Spending sparingly in early Spring - frugal friendly folk gather round.

[Justanothermile]

New 'fred

Girlie we're a tiny two bed and a band C. Haven't been a band B since we were in a one bedroom flat. I'm dreading ours it'll probably be £160 a month from £152. Sucks. We don't even have street lights

Just checked on MSE and it's right 🙄😒 mine has gone from £96 to £102 (I get single person discount) it's so much money 😭

I'm band c and it's £164 near enough x9 and 1x£161 something. CBA to get the bill from the other room

We still haven't had our bill yet. I think it's really poor form to leave it so late.

I haven’t had my bill either and the new rates are not online.

I'm band A, 3 bed ex council semi. In the arse end of nowheresville. I still pay £120/m, and it will be going up a few quid.

It has been one of those days. Broke my headlight cover hitting a downed branch on the way to school. Unavoidable as the other options were a) hit a wagon going the other way, or b) probably hydroplane in massive puddle if I braked suddenly. So the branch it was. £57 replacement, dp will fit. But ffs.

Then, I dropped my phone, face down onto cobbles. The screen is completely smashed. I can get a replacement from China for £30. But I might try a shopee first. It's an obsolete sony, so I'm guessing maybe not. I could have cried!

Anyhoo, tucked up in bed with my crochet and you tube, so it's not all bad!
I just cancelled my sky (bloody rip off at £46.50/m), but can't comment on the freesat (which the box reverts to) as my telly is permanently playing the ps4 - hence being in bed at half past 7!

I can't even remember what band we are or anything. I was just thinking we're probably overdue with payments, idk what is going on with it. We are so unorganised with all this stuff since DD was born and she's almost 9 months so I feel like we should have got a bit more sorted by now!

DD started nursery on Monday, she did really well Mon and Tues but then today cried on drop off and then apparently spent a lot of the day crying and was 'quite emotional', I feel awful, how come she was ok the first two days but now is upset? Or you think it's unrelated and she's just had a particularly bad day, I mean she has them at home with me anyway? I know she cries loads with me anyway so it's not really any different but it still makes me sad . And had a job interview this morning, went ok but don't think I've got it. And then KIT afternoon at work today! Busy busy busy.

Spends: about £35 in Debenhams on clothes for DD and a birthday gift for her cousin. There was a sale on the kids' clothes. And then about another £15ish on makeup brushes in Superdrug .

Hope everyone is well, I haven't caught up.

Oh Lonely, sorry about all your bad luck today!

And Cag sorry you are having such a tough time. I know quite a lot about benefits, used to volunteer at CAB years ago, although a lot has changed since then with UC etc but have been claiming something or other for years really. Entitledto is a good website, you can do a benefits checker on there, CABs can also do them in person, and some LAs have specialist teams who can do them with you, might be with enquiring with whichever department in your council deals with that. I think sometimes some HAs do as well. Je parle Francais aussi .

Rubbish lonely. Have you tried a market stall phone place. Our indoor market one seems to be able to fix most things. Not sure what the markets are like around you though.

Hey meadow. Fingers crossed for the job and at least it gets you into the swing of interviews. Maybe just settling in. See how she goes.

£5.20 fruit today

£2.15 on soup. Hot and sour chicken noodle soup. Was delicious. I’d taken a sandwich with me today but needed a little something something.

Also £24 in boots on “travel essentials” ffs. We’re away for a weekend. But mini shampoo and conditioner, face wipes, nappy bags, a few food pouches just in case, snacks for ds for the plane, sachets of calpol, wet wipes (for hands - although why? Because we always use the usual wet wipes...) tissues, tooth brush.

I am also in a bit of pain. I think I pulled a muscle in my bum at the gym last night. 😱😂

Lsd planned today. Need milk and I promised dd I would buy her a cupcake if she didn't go to the disco tonight (we had to collect her from it early last time as she had a small panic attack but she was upset she would miss out on a cake if she didn't go!).

£28.86 in Aldi yesterday on basically nothing 😬 We only went in to buy a couple of things and did our usual trick of spending too much. However, nice surprise waiting at home which was a £30 refund from the DVLA. I’m due a £96 tax refund next week, £50 maintenance tomorrow and £82 Child benefit on Monday so not all bad. Pay day for DH next Friday and me on the 27th, yay!

