Festive Frugaleering

[Unescorted]

[[https://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/credit_crunch/4340188-Savvy-savers-sashaying-through-September old thread]

Opppppps - we nearly filled the old one

Made a max abs cheese sort of pasta bake. Threw in all the veggies.

We went to the woods today. Jumped up and down in muddy puddles.
I think catface has something stuck in her throat. Sigh. She’s done a lot of little sicks. Double sigh.

Unescorted l know we paid £72 one week when we were gadding about a bit for Christmas!! Thank you for saying l should be more selfish that is so lovely of you I am on a lovely FB group called Woolly hugs , they are such a wonderful group of ppl and a few of them there do sketching, one of them does everyday and shares her work with us and it's so lovely I don't do anything like this and l know l should try because it is so good for us
Em l am so glad you have told your Dh this it simply isn't fair to you
Not done much since coming back from Mumbobs but my darling Hubbs has cooked us a delicious Sunday dinner
Off to lunch tomorrow with my D step neice and her DC and her new beau, l can't wait to see them all , my DD2 is doing MumBob l am so grateful to her . It will be expensive tomorrow re lunch and petrol but l haven't seen then since July , they have just recovered from Covid , all four of them and we will all test before we set off
Have a lovely evening everyone

Evening all.

A spendy day today:-

€4.25 for fresh bread and sausage rolls in Centra

€60.98 in Woodies

€38 cat food and litter

€11.98 SuperValu 1

€7.53 SuperValu 2 (stuff they didn't have in the first store)

I bought a small bin in Woodies to use as a temporary measure until my normal bin gets collected.

I also bought a large container for the plant my DSister bought me for Christmas. Annoyingly, the size I wanted wasn't reduced in the sale but the bigger size again was. Grrr......

It's been raining most of the day and there's a lot of surface water on the roads. I inadvertently soaked some poor pedestrian . I was driving along and spotted a pedestrian up ahead walking in the rain and felt sorry for them. There was a massive puddle which I didn't see due to darkness/a dip in the road. As I drove past the person, I caused a massive torrent of water to cascade all over him/her. I felt really awful but there was nothing I could do. The damage was done.

DD has gone to the cinema with her friends, to see the Spider-Man movie. Then she's staying over at a friend's house. I'm going to make dinner shortly (curry with leftover lamb) and then give the fridge a good clear out.

Unescorted I'm sorry you had that awful moment of realization. If I could reach out through my laptop and give you a great, big, squeezy hug, I would. We are here for you as a group and I am also here for you via a PM if you need a shoulder to cry on . Also, would you consider seeing a counsellor? Mine has been a huge help. I don't see her all the time. In fact, I last saw her in the summer. But I know she's there if I ever need her. When things start building up in my head, then it's time to make an appointment.

em would your DH consider going during the summer when you don't have to take DS out of school? I can understand him wanting to spend Christmas with his family, but the summer would be less problematic from a school point of view. And I'm with you 100% on inflicting quarantine on DC (and you!). Fingers crossed for catface.....

Wolf I hear you on the petrol costs. The bar has slipped off DD's braces again so I will have to bring her back to the orthodontist at some point when they re-open. All these trips are using up a lot of petrol. I'm just relieved that I didn't go for the cheaper option and get the work done in NI. Imagine how much petrol I would consume having to drive DD up the North every time she needs the bar re-fitted/the braces adjusted. And taking time off from work also.

Mrs enjoy your lunch with family tomorrow. Having a day off from your caring responsibilities probably feels like a mini holiday.

I'm starting to get that horrible end of the holidays feeling. Going to have last big of the Christmas cake tonight and then take the decs down tomorrow. I hate taking them down but it's worse than having to do it after work one night when I'm tired.
Have started a bit of a meal plan and shopping list for the next couple of weeks. Trying to go veg-heavy as we have eaten a lot of treats over the holidays.

Tayto gosh yes going over the border would soon add up in travel cost

Humbug me too. I've just been talking with a colleague about how down we are about going back

I really can the arsed cooking and was very tempted by takeaway so we're having home made (frozen) sausage rolls and chips and I shall enjoy feelin slightly virtuous.

Em well done for setting some boundaries. You will need annual leave when the kids get sick etc and also for your own well-being and school events. You can not burn two years of leave on one trip.

Mrs yay for hubby cooking dinner

mrs I agree with *unescorted. Glad you have a nice DH who has cooked for you.
unescorted sorry to hear you are having a tough time. Sometimes things creep up on you don't they and it doesn't take much to feel overwhelmed.
Low spend day here, went for a walk with friends and spent £19 at the chip shop. DD's girlfriend is being quite mean to DD - I find her quite hard work generally and think 8 need to try and feel more neutral about it as at the moment I don't feel like being nice to her when she comes round, which isn't like me.
I'm back to work on Tues, feel I need to get it over with now but definitely feels like the holidays have gone too quickly.

As much as it pains me to say it I think it would be nice for mil to be able to spend Christmas with all her grand babies. I just need to work out dates. I’m pretty sure that work will let me take some unpaid leave. It’s more dhs attitude.the only reason we can take such a long time is because his work give him a sabbatical. 3 months off at full pay. But he forgets I don’t get that. I get annual leave and anything over my allowance is unpaid.

It may be that I can do AL for December. 2 weeks of AL in jan and then 2 weeks unpaid. Then just let DH deal with school hols etc. because he’ll have the additional time. But need to sit down with a calendar and work it out. Back in office on Tuesday so will be easier then.

