Thrifty Gifty - Organised for Christmas and all ocassions 2009- Santas Challenges

cdsmiler

mum2one – sending some virtual raspberry jam over to you!! The addresses are only so organised because I had most of them for sending out invites and thank you cards for the wedding last year. Lol And, although I haven’t done the freezer yet, I ate a whole tub of Hagaan Daz and watched Santa Claus The Movie last night….. does having my reward early count?? Lol

whizzer01 – thanks!

Sarah – oh no, get plenty of rest!

So, from now until the beginning of August anytime any of you mention fab deals, or great present buying websites, I shall have my fingers in my ears and will be going “lalalalalalalalaaaaaaaaaaaaaa”. I can’t afford anything until next month – not only because each month is tight anyway, but some evil %$&^ has pinched £360 from my bank account using a cheque book that never arrived with me and was SUPPOSED to be cancelled by my bank. Long story, won’t bore you all, but have to wait 4 weeks for them to work out whether or not I wrote the cheques (3 weeks left to go), and then once they can be bothered to refund me, I’m playing holy hell. Not only should the cheque book have been cancelled in the first place and therefore unusable, but they also won’t give me a temporary (temporary!! That’s all I want!!) overdraft extension to cover all the missing money – only an additional £200. Wow. Great. That really allows me to pay remaining bills and get petrol for my car!! I’ll just magic an additional £160 from thin air!!

Sorry, rant over, and completely off topic, but I knew you mse’s would understand…. <sniffle>

Back to sparkly Christmas stuff!!

Clare xxx

sarahf191979

cdsmiler wrote: »

mum2one – sending some virtual raspberry jam over to you!! The addresses are only so organised because I had most of them for sending out invites and thank you cards for the wedding last year. Lol And, although I haven’t done the freezer yet, I ate a whole tub of Hagaan Daz and watched Santa Claus The Movie last night….. does having my reward early count?? Lol

whizzer01 – thanks!

Sarah – oh no, get plenty of rest!

So, from now until the beginning of August anytime any of you mention fab deals, or great present buying websites, I shall have my fingers in my ears and will be going “lalalalalalalalaaaaaaaaaaaaaa”. I can’t afford anything until next month – not only because each month is tight anyway, but some evil %$&^ has pinched £360 from my bank account using a cheque book that never arrived with me and was SUPPOSED to be cancelled by my bank. Long story, won’t bore you all, but have to wait 4 weeks for them to work out whether or not I wrote the cheques (3 weeks left to go), and then once they can be bothered to refund me, I’m playing holy hell. Not only should the cheque book have been cancelled in the first place and therefore unusable, but they also won’t give me a temporary (temporary!! That’s all I want!!) overdraft extension to cover all the missing money – only an additional £200. Wow. Great. That really allows me to pay remaining bills and get petrol for my car!! I’ll just magic an additional £160 from thin air!!

Sorry, rant over, and completely off topic, but I knew you mse’s would understand…. <sniffle>

Back to sparkly Christmas stuff!!

Clare xxx

OMG how awful of your bank, they are so unhelpful sometimes they get my goat, they are happy to ask us all to get loans and CC etc... when we have a bit of money but as soon as we need anything they stick two fingers up at us. I hope you get sorted soon.

mrsow

mum2one great challenge again, please stop showing me all the lovely things on halfcost i think im developing a problem lol

Sarah191979 hope you feel better soon

cdsmiler hope you get the bank sorted out soon nothing worse when its nothing to do with you and your completely out of control ....................... i really do think banks believe money trees exist

Off out with mam in a bit to see if theres any bargains in town (highly doubt it)

cdsmiler

sarahf191979 wrote: »

OMG how awful of your bank, they are so unhelpful sometimes they get my goat, they are happy to ask us all to get loans and CC etc... when we have a bit of money but as soon as we need anything they stick two fingers up at us. I hope you get sorted soon.

I know, and it doesn't help that they had whacked on charges this month too because I didn't have the best month recently. I KNEW these charges were coming, so unlike previously (throughout many years where I thought if I didn't acknowledge them, they wouldn't happen lol), I did something about them. The charges were way more than I could afford, and there's something on my statement that says "if you're having trouble paying these charges, contact our finance department". So I did. They removed one charge (which was nice of them I suppose) but I was still going to be charged just over £100. So I said I was going to have trouble, and could they be split over two months? Nope. They couldn't help me!! :mad: Then with all this cr*p this month with the fraud, they still took the charges out! (Thank god for dads who are happy to lend me money!)

Oh shhh, listen to me, I'm going off on one. <deep breath>

Step 1 - Get money back from fraud activity
Step 2 - COMPLAIN about the unhelpfulness during fraud investigation :mad:
Step 3 - wait for a decision to be made regarding bank charges and hope they pay back the claim I've put in.
Step 4 - CHANGE BANKS.

Now, back to Christmas!! Yeay!!