Just realised ds is at the max weight for his car seat 🙄

Oh no wreck :( that’s bad timing

Hi hot great news about the tax refund. I’m hoping we will get one as DH’s earnings were way lower than predicted.

I didn’t sleep till about 6, panic just ramped up and up. Tried all sorts to tire myself out (exercise bike at 3am anyone?) and the meds did nothing. 🙄

Just had our council tax info. We are band D (no clue what that means) total bill for the year is £1777.42 which is an increase of 5.6% according to the letter.

Just paid our water bill for period 1st April - September-ish, £236. It sounds like a lot to me but we haven't had to pay water for years so maybe I just can't remember? We don't have a meter, I think it would probably be cheaper for us to have a meter but then I've heard you can't get them removed easily if you change your mind later down the line and then I think what if we totally change our minds and decide to have 10 kids or something and then the meter would be way too expensive.

Also went to local shops earlier and spent about £20 on groceries and about £5 on treats for DGuineaPig. DF thinks he might have bowel cancer (he's a doctor, not a vet, but that's just an educated guess based on his bowel symptoms), although he said the vet probably would have felt a tumour through feeling his tummy if he had one and the vet couldn't feel anything when they checked a few weeks ago. He has to go back to the vet so need to check with DH to arrange taking him sometime, can't really manage DD at the same time as DGuineaPig in a carrier. Tbf I could physically carry them with DD in the BabyBjorn (vet is just up the road) but not a good idea in case she kicks off in the vet or something. He seems well in himself other than his sloppy poo, but regardless of what the problem is it's unlikely we'll be able to do anything for him other than keep him comfy for as long as possible and then PTS really, he's an old boy now bless him.

Is it normal for a nursery not to put bibs on the kids when they have their meals? They just change DD's clothes after almost every meal, I just assumed they'd put bibs on them but they don't .

Yes meadow. This is why we always had cheap clothes for nursery our water is £30 a month and that's on a meter.

My council tax bill arrived too. Band A and I think it’s gone up by about £6 a month and that’s with the single person discount

Yep Meadow no bibs here either. Never send them to nursery in anything you really like . My DD usually comes home filthy!

This is part of the reason why my DD has sooooo many clothes. I guess your DD doesn’t fit into the ones I sent you yet - they were mostly 12-18m but there were a lot! There were a few 9-12m too though. They might do for nursery once she can fit into them

Oh and I think it’s quite normal for them to be okay for the first couple of days at nursery and then more upset. At first it’s mostly interesting, then they start to understand that you are leaving them, and that this will go on for a while, and they are more upset for a while. Both of mine went through this. When do you go back to work?

Yes def normal to get more upset after a few days at nursery, they do settle again though.

I'm very tired, works not too bad but lots of office politics at the moment which makes my brain ache.

Spent £5 on lunch and biscuits for work.

Yep. No bibs here either. It will get better. Ds only seems to come home covered in food when there’s soup on the menu. He’s not so good at soup.

Trying to pack for our trip. Have said to dh we’ll put half of ds’ stuff in each suitcase. Why does ds need so much stuff?!?!

I’m packing two sleep bags for ds for the weekend. That should be enough right? And about a million changes of clothes.

It's been a while since you had a wreckcat pic

Aww lovely cat Wreck.

I'm not bothered about the clothes, as there's not many stains my Vanish can't get out, but more thinking about the extra work all these outfit changes make for the nursery staff, especially with DD as she haaaates having her clothes changes, she writhes about everywhere screaming blue murder most of the time! So it seems like it would be easier and less stressful for everyone to limit the clothes changes. I dunno whether to buy a big pack of towelling-type bibs and ask nursery to use them and limit changes or if that would seem like I'm being precious or what...at home I put a bib on her, and roll her sleeves up, and then unless she's had something really messy like curry or something she hardly ever has her clothes changed afterwards (although I have low standards, I wouldn't change unless particularly wet or something). I just don't really get why they'd make more work for themselves by doing all these extra clothes changes . I mean, the only reason I use bibs to make my life easier lol.

Seacow DD has actually been in 9-12 for a good month or so! And she's only about to turn 9 months in a few days. Some of the sleepsuits and a few tops and dresses of 9-12 already don't have much space left in them . She's quite tall, so she will be in the 12-18 month before she's 1 definitely. Although I find the brands vary so much, she wears a lot of Tesco as it's our nearest large supermarket and I think their sizing is particularly small compared to other brands.