Frugal fun in February - the one with the Spring spring

[Unescorted]

New thread continued from this one

All are welcome - just dive in.

Girlie nice one on the rent refund. I saw in Inside Housing that most of the HA are putting their rents up by the max 4.1% for their Affordable Rent tenancies. I hope they come under pressure to do a bit of a U turn on that decision.

em I love the kitchen ( I said this earlier but I type out posts & get distracted and then log off without pressing post). I always pay for the best quality I can afford in the kitchen. My oldest pan is 40ish years old (I may have liberated it from my DM's kitchen) The youngest is 30 YO. All still nice and shiny.

Martha, Wolf, Alfie - hope you all make a speedy recovery from your ailments.

We had yellow sticker dinner here - grilled mackerel with roasted cherry tomatoes, new potatoes roasted with olive oil & garlic, and a fennel, pomegranate and broad been salad. £5 for 5 people ( I haven't counted store cupboard or home grown herbs & rocket)..... thank you Mr Morrisons. I have enough salad left over for lunch tomorrow.

Our rents gone up by the 4.1%. We're social rent though no affordable rent which is one of the reasons we're still in a two bedroom house as we can't afford the three bed houses that are coming up (£200 a week). We've also got a massive gap under our front door (you can see outside through it and it opens into our sitting room) but despite reporting it over the past 18 months no one has got back to me. I'm grateful to have the house but wish we didn't need it.

NSD here.

I didn't realise that social rents also went up by 4.1%. Keep mithering them for the door fix - copy in your MP too. In a time of increasing energy costs it is crazy it isn't fixed right away.

I know I need to. It's just so infuriating they're beyond useless. I had someone turn up to check me electrics the other day, unannounced but I said no as I had meetings and they had to turn the electric off to do it (the appointment letter came a few days later) so he gave me another date which would work then last week I received a letter with another date (tomorrow actually) which I can't do. I phoned them and they said it wasn't them and I had to phone their contractors, phoned them and they said no it's the HA. Phoned them back and actually spoke to the same person who didn't apologise just put me through to someone else who said she couldn't help but would get someone to call me back. This was a week ago and no one has bothered. The service is absolutely appalling and they seem to think that no one in a HA house works so we can just sit in all day waiting for them sorry for my rant but I get so fed up of it.

Not surprised wreck that sounds incredibly irritating. As I get older I have really lost tolerance for being messed about in phone calls! I fear I may become a rude old woman!
Aw your babies are growing up em. I still feel proud of DD for managing to potty train. And she's 18 😂
Hope the poorly ones are on the mend. I've been exhausted this week, feel like I'm crawling towards AL on Friday. Long day tomorrow but I hope to break the back of what I need to do. Off to bed shortly.
I'm wondering where humbug is...I hope she is ok?

Sounds awful wreck.

I feel like I shouldn't moan as I should be grateful to have the house. We do want to try and buy eventually but if we had to pay affordable rent we wouldn't be able to save any money. In ten years we should have £30000 saved but still not even sure we will get a mortgage from that. At least dh is a builder so we can buy a dive and the dc will have left school so we will have more flexibility with where we go.

Wreck - it really shouldn't be like that. The housing stock should not be in poor condition & how difficult is it to put a system in place that says.... well it has been 5 years since we went to have a look at that property so lets send some one around and check it is OK.

It used to be the void and turnover rates were triggers for checking to see if it was a dump, but with the high demand people stay in really rank properties - HA need to adapt their processes so they pick up on cyclical repairs before they damage peoples health.

Thanks unescorted. I'll reply to your message when I've got a minute a bit later. People do come out and they say 'oh yes you need this' but nothing ever happens. Because we're needing to move we don't tend to chase these things.

Out for lunch today with my BF absolutely gorgeous day , she paid for me bless her I will pay next time
Aldi 12 on bits , Tesco 10 on pop & meal deal for Dh while he was waiting for me in the car
Beautiful day here sunny amd warm , hope it's the same for everyone
Waves to everyone

Couch refund done this morning. Pots and pans etc delivered this afternoon. Yay.

Not the best pic of the panthers but this is one of them. Glorious peering panther. She will sit next to shouty panther on the wall. I love them.

