Mince Pies, Mulled Wine, frugal festive frolics. Yuletide budgeting banter & Merry Saving Shenanigans for all 🎁🎄🦌🎅🤶☃️

[MaryGreenhill]

Welcome to the Christmas Frugal thread . We are a super friendly group here & everyone is welcome 🤗 .
☃️🤶🎅🦌🎄🎁

Pleased the op went well. That’s an epic amount of pizza though. 😂

hope your dad is doing better need

also those in the storms path are ok and there isn’t much damage

ive just about run my freezers down now. I’ve not the headspace to thinks of Christmas yet but next week

currently in London visiting uni. So lots of food spends but got my train fare back as 89m delay

Hope everyone stops safe and well this weekend - if you need any food pop to the popup pizza shop in Oxfordshire 😜 😉

No spends to declare yesterday.
Told husband I had forgotten my card at coffee this morning 😆 he's so generous don't get me wrong but I tend to get my card out quicker normally as his hearing is terrible and struggles in noisy places.

@MaryGreenhill one of my close friends lives close to the Welsh border and they've been affected. Thankfully not rising water but it came through the roof and their neighbour is really badly flooded 😢. We are NE so just cold and wet here!

@FurForksSake pleased all went okay and hope you enjoyed the Dominos. That's an impressive pizza spend!

Out today for a joint 60th birthday celebration. Whole lot is paid for out of items we sold from PIL house, quite poignant but also frugal - my MIL would be impressed!

No items have arrived that I wanted to wear today - no snazzy tights or new jeans. It's an outdoor pod so I'll have my coat on anyway 😂

I feel I should take a bow for my pizza spend. Ds2 (10) made my SIL take half the pepperoni for her and my niece and nephew. Then everyone bemoaned the lack of pepperoni. There were four other pizzas 😆😆🤭😆🤭😆🤭 But we have lunch for today and a really nice family moment where we watched the first celebratory race across the world.

Spent £50 on Christmas chocolate, £30 of that is presents. £20 is pralines for… the house.

DH bought the children’s main presents, an iPad for one and a meta quest for the other, 20% off when he opened a very credit account.

oh and £150 on an exercise bike I need for rehab. I’m hoping I and dh then continue to use it. I’m insisting it goes in the bedroom, last time we had one it was in the garage and depressing to use.

Enjoy the celebration, that is definitely frugal and poignant.

Morning (just!).

I’m sure the house will be very grateful for the pralines @FurForksSake 🤣. I’m really glad the op went well. Love the pizza story!!

Hope the folk most affected by the storms are okay, hope you’ve no damage @MaryGreenhill

Thanks for the kindness re DF, ❤️. I’m going to see him today. My DB went yesterday. They operated and gave him a partial hip replacement, pretty impressive at 94 next month. He was as comfortable apparently as could reasonably be.

The freezer is on my list for next week @Rainbow1901

Spends
£41 takeout for ourselves and friends last night. We pay when they come here, vice versa. First one for ages.
£140 Ocado as I bought wine and beer so more than usual, we have family over tomorrow too. As it happened last night we all only had one drink each.
£9 Amazon
£27 Veg box and deposit for a Yorkshire cheese board for Christmas!
£0.19p Vinted - balance from current account for some jeans - the rest was my Vinted balance.

Today will be hospital parking only.

Chicken casserole, jacket spuds, lots of veg for tea - seemed appropriate for this weather!

Afternoon everyone 🤗
Been hit quite badly in Abergavenny and Monmouth is dreadful @Mochi1fudge hope your friend is ok bless her . Not planning on spending today just staying in the warm and sorting out a few Christmas presents l think .
Thank God your Dad sounds ok @needastrongonebless him and you and your Mum 💐

I have some pics if anyone is interested 🤗

Is that Abergavenny? Blimey! I’ve not been there for years and years but that’s so much damage. I remember as a child going to the indoor market. My god mother had a farm not toooo far away.

