Frugaleers MayBee just MayBee

[Unescorted]

If this goes horribly wrong it is not my fault.....

Old Thread

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/credit_crunch/4202621-friendly-frugaleers-accounting-accurately-all-april

Sorry Amber my week has been a cross between the Twilight Zone and soap opera with falling ratings at Christmas.

Today's joy looking after dDad while working. It feels like the toddler years are back (minus trying to fish fuzzy felt out of bottoms and sultanas out of noses hopefully). Thankfully they have superfast internet so I can "work".

Aldis today 34 ,
2 tops from Matalan for DDS 25
I could not resist them they are beautiful ☺️
MARKS 5 for their best sausages. Hot dogs tonight for a change ☺️

snuggly we are a family of 4, our monthly spend including cat food (2 cats), toiletries, wash powder etc is around £500. According to my natwest spending thing it was £431 last month but it doesn't always count poundland/savers and obviously things in cash!

Todays spend £7 co op - yellow label fruit, French stick & doughnuts (after club treat!), biscuits for me.

It is decided... I am going to wear a crocodile outfit for my first day back in the office.

It is lovely to see so many returnees.

I can report the rhubarb gin is lovely as is the rhubarb, ginger and gin jam made from the gin soaked rhubarb. Waste not ....

I'm so relieved, I was expecting you all to say you only spend £200 a month on food for a family of 6 or something

Definitely wear a crocodile suit for work Unescorted!

Approx £600 a month for 4 adults here. Could easily cut that significantly, but have been doing weekly shop at Booths since first lockdown & prefer lots of the products now. Also do an aldi shop every 2 or 3 weeks for tins, packets etc.

Pleased the gin was nice. Loving the frugal reuse of the rhubarb.

Nothing new to report here. Usual family life, house move gone quite, work still stresses

Hi all, rhubarb gin sounds lovely. Our shopping bill is around £450 a month for two of us plus baby but I'm working on it Since pregnancy and now with a new baby I started ordering more ready made snacks like cakes, cereal bars, yoghurts etc and I noticed that this made a huge difference to the shopping bill ...

Made Nigella's rosemary cake at the weekend, it's so good. Might make a cake a week to keep us going without buying sweet snacks.

Also found the Christmas cake which we hadn't really eaten because I was pregnant and didn't put loads of brandy on it. I've now soaked it so looking forward to that, assuming it's ok to eat given that it wasn't really preserved by booze ...

Just booked baby swimming and baby sensory classes as they have reopened. About £200 but at least all paid for now.

Concentrating on cooking from scratch and doing a bolognese in the slow cooker today. Also having lots of salads and bits and bobs for lunch so on a mission to use up random things in the cupboard. So many random things ...

Glad the weather looks better today as it was seriously interfering with my mood yesterday.

Have a good day xx

Not actually sure what our food spend is, we swapped cards on the tesco account so it’s DH’s and TBH we do top up shops as well!

I have done a brave thing - got an email last night from my supervisor about a couple of vacancies in the charity I just started volunteering for. Part time, mostly home based, pretty ideal really and one especially I think I’d be right for. I don’t quite meet the essential criteria for either but the email said current volunteers can have an informal chat with the boss before they advertise externally. So I’ve requested that. You never know. And hopefully we can discuss what I’d need to work on for future roles if I’m not right for these.

Do you meet some of the criteria sing? Definitely go for it, well done on being brave

Thanks! I meet most of them really it’s mainly “experience of managing or working with volunteers” and “experience of working with parent-carers” that I’m not sure about. I’ve been writing lots of notes about the experience and skills I do have though as I want to be really prepared for the chat.

Those are skills that can be learned and you have the skills
Experience of working with parents - tutorees, parents at kids library sessions?
Experience of management can be learned, basically manage them as you would like to be managed as a volunteer. Acknowledge they do it for free and that's the difference imo

Welcome new folk and returners

I think shopping spend sounds right. I spend about that for 2 so you're doing well!

Tax return done. They say I owe them money. I think they owe me money. Grr

Good luck Sing, fantastic news about the opportunity

Sing you have the managing volunteers and parent-carer experience in spades. It is about keeping people engaged when they don't have to be there. Your work with home schooling groups is exactly that. Go for it - you will be amazing.

I think our groceries is in the £600pm region too.... and we cook mainly from scratch.

olive I have started baking again - to be fair it doesn't save a lot of money because we would have bought a pack of biscuits / crap cake. Now we are eating Fantasy Cafe offerings.

Speaking of Fantasy Cafe - today is new job Wednesday... no more boss from hell. Skippity skip, although it means I am no longer quite so motivated to chuck it all in to make cakes and coffee for punters.

Unescorted rhubarb gin jam is genius. Congrats on the new job too.

Wolf fingers crossed it's you who is right with the tax situation.

Sing that's awesome! Hope you get the job.

Olive I too have Christmas food left, spied a Christmas pudding at the back of the cupboard yesterday.

I'm watching a school football match today.

Thanks lovely frugaleers 🥰

I also realised I have sort of supervised volunteers before when we had teens helping with the library reading scheme each summer. So not like “being a supervisor” officially but certainly things like checking they understood the processes etc.

Feeling a bit more confident having read through the lists again. Absolutely worth a try and I’m really glad I get to just chat with the manager first, less scary than just sending a form off to a stranger :)

Also booked my first post-latest-lockdown piano lesson today, and a friend has asked me to tutor her youngest in maths. So a good day really!

NSD for me today, yesterday I bought a couple of little desktop display shelf units for DS’ room as we’ve had to move stuff around and he’s worrying about not having enough space for his gazillions of Lego models.

Wolf hope you are right re the Tax peeps.

DD was at a formal last night... v. posh. She ate the salad starter and enjoyed it. 19 years that has taken. The wretch. Why do they do that?

Fingers crossed they release they are wrong.
That's the spirit sing. You got this.

Weird day today refund of last weekend youth hostel for a bit of feedback that wasn't a complaint but a question
£16 vest return, £25 gym vests, £14 new gym vest, £116 Sainsbury's but that's Friday

I have been stood up for Sewing Bee tonight.... iPlayer tomorrow. The football is on apparently.

Dammit forgot sewing Bee. Will watch tomorrow

Oh and £39 training shoes. If i have nice kit it will get me thin and fit right?

NSD yay

NSD today yay!
Have watched the Sewing Bee , was worried Raph might be going !
Was looking forward to Before we die but l don't like it because of the violence but the Pact was excellent !

sing how exciting on the job, go for it! A chat doesn’t commit you either
life I hear you on the kit. I’ve been running (slowly) for a few months now and wonder if I should add to my ancient running kit. New trainers did help!