Nails today too £48 instead of £46 as my lady had to do two extensions for me. Annoyingly two nails snapped off yesterday far to low to just be filed back into shape.

Nails are a massive luxury. But it’s one I budget for.

Nsd yesterday. Should be the same today. Last day of work until the 27th 🙌🏼

Ye olde trusty bike has been dug out of winter storage..... I cycled to the shops. It would have saved me a bus fare but I ran into a friend and stopped to have a coffee.

The rest of today is garden fettling....

Unescorted good luck with the fettling
Em you work hard you are worth getting your nails done and your riding. You deserve it
Morrisons £10 salad stuff
Happy Easter everyone [tbhgrin]

Drat and double drat that was my first Easter rabbit emoji l will try again
Happy Easter everyone

I met a friend for breakfast and it was my turn to pay so that was €20.

We had a wander around the shops afterwards and I picked up some cute ceramic eggs and flower bells for €18.89. I hung them from the wooden bracket over my kitchen window and in the process discovered that there are cobwebs everywhere, so I've now embarked on an ambitious spring cleaning project. My car boot is full of stuff for the charity shop. I just hope it's open tomorrow. Some shops close on Good Friday and others close for a few hours in the afternoon for the Stations of the Cross. The shop has limited opening hours (only opens two days a week) so I really want to drop the stuff off before Easter. Anyway, spring cleaning should keep me out of trouble .

I told DD that she's cooking dinner so she's doing chicken fajitas of some description.

My Dad and sister are calling tomorrow and Dad is going to stay for Easter weekend.

Well, that's all my news. Hope you all have a lovely Easter

I'm going to get the dc McDonald's for dinner I've decided. Dh is away for the night and I just saw they're doing chilli cheese bites which are amazing. And I get 20% off.

We had mcd’s today too, but I only got 15% off. DD2 had her covid vaccine today with no fuss, she was very proud of her certificate. We may have bigged up that she was being bery brave and having it before her older sibling 🤣

Finally on holiday for the next 10 days 🤗

Walked to return some online shopping to the post office. Now having a bit of a tidy up as having family popping in for the next couple of days. Thought I did a good job cleaning the glass on the patio doors, now the sun is out they look worse!

House is looking amazing em

Hope everyone is getting a bit of extra time off for Easter?

Oh I got 15% off on that too but always get 20% nhs discount which is pretty good. Hope they don't stop doing it! Dd has her second Covid vaccine a week Saturday, ds says he doesn't want it (he had Covid for the second time a couple of weeks ago so can't have it yet anyway). I won't force him but will encourage him.

The garden has been fettled. It needs more doing today - planting, mulching and weeding. I am pleased to report that I have not jinxed the weather by buying garden furniture.

Tayto our house is all cobwebby. Especially the bathroom.

Great work on the garden fettling . Hope the weather does hold for the weekend.
We go away tomorrow so will miss it

Nsd planned today. Catering a horse event and packing

I don’t want the kids to have the vaccine.
I’m all for choice and am not anti vac by any means. But I do wish I hadn’t had it. My periods have gone nuts. I’m on week three now. Last one was 5 weeks. This has been since my second jab.
But it’s a moot point for me anyway as they’re both too little.

Went out for a drink after work last night. Found out one of the good assistants is leaving. She’s amazing at her job. She got promoted (which I pushed for because she deserved it). And is now leaving for a bigger place. I’m happy for her though. Because it’s too good of an opportunity to turn down

Home by 7. Put the dc to bed and they were up at 6. Sigh.

Lunch with dsis today.

Happy Easter weekend all. Damp here but the sun is coming through. Hoping it dries enough to mow the lawn

Out for breakfast with a friend, it was supposed to be my mums birthday-treat day out today but she's been very I'll with covid for the last two weeks. Still testing positive and on antibiotics 🤞🏻 this is as bad as it gets for her

Picking ds up from ex later, apparently a week of good behaviour for his dad he's now in total aggro mode so that bodes well for me!

Really need to start at least writing an outline of my two essays which are due in in four weeks. Aaargh

Oh and good frugal news opened a new bank account which pays cash back on spending and I'm watching the pennies roll in. Small pleasures

Wolf hope you mum gets better soon and DS is not too toadish.

em I do not miss the early mornings with small kids phase.