Friendship and Falling Leaves, Frugal Autumn Continued

[Wolfcub]

New fred

Weight I hope your DS is feeling better soon. My experience is they tend to bounce back quickly (quicker than I do!) but it feels like a lifetime when they are poorly.

V long day with horrid cramp. Actually thought I may pass out driving to work and waiting for the painkiller to work. Much better now

Pay day today.
£22 McDonalds on route home
£4.90 tesco - lunch and painkillers.

Holiday tomorrow, this is our delayed holiday from the summer. Will try to keep spending in check - DC and DH will be happier with cafes, street food and take outs, than restaurants. Got a Halifax Clarity card which will be paid off on return - no fees for foreign transactions or cash withdrawals, as per advised by Martin Lewis!

Sorry I haven't caught up properly. Happy half term 🙃

I've been AWOL as still on this full time training course but it's the last day today yippee! So hopefully next week can return to some normality. I've been keeping up with the thread just about but not had a chance to post.

Contemplating cancelling a holiday we've booked next year. It's only four nights in an Airbnb but it was booked after they announced the energy help which they've obviously now gone back on from April. So not sure what to do, we could probably just about afford it still but contemplating whether it's best to just save the money. DH thinks leave it for now as we don't know what will happen in April and also with a new PM in a week's time, I'm inclined to agree but would feel bad cancelling too close to the holiday which is in June. Airbnb's policies would allow it but I'd feel bad for the owners. So a bit torn.

The oven/microwave arrived and fits properly (relief!). Not as good a spec as the old one, but prices have gone up massively since we bought the old one 13 years ago.
Pilates was great, I'm going to do 2 more sessions & then go to a group run by another physio.
Tapas for tea was lovely & £34 with the voucher.
We're away for a few days with friends from today. We do it every year & it's not too spends as we will only eat out once & split the cost of the shop between us.
Hope ds is better today weight. Poorly littlies is hard.

Socathe it's hard to plan isn't it? We haven't booked anything for next year yet. I heard the price of wholesale gas is much lower now so hopefully that will reach consumers soon

kessie have a lovely holiday and well done on the Halifax card.
Time families are difficult, does your mum know it happened 2 years ago?

No she doesn’t north, so there is still some degree of untruth going on. I do get she is processing it as she thought he had a wonderful life. Whereas everyone else has already moved on somewhat.

Ddad has been taken to hospital this morning with vomiting. We don’t normally get through or find out any info until he has been there 24 hours. We’re about to go away for a few nights too but not far fortunately.

Hello all. Crazy day yesterday, eh? Can the blond bombshell really be coming back? God, I hope not.

More mundanely, spent £28 in Sainsbury's, who are pegging more and more of their products to Aldi prices, and using Aldi's merchandising techniques. I still pop into Sainsbury's for brands we don't want to switch, and every time I see them ripping off Aldi, it makes me wonder why people on seeing these techniques, don't just think, "Well, I'll do more of my shopping at Aldi then.'

£9 on skincare products in Savers - their ceramide/hydraloronic acid creams and washes are really nice, and a fraction of the price of Cerave/Curel.

Feeling a boost of energy and cheer this week after the tension of Dparents' house sale dissipates. Have embarked on the repaint of the dining room, and am fairly cheerful about settling on a scheme based on what we already have (usually I agonise over samples).French course has begun, and for once I am not berating myself for not being perfect and fluent. I don't know if this embracing the experience rather than framing it with expectations will last, but it certainly makes for more calm and peace!

I've found a podcast to accompany the painting - it's associated with the Baillie Gifford prize for non-fiction. Lots of nice chat about books.

Have a lovely time Kessie glad your cramps are better 💐👏😊
Socathe totally understand you wondering if you should cancel your hols, l am debating cancelling our Christmas dinner plans to save the money 🙄

Evening.

So pleased to hear life is a tad less stressful Skies, hope the repainting goes okay.

Hope your DDad okay time.

Happy holidays kessie

Enjoy time away north

Unexpected cash boost from an equally unexpected source so treated us to a few branded items and luxuries that I've stopped buying. And a takeout, our second in nearly 6 months. Pizza. Just waiting for it to arrive. So chilling on the sofa rather than cooking tea!

Spends
£20 Asda on a few branded things
£24 pizza
£5.80 TGTG x 2 Greggs. Fabulous haul given the dc both home all weekend too!

Need we have been so pleased with the Greggs GTG have a smashing weekend with your DC 😊

DS a lot better today thanks all.

£16.98 at Asda on groceries. Don't feel I got much for that at all though. Cost of food now stresses me out. Also realised my September expenses cheque from work is £5 short so have queried this with finance, my manager confirmed she approved what I submitted so must be an admin error.

Main food shop today. £52 Aldi click and collect then £20 Morrisons for the things I couldn't get in Aldi.

£54 petrol.

Have been doing some Christmas shopping tonight and spent £35 on Amazon, £20 on a hoodie for DH that he's asked for, so a bit spendy but all within our Christmas budget. I'm actually doing quite well for Christmas presents so far and don't have too much more to get!

Heading to my parents' for the night tomorrow, they'll buy us a Chinese, hoping for a low spend weekend apart from the petrol it takes to get us there.

Well that was a week, work stresses but ok
not very frugal but trying again
£88 Aldi and need to finish in Sainsbury’s later

will try and keep up now

Spends yesterday. £11 coffee juices gingerbread man in Cafe before work for DH me and the dc. Nice treat.

