June 07: We are going to finish this thread skinnier than we started it

[Bumperslucious]

Seeing as none of you lazy beyaches are going to start a new one...

aw jammy cute pics!
ellen not sure about the snow, she just sat in it the other day and looked in awe of it!

dont mind waiting till the 19th, i figure that begining of the year is possibly the busiest for them cos of ppl getting in trouble over xmas?

PMSL at the sprout eyed snowman! There's no way sprouts would get used as snowman eyes in this house, I love to eat them too much!!

runs in briefly....

norty he is beeeeooooootiful . Well done you!! meant to text you back the other day but it is hectic here at the minute.

eeeeewwwww sprouts are the work of the devil. All the taste and flavour of a cabbage compressed into something the size of a golf ball...ew ew ew.

waves and runs out again

Hi guys.

Thanks jammy, and thanks for the links. I wonder if I got the wrong end of the stick with the DVD, or maybe I'm just trying to be too techinical about it, rather than taking it at face value. If I can face it I'll watch it again tonight.

Hi norty, glad to see you back

you amaze me with how positive you are natty I would be in pieces. Good luck with the CAB.

We have NO SNOW at all.

Had a lovely day out with DSis. helped her choose some nice clothes and she bought me lunch. oh, and I bought a Hauck 3-wheeler (mine is just so heavy and difficult to steer)

Have come home to crisis though. DS1 is in isolation on Monday and is on report for a week, and I feel so much like ringing the school and telling them to fuck off.

oh dear ria what did he do?
schools can be so OVER THE TOP!!
my BIL's school had NO days off school at all this week despite have a foot of snow.
i think thats evil when all the other schools are off, he was really upset!

cooking shepard pie now, 1/3 of our meat allowence this week! its like being on rations lol!!

it is (as ever with DS1) a long story. he and another lad were pratting about in some mud and the other lad got splashed. so the other lad got hold of DS round his neck sort of threateningly and then let him go and walked off. Another lad then got involved, telling the other one he should have beaten DS up, and grabbed him sent someone else to get the other lad. So DS kicked him and threw him on the floor, and called him a F*ing B'stard. So he got taken to the Head, and the bloke in charge of the ones with "mental" issues (as DS calls him) then head of year and then his form tutor. During this time they could have been teaching him to write FFS. I can't be arsed to bollock him, there'll be kids in that school who do that sort of thing all day every day with no come-back.

that bloody school Ria....poor DS1 ....what's happened?

Hi Daisy

Think day 4 blues setting in....tears for NO reason at all .

x-post. Did the other kids get the same treatment Ria?

ria that sucks. that school seems to be very unfair
do you think it warrents a change in schools? or do you think a strongly worded letter might help?

norty. at least you're at home though. Is DH off work?

I don't know whether the other kids got into trouble or not. Probably not. The head of year said to DH she would like to know where the boy who started school in September has gone. I would like to know where the concerned caring school/head of year has gone. And why they haven't started any writing strategiesd with him. Sod it, I'm not grounding him, he can go to youth club and we're off to the chippy for tea.

it seems very much like if I dare to have a nice day there's crap waiting for me when I get back

poor kid is devasted about being in isolation (with another lad )

Aww Ria, that's crap. I'm sorry your day was ruined.

Natty, good that you are working things out. I know how you feel about money. We are living on £1500 and £300 of that goes on DH's credit cards (, he's got them all on low interest but with high minimun payments) so half his wages go into the joint account and all mine do. Have had to cancel all my charity direct debits. The problem is everytime we talk about money he gets in a huff because he thinks I am worrying too much and getting stressed and because it makes him feel bad that he is not bringing any more money in. I think he just needs to be a grown up about it and not put his head in the sand. It's only because I have a spreadsheet and worked everything out that when things like car tax come up we don't have to panic as I have budgeted for it. But we have absolutely no contingency for anything else. It's silly things like I said to DH if you want to buy nice peanut butter and jam and not the cheap stuff you are going to ration how you use it or make do with cheap stuff. And FGS stop drinking OJ like it's water!

