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

[Wolfcubisthefemalenominal]

New Fred frugal friends

Enjoy your last day em. Hope they spoil you

One of my bad habits is spending money on lunch at work and I'm really pleased that I've not done that once this week and have brought food in from home instead. Probably saved me well over a tenner.

I'm trying to budget for the weekend although I've agreed to meet a friend for lunch so that'll be some spends there. How's everyone else doing?

What better leftovers to have at the start of your mat leave em

Day off today 😃 getting my hair cut later, have vouchers so shouldn't be too expensive. Busy wend starting with watching Madness tonight who are playing locally which should be great!

Another hen do tomorrow and then my dad and step mum are visiting Sunday. We're going to be looking after their dog for a bit which will be good practice for us!!

Hopefully shouldn't be too spendy, we'll eat before going out tonight so just the cost of a few drinks. The hen do tomorrow will probably be around £30 ish as we're having dinner etc.

Ahem. Well worth the £50 I think....!

£43 haircut
£115 Sainsbury’s but did include £30 of new nightshirts as mine all are a bit knackered. Knocked £15 off that with nectar points

Foot peel socks on not envy

Need to spend £15 on ds’s haircut later

£24 hair cut should have been £54 but I had £30 worth of vouchers, it looks so much better for it!!

£4 Morrisons on two snapdragon plants.

It's such a beautiful day, sat in my garden now.

Cakes look amazing em!

They were amazing!!

Just back from team lunch. Prawn Katsu. Mmm.

There must be something in the 'hair' today - me too! £40

Girlie I'm a west-country girl! Grew up between where you're seeing Madness tonight and the nearest big town! x

They look lovely Em

£98 M&S online for school trousers, socks, pants and pjs for ds . Picking up Sunday so he can try the trousers on and they can be returned if necessary. Pjs needed for holidays and a lot of his pants are too small

£40 millers backpac for ds
£36 joules T-shirt’s for me
£28 superdry pencil case, flip flops and long sleeve T-shirt for ds

All sale items or discount codes used and free delivery wherever possible

If all is ok and fits I only have to do local uniform shop for shirts and pe kit and school shoes and I’m done for next term

It’s done. Last day of work for 2019. Finished. Bring on maternity leave.

I’m both sad and relieved to be finished.

Beautiful flowers and huge card from the office. The tradition is to buy a gift once baby arrives.

Desk cleared. Work handed over. Emails filed. Out of office on. Last full week for potentially ever.

Now sat with ds on the couch. We’re sharing breadsticks and We’ve watered the garden and dh is making pizza. We’re watching fireman Sam. Sheep are loose in pontypandy.

Congratulations Em! Enjoy your maternity leave. Hope you get some rest before the new arrival.

I am so tired. The dcs are also tired. All the kids at school are tired. It's not good!

R fed and Novak tennis final on Sunday. Gutted I turned down those tickets!!!!

Should be an excellent game Em, watch with your feet up and a seedlip

Meal plan
Falafel, houmous, salad and Pitta
Tagliatelle, cheese sauce, garlic bread
Mushroom risotto
Mushroom sausages, mash, veg
Quorn fajitas
Soup

Stationery and pe bag ordered. Might pay a visit to uniform store tomorrow and just get it all wrapped up, depends how enthusiastic I'm feeling

Pottered round the garden trimming, feeding and watering and treating black spot

Snuggly end-of-termitis is definitely in residence. Must be a nightmare for you and anyone who works in a school trying to keep control of 30 fed up tired, hot, kids at a time

Happy weekend everyone , happy mat leave em & happy holidays to me

Yesterday spends €15 on new cable to charge my phone €4 on reeses nut bar for me & sweets for dd, ds had some earlier so he was excluded (plus he'd been awful towards me)
€6.35 on pre holiday/monthly lunch out today

I’m so looking forward to it wolf I’ve made more ice for the seedlip and am planning on buying the strawberries and cream. Mmm. Should be an ace game.

