Advancing into April - Frugal Friends still being, er, Frugal.

[needastrongoneagain]

New thread.

All welcome.

**Panku sushi not Panko

weight sorry to hear your DS is poorly. I haven’t got much advice on weighing up the costs of a 3rd. Do your DC do any activities? Could you afford to pay for another child to do them too? The same for school trips, holidays, university fees?
move happy to hear you had a good holiday? Where did you go?
mrs I love the new duvet cover!
need well done to your DC for getting funding!
girlie I love the fence! And the flowers a beautiful
I was really bright when I was quite young and then I became a teenager and I was more interested in my friends and having fun than studying. I got straight A’s in my A levels, but that was because I really enjoyed what I was doing. I don’t do good at all if I have no interest in something.
We have had a lovely few days. The weathers been gorgeous so today we took our lunch to the park and had a picnic by the singing oak and then went on the swan pedalo things by the lake. I enjoy having DH home on the weekends, in the week I usually don’t go too far with the DC as they’re still quite little and it can be stressful. We mainly do activities in the house or go to the park or the market but on the weekend we get to do much more.
Quite a spendy few days.
$12.39 Friday cafe breakfast
$40.52 on Saturday takeaway
$38.31 pedalo rental
$21.84 for a hanging planter and $2.73 for the seeds
$280.74 on weekly shop. Which is WAYY more than we usually spend but it was a big top up shop, we needed some cleaning stuff and toiletries so I’m not too bothered at the price.

Morning.

We've had the crappy rain overnight, dry this morning though.

Hope you enjoyed the mocktails @kessiebird

That's a great walk @RumBananaSundae! Annoying re the delivery though.

Don't compare @marthasmum re your nephew, they are all different!

Least you got some life chores done @Taytocrisps, hope the cinema was good.

You have a finer balance to tread than most @Wolfcub re encouraging and perceived 'nagging' (for want of a better word). The book is fabulous, I haven't scratched the surface. There's quite a few spices I don't have and need to stock up on to fully utilise it, but I'll have to buy them over a period of time.

The fence is fabulous @Girliefriendlikespuppies, so cheerful!

Menu plan will need tweaking already @BigSkies2022 as I've spare lamb from yesterday! I'm using a book called Africana at present, which was the book of the month on the Jamie Oliver Facebook Cookbook Club and is a gem, if you enjoy cooking? I get the NYT email, but haven't tried anything from there yet. Love the idea of your DH chilling and cooking in the kitchen. I love cooking.

Didn't spend anything yesterday, and £15 today on Waterstones using a card, I need eggs and chilli at some point in the next day or so, but can 'copper up' for these items (or send DS, who then pays!!).

Using up fruit and veg today from tgtg bag and fridge depths
need something for mini peaches

Peach cobbler Life? Peach Melba?

Apricot tart but with peaches instead?
Best of luck @Gensola

Loving the fence! I need you to do mine.

@needastrongoneagain it is with a trip to an Indian/ Pakistani/ Bangladeshi supermarket. I do periodic trips to restock. Persian supermarkets are also worth hunting out. £20-30 gets most of my spice needs for a year including the ones for European and African style cooking. I have also come to realise that things that cost a fortune in mainstream supermarkets are simple to make from basics... Harissa, BBQ rubs, old bay spice mix, fajita seasoning, berebereb are all variations of the same basic spices. I keep them in old jam jars & throw them at whatever takes my fancy/ is on special or yellow stickered.

Successful teen nagging is so individual to the teen in our experience. Child 1 always had her nose in her work. It helped that she found her thing early on. She only had to be asked if she could tidy up her books or buy her a new set of pencils or a sheet of hand made paper to get her to study that little bit more. We were congratulating ourselves on our brilliant parenting until we tried the same with her brother who is the polar opposite. The quickest way to kill his study session is to even notice that is what he is doing. I tell him he should be pairing the sock mountain that was scraped off his bedroom floor.... It usually triggers a study session. That may not be appropriate for other kids.

unescorted that is also true for my DS1. I have to pretend not to notice if he does any work as he’s told me off for commenting positively on it.
lovely but cheap day - went for a big walk up Pendle Hill (those in the north will
know, but it’s Lancashire). £12 on cups of tea and chip butties. Just me, DP and the dog. There were lots of families with kids and much as I love kids, it was very nice to be just us and not have to be watching/ cajoling small people up a hill!

cakes Made to use up left over Easter eggs and lemons (separately) god I make a good cake

mmm...cake. Five mile walk with DH and Ddog with lots of steep inclines today. New favourite walk. Packed water, quinoa salad and apples, so avoided spending at an NT tea shop. Called in on DParents on the way home and was given an ice-cream, yess!

Dinner tonight: either tomato curry and rice or, if I CBA to do that, omelette and oven chips in front of Great Expectations. I do like cooking need, probably more than average, but sometimes, it's a drag.

Peach upside down cake?

€59.64 in Lidl utilising €5 off €50 coupon but I picked up the wrong jam which was a freebie, I didn't even need jam! Used coupons for cheaper beef medallions also. I got a good start on weeks groceries there.

€20.50 takeaway yesterday
Sat night used a voucher to pay for some of our meal out & €30 of my own money. €75 on bottomless brunch & drinks, thoroughly enjoyed my day out with my friend, less so her boyfriends company later on.

I've spent the afternoon sweeping & mopping here & cleaning hob, bathroom etc, my hoover was giving trouble last time I used it so I've just decided the bedrooms & sitting room can wait.

