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

[needastrongoneagain]

New thread.

All welcome.

Hate that when you feel cheated

I’ve been redoing the budget now dh is retired, need to tighten up a few things but should be ok

Spent £5 on a few food bits so lsd.

Glad it's Friday as I'm feeling tired, we're going to my mum's tomorrow for a coronation lunch and we've all made nice foody bits. I've got some bread dough proving, I'd forgotten how easy bread is to make, I should do it more often.

Good to see the Tories getting a crap result, there's hope yet!

Morning.

Up early so lots of quiet chores have been done!

£100 Sainsbury's yesterday, including items for the street party we are having tomorrow.

Menu plan
Slow roast salmon. Spice roasted sweet potatoes.
Ras el Hanout rainbow roast with halloumi
Cape Malay chicken curry, South African yellow rice
Broccoli pasta
Aubergine pasta bake.
Ragu.
Pizza at the street party.

Morning all, and happy birthday Unescorted.. love your fence Girlie.

North, Big , I’ve not posted since the Great Triumph of the Green Army 💪🏻💪🏻💚 DDad would have never shut up about it been so thrilled. It is 5 years ago this weekend that he and my granny died so it’s always a sad week for me. I also found out that a friend passed away from cancer last week, it all happened very quickly and she was only early 40s. I am shocked, it’s been a bit of a teary week, tbh.

Also immensely stressful on the building front. I’ve signed a contract (gulp!) and scaffolding is going up. They start the roof /loft next week. I have spent about £100 on packing boxes, and £270 tomorrow on removals to take a ton of boxes to self-storage. Now we’ve emptied the loft we can’t move. And we have so many books. Today is all about the frantic packing, to get as much to the storage place tomorrow as possible (whatever is later we’ll have to shift ourselves). 3 weeks till we move out, gulp. I need to crack on and order the kitchen soon too.

I will probably see a bit of coronation here and there - I am not a royalist but am still interested in the ritual, and DD5 wants to watch (she’s been learning about it at school and did quite a credible reenactment for me this week with a unicorn light stick sceptre and tennis ball orb. The choir of soft toys sang and everything 😂). I hadn’t got time to bake as I normally would so I bought a Coronation Colin. The kids are so thrilled that I’m quite offended 😉

Am fed up of this iffy weather. And the hayfever, argh!

Keep telling yourself it will be with it half

need where is the cape Malay curry recipe from? I’m intrigued!

Torrential rain since 4/5am here, we had planned a lovely walk but that is not happening.

Sorry you e had such a sad and stressed week @HalfWomanHalfChocolate. All kids love Colin, all adults love Colin, don't take offence!

@Gensola it's from my new and favourite (at present) recipe book - Africana by Lerato Umah-Shaylor. I can't find many of her recipes on line, but here's a link to her website at least!

leratofoods.com/blogs/leratos-kitchen

Is it OK to join this thread? I go through phases of focusing more on being frugal and it’s been a spendy two months so feels right to do so now!

It’s me, DH, DS 7 and DD 4. I work part time during school hours (though not term time only) and Friday is my day off with my DD, who isn’t in school yet but goes to a preschool type nursery four days a week, just for her free hours.

She doesn’t go to school til Aug 2024 and my aim is to have done so well with saving etc before then that my husband agrees I can keep Fridays off for myself because I’ve proven we don’t need the money, instead of increasing my hours which he currently wants me to do 😂

We are going camping for this first time with the children (and my sister & BIL) today, going for two nights, so do feel that’s a frugal win tbh (we have also borrowed most of the stuff instead of buying 😇)! Wish me luck for the weather as I fear if it’s not enjoyable DH will never want to go camping again 😅

Not sure if you can edit posts on this forum! Meant to say we live in Scotland.

Happy birthday Unescorted. Hope your cake is wonderful.

Half sounds like a busy day for you today. Fingers crossed you managed to move lots of things and sorry things are stressful.

A rather rainy day here. Spent £11.00 on a pizza takeaway lunch. Then £1.50 on randoms in the supermarket on the way back. A rather rude man ran over my foot and then shouted at me for having a problem. It did annoy me and reminded me why I rarely go to Waitrose. Have lots of cheese left. Not sure when I’ll eat it.

Hope everyone has had a nice coronation day? We've had a good day, went to mums with our home baking to watch the ceremony and then walked into town where they had free entertainment.

Fairly frugal day really, considered getting dinner out in town but came home in the end and put an easy (freezer!) dinner on.

Spent £11 in the pet shop on stuff for dds hamster which she tells me she will pay back...

Welcome @Bluegreen143 I hope the weather is kind to you

half that sounds so stressful. Especially the Colin love. I would have been miffed too. Your cakes are works of art.

Welcome @Bluegreen143

Thanks for the birthday wishes. My legs are falling off after my fell race (first one in years after an injury). My team came 3rd and my cake came 1st.

Hope you had a lovely birthday Unescorted and well done on the race.

Fabulous cake @Unescorted and well done on 1st prize! Fell races are as tough as they come, so kudos for doing and sympathy re the aching legs.

Welcome @Bluegreen143 - all welcome here, it's a very friendly section of MN.

Boo re the foot @RumBananaSundae 😡 Rude!

I need bread and orange juice today and we are having a street party and ordering pizza. Budgeted for this though at the start of the month.

Weather pants at present though!

