Frugal Friends, planning, saving and considerate spending through July and August

[Wolfcubisthefemalenominal]

New Fred frugal friends

Spendy day Ystd in the end,

£22 Poundland various bits mostly food and toiletries.

£27 Morrisons top up shop mostly fresh stuff

£20 Pets at Home puppy stuff

£9 cinema tickets for lion king today.

Am going to raid the savings (again) today and move money about to pay for the puppy was also to buy a shoe rack for the hallway. It's a posh, cabinet type one which I'm thinking will be a good idea with a puppy about! Costs £80 but I have some vouchers and am taking something back so hoping to actually only spend £55!

Spendy day Ystd in the end,

£22 Poundland various bits mostly food and toiletries.

£27 Morrisons top up shop mostly fresh stuff

£20 Pets at Home puppy stuff

£9 cinema tickets for lion king today.

Am going to raid the savings (again) today and move money about to pay for the puppy was also to buy a shoe rack for the hallway. It's a posh, cabinet type one which I'm thinking will be a good idea with a puppy about! Costs £80 but I have some vouchers and am taking something back so hoping to actually only spend £55!

Em yes they can cluster feed but I think they don't do it for as long as bf babies?

Spendy day today £30 piano for dd then £31 swimming lessons. Ouch. Dd is just having piano lessons with someone back from uni for the summer so only until mid September trouble is she's really good, three lessons and she's whizzing through the book, reading the music etc I just don't know how I'll be able to afford to continue lessons for her.

Cluster feeding is good if she could do it in the evening @ememem84, DD cluster fed in evenings from very early on and was taking enough to sleep through 9/10 hours by 7 weeks. Her wind also all went down rather than up, I stopped winding her after a few weeks as nothing ever came up .
Spends today £8 soft play. DS is tired and cranky though, for no obvious reason, I'm speculating he might be coming down with something.

Cluster feeding is good if she could do it in the evening @ememem84, DD cluster fed in evenings from very early on and was taking enough to sleep through 9/10 hours by 7 weeks. Her wind also all went down rather than up, I stopped winding her after a few weeks as nothing ever came up .
Spends today £8 soft play. DS is tired and cranky though, for no obvious reason, I'm speculating he might be coming down with something.

Cluster feeding is good if she could do it in the evening @ememem84, DD cluster fed in evenings from very early on and was taking enough to sleep through 9/10 hours by 7 weeks. Her wind also all went down rather than up, I stopped winding her after a few weeks as nothing ever came up .
Spends today £8 soft play. DS is tired and cranky though, for no obvious reason, I'm speculating he might be coming down with something.

@Thatsnotmyflamingo I had read that actually. Fingers crossed. Dd is very farty....

£12 boots on formula.

I drove there and then on to dparents. They took ds for a walk to find gorillas. We have a painted gorilla trail here. They found two. Ds was super excited apparently.

That's cool em. We have hounds. Last year we had hogs. When we went to bath they had owls

Just making a veg curry for my dinner. Dc are having chicken nuggets

Enjoying some of our Portugese sardine pate on poppy seed loaf (we're saving the second tin for Christmas).

DSis stayed over last night. We watched 'The Sea' movie which was quite atmospheric but also quite depressing. Today we drove to a ruined Abbey about 20 minutes away and walked around. It's a sunshine and showers kind of day. DD was with Ex for the weekend (Bank Holiday weekend) but is home now.

Hey everyone!

I've dipped in and out of these threads for ages, but I'm here to stay now!

I spent my whole commute into work reading this thread and finished it off on the way home - 1.5 hours each way! It's a long thread.

Recently things were looking up for us, but an unfortunate turn of events means that we are now on an extremely tight budget compared to what we are used to, because we have to Save as much as we can over the coming months.

I've spend the last week putting together a plan of action and writing down everything we have coming in and out, we are a family of 6, although my eldest doesn't live at home anymore and my youngest three are teens/secondary school age.

My plan for the short term is to use up everything we already have in the house, I have budgeted £125 each week for absolutely everything including kids fares to school/college and anything else we need to buy. I've written a meal plan and will stick to it, spent £29 in Asda this week for meals I've based around stuff we already have in, plus both dds are away this week so two less to feed.

I've cut back on almost everything, not buying any toiletries until every we have is used up etc no more lunches out, I'm taking food in with me and my aim is to have as many nsd's as possible.

I booked a last minute caravan holiday a few weeks ago, which we really need, but can't really afford, ds is staying home to look after the dog as he's just got back from a holiday, I need to budget for holiday spends and dd2 needs new school shoes, I need to pay out for ds2's uniform for college as well. I've also got dd1 birthday coming up but thankfully I've already got her a gift so will just need to buy/make a cake.

The coming months won't be fun but I'm hoping to get used to living as frugal as possible.

