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

[Justanothermile]

New 'fred

Council tax is such a rip off wreck

I've been busy this morning, took some stuff to the dump and charity shops. Did a quick pound stretchers shop, I quite like poundstretchers, most of the time they are cheaper than Poundland!! Spent £12 and got loads for that, mostly toiletries.

£4 Greggs for lunch

£1 Poundland (sink unblocker 🤮)

£1.50 charity shop on two books

I've got a headache so am going to have a quiet afternoon now, might have a nap 😴

£2.40 on an amazing honeycomb tiffin

At airport in Exeter. Delayed. Ffs. They’ve delayed our flight and two other Flybe flights leaving. Apparently technical problems.

Ds is having a nice time at the airport though. He’s said hello to everyone. We’re up on the viewing bar and he’s enjoying going down the stairs and coming back up in the lift.

Oh how annoying em

I have done a bit of online shopping/spending but nothing major. Sent money to friend for Usborne French books (conjugated être with DD today :o) and bought a little notebook with alphabet tabs for vocab.

Did the bulk of the note taking for DLA form last night, just going to type it up now while baby’s asleep (the plan is to edit it all perfectly before I start writing it in by hand so I hopefully don’t mess it up).

Swimming again later.

Gosh, so sorry to hear your news Born. I lost my dad last year after a relatively short illness and it was a huge shock, I think it’s really hard to lose a parent however old you are. I miss mine very much. I’m thinking of you

DD was sent home from nursery today with a temperature - I think it’s molars coming through but she’s definitely not happy about it. So I’ve lost a day’s salary and paid a day’s childcare, gah. That’s several hundred pounds out of pocket .

Feeling a bit fed up with the world and eating a lot of crap I don’t need. It’s DG’s birthday today too so I have to cook a nice dinner tonight. I could just happily eat hot cross buns for dinner!

Home. Only an hour late. So not too bad.

In the time we’ve been home ds has had dinner. Has patted catface and has had a bath.

I’ve also uttered words I never thought I would: “he’s pooped in the bath again!!!” And “also on the carpet...” and “no ds we don’t shit on the arpet do we?!” He pointed at it and went “uh oh...!”

Ffs.

Some fron our trip.

Ds helping farmer Chris collect duck eggs.

Ds enjoying a babychino. I felt like a bit of a knobber ordering this 😂

And my goat selfie.

For anyone who’s interested we stayed at north Bradbury farm in Devon. It was ace. Highly recommended.

So cute Em. Love the picture of you with a goat too, nice to see you looking relaxed and happy

Looks like you had a lovely time em

Sorry to hear about your bad couple of weeks ruby. Poor DD seacow and poor bank balance too

Please tell me that your seven years olds still struggle to use cutlery properly?! Dinner time is such a battle to a) get her to eat b) use the friggin cutlery arrrrggh!

My assignment got submitted and all but one small bit passed so pretty pleased. Why is it the bits you think are ok don't pass, and the utterly rubbish bits always pass

a NSD

Love the description of feeling like a knobber em

My brother orders babychinos and he is a Knobber so it is a fair assessment.

Sea that is the problem with being a consultant..... although on the day rates some of ours are on they could afford to work only a couple days a week (if that). I keep thinking of my pension.

Love both mine struggle - at 14 & 17. I hope they have more skill when I am not there to observe. But I eat with my fingers at home too.

Luffly photos em 😍

Can’t help with the cutlery love and well done for your results!

I’ve cooked my socks off tonight. Made sweetcorn and courgette fritters (which DS actually ate some of! 😱) and a roast red pepper dip (Nando’s style), both things I have been saying for aaaages I need to make. Also got a possibly-too-spicy chilli bubbling away in the SC to freeze in batches. DH chopped lots of the veg though as I’m super achy today. However I’m pleased because I’m gradually getting my confidence back in the kitchen. :)

Lovely pics em.
Love my 8 year-old prefers to use her fingers to eat, unless it's beans! I feel your pain, I have to constantly remind her.
Also well done on the assignment.

My two are not perfect with cutlery youngest is 9.
Nice photos em.
Ah rubbish sea.

£10 on fantastic beasts dvd. £5 birthday card, £9.29 Sainsbury's.

Well done on the assignment.
Dark Chocolate in the chili to de spice it cag.

Hi all, not caught up but I hope all is well and for everyone who wants/needs any of the above.

Had a spendy Friday and weekend (groceries mainly) but also found £40 stashed in an old pair of boots (wtf?! I blame ds although I'm not sure how or where he found the cash in the first place! ) So that was a bonus!

