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

[Justanothermile]

New 'fred

Does this mean the whole thing is cancelled?

Great news sneaky and Em

Wolf could it be you have lost the married persons allowance? I have the allowance attached to my salary b/c I earn more than DH.

Only one more day to year end YaY. Then I will be back to being frugal and wise. Until then I am going to have box pizzas, wine and bought in lunch.

Depends on the context - could be the outstanding amount is cancelled because they have put it on another payment plan, or they have made a mistake and cancelled the payment plan, or it could be the DD is cancelled. Ring them and ask

Definitely not pension as that’s a fixed percentage. I don’t get married persons tax allowance so not that either

I tried a different calculator and got a better figure and then did the calculation manually and got the same figure as the original calculators I tried. I guess I just have to spend a month waiting to see what will happen.

Hard to say without seeing the whole page sneaky. I second ring them.
Ah wolf it's a conundrum alright.
Put my expenses in for the last period. Need to get better at taking drinks and food as it doesn't cover the whole cost. Which is vexing as I never pay for anything at work usually.

£37 in oasis store on two tops (gift card spend) and £45 oasis online on tops (money spend)

Dh working late. Picked Ds up from nursery and we came home. Watched some tv had a super play. Did bath and milky and Pyjamas and then he fought me to go to bed.

He finally dropped off at 730. I’ve then taken laundry indoors, folded it, have made dinner for myself (chicken burger with southern fried nuggets home made bread rolls - which were about the size of a 10p....and chippies).

Dh text to say he’s be home at 9. Sigh. Me and catface are watching stand up to cancer bake off on all4.

NSD

Dh still not home. 😭😪

Have also recieved an email from the electric co. Apparently our direct debit is going up to £197 a month....?!?!

We are currently being charged £80pcm. Which I thought was a lot but new house etc.

I’ll calm them tomorrow and just pay off the arrears I think. Then see where we go.

Hopefully having the heaters off and using tumble dryer less will help.

Sorry haven't followed since the weekend. Thanks for all the supportive comments, I definitely made the right decision in not going to the study day at the weekend. It has continued to be a stressful week but not so bad as Friday/Saturday. Dd went off on her German exchange this morning at 5.30 (ouch!). It sounds awful, but although I'll miss her, I'm also going to enjoy the peace! She is lovely, but very high maintenance in terms of needing to talk things through and very intense in her emotions.
Spent an exciting half hour cleaning the shower tonight. It was in a right state & looks much better now. Dmum took me for lunch today after I helped her to rationalise her finances a bit.
Nothing much else frugal to report, but have managed home cooked meals every day and not spent much.

Busy day here with work and then a meet the tutor thing at dds school. Her tutor seems really nice and I was pleased as he said lots of nice things about dd being very helpful in class and was very positive. Dd likes him and he is aware of her struggling at times and very supportive.

Came home and watched another load of stranger things with dd, think there's only 2 episodes to go now.

This month is dire money wise and I keep remembering things I need to pay for 😩

Dds riding trek over Easter (will also be a days childcare) £40

Train tickets to London for Chelsea flower show £80

Dds getting a hair cut tomorrow £20

Mother's Day voucher £15

Are all to be paid for in the next 48 hours!!

On the plus side my food cupboards are well stocked due to my Brexit hoarding so hopefully food costs will be low this month.

Dh came home at 1015 ish last night. Just after I posted. Poor thing.

Ds has a cough which woke him up at 11. Which in a way was nice as he got to see dh. When we got home last night he was looking for him. 😍

Woken up this morning to what I think are either doves or wood pigeons “wooh ooh ohh” ing. And Other birds chirping. So nice. Although because my alarm has a bird song setting on the weekends it’s difficult to tell whether it’s real birds or alarm birds!!!

Still in bed though. Everyone including catface is still sleeping. They’re all snoring.

Need to buy a mother’s day card today.

Busy day ahead. The boss and a colleague are off to the Middle East for two weeks on business. So it’s a day of get shit done that I need the bosses advice on, and also sit down with colleague and do a handover of his stuff in case it all kicks off while they’re away.

I've been woken up by the birds too.

I'm going shopping with a friend today. Can't really afford it but it's extra money from working at the shop and I need some things. All my knickers have holes in.