£32 other cafe for lunch - me and colleague. My turn to treat us.

£26 coop on way home on pizza wine crisps etc for dinner.

half term now and I’m off for a week. Yay.

going to try and do things with the dc that cost little or are free to us.

party today with ds
sunday not sure yet
monday zoo trip (we have membership so already paid for)
Tuesday swimming. Me and ds have membership dd free
weds adventure park maybe - membership so already paid for
thurs - bike ride
fri woods to climb trees.

Sounds like a lovely week em, in off the end of next week to be taxi and bank probably

What a week in politics - extraordinary! I’ve been glued to the news. It’ll be quite a week ahead too - surely they won’t seriously try to bring Boris back?!

£202 on the weekly shop, quite a bit more than usual but that did include a lot of stocking up (a huge bag of cashews, lots of cleaning and laundry stuff, £10 on Halloween choc for trick or treaters). And I’m off for most of half term so intend to get some batch cooking done for DCs’ meals, so there’s extra food for that. I still need a couple of top-up bits, like tinned toms (only expensive brands were left in stock, I couldn’t bring myself to spend £1 a tin!). And I’ll need some carving pumpkins, which I’ll pick up this weekend while they are still plentiful. We are going to have to really start reining in on the food spend though, DH needs to stop being a dickhead about having meat at every meal.

It might be a bit of a spendy week as it’s half term, and I want to try and manage 2-3 days out with the dC. We’ll take picnics but there’ll be entrance fees. At least the rather soggy forecast has improved!

I also need to start buying Christmas presents this week, while I’ve got some time off. As usual, I have no idea what to buy DS (10).. I need to get my mum some decent bits for a stocking - now my dad has gone I always want to make sure she has nice stuff to open, iyswim. But siblings - we’ve agreed to exchange cook books, so that limits the damage. PILs - argh! I usually follow the Christmas bargain thread, for the ideas as much as the bargains, but I really haven't got time to keep up this year.

i need to spend some time listing some of DD’s nicer clothes on fb, though I get the impression second hand clothes are not selling as well as they were, surprisingly. I’m hoping to get some money back to fund a few new things for DD, as all of her leggings, cardigans and her hoodie are suddenly too small 🙄

I finally managed to order a smart meter - this has been a mission, as for some reason I’ve had a lot of trouble getting my online account to work. But at least I’m on the waiting list now, though I’ve no idea how long the list is.

oh, and my new cooker arrived! Tbh it’s not great - it was the cheapest one possible and it shows, the build quality isn’t great. The ovens are also only fan, no convection option, which I’m disappointed about, but at least it’s a working cooker so it’s fine for the next year or so. I’m going to test it out thoroughly this weekend with lots of baking and roasting 😋. I might need a couple of new narrower oven trays though, as I’ve a tall thin side oven now and none of mine fit.

Hope you all have a lovely half term week!

£107 Sainsbury’s but included team Christmas wine with the 25% off and used £25 nectar points towards it
£19 prescription

Would dh have a hint of meat ie bacon bits or chorizo?

also some have had luck with Vinted for clothes

I’m waiting for grocery delivery, should be £87-ish.

DH kindly shared his rotten cold so this week has been a wipe out.

I try to catch up later.

Yes Life, bit of chorizo is okay. I should do more homeopathic meat meals 😉

do people use Vinted for kids’ clothes too? I should sign up - generally don’t shop for clothes second hand for myself as I’m an 18 and tend to find that there’s not much in my size for my age (iyswim) but I’d love it if there was!

Homeopath meat meals 😂

Spendy £25 at the pottery painting place for DD but it was for 4 items which will all be Xmas presents, so I would have spent it anyway, and this way it's a present plus an activity for her. So two birds with one stone at least.

DD planning her first ever overnight stay without us, at my DPs. Not sure she will actually stay but we will see, it's only few mins walk away so not a big deal if we have to do a late night trip to get her if she changes her mind haha. Will be strange for us to only have one bed time to do tonight though!

Dh made soup for me from Endame beans, sweet potato , coconut milk and Garam Masala and l don't like it 😊🙄
I will have to pretend while tipping it down the sink won't l lol 😂
It was frugal though so won't be wasting much just his pride if he finds out lol
NSD for me today

Been doing hard labour at the rental house today. Ripping up flooring only to find more flooring underneath, chipping more tiles of floors and walls. My knees are in agony from scrabbling around on the floor and my hands are sore from hammering. But it’ll be worth it.

£3 on a meal deal lunch £3ish on a bag of potatoes and a loaf of bread. DH is paying for a curry for us all tonight, can’t wait I’m starving and it feels like I’ve certainly earned it!

Off for a long hot bath with a glass of wine and my kindle.

Oh dear Mrs, you might have to make sure you’re not too subtle in case he decides to make it again!

I’ve been planting bulbs. Managed to plant all the ones in the troughs along the patio doors - about 4m of trough, 400 bulbs. Quite achy now! Still have a load of tulips for DH. to plant in the flower beds.

we’re having this for dinner tonight - thought I’d link as it’s quite frugal and very warming. I replace the carrots with butternut squash as DH does like carrots, and I have more squash / less potato / am heavy handed with the Worcester sauce. Recommended!

www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/easy-beef-hotpot/amp