Frugal Friends Fearlessly Facing February.

[needastrongoneagain]

Thought I'd start the new thread. Been ages since I started a thread!

Afternoon everyone 😊
Hope you get your pay rise @OrderOfTheKookaburra ☺️
Went out shopping and got a flat so shopping was scuppered, took car into Ats and got two new tyres put on ..,.we already had a slow puncture on our other back tyre so got them both done. That's £200 we will not see again 🙄
Curls wonderful news re your DS1 congratulations to him 👏👏
Well done to your other Ds on choosing his GCSEs .
BigSkies ah bless your DMum l hope she feels better soon sweetheart 💐
Well done on getting things done and dusted too 👏👏👏
No snow here but freezing❄️

Interesting Mrs Evans about the condensation from the air fryer. Our house is an Edwardian terrace and not amazingly insulated nor ventilated so can be prone to damp in some areas too including some parts of the kitchen. But I can see most of you with air fryers get a lot of use out of them. I don't think I will be opting for one right now but I will bear it mind. We do use our oven a lot for cooking so perhaps it would save us some money on the bills, hmm.

Congrats Curls to your DS, what fab news.

Spends today were £2 bus fare to work (loose change from the jar), £2 bus fare home (again change from our jar), then £8.30ish on groceries at Tesco. Which was ludicrously expensive for what I got but had no time to go elsewhere and we really needed the bits for dinners over the next couple of days. Really need to be more organised to avoid shopping at that little Tesco as it's sooo expensive now.

I’ve fallen off the thread as been ridiculously busy at work. And also bad spending 😳I went for a weekend away with my sister and friend and spent £133 on new trousers and shirts for work. Which then meant I had to spend on new boots as the ones I had didn’t go with the trousers…I have ordered 4 (yes 4) pairs of boots for £92 altogether, either from eBay or office sale. So far only kept one pair. The quid pro quo is I now can’t buy any more clothes for a while, which I should stick to as I don’t usually spend on clothes.
I have kept reasonably to the food budget!
also, DD has a new job in a charity shop so can pay for her own petrol/ car insurance so one less cost for me.
also spent nearly £200 on a new door for the shower and new flooring which DP has fitted and laid, he’s very good at saving on labour costs.
hope everyone is well - great news decaff and hope you are on the mend mrs
Good luck gen with the interview

Another fallie offie here. busy times.

today I spent £38 in next (photo frames and two pasta bowls)
£45 M&S ( 4 serving spoons - we have none - and “emergency jammies”
for the kids)

dh away currently with work so dm fed me and the kids tonight. Dparents always pick up from school on a Tuesday. I wasn’t intending on giving them a bath there but needed to do an lft on dd. Her nursery teacher said covid is doing the rounds and she’s pregnant so asked could we do them if we see symptoms. Dd is snotty and a bit off. Lft negative. grandma persuaded her to do it. She’s the best.

I didn’t have time to get home and get some jammies for them. And forgot to pack any with me when I left this morning.

Spent £44 on fuel no other spends.

Have booked an overtime shift for tomorrow to help pay for London trip.

NSD 😊

Need to book an online shop for Thursday as no car until the weekend (hope sorted for the weekend)

I found out the other day that mrs doubtfire the musical is opening in London soon. Floated a weekend trip idea by my sister. It’s a possibility for half term in October. But need to work out costs. All in if we book soon I think it should be about £350 each. For flights hotel and theatre. But need to work on that. Dsis isn’t the lightest packer and she’ll need to do a primark trip….

Sat €11.10 Deli lunch for two €30 takeaway fish curry for two
Sun NSD
Mon spends €15.29 meat & microwave rice for a handy dinner
Tues spends €14 on a light bulb for yard light, screwdriver & radiator key.

That's as far back as I can think of

Em trip sounds lovely
There's a play on locally this weekend going to say it to bf this eve. €12 each online or €10 cash at the door

Morning,

I found out yesterday that my parents have booked another holiday for April. Which means I’ll be keeping my dads business ticking over while they’re away. They have a lovely holiday, I get an extra income stream, everyone’s a winner!

Planning on using the money to save for holiday clothes shopping. I need swimwear. I chucked my old stuff back in 2019 as it was easily 8-10 years old and all out of shape and no longer supportive. And DS1 will need swim shorts, rash vests, trainers, T-shirts etc.

Today will be NSD

Great news curls
I looked at my winter jumpers as I was putting some on the line the other day and said to myself, these need to go once this winter is over.

I'm losing weight currently so some of my old wardrobe will come back into commission but I'll need to buy some stuff too.

went to dh's pilates class before work this morning. he's away until thursday so if i didnt do this would have missed mine this evening due to it being when thekiddos are in bed.

i did skip the first hour of work though. (although did get up and log in at 6this morning to make the time back).

am chugging along working from home today (or am i if i'm on here....i dont get a lunch break today as i'm doing school pick ups - wednesday is usually dh's day).

planning on picking the kids up then taking a trip to dunelm. there are a number of things we need for the house - couple of new plates some new glasses etc because the dc have broken them.

they've also started to take pasta to school in their lunches, so i need to get them some special forks/spoons so they dont keep losing our ones!

so that's likely to be expensive. i love dunelm.

Afternoon.

I too have fallen off the thread. Life has been a bit manic due to adjusting to DH being home and sadly, his DM died on Monday so there's been quite a lot of upheaval. The DC have been amazing.

In better news, DD has been successful in getting a funded PHD placement and found out today. There will be a doctor in the house! And she's home for another 4 years, which is selfishly good for me.