Yes @FurForksSakeit's Abergavenny. The town has been hit badly but nothing in comparison to Monmouth .
Where was your God Mother's farm. I might know it 😊

Llanellen. It’s sold quite recently I think. I just looked at some pictures on google and felt a bit sad. I think her son took it over and the original farm house has been extensively modernised.

Oh l know Llanellen well , beautiful place . l am sure you have lovely memories of it there 😊
I don't know the farm you mean but it is sad when you see your lovely childhood places are no more and everything has moved on but we haven't 💐
Hope you are feeling really well today 🤗

Sorry to hear about your DF @needastrongoneagain - hope he's doing ok. Good news about your op @FurForksSake but blimey on that amount of pizzas! Although I think it's easy to rack up a spend on Dominos!

Welcome @foxinasnowstorm this is a lovely corner of mumsnet.

I've had a busy few days, now finished my temp work thank goodness. Had a decompress day yesterday and got my watercolours out. Almost then went on Amazon and bought extra supplies but stopped myself. Did my weekly shop too yesterday £47 (there's only me here) and I will just need to top up on fruit and yogurt this week.

Today I am eating out for dinner (probably just McD, due to logistics) and tomorrow I'm out all day at a mind and body festival so I hope I don't get swayed into buying tooooo much.

Oh and I've put a deposit down on another cruise - it's in Australia 🙃 and not until 2028 but it was a great price. Plenty of time to organise the flights and rest of the itinerary - I have family over there so will hopefully tie in a visit.

We are eating beans on toast for dinner 🤣

the pizza was five large pizzas, two chicken sides, garlic bread and some twisted dough balls. The kids thought I was doing half and half’s but that seems to have disappeared. We did get 50% off the pizzas but still nearly £100 is insane. But! We haven’t had take away for ages and won’t again for ages and so I am justifying it.

I totally get the art supplies thing, I need to go through the house and gather all my craft and art supplies somewhere as I just buy more.

id love to here about the festival and any accidental purchases! I don’t think I’ve ever been to a mind and body festival. I did buy some yoga blocks on Amazon haul, but I don’t actually practice yoga…

Ooohhhh I'd so love to do a mind and body festival and want to hear about it too!
So glad your DF is doing well @needastrongoneagain .
Oh @MaryGreenhill that's awful.... And other areas being worse is heartbreaking.
@FurForksSake I hear you about being sad over a place. I walked past my childhood home yesterday and it's completely changed. All extended and modern with the garden ripped up. Broke my heart.

£5 on bits in a Christmas fair this morning to support DD pre school. And £80 on HMRC as I opened a business last year but haven't been able to sell yet as I need the products tested and the companies I found to test them didn't... So I paid to put company into hibernation for now.

What’s the business @Frugal25? sounds like a very annoying thing to have paid for a service you haven’t had.

Today’s spending has been £12.35 in Waitrose. I bought some miso harissa that I had never seen before and some blue cheese Boursin so I spent more than expected as I went for puffed oatcakes (that I ended up not getting). Then £4.29 on a card on Etsy.

Goodness me @MaryGreenhill. That doesn’t look good. I hope you are OK.

Spotty and sparkly sound amazing @Mochi1fudge. Nothing beats a bit of sparkle. Hope you enjoyed your lunch today.

Glad surgery went ok @FurForksSake. I hope it’s a relief for you. Good luck with your rehab. How are you doing today? The pizza cost was including a 50% discount? Not from a justifying position from a how much for a pizza position.

Thank you @Rainbow1901. I do have a list. Yesterday I thought I would try spaghetti hoops. The kind you get in a tin. I had something from the freezer with them, and have half the tin left, so maybe it was half a win.

Happy Londoning @lifelongfrugaleer.

Hope your father is on the mend @needastrongoneagain.

Wow @chimichangaz. Australia. I do look up the Indian Pacific and The Ghan every now and again but doubt I’ll ever do them.

Not been up to much today. Looking at carpets. My initial idea of putting them down then ripping them out has been binned after seeing how much they will cost.