Sending virtual hugs unescorted, you have a lot on your plate at the minute. Liking the sketchbook idea.
How lovely to come back to a roast dinner Mrs
Em stand your ground
Humbug and wolf that back to work dread is horrible, hope it's not as bad as you're thinking.
Latest covid sitrep here...
No sign of ds' PCR result so we're assuming it was positive. His LFT is now negative so he escapes tomorrow. My PCR was negative but dd's was positive. Dh and I are just going to continue daily lateral flows.
Ds has now lost 3 double time work shifts which would've been £250-300. Because he's a student and not claiming any benefits, he can't access the loss of earnings fund for isolating. It makes me cross because we're trying to bring him up to take responsibility for his money, but balancing that with his CFS/ME which means we don't want him to over commit with study as well, but there is no safety net for him so we have said we'll cover most of his lost earnings. Others may think we're being soft, but we're happy to do it, if miffed that we are having to do it.
No spends today as we haven't been anywhere. Did some work on my essay and packed all the Christmas decs away
Petrol/diesel is ridiculous now, glad dh is wfh.

I would have done the same and given my kids the money they lost too north. Not soft.
Agreed cheaper braces would not have been cheaper with additional time and fuel costs.

North I would have covered the lost earnings too and I'm positively Victorian in my parenting

unescorted big hugs from me, you’ve been amazing to me all year and I’m so grateful
We have arrived after a day of Covid tests, security queues and so on - it was already dark when we got here as it gets dark at about 4, so we just settled into the airbnb, did a shop for some breakfast bits and cooked a meal here. Then we did a walk around the local area and tried to get our bearings. Looking forward to exploring properly tomorrow.
So far managed to stick to dry Jan despite being away - usually I’d have had a G&T on the plane 😅

You are a lovely bunch of people.

North I would do the same.
Assuming that we can travel to Europe next Summer where would you suggest we go ... Hot and cheap, cycle friendly....

Thanks ladies, you've reassured me! He was so grateful when he saw what we'd done. In better news for him, he has been invited back to take part in a podcast that he was involved with a couple of weeks ago. In brief, it's football related and a well respected podcast (locally at least) run by a journalist. He was asked on because of his specialist knowledge of a particular topic. I know I'm biased, but he was great & got so many plaudits for it and now he's been asked back. Those of you who have been around a while know he's had more than his fair share of struggles these last few years so to see him shine with this is so lovely and hopefully will give him a boost.
unescorted I'm probably not the best person to advise, but what about somewhere like Majorca? My friend does iron man comes & im sure they do training camps over there

I know my mum would have done that for me North and I hope I would be able to do the same for my kids. The podcast sounds very exciting, that's brilliant he got asked to be involved.
Hoping for a NSD today.

north I’d have done the same thing.

unescorted Croatia. Friends went to pula and said it was amazing.

£40 today riding.

I’m flip flopping re back to work dread (although I do enjoy my job) and relief at going back. Back to routine.

I’m back in the office full time - only 6 of us in I think the rest are working from home per gov guidelines.

Unescorted Majorca is the obvious one for cycle friendly

North that’s brilliant for ds

I’m ok going back to work but I’m starting a new role. Getting up 2 hour’s earlier will
Be a killer thought

I agree Majorca is a good choice but I am biased as it's somewhere I love.

Dog was a pain in the arse during the night so I have had little sleep. Going to whack a gammon joint in the slow cooker shortly that'll be dinner and ds's sandwiches for a few days. Also contemplating baking but also want to do something with the last day of the hols and still have some organising to do so I can actually use my office tomorrow. It also smells a lot like the dog needs a bath!

Joy!

I've moved another amount into my penny saver and coloured in the relevant square on my bingo card

Could do with buying milk

Right I've got off my arse. Ds is still in bed so the ham is in and there's a Christmas leftovers crumble slice in the oven. Let's see if it works, if not it'll be eaten with custard

I love Majorca too wolf.
Good for you for getting going. Dog also pita here with upset tummy

I’ve taken ages to go to sleep the last two nights as I have awful back to work dread 🙁 Submitted a job app yesterday though.

Good luck with the new role life

Well done on the application love and good luck in the new role life
Ds is out of isolation today so he's gone off to the pub & then football.
Dd wanted to be up before now but I figure she needs the sleep to get over the covid. Her lat flow was still very positive yesterday.
I got some essay done yesterday, will try to do more today although feel really tired. Deadline is Wednesday, but not sure when I'll hear about my application to extend. Need to keep plodding on. It keeps the spending down at least!!

The office is mostly sorted now. Great news on the podcast North hopefully that's a great boost for ds

north I agree, I don’t think it’s soft to top him up, you are rewarding his effort and supporting him. I am promoting DD into a job at the moment as we too want her to be financially responsible. Feels a little bit heart in mouth though as she had a couple of bad years mental health wise and I think one result is we tend to avoid putting too many demands on her. Need to balance that with showing her she can do things. She’s not lazy or spoilt (always helpful round the house) but lacks confidence socially.
em I understand your hesitance with leave, it’s a lot to commit and lots of reasons you need your leave with small children
unescorted hot and cheap sounds good!
Have done a freezer audit and worked out we’ve enough to make main meals for the next two weeks. Which is good because Xmas and the price of fuel have eroded my food budget this month.

Ooh in other news I’ve just seen on another thread that Tenko is being repeated! Showing my age - does anyone remember watching it? We used to watch it as a family back in the days when there wasn’t much else for teens to do . It had quite an impression on me.