Seems like DH gets all the good days with DD. The last 2 days when I have had her she has been up at 7.15 and whingey. DH has been getting lie ins till 8 or 9am! And he has to work tomorrow too, humph! We are all stick not quite recovered from being ill, DH is getting a cold, headache and earache but neither of us is getting a chance for a break to recover, we are either working or looking after DD. I shouldn't whinge though, she is mostly lovely. She is trying to count at the moment. We get two, six, eight, nine, six! I think the fact that I am getting the whingey needy days says more about me than DD.

bumper that is my DH! scary!
he keeps telling me not to worry about tax credits till they send it in writing with repayments and stuff. like its not "offical" to him until its in writing.
but u see to me, them saying "we dont think" is the same as saying "you were not" entitled to the money. as they wouldnt say it unless they were sure cos we could sue for the stress.
so he is head in sand man, who insists on nice expensive ham and hotdogs, instead of cheap tins and packets. grrrr.
(oh and he insists on expensive peanut butter... but i sneakly keep refilling the jar with cheap stuff! and the pickle, nesquick, and honey)
im so naughty! but i cant be buggered with the arguement!

We are both a bit like that here. I don't eat meat and neither do the dcs, so we are reasonably cheap to feed, but I won't buy dp cheap meat, mainly for ethical reasons. I also try to buy fair trade tea, coffee and chocolate and free range eggs. You can do these things and live quite well on a tiny budget. The trick is to meal plan, buy manager's special reduced stuff and bulk buy branded stuff when it is on special offer. Anything you can get away with being non-branded buy the value ranges (tinned tomatoes, bags of apples, bags of carrots, potatoes etc.) and anything that has to be branded (baked beans, ketchup, cereal) buy in Asda! Asda are by far the cheapest supermarket for branded goods and quite often will have stupid deals like one pack of bagels for £1.50 or two packs for £1.40 (yes, it's really true). For fresh meat, poultry and cheese go to Waitrose after 4.30. Their reductions are brilliant, they often reduce meat by 70% after 4pm. I live very frugally, but eat like a pig !

Completely agree with Holly about Asda and Waitrose.

Thanks to Butterfly for her sweet pizza idea! Tonight we had chocolate and melted marshmallow on one, and jam and marshmallow on the other. Kids thought it was madness

They knew when to stop though, so although they loved them, I have masses and masses left. How come they have an off button, when I don't?!

I went down to the next stone today

Well done Foxy And I seem to have lost 2kg in the last 10 days

Hello All!
I am brilliant at living frugally!
Well actually probably not compared to Holly!

But I have a cashback credit card so everything I buy I get 1.5% back, also I use quidco ALL the time, and I am terrible in the supermarket - BOGOF, bulk buys etc all game, but I also loiter around the reduced bit for ages and actually ASK the people to reduce it. They do!
Also I buy all my meat from wholesalers so it means I have to store masses of meat in the freezer but I get it all silly cheap. Also things like nappies, wipes, tins, loo roll I bulk buy.

And yes meal planning is the way forward, and even silly things like do not shop when you are hungry.

I also find the online grocery shopping works well as you can't impulse buy so much.

well done weight loss!

I am gaining it like a foie gras duck!

well done to everyone losing weight! am very as i am piling on weight, am cant for the life of me stop eating!
ive got my crazy love of water thing as well that i had with thomas, i love the smell and the taste and eating ice cubes! i sat in the bath the other day and just sniffed the water for ages.. (im CRAZY) everything is very similar to toms pregnancy so i think im maybe having a blue one!

DH has buggered off to bed and left me to do all the housework. again. MEN!

DS is very odd at the moment, he is obsessed with doing the laundry. So I have showed him how to do it and now he just gets on with it.

They have finally agreed to move him up a room at nursery as well, GOOD.

And I'm really sorry about this, but I have to giggle at everyone who has to get up 'early', like 7am or whatever... if only... DS has been up every morning at 5.30-6am every single morning since he was a few months old. I lie-in to me is 7am!!

We are having root veg mash "volcanos" for tea with baked bean "lava" and a row of brussel sprout "huts" at the bottom of the volcano's slope

that should be AND cant for the life of me stop eating.

very imaginative jammy, wish that worked on my kids.
thomas actually ate some mince today this kids never eats mince!
do know what worked? i told him if he LICKED it he could have pudding.
he licked a little bit and said "oh i like that mummy"
im sure that idea came from a programme of some sorts? it just came to me sitting at the table randomly!

Oh Jamlet didn't have it Natty, just me & DH ! The veg hadn't arrived by the time she had her tea so she had beans on toast. DH requested the volcano set up, he wanted bacon villages at the bottom of the volcano, but we didn't have any so he had to make do with sprouts instead )

The Mange Tout healthy eating thing I took jamlet too the past few weeks had this (annoying) thing they said about every food - Can you see it, smell it, touch it, kiss it, taste it? The idea being that if a child wouldn't eat something you didn't try to force them to eat it straight away but let them get used to it by looking at it, smelling it, touching it, putting yours lips to it (kissing it) when it's on your fingers after touching it, and then finally tasting it.

LMAO @ DH's bacon villages!!