch for DD1 on Wed as she has to stay longer at art club from now on to do her next level award. And I’ll spend a fortune nipping to Asda etc.

Hoping to get some batch cooking done in half term as we will have less going on and I should be better by then (the cold has peaked, it’s just the cough and the fatigue/aches that take a long time to go). Probably chilli, bolognese, tomato sausage stew, maybe some cheese sauce.

Dh has just left for work. Ds is running about with my keys upstairs. I’m in bed. We were reading mog the cat. But he got bored with that. We were pointing at mog and meowing. And I was telling ds that she looks like catface. And trying to get him to say her name “Millie-Girl” he can manage making a Millie girl sounding noise.
Pretty sure he’s just put my keys down the toilet...

We were so slow to get going this morning it was light when I got up!

Not sure what the day holds spends wise, hopefully just milk.

Porridge with frozen raspberries for breakfast. Ds is dressed. I’m not yet. Dm is coming in a bit to pick him up. We’re watchinv GMTv now.

My plans today involve resting. Laundry and roasting a chicken for dinner.

Morning all, it's my interview today - eek! Trying not to get too stressed about it, am as prepared as I can be.....

Have been looking at iPhone insurance, it's not as much as I thought so will go for it I think. Dd would be devastated if hers was lost or nicked.

Ffs. Burned my foot by dropping scrambled egg on it not once but twice. I blame the meal plan. :o

Ouch though 😭

Gotta be done though, DH looked through his account and saw how his food spends have added up, it’s normally him going to top up etc as I’m not leaving the house much, but the main delivery and takeaways come out of mine, it adds up to terrifying amounts in the last month!

The eggs were nice though (using up old peppers tomatoes and avocado before starting new), got 4 eggs to have with the risotto tomorrow (sunny side up on top of a risotto - trust me it works)

cag oh I love eggs on rice type stuff. A fave here is leftover rice (I know...) stir fried with veggies and maybe some chicken/prawns if we have some sweet chilli sauce loads of garlic and tumeric and an egg on top. Tada! Sort of Nasai goereng (sp) which is delish.

I also love a poached egg on top of fish cakes.

And the classic dippy egg and soldiers.

(I’m absolutely craving dippy eggs at present. I know I’m not meant to have them but the eggs we buy are lion stamped and not straight out of a chicken so should be ok for a preggo right?!?! It was most disappointing to have an almost solid fried egg with my sausage Sammie on Saturday. Dh made it. Very thoughtful but his egg was runny and drippy and if he’d left it unattended I’d have had it!)

Dm has just picked Ds up. Phew. And I’m back in bed. Have thrown one load of laundry on.

Dm critisiced the state of the house. Apparently I should spend time cleaning today. She is right. But I’m sick. Not on a holiday.

What I am going to do is sort some pictures for our staircase picture wall. We’ve got some lovely ones of the family which I desperately want to frame and pop up on the wall up the stairs. Need to get a load printed though so might create an album and get them printed off. I want a gallery wall that we can add to. Will put some of ds’ art work up there too.

Also cag try a shakshuka. One pot. Baked eggs. Healthy as. I usually fry onions garlic then add chickpeas spinach fresh tomatoes peppers and simmer for a bit. Add chilli. Then make holes in it and crack eggs. Lid on pan and steam the eggs. Great for brunch.

Eggs 🤢 I only like them in cakes.

Lion stamped eggs are totally fine em :) thanks for the ideas, I’ve seen shakshuka mentioned before (probably by you actually) and been tempted.

DS hates eggs. He hates most things. I should make French toast more often. And egg fried rice is tolerable apparently although he’d pick out any big bits.

Watching girl on the train while the others are out. Not quite sure why as I thought the book was a bit shit.

Yay eggys!! 🍳🥚

We also did a full English version of shakshuka once. Amazing. Instead of the tomato sauce base used baked beans. And fried bacon and sausages first. Added beans then eggs. Full English in one pan. Cha-ching!!

Morning all. I've had a busy fortnight or so. I should be at my womens' group but they're doing some sewing today so I decided to give it a miss. I still haven't finished the sewing project I started before Christmas . I feel like I'm playing truant from school . I saved €3 though.

It's a lovely day here after a foggy start.

DD is busy with school projects and mid-term exams. She's off next week and is looking forward to a rest.

A lot of sick frugaleers about. Get well soon Cag, Curvy, Wolf and em. And anyone else I may have missed.

Happier good luck with the sale of your house although you probably have mixed feelings about it. Great news about the tracker. I hope your ex follows through on his offer. I'm very that he's messing you around in terms of weekend access. Yes, our bank account is with PTSB so we got a letter to say that they're converting our cashsave account into a current account and also notifying of us of the new charges. I don't plan to ever use the overdraft facility though. I haven't checked out the other banks. Afaik all of the banks have charges and PTSB were actually the last to introduce them. It would be a major hassle to switch over all our direct debits etc. Also, I'm not sure if we'd have to switch our mortgage - which would probably have implications for our tracker rate. But you never know..... I won't be rushing into anything though.

Belated happy birthday Seacow. Sounds like a lovely evening with friends. So glad that the museum trip worked out and wasn't too overwhelming for your DS.

Unescorted my older brother loves The Specials and still goes to their concerts when they come to Dublin.

Girlie belated happy birthday to your DD. Glad she liked the coins. I love the sound of the cactus cake . We need a cactus smiley. Sorry to hear about DHamster. I hope its replacement is some consolation.

em the birthday party sounds fun, especially the unicorn rainbow cake.

Quick pop in to say good luck girlie

Back to work I go!

Spends:

£42 amazon on a bathroom cabinet. We’ve been talking about this for a while. But today was the final straw. Ds helped himself it seems to cotton buds. And has left a load lying about. So I ordered one this morning.

Also £26 on fitted sheets for ds’ cot and some mattress protectors. We had two. But can’t find the other one. Sigh.

Have just turned out and tidied the airing cupboard looking for it. Can’t find it so just as well I’ve ordered new.

Clothes are all hung up and I’m thinking of sticking a couple of pictures up.

I’m bored!!!!