We've all had the lurgy (actually ds was very unwell, with a fever over 40 C, taken an hour after taking a dose of Nurofen. I was quite worried but the doctor did his best not to roll his eyes at us as he suggested alternating Calpol and Nurofen every few hours. But at least we knew it wasn't an ear infection or anything...so anyway we're all slowly recovering here from this nasty virus.

This week's meal plan:
Refried beans and Spanish rice
Leftover homemade pasta from DH
Indian curry
Something DH will cook
Stir fry with fancy tofu
Homemade pizza
Leftovers or else takeaway!

Hope everyone is staying warm and dry tonight unlike us.

Dh can't even hold his cutler properly so mine have no chance ds is better than dd but she has poor muscle tone in her hands. I wouldn't worry.

I'm glad it's not just my DD then! 😂 wreck

At your DH!

Oh born, I'm so sorry about your loss. There aren't enough words really are there? Thinking of you.

Great cooking cag!

Aw seacow, sorry your feeling glum. The constant cycle of illness when DC's are little so hard at times.

Love the photos Em!

NSD and I left work on time and without a pile of stuff to take home.

Love my 13yo dd is still hopeless with cutlery, I do feel like a bit of a parenting failure when I see her eat but not sure what more I can do other than encourage her to use it!!

Those photos are fab em glad you had a good trip.

Productive evening have planted out loads of seeds, have got sweet peas, marigolds, cosmos, sunflowers and a colourful daisy. Windowsills now look like a greenhouse but can't wait to see what grows.

Also made some flapjack but stupidly took it out the tray soon and it fell to bits 😭 have tried pressing it back together but it looks a mess!!

girlie old trick, melt chocolate, loosely crumble flapjack, mix, fridge.

Lovely photos em and yay!! Your teeth! They look epic. Are you pleased with the progress? I look at dd1 every day and go "hmmm, no, worth every penny!"

Spent a fiver on crap on the way home, dd1 and I were hungry.

Born I'm so sorry for your loss.

Thanks for the chocolate tip, I had some chocolate chips I bought for pancakes so fuck it I tipped some of them in. Tastes awesome!

Swimming was easier today.

I perked up. I was a bit pissed off about work at first but the plus side was a bonus cuddly day with DD. And after all, it’s because I value those things that I’m not full time. It costs us a lot for me to be part time because I’m the main earner but I don’t think I’ll ever regret it. When it comes to work /staying at home I’m a cup half full person - whichever I’m doing, I like!

Unescorted it’s a funny one - I am paid a lot as a consultant (silly rates really) but it’s unsustainable, in the nhs at least, because the use of consultants is quite strictly monitored and capped. I’m probably going onto an nhs employment contract soon (job being advertised this week!) and I won’t actually be much worse off once i factor in paid holiday etc. And I’m definitely looking forward to being on the pension scheme again!

Poor DD does have a very high temperature though and i don’t think it’s just teeth after all, it’s not responding to calpol and she’s very ‘upset’. She’s even been saying ‘want some medicine’ though possibly she just likes the taste of fake strawberry It’s been a long day, I hope she sleeps well! I don’t work Tuesdays anyway and we are housebound while waiting for the repair garage to collect my car, so it’ll be a quiet day tomorrow. Possibly even an NSD

Hope your DD feels better soon seacow. I'm a SAHM partly because we can't afford childcare for twins and partly because we have no family/ friends to help out in the event of our DC being poorly! DTS2 in particular is a snot monster and quite often needs a day or two off, he comes down with a bug and his temperature shoots up, so he can't go to preschool. And they both love Calpol

Girlie your windowsill sounds fab and colourful! I was going to do some more seed planting today, been meaning to do it for a while but the weather's just been too bad. It improved long enough for me to tidy the garden of all the crap that had been blown around and then tipped down again! Maybe tomorrow.....

Great photos em that farm sounds fab - I'd love to stay on a working farm round the Birmingham area when we go up to visit my family in June, but so far haven't found any, or the ones that I do find are £££ and don't do single night bookings. I'll keep looking, as the DC would love to do something like that.

Big spending for me tonight :

£30.25 Wilkos order (cleaning products & photo frames)
£19.24 Superdrug (toiletries)
£23.56 Boots (shampoo etc plus milk)
£32.97 Mother's Day flowers, chocolates & candle

I need to do an Asda shop tomorrow too despite a big Aldi shop at the weekend. I am much more productive when I don't have DP with me!!