Had a Spendy Summer? Join the Friendly Frugaleers as we Segue Smoothly into a Sensible September

[LivingInLaputa]

All welcome. Couldn’t see another thread!

Dh has taken ds to a&e. He woke up about 45 mins ago really distressed and his breathing was all raspy and crackly and he was making a noise like a seal. Called out of hours and they said to bring him in just to be safe. Dr thinks possibly croup.

I’m home here with dd. Frantically stressing whilst trying not to worry. Ha!!! Dh is the better choice to take ds. He’s calmer in situations like this. We figured to be honest I’m liable to flap either way.

DH JUST text me. Croup. He’ll be here with ds for at least another hour. They’ve given him some meds to help him.

We are so lucky that we can be seen so quickly.

Oh no Em! How worrying for you, glad he was seen quickly. DD had exactly the same, that noisy breathlessness is scary. Hope he is back home soon

Em poor ds you must be frantic. Hopefully the doc can give tsimething to ease his breathing

Life sorry to hear mil is in a bad way that sounds like a very tough thing for everyone to deal with. Here if you need to talk

Oh croup can be scary. A&e are usually great with DC though.
Stick you share into savings then until DH gives you an answer.

Need to get mil a cardie from Primark today.

Thanks wolf

Em croup is very scary. Both our DC had it several times, but after the initial panic we got very good at quickly turning the bathroom into a steam room & sitting in there with them which worked every time. Hope he's better soon.
Life hope your mil is ok
Tayto sorry you've had such a crap time

Will catch up properly later, just a quick check in for now. All family celebrations survived & all went really smoothly. I'm exhausted now and we've overspent, but it was worth it. Pil leave today & I need to get back to healthier food & exercise asap!

They got back at just after 1am. Dh said he (ds) was bouncing off the walls by this point. He had some milk when he came home and went straight back to bed. Slept through till just now.

I’ve called Dm and asked her to come up today as ds isn’t going to nursery just to give me a hand.

life sorry to hear about mil

Let’s all try and have good positive days!!!

Glad DS is home em, hope he recovers swiftly.

First day back at school for DS2, other one goes back tomorrow. He’s very tired.

Poor ds em croup is bloody horrible, I hope he's feeling better now.

We've had a busy day, took the puppy to Lyme Regis, it was great socialisation as everyone stopped to say hello to him 😁

It's been spendy though;
£3 parking
£4 ice cream/tea
£5 dd in the arcades
£3 Boots on painkillers for dd (period pain 😓)
£5 on a water bowl that you can flatten for the puppy
£15 a new drinks bottle for dd for school (posh one like a Chilly bottle.)
£8 fish n chips

Oh well it is the last day of the holidays...

I have an ocado £20 off first shop voucher (I’d also get one if you use it) if anyone needs it.

£1.80 in work canteen and £19 for da school trip.

Em I hope ds is doing better

Girlie sounds like a great day out

It’s been a long day. Dm arrived at 845. Dh went to work. Ds was ok until he got tired then needed calpol. He wasn’t sure what to do with himself at points today. He did have a three hour nap though.

Dm left at 5. In the time she was here I’ve done laundry,called plumber, done a food shop, spoken to work re my mat pay.

Busy.

My mat pay saga is sorted. They’re pYing me for 18 weeks. Not 26. Turns out if they do they 26 week option I get full pay for 6 weeks. Nothing for the other 20 from work. If they do 18 weeks I get full pay for 2 weeks and 90% for 12 weeks I think. Worked out I’ll be 2500 better off

Girlie Hope you had a lovely day.

Em Oh no, hope DS is soon feeling better. I think they give a steroid in hospital for croup don't they? Or am I just getting mixed up? A 'mum friend', her 18 month old had it a few weeks ago and likewise had a late-night trip to A&E. Their 3 yr old didnt get it tho, is it contagious? Don't actually know. Hope you're all managing ok. I agree with everything you said re: finances btw. DH and I have totally joint finances really, I have basically always subsidised him since we first got together though. No complaints or anything, all willingly but can't wait for him to graduate next spring and get a decent paying job. It will be weird as it will be the first time in our by-then 8 yr relationship when he will be earning more money than me! And it will be about double what I earn as well!

How do people decide what kind of age gap to have with kids? We deffo want another one but I can't decide whether to go for it or to wait until we get the 30 hours free childcare when she's 3 or wait til she's in school even...I think if we went sooner I would have to quit work though because my salary and nursery fees would basically cancel each other out. I oscillate between wanting to build myself a professional career, to wanting to stay at my workplace and just move up slowly so not an amazing career but could do much worse, to wanting to just quit work and forget about it and look after DD and do some odd bits of work or something...

Spends: £2.30 bus to work, £3ish in Tesco near work on snacks.

meadow no you’re right - ds had a steroids yesterday. An oral syringe apparently according to dh.

Re age gaps - we wanted a similar age gap to your ideal - 3 years or so so we wouldn’t have to pay double nursery fees. My body had other ideas though. 22 months between ds and Dd. They will both be at nursery in January. We will be crippled re nursery fees (£1700 a month...) but it means I keep my job so for a short term we can make it work.

Worked out the other day that if we decided to send them to private school we’d financially be better off as school fees will be less per term than nursery. Working on 3 months ish to a term.

