Managing Money Mindfully in March with the Friendly Frugaleers

[Happierwithouthim]

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All welcome on this thread, we're a friendly bunch who like to get bang for our buck, and manage our money as well as we can.

Pet pics very welcome too

Feeling incredibly lucky atm. Two days in a row some friends dropped off a couple of bits for us at the door (one was from a new friend who had a Tesco slot and didn’t need it so shared it between a few people!). And then this morning had a message from another friend “I’m queueing outside Tesco, want anything?” :) seeing a horrible side to so many people ATM but most people are just amazing 💜

Hoping to get into the garden today - the bench is a total sun trap in the afternoon. Legs are shaky AF!

Oh dear DS. Hope the wait isn't too long em.
Ah that's lovely lane. People are mostly generally very nice.

Given up on ocado. Don't need anything but was looking for mil.

Nsd as not left the garden

Not had a direct reply to my whinge, but a group email has gone out to work on reducing time for our team for the week after next (Easter). So I’ll take that as a win, in a roundabout way.

Just written a mega shopping list with mums and our food stuff. Not looking forward to going later!

DD is still sniffly but seems ok. We’re on a sick day for home schooling today 😂 Done a bit but less regimented. And no one wanted to do joe wicks 😬

Poor DS em

He’s fine.

Glued back together. Waited an hour and half. But they kept us updated. And were so so good with him when we were seen. He was so brave.

I called coffee shop on my way out and ordered coffee and pastries for the staff. (I asked how many were there...) £28.

The nurse who glued him up said it was absolute chaos at present. We had 18 cases here. Now 17 (as the first death reported last night). Now just one hospitalised. But they’re just overworked. Underpaid. Not cool man.

Goid boy em DS

15 degrees in our garden at the moment 😎

Just checking in. Will read back properly later. I'm surprisingly busy!

Hey Everyone!!

I've been awol for quite a while, just so busy with work and life you know.

Now I'm WFH I have all my commute time free so thought I'd catch up here, spent most of yesterday in agony with a tooth abscess so read through all the posts.

to everyone here who is currently unwell or is looking after poorly relatives, it's such a strange time and so unsettling for people with any kind of health condition, for anyone who is trying to homeschool, I just don't know where to start, luckily my girls are getting plenty of work from school each day and they are both quite diligent with making sure it's completed.

Both dh and I have had our wages cut to 80% which leaves us about 2k short each month, we can cope and pay our bills, it just means we won't be able to put anything towards getting the house completed, we also have fil living here with us permanently now, we had bad luck with some building work and long story short lost about 70k to a cowboy builder, we've been saving so hard to try and make up the shortfall and get the work completed, so far we are about 85% there, the Lockdown has thrown a spanner I the works and we don't know if we will be able to afford the work or when the builders will be able to continue.

We've been living on a building site for over a year now and it's soul destroying. We can't use the garden and downstairs is almost completely unusable.

But I'm going to continue to try and cut back, being at home has given me much more time to cook and meal plan, and to use up stuff we already have in the freezer etc. Tonight dd1 is helping to make a mac'n'cheese with peas and bacon.

Today hasn't been great as I've had to fork out £105.25 for an emergency private dental appointment, almost every dentist is closed so I had no choice as I've been in agony with it.

Lovely to see you Camden

Made a banana loaf earlier, making baguettes now. Need to knead to exercise my finger joints which are super sore at the moment

Em glad he's fixed up. Lovely gesture buying coffee and cake 🍰

I've blitzed up the ends of my last two breadmaker loaves and dried them in the oven. We are now having breadcrumbs as a topping on pasta instead of Parmesan as we are all out of it

NSD again as other than walk haven't been anywhere

I have been in a foul temper allllllll day. I have had to apologise to so many people. Possibly because it was my day off running.

I went out for emergency supplies - having carefully labelled it ESSENTIAL SHOPPING in case any of the village curtain twitchers decided that I was not allowed out. It had Beer, Wine and Ice Cream on it. £53 mostly on non essential items such a bread, green vege and biscuits. The shop was well stocked and weirdly devoid of people ( I think they all dashed in at opening time)

The highlight of my day was restocking the foodbank shelves and scraping the weeds out of the cracks in the patio. DH has promised to do the wall ( year 5 and counting)…. CV may have a silver lining.

Em glad he is patched, & that was a lovely gesture.
Wolf did you want some sending over from our well stocked ( did I say we have a full supermarket) Aldi?

Camden good to see you again.

I’ve also bought ds some chalk so he can draw on the garden slabs.

And some playdough.

We’re going into lockdown here. I can sense it.

Over 65’s have been “ordered” to be in isolation.

Today all spas hairdressers barbers and the like told to close.

Our govt has given info re wage help for those who are now unemployed and apparently were allowed to defer rent payments. If landlords agree to it.