*Jingle bells, jingle bells....jingle all the wayyyyyyyyyyy!! la la laaa la la la laaaaaa.......*

<dances off into the corner>

Clare x

sarahf191979

cdsmiler wrote: »

I know, and it doesn't help that they had whacked on charges this month too because I didn't have the best month recently. I KNEW these charges were coming, so unlike previously (throughout many years where I thought if I didn't acknowledge them, they wouldn't happen lol), I did something about them. The charges were way more than I could afford, and there's something on my statement that says "if you're having trouble paying these charges, contact our finance department". So I did. They removed one charge (which was nice of them I suppose) but I was still going to be charged just over £100. So I said I was going to have trouble, and could they be split over two months? Nope. They couldn't help me!! :mad: Then with all this cr*p this month with the fraud, they still took the charges out! (Thank god for dads who are happy to lend me money!)

Oh shhh, listen to me, I'm going off on one. <deep breath>

Step 1 - Get money back from fraud activity
Step 2 - COMPLAIN about the unhelpfulness during fraud investigation :mad:
Step 3 - wait for a decision to be made regarding bank charges and hope they pay back the claim I've put in.
Step 4 - CHANGE BANKS.

Now, back to Christmas!! Yeay!!

*Jingle bells, jingle bells....jingle all the wayyyyyyyyyyy!! la la laaa la la la laaaaaa.......*

<dances off into the corner>

Clare x

They get you over a barrel, I was with RBS years ago and had similar happen to me they wouldn't budge, kept chargeing me to the point that it wasn't worth me having my wages paid in, then they withdrew my overdraft and took all the charges off and left me with £5 in the bank to pay my bills and do the shopping. Needless to say I changed banks and withdrew the £5 and told them were to stick the bank account.

Hope you have more luck than I did.

Sarah
x

mummy2mygirls

sarah hope you feel better soon x

cds - banks are usless!! and the charges are stupid- to not let you split it over two mths is unfair!!

on the christmas front, i have started to do my card list, going to start finding out all the addresses soon......

watched the shopping chanel card making show yesterday and its made me really want to make my cards.....but so much stuff i dont know what to buy to start me of...might have to have a trip to hobbycraft!!

sarahf191979

You will need:

20 vanilla wafer cookies
1/2 cup peanut butter
1 6-ounce bag white chocolate chips
colored candy sprinkles, red & green combo and red
pull apart licorice whips, cut into 1-1/2" lengths
M&M candies
M&M mini candies
fruit roll ups, cut into 4" lengths
Cake decorating writer gel in green, black, and orange
tube of white cake decorator frosting with flower tip
ice cream sticks
wax paper or paper plates

Instructions:

Spread peanut butter onto the flat side of the cookies. Place an ice cream stick into the peanut butter on half the cookies. Top with another cookie so the stick is sandwiched between the two cookies.

Melt chocolate chips in the microwave, one minute, then in 20 second increments, stirring until smooth.


Recipie and photos taken from: www.familycorner.com

sarahf191979

Thought these might be a good gift printed out and framed or scrolled up for anyone who has a trivia nut in the family....



Winter was a time of celebration to pre-Christian Romans and they decorated fir trees in honor of this seasonal change.


The use of a Christmas wreath as a decoration on your front door, mantel or bay window symbolizes a sign of welcome and long life to all that enter.
Today poinsettias are the most popular Christmas plant and are the number one flowering potted plant in the United States.

Real Christmas trees are an all-American product, grown in all 50 states, including Alaska and Hawaii. Most artificial trees are manufactured in Korea, Taiwan, or Hong Kong.

In 1836, Alabama is the first state in the USA to declare Christmas a legal holiday.

The biggest selling Christmas single of all time is Bing Crosby's White Christmas.

Due to the time zones, Santa has 31 hours to deliver gifts? This means that he would have to visit 832 homes each second!

In 1937, the first postage stamp to commemorate Christmas was issued in Austria.

For every real Christmas tree harvested, 2 to 3 seedlings are planted in its place. Each hectare provides the daily oxygen requirements of 45 people.

Epiphany, 6th January, is the traditional end of the Christmas holiday and is the date on which we take down the tree and decorations. To do so earlier is thought to bring bad luck for the rest of the year. From the middle ages until the mid-nineteenth century, Twelfth Night was more popular than Christmas day, and even today some countries celebrate Epiphany as the most important day of the Christmas season.

Three years after Thomas Edison invented the electric light bulb in 1879, Edward H. Johnson, who worked for Edison's company, had Christmas tree bulbs especially made for him. He proudly displayed his electric tree lights at his home on Fifth Avenue, New York City. They caused a sensation although some years were to pass before mass-manufactured Christmas tree lights were widely available.
In America in 1822, the postmaster of Washington, DC, complained that he had to add 16 mailmen at Christmas to deal with cards alone. He wanted the number of cards a person could send limited by law. "I don't know what we'll do if this keeps on," he wrote

Courtosey of: www.familycorner.com

sylphraven

sarahf191979 wrote: »

Due to the time zones, Santa has 31 hours to deliver gifts? This means that he would have to visit 832 homes each second!

Good job Father Christmas/Santa can use magic to slow/stop time. Must be a very long nights work for him though. Wonder if he reads this thread to help out with his own organisational skills through out the year.

sarahf191979

sylphraven wrote: »

Good job Father Christmas/Santa can use magic to slow/stop time. Must be a very long nights work for him though. Wonder if he reads this thread to help out with his own organisational skills through out the year.

If he does I wish he would share his time stopping skills LOL then i might get all my jobs done;)