I hope everyone here has had a good day

So sorry- I've reported all my duplicate posts, it told me it couldn't be posted then posted over and over again

Hola from Spain!
Quick check in. Good holiday so far. Ferry crossing was great & we found our way up into the mountains okay although the journey was hair raising at times. Cable car ride yesterday, a day of pottering today. We move to the coast tomorrow & ds arrives on Wednesday.
His eye appointment wasn't great. He has chronic blepharitis & is now on 3 different eye drops & oral antibiotics again. From what ds & my aunty have said, they didn't really take the chronic fatigue into account & how it seems to correlate. Anyway I cried a bit on the ferry as he sounded so down, but can't wait to see him on Wednesday.
Spending has been fairly high so far as we've been eating out, but not bad value despite the awful exchange rate.

Townie looks like you are not the only one.

North It is a shame the news is not better for your ds. Is there anything to be done long term or does he nee to do antibiotics whenever it flares up?
A quick question - where do you get your fabric from? I am looking for African batik but can only find one supplier that is v. expensive. I may have to bite the bullet and go for it - the coloured sections only add up to 2.5m and I am going to back it with a silk sari to reduce costs.

Em you paint a picture of decorum she will grow out of it, until then stand up wind.

Tayto when do you get the puppy? and what type is it?

@CamdenTownie welcome!!! You can do it. We got you. I’m trying for as many NSd’s as possible as need to save for the unpaid part of my mat leave (annoyingly Christmas time!). I go back to work at the end of January so won’t see any money coming in until February payday.

We moved house last October and haven’t really got the budgeting down. I’m hoping that I can crack it while I’m on leave.

stealth blast alert both dc are asleep!!!! They both fell asleep in the car. Dh carried them both in. Dd is in her basket and ds sprawled out on the couch. Dinner is in the oven. I am absolutely winning at life right now. Am taking the moment to give myself a pat on the back for my excellent parenting skills. #itwontlast #dswillbeupallnight

unescorted she does dainty lady farts which poof our glitter and smell like roses just kidding they’re ridiculously huge and loud for such a small person

Thanks for the warm welcome! Especially after I spammed the thread with so many of the same post eek!

@Taytocrisps I love Portugal, I know it sounds crazy but the shippams sardine and tomato paste you can buy in a jar tastes almost identical to the pate they give you at dinner, we are a large family so we used to bring the paste back to our room and feed it to the stray cats when we were out in the evening!

@ememem84 congratulations- these days will be really hard but you'll miss them once they've gone, it's so lovely that you get to spend this summer with your babies just enjoying them whilst they are so small 😊

North that is a shame about ds's appointment. I think that unfortunately some medical professionals still don't take CFS seriously. Has ds been referred to a specialist in CFS? If so they might be a better option for asking about a link between the two. He seems to cope with it all really well. I hope you all have a lovely holiday

Welcome Townie

Dh just showed me dd’s Gift from his work. A Chinese silver panda coin. So lovely.

Tomorrow it’s just me and dd again. We are not going anywhere. midwife is coming up again and they don’t give a time. So cant make plans. Other than pottering around the house and binging Netflix/amazon prime. Currently dh and I are watching elementary on amazon.

My Netflix list consists of:

Stranger things season 3
Dark season 2
Orange is the new black 7
The let down 2
Workin moms 2
Luther
Dead to me
Friends (still rewatching)

And today I found Jonathan creek. So watched a couple of episodes. Forgot how good it was. But man is it dated!!!! I watched an episode from 1998. I remember watching when it was on tv. Over 20 years ago.... ffs.

@ememem84 I've been watching Jane the Virgin on Netflix, my daily commute on the train/tube is 1.5 hours each way on a good day so I can usually get two episodes in, occasionally dh comes in with me and I feel a bit because I have to chat to him instead

I was previously reading a couple of books a
Week, but I've got a bit bored. Watching Netflix definitely makes the journey go quicker, I just need some more recommendations!

Hi Townie welcome! I’ve been here on and off but I know if I stay here it keeps me on track, so hope it’s the same for you.

em is it wrong that I find your description of your daughters farts ridiculously cute? 😆

This weeks weekly shop came in on budget. But could have been soooo much cheaper. Had it not been for pre holiday essentials. 3 more sunscreens, deodorants, shower gels, shampoos, etc. It’s better then it could have been had I not come back here and got my head back in the game.

Spent £118 on trainers ds has birthday money that he will give me towards them so technically £80. I would never spend that on trainers for myself or even dh actually.

Think the duplicate threads thing has been an issue all over mn today.

Welcome newbie 😊

Sorry to hear that north your poor son has really been through the mill.

Em you are doing so well, def down to your parenting skills 😉

We've had a nice day, morning spent catching up at home, I bought my shoe cupboard thingy and by the time I had returned something and used vouchers I got the price down from £80 to £45!! Feeling pleased with that. I attempted to put it together tonight but gave up as flat pack stresses me out, will try again tomorrow!

This afternoon we saw the lion king which dd and I both really enjoyed, it actually got a little round of applause by all the cinema audience at the end!

Also had to buy a dog crate as the one my friend gave us was too big and would have made opening the front door difficult! Got the perfect sized one for £20 on marketplace.

Can't believe we pick him up tomorrow, am excited and nervous all at the same time!

I've taken £200 out of my savings to pay my share towards him.