Austere April continues with the Friendly Frugaleers! Join us as we discuss our direct debits, prattle about penny pinching and possibly babble about Brexit...

[Cagliostro]

All welcome!

Glad you and everyone around you were ok unescourted , that must have been scary

Hope you have a lovely time wolf and I chuckled at your ex thinking he was being invited 😂

Spends today:

£7 groceries
£72 Aldo . Two pairs of trainers, at least one pair will be returned though, and if I return the more expensive pair, the other pair will be a reasonably frugal purchase.

Hope you and DS have a lovely weekend @Wolfcubisthefemalenominal; nothing like getting away from the stresses of home.

I'm making zero headway in using up the contents of my freezer, really need to go through what's in it and then meal plan from there. Busy weekend ahead though so it may be next week before I do that.

Woah bomb scare?! Wow.

£3.59 sandwich.

£15 M&S on roses for Dm and wine gums for ddad. They fed us tonight.

Exhausted today. Survived work with a couple of flat whites and lots of sugar.

So glad it’s a long weekend.

Also a bank holiday here on Thursday of next week to 3 day week. Woop.

Not as scary as I thought it would be. After the Manchester Arena bomb I thought I would be a run to the hills type of girl. In reality we all just moved away from the window desks and got on with things. Extraordinary courage was shown by the police manning / womaning the cordons. They really calmly, but firmly got everyone to leave.

Unescorted how unnerving. I'm pleased it wasn't an active bomb

Wolf I really hope you enjoy your holiday you definitely deserve it

I always wake up so early in hotels. Had a lovely massage yesterday and despite lots to drink feel ok this morning. Looking forward to the hotel breakfast!

Wreck you and me both. Apparently they found another one - also badly wired which would be why they sent us home..... not out of the goodness of their hearts, just because they wanted to evacuate the building without scaring us all. Our building took nearly an hour to evacuate on our fire drill the other day - and we knew it was a drill due to the lack of fire engines. Imagine if that volume of people panicked in the stairwells.

Anyway - I am going to make a dress, do the washing and attempt some vegetable samosa. First up getting out of bed.

Ooo scary and exciting at the same time. Pleased they were did though.
And happy birthday x
Enjoy wolf, your deserve a break.

Nsd yesterday after all but dropped my work phone so had to do the report of shame.

Food shop today.

Hope you're birthday steak and weekend of celebrations makes up for one hell of a day yesterday unescorted.

...and enjoy your time away wreck and wolf - a change of scene is so restorative.

I had an awful night's sleep last night. I'm wondering if it's because I ate loads of sweets and chocolate last night !! I gave up sugary snacks/puddings/sweet treats for lent and now I'm eating it again I've noticed some anxiety and sleep issues and wonder if sugar is the culprit? It would be sad to give up 🍫 again though now there's so much from Easter in the house but I also need sleep more than sweet!!

LSD yesterday, just 99p on some superglue. I'm trying to get a few bits of diy done over the weekend and superglue is an essential for bodging

I'll need to get the kids out and about at some point and there seem to be a few free events about. Will probably take a fiver in case of bouncy castles and face painting and I need to get some eggs and bread but hopefully a relatively LSD for a bank holiday Saturday!

Wow how scary Unescorted! I’m glad you & everyone is ok.

First full day in Centreparcs today & woke up to a baby deer at the window. DH is taking DS to a football class this morning & I’m having a mum-to-be massage/facial. Weather looks a bit rubbish this afternoon so will probably do indoor stuff later. Terrible journey to get here - we kept getting lost in a bid to avoid traffic & I threw up twice

Early bird ds was singing at 6am. Dh managed to leave him singing and chuckling to himself until almost 7. They’re downstairs now. They’ve had breakfast and I’m in bed. I dozed off again and woke up to find a lukewarm (presumably it was hot once) cup of earl grey on the night stand.

Will head down in a bit.

Probably nsd today. I have laundry to catch up on. And an airing cupboard to refill. Electrician was in yesterday fitting a heated towel rail in our upstairs bathroom and needed it emptied. Good time to have a sort through everything and ditch the unnecessary stuff.

Boat show this weekend and we will probably head down if the weather picks up. It’s free entry so something to mooch around. Dh wants to look for a kayak and a wetsuit. The home stores usually have awesome discounts on outdoor furniture too.

Also on this weekend is the Portuguese food fair. Conveniently next to the boat show. So might head there at some point too. Maybe this evening (usually super kid friendly) for some baccalau or fish cakes or Espetada or picadino... or steak rolls. Mmmmm.