Pay day. Paid myself first.

Em that’s a bugger about the gas and electric bill

Lots of noisy birds here too, I was having a dream about a chair covered in bird print fabric just before I woke up

Thanks for the advice @lifelongfrugaleer; DS loves the vehicles, and he would love a remote control too so I will probably go for the new one. I'll try getting the discount on the Playmobil website; that would lessen the pain a little!
I'm off today and DH is off work sick so my plan is to leave him and DD at home when she is napping and go into town to browse in all the shops I can't go into with the DC. Just browsing though!
@ememem84 Lots of birdsong here in the mornings too; I think it's waking DS earlier though, all the blackout blinds and curtains in the world won't keep it out

I was woken by ds screeching. At 2.30am, 4.30am and 6am.

We had a bit of a stand-off on Tuesday after school because he scooted off way too fast and out of sight (he’s like a dog with no recall atm and he’s doing it to provoke me, he definitely knows better). I didn’t tell him off because that seems to be fuelling his behaviour - I think he does it to get a reaction - I just said there would be no fudge square for him because he went too far away. And I put his scooter in the garage and told him he would have to walk to school tomorrow if he couldn’t stay near me. At the time he said nothing and just acted defiant, though he was upset about the scooter a couple of hours later do I got it out and said he could scoot tomorrow. But weirdly yesterday he had a delayed reaction and was walking round at school shouting aggressively to himself about how he’d been naughty and ‘no fudge!’ and ‘no scooter!’. Apparently he was in floods of tears about it. And then he was awful after school for DM, lots of screaming and tears. And through the night he was periodically telling himself off and shouting. I feel horrible about it. But I genuinely have no idea what to do! He just wants to be naughty to get a reaction so I’ve tried really hard not to react (no raised voices at all). But I didn’t think he’d react so badly to consequences. But if there’s no consequences what can I do?!

Sorry for the essay, just venting. I have his private SLT coming in the Easter to discuss all this behaviour stuff, I am hoping she has some ideas.

Now, can anyone help me out with the Lonely Flapjack recipe? I saved it on my old PC but while trying to transfer all my files the screen died so all my recipes (and photos etc) are stranded . I need to find a tech person who can help but in the meantime I promised DS, to try to make amends...

Sea that's really tough. I wonder if the no scooter the next day was not quite immediate enough for him? I'm not sure what your alternative was because I do think that was an appropriate consequence and I would have done the same.

Just realised I've left ds' bike at the bus stop so need to go back and get it!

Sea here you go

Is this it?

You’re an angel Wolf!

I think you are right Wreck. Usually I only do ‘immediate’ sanctions- so if he goes too fast on the way home, when I catch up with him at the next road I carry his scooter for a bit and make him walk the next section. But he’s started bolting for home and then going right past and disappearing over the horizon. Doesn’t leave me with many options

Right, I am wfh but will make some cheeky flapjacks first...

Sorry I haven't been on for a while. Ddog had his op yesterday.

£406 😳

Left the butter at work (I'm working from home with Ddog) so

£2 Lurpak
£34 shopping
£3.99 magazine for DS (I hate them but he's been really upset about Ddog)

Re the play Mobil. I think the RC had to be bought seperatly as it's an add on not standard, but check.

It's the birthday club for the discount but not sure how quick the code comes out.

Spends

£20 haircut for dd
£2 a coin for dd
£6 lunch in Greggs
£3 Mother's Day card
£2 accessorise
£1 charity shop
£15 voucher for Dm

It's a beautiful day again, washings on the line and the back doors open 😊

Sea fwiw I think you handled it well and it sounds like he is just processing cause and consequence. Hopefully he will think before running off next time, I seem to remember dd being a nightmare behaviour wise at that age, I once bagged all her toys up in bin bags and she had to 'earn' them back 😐😶 it worked though!!

Spendy day

£35 primark
£28 decathlon
£3 tiger
£10 Nando's
£8.50 muffin break
£5 parking

I might go to Aldi when dh gets back from work. The only thing making me doubt going is I'm worried there won't be any food on the shelves. They're awful for keeping things stocked hence why I usually get there before 9.