Would I July to you August Frugaleers

[Unescorted]

Follow on from the last one

It is so hot. I’m baking. We’ve got all the doors and windows open (even though I’m sure I read somewhere that keeping them closed was a thing to reduce a hot house….)

Dinner in the garden tonight. And a big cold drink.

Frittata for dinner to use up bbq leftovers. Salad. New potatoes etc. Mmm.

It was lovely and cool at work today. Then I had to come home

Em that is brilliant and the other day they had Jam & Jerusalem on Gold it's just brilliant too l love French & Saunders & Victoria Wood et al
I love Margret Rutherford , she won an Academy award for supporting Actor in The VIPS , l have never seen that one and it's 20.99 on Amazon so won't be buying that !

Love
Humbug my Dd2 had her lunch in the underground car park at work

em that lunch sounds lovely!
I’m making Thai prawn and green mango salad tonight, it’s too hot to cook for more than 10 mins max!

Thanks for the warm welcome

Made Turkey mince bolognese tonight (I don’t eat red meat) and OMG it was so good! Couldn’t tell the difference between that and normal beef mince. So much healthier too. Saying that, I haven’t had beef mince for almost 2 years!

Recipe for 4:
500g 5% Turkey mince
1 x tin chopped toms
Tomato purée
Half white onion
3 garlic cloves
2 peppers

—
Fry onions and peppers, add Turkey mince, add garlic and cook for about 10mins ish. (Throw your pasta water on while cooking that).
Add chopped toms and fill up the can halfway with water and add to pan. Add tomato purée, basil, oregano, thyme, salt, pepper and any other spices you want. I also like to add honey/sugar to sweeten it a little. I also like my bolognese with a tiny touch of gravy granules and either a meat free oxo cube or red wine stock cube. Delish and very cheap to make! Fed 4 easily 😊

Welcome dainty
I take all my food but I try and calorie count

Welcome dainty

Hi! Love the title :o

Spends yesterday £13 on an Ikea table for DS’ room (we took the desk he didn’t use for the PC, but he wants something small to do Lego/stop motion on! It’s cheaper actually in ikea but we don’t have one near us) and £3 on an anime DVD.

I’m lesson planning like crazy. It seems my tuition work has kicked off a bit and I’m now getting used to online lessons which obviously increases my potential customer base a lot.

Anyone here good with Skype? I managed screen sharing yesterday but is there a way of doing that while also being able to see my pupil/them seeing me? Like with a small window in the corner? It would make things a lot easier.

sing i think there must be, although i dont know how to do it. i know you can do video calls etc with Skype.

i've just spent an extrodarinary amount in the wine shop... £225.

but its not all for me.

today is parents 45th wedding anniversary. so i got a bottle of bubbly (bollinger) for them for this evening.

friday is also our 10th wedding anniversary. which according to the internet is the "tin" anniversary. struggling to find anything for dh i bought lots of cans of craft beers (specifically IPA's - the guy in the shop was super helpful and recommended loads). i also bought him a niceNZ red wine, and a bottle of TINpot hut wine too (which is yum). oh and a 5kg tin of olives.....because who doesn't love a big ass tin of olives. . . .

Hello Daisy, I make lunches for myself and DP most days, it’s saved us a fortune. I love a packed lunch, it’s a little bit of home in the middle of the day.

Our matron organised a free ice cream van for all our hospital staff today🍦. It was lovely😻. Some went back for second helpings! The chap sold several to patients, which I’m sure he wasn’t supposed to do, so he would be quids in!

August will have to be a very economical month for us as we have a gigantic bill for ground rent, nearly £600. We have agreed to pay half each. DP is taking all the overtime he can get, bless him. I have stocked up at Costco over the past month or so and my freezer is pretty full, so apart from a bit of food and usual bills, hopefully we will not need much. I feel extravagant using the aircon, but our cat is a house cat and a big black cat in a hot flat does not make for a happy pussycat. On the flip side, we use our central healing very little, even in the winter so hopefully it evens out a bit.

I’m feeding DP sausages, eggs and baked beans tonight. I shall have a baked potato with cheese and salad.

Spent almost £60 at Superdrug online on toiletries for me and the impending arrival. Plus another £21ish at local Tesco's on groceries. Plan was to make a paneer curry albeit a cheat one of our a jar. Except I not long ago accidentally knocked the jar off the kitchen bench. Ffs. I actually think we might get an Indian takeaway because there's a new one we got a flyer about and I really really fancy Indian now. Spendy but in fairness we haven't had a takeaway for quite a few weeks I think. The veggie set menu for 2 is £20 which is really good value for money comparatively tbh.

So hot, my room where I work reached 28 degrees again late PM. However today I've been sweaty and not faint so I must be doing a better job of staying hydrated which is good.

Gosh yes Duchess I never really thought about pets, this what must be so tough for them all! When we briefly lived in France we moved there in a heatwave and lived in a tiny high rise flat with no air con and it was sooo hard on the two guinea pigs we had at the time! I was constantly on edge thinking they'd get heat stroke.

Em love the tin present ideas!

Dainty We eat a lot of bolognaise here because it's one of a very few number of meals that my DD consistently eats. We usually make it with Asda's own brand veggie mince now as it's become me and DH's fave veggie mince.