Morning all. Very very windy here been awake for most of the night but I don’t mind as I have nothing to do. I feel sorry for the Tour cyclists today though they may well get blown off bikes

Unescorted samosas are my favourite thing. Have a fabulous birthday 🎂

Wreck enjoy your breakfast I love a good hotel breakfast

Happy enjoy your massage

£100 ish on food.
Town in a bit for food festival and a new coffee cake shop.

So went to M&S for new bras I'm gone down a cup size, got 4 new bras which cost me €8.25 plus a Christmas voucher.
Checked out yellow stickered food and spent €10 and spent €10.50 in toy shop which dd is going to pay back

Used my circle k discount to get reduced price car wash & bought newspaper approx €10

Going to drop off at charity shop then and go home for lunch and hopefully lazy afternoon I'm tired 💤 and hoping to head away tonight with bf

Yesterday
€100 grocery shop total €130 but 3 x €10 off €150 spends
€25 on clothes for dc mainly socks
€12 on underwear for me but had €10 voucher

Will done on the nsv happier.

We just got the secondary uniform letter ££££

Ooh is it one of those places you need blazers & logo tracksuit etc?

£35 lunch including gin for me
£1 gloves for ds because it’s cold
£6 bakery in cake to have with custard later, scones and English muffins for breakfast

Yes, total bespoke uniform. About £200 my friend reckons.
£8 coffee, £9 Wilko's, £2 food festival,
Got long sleeve shirts so £8.50 to be returned tomorrow.

Really uninspired to cook this week.

£11 garden centre on fish bone blood food stuff for the garden. Yuk. A cucumber plant and some chocolate raisins.

Jamie Oliver’s peanut butter chicken for dinner.

I’m havjng a quick lie down. Ds is in the garden with dh. Catface has settled on my tummy.

Sounds good wolf

Eek life

Good grief Life! Ours is quite expensive too I think but I’m not sure it’s as bad as that £35 blazer £8 shirt then jumper and two separate school branded pe kits

Em I love chocolate raisins. Have you got a link to the peanut chicken?

£13 for some homeopathic joint stuff

Ooo I want chocolate raisins now

Here you go wolf

www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/chicken-recipes/gnarly-peanut-chicken/

Life can you join the school fb page and look out for second hand uniform bits as they come up? I've done that with dd, she has decided she prefers trousers now which is a relief as you can get trousers much cheaper than the £30 logo'd skirts.

Had a nice day, enjoyed the May Day celebrations in my dads village, fell out with my dad though as he invited us down today (insisted we got there early etc) and then buggered off for 3 hours to get his teeth cleaned ffs. I was really pissed off 😡 it was ridiculous he missed all the celebrations and was no help with my step mum who is disabled.

Anyway I did tell him when he finally turned up that I wasn't very happy which is good for me as I would normally gloss over stuff like that to avoid confrontation. He sort of apologised 🙄 and the rest of the afternoon was nice.

Spent £10 at the fair, did well on a raffle and won an orchid and nice toiletry set.

Splurged on a take away tonight to treat myself as I'm childfree (left dd with my dad) £17, it was worth it 😉

Have also bought a book on amazon called Aspergirls, the more I read on Aspergers and girls the more convinced I am that dd fits the profile. Not sure if I've mentioned on the thread but am paying for a private assessment for her later this month, it's subsidised by a charity and my parents have helped pay for it as well. If they feel it is Aspergers they will help us get an official diagnosis through the NHS which would hopefully mean dd getting much more support than she currently is. Spent £10 on the book.

Hi all.
Hello to newbies!
Have kind of caught up.

Sea, congratulations on the job.

Wolf hope you and ds are enjoying your holiday.

Em, glad baby is doing well.

Unescorted, bomb scare sounded scary, glad it was a false alarm. Also, Happy Birthday x

Happy, what a lovely deer. Hope you enjoyed your massage.

Wreck, hope you are enjoying your spa break.

So it is the first weekend without ex and the kids have been ok, mostly. He is taking them out for the day tomorrow.
I wasn't posting before, because was just getting through each day with the DCs, especially the youngest.

Anyway today dd2 had an hospital appointment which went ok and if we can get to January without her having an absence seizure she may be able to be weaned off her medication, so that is good news.

Spends today
Travel £4.50
Costa £5.05
Smiggle £7.40
Deichmann £22.99
Morrison's £3.00