Dc usually home at 6 on a bank holiday but they haven't shown up yet so I guess he's going with 8pm normal Monday drop off time. I was planning on taking dd to buy a swimsuit, guess that'll be online now.

Last braces payment tomo, must claim my 20% back on that. My friend told me to claim for extractions too.
Child benefit tomo too.
I've fallen behind on updating my YNAB so I must do that tomo too.
Maintenance missing again on Friday

Had a nice day strolling round Kew Gardens. Spent a total of £3.65 before I got there. £1 on cheese and onion rolls and £2.65 on a vegan chocolate bar as snacks for the day. Disappointed with the cheese and onion rolls and the vegan chocolate was vile so won’t be eating anymore of it. The friend I went with is vegan and she didn’t like it either.

Lifelong peaches are nice. What did you make in the end?

Need I second unescorted suggestion. I sometimes visit Asian grocery stores here and find some great things at very competitive prices. The only bad thing is when you find something you like and are trying to find it again.

Had a lovely day today, met a friend for a nice walk this morning, saved on NT parking charges (£5 😳) by parking down the road. Bought an ice cream £2.20.

Painted the fence this afternoon, dd was a star and helped loads. I'm really pleased with it 😊

Really not looking forward to work tomorrow 🫤

Super cute girlie
I've actually got a screenshot somewhere of your garden from a few years ago when you recommended plants to me. I've not done anything with that yet!

It has been a very busy weekend here with many burgers flipped and sausages cooked at the beer festival. Anyway it was a great success and will have raised a good bit of money. Dh & ds had a great weekend in Plymouth and celebrated in style on Saturday night. I watched the first half of the game and the atmosphere was electric. Glad he's back home now.
We went to see Danny Baker last night which was a present for dh's birthday. Wasn't sure what it would be like, but it was great fun. We used to listen to him a lot on Radio5. He steered away from any controversy & stuck to daft but true stories.
Oh Pendle Hill sounds lovely Marthasmum, it's on my list of walks to do. Both the dc have done it but we haven't. Are you W Yorks then? Hadn't realised you were so close.
We've just had tinned peach upside down pud & it was good. Had a cupboard sort out yesterday & am determined to cut down our grocery spending a bit this month. Social spends were high in April too, but not much in the diary for May so hopefully that will come down too.
Did some gardening today. Dd sowed some veg seeds, dh weeded & dug & I moved some plants around. No spends today.

Fence looks good

pleased the beer fest went ok

haven’t made anything peach related yet thanks for the ideas

£60 new trainers and went to gym class and got shinnsplits

@Girliefriendlikespuppies the fence looks great!

Signed up today to a cheaper broadband deal and we’ve decided to get rid of Sky altogether. Once I get an installation date I’ll give them notice. DS1 pays for Netflix so we use that and ds2 has found many ways of watching his beloved football online.

Yep west Yorks -north . DS’s play football all round lancs though. It was the first time I’d done the Pendle hill walk, I would recommend.
beautiful fence and flowers girlie
-curls I wish we could get rid of sky, DP and the DSs are very wedded to the football
rum I bet Kew was beautiful. I haven’t been for years.

Girlie I always love your garden pics. The fence looks great

Love the fence girlie

We got rid of BT WiFi and BT sports curles it saved up around £60 per month. Now Broadband and Now Sports package far cheaper! BT told me it would cost £75 to come out of contract a month early, turned out they owed us £58!

LSD just some diet coke at £3.35. Made bbq for my DM and Dsis here, then DM wasn't up to getting dressed so I took the cooked food and DC to DMs house as she wanted to see us. Care needs are getting higher so spent evening messaging Dsis, both in agreement but it's persuading DM to accept carers. Utterly exhausted as I also have really bad cramp. Can I have another bank holiday please, this one was pants!

On a positive, I made a cracking victoria sponge cake as a trial run for my friends Coronation lunch next weekend and a few slices of that cheered me up! Sorry I have no ideas on peaches though life

Martha I hadn't realised you are so close.

Girlie your fence is lovely.

Rum I am that sad person who documents the spice cupboard. I need to have a bit of a sort out.... I am thinking by cuisine because I have some Japanese ones and Persian spice mixes that I can't remember the names of so I am struggling with alphabetical order.

I think I thought you were in Scotland Marthas
Made bread with a mix of different flours & it is delish. Enough flour to make a couple more loaves too. Result.

When you've documented your spice cupboard @Unescorted stick a screenshot on here. I also have a list on my phone of what's in my masala dabbas but I need to update it and refill my tins

@Wolfcub I will do. It is on my list of things to do this week while I am off.

I have had a scary day of talking to people about the cost of drains & finding a leak. The big leak from the neighbours has been fixed. But it has uncovered a smaller leak under our house. While the garden is dug up we are getting it fixed. Drainage engineers need to issue safety warnings about estimated costs prior to blurting numbers out.

Curls Gold star to you on dropping Sky. I want to get rid of it too but don’t want to start a new contract with anyone until I know what’s happening with the house. Who did you go with?

Unescorted Nothing wrong with being organised and hoping your leak doesn’t prove expensive to fix.

Spending for today: £24.99 on some more maps. £1.50 on chocolate milk and £2.70 on my cottage cheese fix.

At the office tomorrow so hopefully no time for silly spending.

Rum what maps do you want... We have quite a few duplicates because DD wanted some for an art idea. They didn't all get used.