Cakes look lovely em. Enjoy mat leave.

Need to buy 3 birthday presents today. And some food this weekend. £40 on theatre tickets last night. It didn't rain thankfully.

Spends yesterday €0.75 on a birthday card for next May but it has my brothers nickname on it & was reduced in next
Returned bits to next that didn't fit dd

€51.66
Tesco Lego set for ds santa 25% off €20
a catch style game with 2 rackets & a whistling rocket type thing for our holidays €10
2 rings for myself same one in gold & silver €5 each
fibre 1 bars & chocolate rice cakes for our holidays

£2.50 spends for ds who is at an event
£7 home bargains on long handled loppers and cold pills
£58 on five school shirt and a pe shirt (still a rugby shirt to buy)

Bloody expensive

Hello everyone. Not been posting much but have been reading along.
Em happy first day of maternity leave! Eeeek not long now!
Wolf how are you feeling now?

The biggest news here is that DD has declared she is now ready to try secondary school! She’s been adamantly against it for the last year or so having had a bit of a wobble while her friends were doing all the SATs/end of year six stuff. However she has always said she may want to try at some point and I think she would regret not trying. So we have spent the last year in particular working on more structured home ed stuff to get her more ready, and she’s worked hard on getting over her fears and is so much more confident and moved on from what went on at juniors.

It’s not going to be as simple as just getting a school place, partly as our town is mega over subscribed in most schools! Also it’s important to make sure she has a lot of support in place, due to the ASD and the other issues that aren’t diagnosed yet. We have both Caglets’ assessments next month and they’ll give a report which we plan to use to get an EHCP. Then we will look round school open days in September and see what happens really. Hopefully she will get in somewhere partway through (year 8) and in the meantime we are carrying on as we are and getting her as ready as possible!

(DS is very different, and is absolutely against the idea, so will stay home ed and we will have more time to focus on science which is his passion!)

So big changes here!

That is a big change lap But good on her for finding the courage to face her fears.

Freddo Taking a pack up saves a fortune. Not only do you save the cost of the lunch on the day you also get in the mindset of not buying out when you go for trips. We always have on the go snackage that can be popped in a jersey pocket or made into a café at home meal. It does make us popular for drop in guests mind.....

em those cakes look scrum.

I love Ullswater North One of the best bits of my job is pootling around Cumbria.

I need some motivation this morning.... so much to do I don't know where to start.

Hi all.
Has been very busy here. Last trips of the year, reports and it was our head teachers leaving party yesterday.

Em enjoy your maternity leave, your colleagues sound lovely and are very lucky to have you, and those great looking cakes 😉

Laputa, your dd sounds very brave.
One of my colleagues children is being home ed at the moment, because of anxiety. They are 14. They were told by the local authority that it will cost £1,500 for them to sit their exams now as they are out of school. I had no idea it was that expensive!

Today will not be a NSD.
I'm waiting to get my hair cut and then will be doing a bit of uniform shopping as I'm child free, I hear you wolf it is bloody expensive!

Might also treat myself to some new stationery, Typo have some lovely stuff in, I'm particularly drawn to the Harry Potter stuff.

I’ve been going back through some of my meal plans from the last 18 months looking for veggie things we already have. Posting in case they help anyone out

£25 in warehouse on a yellow shirt dress. Unnecessary spend

£12 boots on some post labour things.

£17 cafe for breakfast for dsis and me.

£340 Apple store for iPod touch and Sonos speaker for ddad for his 70th (dsis will give me half).

£15 paperchase - snack boxes and water bottle for ds (unnecessary spend) and cards for ddad.

£14 next on some super cute brown sandals for ds.

Spendy morning. But it was nice to spend time just me and Dsis

Oh and £4.20 in coffee republic on a peach freezer drink and a gingerbread man (drink me ginge dsis). I took water with me but just needed something cold and sweet.

From today the spends are being reined in.

Now back home. On bed. Resting. I’ve been awake since 430. Exhausted doesn’t quite cut it.