The week has been low spend, with a few top up shops only and one bottle of Aldi champagne at £15 to celebrate her achievement today.

I've also paid £400 deposit for a weeks holiday in Scotland (with full refund on cancellation in case it's not right for DH), but that's from one of my budgeted Chase pots. I'm glad I did this again. Used to do it years ago when money was super tight, then slackened off as the business grew.

I'll keep up from now on, just a manic few days so apologies for not referencing anyone and it being a 'me' post!

I've also ordered an Ocado shop for Saturday and used a 15% off voucher they emailed me.

@needastrongoneagain I'm sorry to hear about your MIL, but that is fantastic news about your DD and a bottle of champagne is well deserved!!

Holiday sounds good and it's good you can easily cancel. We are looking at going away in a premier Inn for a weekend in the summer (although we need 2 rooms) and we are looking at the Flexi option which although is more expensive, gives you the option to cancel and get a refund.

Re ocado, we use ocado, have done for years, and they price match to Tesco now!

Good frugaleering day here, lots of yellow stickers in Asda and it's stuff we'd normally buy so pleased with that. Also posted 5 parcels of things I've sold on vinted so that's around £50 winging it's way to me shortly.

Hope you get the holiday need. It will be very welcome for you. Sorry to hear about mil.
Feeling a bit frantic this week. The surgery and time off work made me realise how busy our life was & that I don't necessarily want to go back to that. However we've got all sorts going on at the moment and frazzled describes pretty well how I'm feeling!
I'm doing a fundraiser through March for an ovarian cancer charity, walking 11k steps a day. It has made me realise how few I do normally when I'm working and I know I'll feel better for doing it, but at the moment it's just another thing that needs doing. On the plus side, I've already had over £500 donated.
Although there is only 3 of us at home for now, our food bills have gone up as dd is trying gluten free, dairy free. She's feeling much better for it but it does cost

Thanks @Decafflatteplease. It was a blessing in the end, dementia is an awful thing for sure.

I always think it's worth the bit extra for being able to cancel. Life is full of ups and downs so it's good to have the flexibility sometimes.

I have a delivery pass for Ocado but Sainsbury’s sent me some decent vouchers so I've not used it for a few weeks. Wasn't sure the voucher would work for a regular but it did.

need no need for apologies, you're amazing to post here at all with all you've got going on.
I just succumbed to marketing & signed up for Now Entertainment pass for next 6 months at €3 per month. I want to watch Just like that and I'm sure I'll find other stuff to watch and dc will too

Need please accept my sincere condolences l am so sorry 💐
That's very good news about your Dd getting her place funded bless her☺️

Sounds like we are all v busy atm! And also quite spendy for some of us!

Need Holiday sounds lovely. I'm so sorry to hear about your MIL and thinking of you all.

Spends today, £2 bus fare to work, £2 bus fare home £6.50ish on groceries in Tesco for hardly anything at all. Really really need to start doing my food shopping online again or whatever to avoid paying those ridiculous prices at our local little Tesco. Just so hard to find time and energy to get organised.

Great news about dd need

condolances for mil but yy dementia is awful

* Need* I'm sorry to hear about your mil, you have so much on your plate atm. I hope dh is getting on okay at home? Well done to your dd, you must be bursting with pride 🥰

We're busy here as well, had snow today which was exciting! Don't often get it down our way (south west) dd had a snow day and met up with a friend, they had a brilliant time.

I worked all day which is less brilliant but I will be thankful come pay day!

Another busy day tomorrow, dd is off to crufts with college so need to get her to the college v v early 😴 and I have a study day in a local city.

Have take £30 cash out, am giving dd £20 to take to crufts and £10 for my purse. Spent £11 on a few bits in the coop (seem to have done that a lot this week!)

€8.25 on lunch yesterday €5 for a turkey salad sandwich
€65 on diesel

Today I'm going to solicitors to make a will so that will be € too

I did the first tgtg at Toby carvery. Was ok, ds and dh ate mostly for supper, Will get 2 next time but worth the experiment

Morning everyone. I got up early to drop DD down for her bus. Her friend from college stayed over last night. They had fun - played some board games and were just starting to make brownies as I was heading to bed around 11 p.m.! The were those brownies you make from a packet so wouldn't have taken too long to make but still......

I'm working from home today and I picked a good day to be at home because there's sleet falling outside and a weather warning for snow and ice. DCat1 (more outdoorsy cat) thought about going outside but decided against it.

I might head to the fishmonger at lunchtime to buy fish for a seafood curry for today and tomorrow. Depends on the weather at lunchtime though.

mrs annoying (and expensive) re: tyres but at least they're sorted now.

martha that's great news about your DD's job.

Curls good news about the extra income from covering your parents' holiday.

Enjoy your shopping trip to Dunelm em. Wish there was one here.

need so sorry to hear about your MIL. Great news about DD! Sounds like it's been a bit of a rollercoaster for you. What's a Chase pot?

Good luck with your fundraiser north. Sorry things are a bit hectic atm.

Girlie hope DD has fun at Crufts.

Hi to anyone I've missed.

I'd better sign off and log into my work stuff. First off I need to do up a rota for the next fortnight. I've just remembered that Friday (17th) is St. Patrick's Day so a long weekend . I knew it was coming up but hadn't realized it was so near.

I saw Aldi had one available last night for the first time since I downloaded the app, I would've got there in time to collect it but it would mean a special trip to town 30km round trip, so I said 'cop on' I'm mad to try it.

Applegreen deli becomes available the night before for the next days breakfast items