@chimichangaz are you going on one of those p&o world cruises? Definitely a goal for me on retirement!
Not much spends to report today.
£6 in the supermarket.

Fabulous cruise @chimichangaz❤️😊👏yes we are all good here thank you @RumBananaSundae😊
Glad you made your mind up re the carpets 😊.
Thank you so much @Frugal25 so kind of you 🤗
Nowt wrong with beans on toast for tea especially with buttered toast yummy @FurForksSake fill your boots sweetheart 😊

Had a lovely lunch thanks. Just slept for 2.5 hours on the sofa so may not sleep well tonight! Collected some parcels and more spends.

£50 deposit on M&S Christmas food collection for Christmas week. £10 of that was used from a gift card at least. I'm getting 2 x Yule Logs (2nd being a Christmas present for my friend) but had to make it up to £50. Didn't feel frugal at all, the posh sausage rolls and cauliflower cheese better be worth it!!
£14 Boots although I did also get a £24.50 refund and 3 gifts in that £14.
£29.99 The Range to replace a broken pre-lit snow twig.

Also intend to send two pairs of the White Stuff tights back (£35) as either don't fit or wrong colour.

Feels really expensive at the moment so will try to cut back food these next two weeks although I do buy Christmas things when I see them so will be done by the end of the month I hope.

Good morning everyone 🤗
I hear you @Mochi1fudge re everything is so expensive and money is seeping out everywhere 🙄
Your M&S food sounds delicious and the Yule log is a lovely present for your friend .
I went shopping to Cardiff yesterday and l couldn't believe how expensive everything is in the shops. How the shops keep going when their own online business is undercutting the shop prices l don't know.
Anyway everything is more settled here flood wise thankfully 🤗
Have a good day everyone 😊

@FurForksSake I’m great at buying stuff instead of actually doing the ‘thing’ - eg buy more art supplies instead of painting, buy fancy kitchen gadgets instead of cooking different meals. You did make me laugh with buying yoga blocks but not doing yoga - exactly the sort of thing I’d do!!

I’ll report back on the festival. I’ve not been to one before so I’m not sure what sort of things will be there but they have lots of workshops and presentations too so I’ve woken up looking forward to it.

@ChipshopPickledEgg no - it’s only an 8 night cruise so I’m looking at it as something to do to get around while I’m over there. Australia has been on my bucket list for ages and this seemed like a nudge to do it. I don’t think I’d ever do a world cruise because as much as I love cruising I don’t think I could be away from home for that long. I would like to do Japan at some point too but I always seem to end up doing Spain or Greece!! Not that there’s anything wrong with that, and I know how lucky I am to have been able to cruise as much as I have, but I need to expand my horizons. I’d love to do Canada too!

Morning.

The pictures of the flooding look pretty grim. It’s so early in the year too - we’ve the whole winter to get through.

A cruise to Australia sounds amazing @chimichangaz, what a lovely thing to plan and look forward to.

Wish I’d known you can put a Company into hibernation - there’s a few staff over the 25 years we owned it that I might have wished to do similar 😊, and a few that acted like they were 🤣.

Any possibility of wooden floors @RumBananaSundae? Very pricy initially I understand but long term gain iyswim? We have them through the whole house (excluding stairs) and they won’t ever need to be changed.

Thanks all re DF. He was pretty out of it yesterday in truth, which upset DD. Doubt my DM will give many hoots in truth @MaryGreenhill - he left her a few months after he retired for his current partner. He was a good grandfather but a crap father and worse husband! I have mixed feelings towards him but recognise he’s old, vulnerable and that the DC have a different relationship with him than I do.

I need a few bits today as we’ve family over but doubt I will spend much more that £15 max.

Get practicing your Downward Dog and Cobra and you’ll be good to go @chimichangaz😁

In September PO do an amazing sounding Canadian itinerary from Southampton.
I need to be rich in my retirement I have so many plans! I won't be rich 😆 I work in the public sector 😆.