Quiet on here today!

Meadow - I have four children, big age gap between the first two (boys) of just under 5 years, then 2 years between dd2 and dd1 and slightly less between dd1 and dd2, so
At one point I had 3 under 5 and a 9 year old!

Looking back I think it was much easier having a smaller gap, as the school run etc with a new born is difficult, and I found the gap was too big for them to get on or have a good relationship. The 3 youngest are now 12,14 and 16 and get on really well in pairs (if that makes sense)

Em - ds1 went to an independent school, the Costs jumped massively with each year he went up and the added non negotiable extras were what really bumped the fees up, school dinners were compulsory, as were after school paid clubs (his were all music ££££) and trips, uniform was also a huge outlay. The others have all gone to state schools!

My last day off before I go back to work tomorrow- not looking forward to it as I know there will be loads to sort out!

Today's spends were £17.70 on emergency school uniform and £4.00 on stationary in willko!

Made lunch to take in tomorrow, so no spends....hopefully!

Back to school today and typical 1st day rainy weather!

Yesterday's spends

£11 on McDonalds (last day of hol's treat)
£65 petrol
£54 Ocado (including £30 1st order discount, free delivery and £10 KidStart cashback!). Can't afford for it to be a regular thing but was definitely a great 1st time deal.

Sorry I've fallen into the back to school/work ether too!

It's been another NSD today! I'm finding lots of little ways to not automatically spend and now it's becoming habit (eg was going to buy some burgers but realised there were sausages, baking treats for dd's lunches, taking pack-up for me etc)

And this month we've actually done a proper budget (and given ourselves a massive reality check). We've already started putting away £350pm towards next year's holiday, which is a scary amount and leaves us a bit stretched, but that will cover all holiday and spending money and will hopefully mean we don't find ourselves with no money half way through August again next year.

I'm not up to date with the thread at all so I'm just going to start again today

95c posting a birthday card to dm Won't mention the money spent buying a fresh cream cake for her visiting last Sunday evening& then forgetting she'd made that arrangement I'm not bitter at all about wasting €6 would be fine if I didn't have to buy cake for au pairs birthday tomo also

Back in the routine here too. Senior school day 2 DD has lost her planner.
Feel like I'm spending an arm and a leg in Primark for mil hospital stay. I picked up some pj for me to. £100 over last few days.

Quiet here! Back to school stuff here.

On the plus side very little spends, although lots of eating being done. Being at work makes me constantly hungry!

Just seen my mobile is out of contract so need to sort that. Need to do house insurance too before it auto renews. And still haven’t sorted car breakdown cover which has expired. Not been very home admin motivated this week.

Hope everyone is ok xx

Sorry to hear about your MIL life

We've been to puppy class tonight, ours was best puppy obviously 😉 he is so clever!

Dd had a good first day back at school so that was nice.

Forgot a couple of spends from ystd;
£10 gift for a friend
£30 petrol

Today just £6 on a few co op bits, some yellow label stuff in there so got a fair bit for that.

Actually just thought I did book dd in for a new club today as well £30 for 5 classes, it's a water sports club so hopefully she'll enjoy it.

Hi all.
So busy with back to school, work and doing home visits for the new children coming. I am so exhausted!
em, hope DS gets well soon.
Hope everyone is doing ok.
I need to do some paperwork now, so will pop on tomorrow.

How's ds doing today Em? Croup is scary but it seems to get better quite quickly ime.

Very busy back at work this week and very tired. I'd forgotten about some of the extra things involved like making my lunch the night before and getting nursery bags ready.

As a positive I haven't spent any money all week!

So overwhelming today. Ds has been home again. He’s ok in himself but his breathing sounds rattling still. Eating ok. Sleeping ok drinking loads. No temp. So not too worried.

Don’t want to send him to nursery though as I think they’ll send him home.

Dparents have been with me again today. I managed a grand total of 20 minutes sleep this afternoon. Dd seems to know what’s happening so isn’t settling. 😭

Dh told me today that he’s orca jaws for me to meet with one of Mils friends tomorrow for a walk. I’ve told him to cancel it. He is now saying it’s rude to cancel. I’ve told him to cancel because I didn’t want to meet her etc and it’s also rude to organise things for someone else and not tell them.

Signing back in. Had a great holiday and didn't spend more than the £450 spending Monday we had taken with us. I did pay for the parking when my dad picked us up from the airport that was £13

Have been doing some Christmas shopping so quite a bit going out.

Ds is having a blood test for coeliacs on Monday then we have to do a week dairy free followed by a week gluten free to see if either make a difference. Will be tricky and expensive especially as he won't be able to have his free school meals for those two weeks.

Dh has an ear infection and his work is quiet and have told him not to come in the past three days but the lazy arse has literally done nothing. There was a bowl of tuna on the side this morning when I left for work and it was still there when I got in so annoyed with him I'm sure his ear does hurt but half an hour a day to quickly tidy or put the fucking washing away won't kill him.

Em dh should definitely not have arranged that I would not be impressed. Dd got croup when she was younger but we live so far from the hospital we always dealt with it at home also we didn't know what it was at the time

Snuggly we've got eight weeks until half term too 😭

My windscreen has a big crack in it which is a pain luckily it's covered through the lease hire they can't fix it until Friday though.