We’ve made the decision not to see Dm and Dd again until this blows over. Had to actually tell them today. Absolutely broke me. Dh doesn’t get it because his dad is emotionally distant and gives zero fucks about any of us. And mil is in nz. So already far away.

I knew we’d have to do it at some point. But 😭.
Also dsis. As she’s a teacher. She’s in work still. But she said she wasn’t seeing anyone either.

Feeling very isolated at the moment.

I think it’s also because I’m working from home. So that’s all not normal either.

I swear when we go back into the office at the end of all this I’m going to hug everyone. And touch their faces.

camden good to see you, sorry you are going to struggle financially, such a tough time.
Em glad ds is patched up & a lovely gesture from you that will have been really appreciated.
unescorted dd is claiming Pringles and Tangfastics are essential!
Girlie good to hear you've been able to spend some quality time with dd

The applause at 8 was fabulous here, real goosebumpy, emotional stuff.
Had roast chicken for tea. Definitely will get another meal out of it and maybe some soup. Getting properly into the frugal spirit here. I have been good and not had any alcohol since the weekend, so looking forward to a glass or two of red tomorrow.
Have ordered a fruit & veg box to collect tomorrow and a 25kg sack of potatoes. There are 3 local wholesalers who make a lot of their money supplying restaurants etc & they are all now doing the boxes and barely able to keep up with demand. I'd rather pay them than a supermarket.

It is going to take some getting used to when it all finishes.

Ooh banana loaf wolf might have to make that now. No fresh bananas, but I put a couple in the freezer when we were going on holiday so that should work.
Dd made cherry and almond scones a couple of nights ago, they were delicious.

The applause was rousing here.
Ah pleased he is stuck back together em. It's lonely when we can't see our lives ones except on a screen.

Hey Camden. Are you water tight now in the roof? How the lack of commute is helping the stress levels. I recall it was quite bad for you before

£8 on a movie for DD through prime

Banana from the freezer makes lovely loaf North.
Boo no granery bread. Do have a little strong left though for pizza Friday

Hey Em -chalk is fab for little ones, also try giving him a paint brush and a bucket of water to 'paint' the fence

Life - we do have a roof now, but not quite watertight yet, it's endless and thoroughly miserable, Fil hasn't stopped moaning about everything since he moved in, he has his own room with underfloor heating, Kitchenette and a wet room - it's literally the best room in the house (everywhere else is covered in an inch of dust) but he won't stay in it and plonks himself right in the middle of wherever the builders are trying to work then complains that it's cold/dusty/noisy.

I've gained 3 hours a day Without having to travel into work so that's a huge bonus, it was quite stressful travelling on the London Underground over the last few weeks.

Love how everyone is baking, if anyone has any good recipes please share them, dd1 and I have made plans to bake something different everyday, today was a lemon drizzle cake, tomorrow we are planning on rock cakes.

Good the builders are still working.
Your fil sounds hard work. Bless you, not what you need.
Mary berry for baking stuff.
I'm not making and my waist line is expanding. I'm enjoying cooking though

Camden I've often wondered if you got your roof fixed. That sounds like hard work with your fil.

I actually cried when I heard the claps and cheers. It brought it home just how much people are depending on the NHS to get us through this. I still feel as if it's all a bad dream.

em its horrible not seeing your loved ones and you are obviously very close to your family so its going to be hard but you will do it. I'm actually speaking to my dm more now than I ever did and while I miss not "seeing" her I cherish the calls.

Morning all!

Born I think this pandemic will change the way we communicate. I hadn't heard of Zoom until last week and now hosting regular drinks parties and losing my phone to dd so she can chat with her friends 😂.

Camden, thank you. I now have chalks and water painting on our list for today. We can't bake though as I couldn't get any flour before we started isolating. Just tried to order some bits for the kids from Amazon but delivery was in May 😳. Il ask dh to see if his Prime account is sooner.

Em poor ds, that's quite a bump! Hope he's had a settled night.

Going to be enjoying the sun while it lasts today and looking forward to the weekend when dh won't be working. I'm finding it ok so far but I'm sure the girls need a break from me nagging them to do something productive!

Morning folks. Going to attempt to do some cleaning today, the house is minging, have to work for a few hours and hoping to go for a walk if ds hasn't got his moany-pants on

DD1 now has a high temperature so home we stay. My name will be mud at work this morning.

Did a big shop including mum’s yesterday. £100 I didn’t think I was ever going to stop with the unloading and packing.

Hoping we’ve got everything we need, just milk and bread might be needed, so we don’t have to bother anyone else. Will be a mega shop when we next go out!

Madden I just ordered lightbulbs on Amazon Prime and they will arrive at the end of April. Probably just as well the clocks are going forwards this weekend!