We had a strange day - nice in the end but it was absolutely torrential rain most of the morning, the sort that soaks you even under an umbrella in about 2 mins outside.
we had a nice coffee out then watched some of the coronation in a pub before lunch. Managed a short walk but it was so wet and misty it wasn’t very pleasant.
hoping for better luck today!
this week is a bit crazy with work so it will fly in.

Yet our pic nic yesterday was a roaring success, and it was stunning weather,
£10 on stuff as ds also came, £73 Aldi on a small! Shop

Very spendy day yesterday shopping for ds. Probably a cheap day today but am quite tempted by the idea of treating him today as he's really tried hard this week.

Welcome Bluegreen - very good goal for frugality, do you know how much you need to find each month to make it stack up? I like the cash flow spreadsheet given by The Humble Penny blogger.

Beautiful cake, unescorted. What's the inside? My Victoria sponge came out well (thank you Felicity) but looks nothing like as pretty and professional as yours!

Rachel Stirling and Steven Mangan good in Private Lives last night. The Donmar is a lot more comfortable than many Covent Garden/West End theatres. Still a few people wearing crowns out and about in the evening!

Good walk today, and geranium potting. There's a street party, and I might wander out with a batch of scones, but will see how the weather, and gregariousness level, fares.

Do it wolf, treat him

hope the weather pics up for the parties

Hi everyone,

I've a bad head cold so I'm wearing the DGOD and lazing on the sofa. I'll save a bit because I won't meet my Dad for lunch like I'd planned. And I was going to nip into a garden centre and look for some solar lights to hang on my garden hooks..

I plan to do very little today. Just the usual - empty the dishwasher and put on a washload etc. And let the cats in and out ten million times But lots of resting in between. I don't need to cook dinner because I cooked a big pan of chilli yesterday - am hoping the garlic and spices kill off my virus. Annoyingly, it's lovely and sunny out so it would be lovely weather for a walk or for working in the garden. But I just don't have the energy for either of those things.

After talking about it for ages, I finally put in an application for SUSI (college grant). Now I have to play the waiting game. Obviously I'll continue to save in case I don't qualify (it's means tested and I think I earn over the limit).

Sorry to hear about your friend Half. A sad week all around. Fingers crossed the construction work goes to plan. Sounds like it's been quite an upheaval already. I loved reading about your DD's reenactment of the coronation .

Welcome Blue. I hope your plan works out. I worked three days a week even after my DD started school. It took the pressure off us because I was at home those two days to empty the dishwasher/cook dinner/do laundry/Mumsnetetc. They were less pressurized than the days we were both out of the house. Hope you enjoy the camping although I gather the weather was pretty miserable yesterday, based on the coronation coverage in London. But maybe the weather was different where you are?

Sounds like a nice day yesterday Girlie

Fab cake Unescorted. Well done on the race.

Glad you enjoyed your night out at the theatre Big

Weather WAS miserable @Taytocrisps, we got soaked (foolishly borrowed rubbish equipment eg a leaking tent! ancient thin sleeping bags(!) and tried to make do without proper outdoor waterproofs etc 😂) AND poor DS (7) woke up vomiting today so we had to come home a day early 😢

However we’ve agreed we want to invest in our own (non leaking!) tent etc and give camping a proper go as we did still enjoy parts of it in between being wet and miserable 😂 somewhat going against my resolve not to spend, but surely camping saves money in the long run?!

@BigSkies2022 we do already have a budget surplus each month and no consumer debt (we did borrow some money interest free from my mum to buy a car last year but that’s it) so from my point of view we already don’t need the extra money. I’m currently working on building a 3-6 month emergency fund and am hoping that seeing that building up will convince DH that we are not in fact impoverished.

I was a SAHM for a few years and we were really skint all the time then; I was lucky to get back to work part time in my previous career two years ago though and it’s a well paid professional job so we are in a very different position now. I think DH is understandably a bit scarred by his memories of years being the sole breadwinner and not being able to afford anything!

Gws tayto

camping is fine with decent kit and can be an investment,

weather got out here hope it’s dry for the street party people

@BigSkies2022 it was lemon cake with lemon curd filling & mascarpone cream frosting. I have finally worked out that the correct amount of baking powder is 1/2 teaspoon per 100g of flour plus a 1/2 teaspoon for the pot. I was so pleased with the flatness of the cakes.

@Taytocrisps hope you feel better soon. I am also sitting on the sofa.... I have to get up in half an hour to pick up DS from work. I am regretting offering.

@Wolfcub a treat is a lovely thing & I hope you feel obliged to treat him often.

How have I managed to spend £27 at Aldi for one dinner and a few bits? I don't understand it at all.

@Unescorted ooh that cake looks amazing!

Hi @Bluegreen143 , welcome.

Our night away was brilliant. We went to Cheshire Oaks and I got 2 pairs of trousers for work and a pair of jeans from the M&S outlet. Came to £53 which I thought was a bargain. We found a gorgeous Italian restaurant to eat at, lovely thin wood fired pizzas. The comedy club was brilliant, the drinks flowed. And then we found a really good place to have breakfast this morning. A fantastic weekend, just the 2 of us.

Back to reality today. Submitted our meter readings to BG. We are about £200 in debit. But from now on the heating won’t be needed and I’ll be drying clothes outside (weather permitting) so it should even out over the next quarter.