Hello everyone
31C here today , we did go to IKEA & visit Dd2 ,spent 10
bought the most gorgeous doormat from there , l have a thing about those Russian horses ,
www.ikea.com/gb/en/p/kvaerkeby-door-mat-indoor-dala-horses-natural-multicolour-60505356/

What am on about Russian horses they are Swedish horses they are called Dala horses

That door mat is gorgeous. If I ever move I will get that

@lifelongfrugaleer

That door mat is gorgeous. If I ever move I will get that

Ahh thank you Life it was only a fiver and it is absolutely lovely

I unfrugally bought a dress and skirt in the sale, two new vests and some workout gear. Tomorrow I’m having an expensive bikini wax. I think I need to be thrown off the thread!
I did meal plan and we’ve been having the leftovers from each nights dinner for lunch but that isn’t compensating for the £90 I’ve just spent. I think the heat is sending me mad 😵
Oh and £18 on new SPF for my face.
Sigh.

We got chippy tea in the end as the Indian was closed...

Tax credits renewal finally done phew. Need to take the 30hrs funding forms to nursery tomorrow when I drop DD off, that will be another money thing ticked off the list then.

Ooooppps slipped off the thread there..... I suspect it was 1970's car seat sweat slip. It was 28 deg here before lunchtime so DD & I cycled down the trail to lovely bar in an old mill by the river after work. We sat in the shade drinking Campari soda.

Meadow well done on the pay rise. Ours from last year was "put on hold" while we were going through a pay & grading review to iron out a huge gender and race pay gap. The P&G review is now on hold.... and they are saying pay rise what pay rise.....

Dainty welcome to the thread. Pack up lunches are a huge saving. I found that it wasn't just the lunch, but I stopped buying all the extra bits because I was worth it. If I took my lunch I would go to the library or walk along the canal. If I bought it I would mooch around the shops.

Em I am going to check out Yotem... I have his Plenty More from our local book swap shed.

Duchess your staff matron sounds lovely.

Sing - have you looked for a You Tube tutorial. They are my go to place for all my How do I do....? moments. It sounds as if you are really flying - well done.

Food revelation - in the on going saga of what is for dinner. Both DD and DS prefer the things I cook when I cook the things I want to eat. They have both agreed to try things before hitting the freezer for an alternative. DH can just starve. Viva la revolution!

Unescorted we also had no pay review last year. This year isn't just me or anything performance related though, the bottom three grades at my work are all getting tiny raised after a bench-marking exercise apparently showed them to be too low...no shit. Our employer pays significantly less than other similar similar employers and the only staff that stick it out on these lownpay grades are people like me with caring responsibilities because they are more flexible than other employers. Although with covid and widescale WFH in my sector a lot of other firms are now committing to greater flexibility and they pay more, so perhaps that's spooked my employer. It is really a pennies rise though, won't make any noticeable difference to us (and in fact could be detrimental if it kicks us over the tax credit threshold!). Awful about the pay gap. Our firm is pretty women led compared to others in the sector and the gender pay gap is small for the sector (although still there). So far they've refused to investigate any race pay gap, this is something me and a few other colleagues have been hounding them about for the last couple of years - we suspect this is a huge issue at my firm.

Not going to be very productive today, my bedroom where I work is already 27 degrees and I feel hot and bothered already.

Spent £20ish in Asda on groceries.

i'm all too aware of the gender pay gap. i have recently discovered that i'm paid less than a male counterpart - and i'm more qualified. so am planning my argument for a pay rise. if i've done the calculations correctly, it will "only"be an extra couple of hundred a moth after tax but still....

i dont see how being a certain race means you should be paid more....it doesn't make you any less worthy of the money. and it doesn't make you any less qualified. this is probably why board rooms are still full of white middle aged middle class men. glass ceiling and all that.

in happier news - i am wearing ga dress today that makes me look like i'm going on safari - its a beige linen shirt dress. lovely and cool. and brand new (but probably bought a couple of years ago - its a dorothy perkins one so i know that folded a while ago now...)

the kids new paddling pool arrived today too. yay!

and its payday. thank god.

Ugh I bought two secondhand maternity vests for £4.50 on eBay the other week but the seller has just refunded me saying she can't find them anymore! Pain because it was such a good deal and I was looking forwards to having them for this hot weather. Search begins again then.

That is awful Em, good luck with challenging it and I hope you can sort a fairer pay deal asap.

Oh also handed the 30hrs funding forms and docs in to nursery this morning. Cannot wait for that to kick in in September as our nursery bill will plummet from about £650 a month to £80 a month once she's down to the 2 days too . Although me only getting SMP means my wage is going to halve from about December so it just balances out really I think.

meadow i hear you re the nursery funding. ds will be entitled to 24 hours i think. we're going to save a bomb. wahoooo.

masks are now back to being mandatory here. which isn't surprising as our cases have gone up to over 3000. with over 14000 direct contacts. we knew that this would happen though when borders opened and restrictions lifted. our government are now back tracking saying this was unexpected when they told us to expect this and not to panic. now they're backtracking and panicking. apparently the order will go out soon that working from home is back to being mandatory (am already doing this as my office took the decision for themselves - everyone home apart from a few people who need to be in the office - our IT guy, receptionist (who cannot work from home as she does all of our filing too) and a couple of our accounts team.

the word on the street and social media is that we're heading for another lockdown i really hope not. but on the bright side it will save me money as i won't be in town, and am not going to shops unless i really need anything promise.

My boss previously said she thinks my job should be same pay grade as another job (historically male) whereas mine is a more female role, as my job has more responsibility. It’s frustrating.

On another note, not going back to work this week. Told boss I don’t have much to do if she wants me not to come in, answer was pretty much 🤷‍♀️ Lots of housework jobs being done, whilst producing something of note each hour 😂

Until about 3.5 years ago, DP and I always bought lunch at work as we were near shops at lunchtime. The amount we spent over 12 years will be horrifying. Frugal tip- get a job nowhere near shops so you have to bring a packed lunch, or go hungry.

I hope you don’t have another lockdown em