Its tough, it will get better and guess what its freezing brrrrr!

gailey_2

Morning guys

trying my best to catch up.

Think best gift you can give your kids is realistic and resposible veiw on finance.
Even my 4half yer olds quite good I explain she can have it sometimes but not got enough money right now or thats too expensive lets shop around and find same thing cheaper.

Feel like spent last 2days shopping sounds bad!

Tax rebate came through deteremined to spend it wisly.

cancelled my contract, paid final bill.
brought cheapest payg phone 17quid including credit for nokia but shock horror no camera but pleased although phoneshops always try persuade you to spend more was proud of myself for resisting. Rraly use mobile wnated it when out and for emergancies.
Fed up of worrying about bills.

We completly run out of toilitries/makeup so went superdrug and wilkos as they seem cheaper than boots.
Noticed co-op chemist got peppa pig and waybaluloo bath stuff for quid may get for xmas stocking filler.

Wilkos had huge fairy for 99p, dont find them that competataive on food though does anyone else?
We have huge family bargains in town where woolies used to be not sure if its a chain but got weetabix choc toy story star cereal for 99p.
Matress protecter for daughters new matress for 1.97 they cost 10quid in argos.

Definatly pays to shop around. shops annoying playing xmas music already and full of xmas stiff. Brought some reduced halloween stuff for next year hubby thought I was mad!

Paid next directory and plan no more orders.
Got xmasy pjs for half the price in primark which daughter loves.
Got clothes in sainsburys as 25%off this weekend so daughters been treated to one new outfit as been promising her for months and most of stuff we liked annoying not in stock.

Ahh was annoyed about fireworks. we doing ours tonight at home as dont think baby would enjoy display. hubby menat to get them he rang yestrday lunchtime and said he couldent so I had to go sainsburys after school in rain , dark and col with 2kids was not amused especially as he drives and works opposite a sainsburys!

Cant get shoes for baby in clarks in town they usual awful self.
went nearby suberb thur and clarks shut down as on out of town retail park with no busd route, so did city centre eyesterday equally useless and clarks only kdy shoe shop in city centre which means a trip to the mall.
Her current shoes brought from carboot are 3f, my dauightres 1st paid are 5g so too big and baby is 4h widest fitting possible had similar problems with clarks with eldest so need to go klinks or john lewis and might get startright plus the cost of shoes for 13month old 28-30quid! Dont even spend that on myself!shes got very wide instep.
Eldest needs new shoes nanny said she take her I cant face it.

Not really done much xmas shopping but browsed lots to see whats best price.
family bargains got advent calnders for quid each so ready as normally leave to last min.

Greengrocers had some fab bargains compared to flowers/fruit in supermarket.

Agree on pressure to have everything new and nice for xmas.
its too much, gone are days I get into debt over xmas.

My mini rant people who treat me like weirdo at school because I dont drive.
Me and another mum get looks of pity and how do you manage.
we only live 15mins. hubby has a car to do food shopping and get to work so wait until his day off.
Im on good busroute for local shops , city centre or mall plus rarly shop for non foods items as have little disposable income so do clothes carboots/ebay anyway.
Used to have vespa for work as cheap to run, great to park.
Sure sometimes when its rainy. cold and dark I tink might be nice as doctors moved miles away but I manage.
I know I could pass but would cost money and then running a car, will do when debts paid off but at moment it would be a waste and doing it to conform.
baffled how most of mums at school dont work and have brand new cars and drive everywhere. How the hell do they afford it?least my eldest is fit and can walk for miles.
They even drive round corner shop.

Hope everyones ok. catch you laters got lots to do.

seasalt_2

jediteacher wrote: »

We have a little girl at school who is partially sighted, cannot hear, has growth problems, speech and learning problems but we have been turned down three times for a statement for her!

That is truly shocking. How can they possibly justify that? I suppose it's that if there is a statement they are legally bound to provide whatever is found to be needed and there's no money? Certainly puts our minor problems into perspective.

Well I have had an "interesting" morning today and am about ready to go back to bed and it's only half past ten!

Someone came early to take away a load of scrap and I had to race across the field in my pjs and wellies waving and yelling like a madwoman to prevent him also taking away the old plough and a buckrake that look as if they should be scrap but aren't.

Fed our two old horses, took the compost out and brought onions etc in from the shed and then spent about an hour trying to get/keep the rayburn going - it is such a still morning - and I had banked it up well last night with all the small coal/dross riddled from the ashes.

Have got a question about that. Maybe I am taking things a bit far? I put the cold ash through a garden riddle (holes are about 1cm sq) and this stuff is great (usually) for banking the fire at night or to slow it down if it's going like a train in a high wind but I have also got a bagful of even smaller dross (next riddle down) and this stuff is too small to use as is - either chokes everything up or just falls through the grate bars. So my question is, can I pack it into eg old loo roll tubes, egg boxes or sugar bags etc and do I need to bind it with something to make it stick together - and if so what? Flour and water paste maybe? Seems a pity to waste it.

Then I discovered to my dismay that the freezer door wasn't properly shut last night - crammed too full! So spent another hour or so cooking/rescuing whatever had been at the fronts of the drawers and defrosted. Trying to do a ceridwen though and turn it into a blessing as in had a delicious breakfast of fish fingers followed by toasted scones and marmalade(!), have now got salmon fillets cooked ahead for tomorrow, sausage rolls for DH's pieces, sausages and a bowl of courgette and onion bhaji mixture in the fridge for tonight. Had to throw away an unopened but entirely liquid tub of icecream I bought on sticky for £1 yesterday though so not such a bargain after all - in fact it was probably trying to cram that in that caused the problem in the first place!

Off to take DD2 to her work in a minute. Hope you all have a good weekend.

ceridwen

I recently accidentally left my freezer door ajar for what musta been a day or two - whoops!!!!! Also probably because I've been trying to cram too much in it....:o

I figured that nothing had had the remotest chance to defrost - as its all covered to the gunnels with ice:o. No meat or fish in there anyway either - as I'm vegetarian. 90% of it is fruit or vegetables - and I figure I can soon enough tell if they arent quite right....decided I'd better haul out a few things a week and actually USE them:) and will defrost it when I have a chunk of time (so - probably next weekend then......).

....goes off muttering to self "JUST how much food do you honestly think one person can eat ceridwen? Time for a bit of a use-up of stocks anyway".

I hate turning down a good chance of food/wasting any if I can help it - couple that with I've been stocking-up more than normal (because of the problem I'm having with finding somewhere I can actually put some savings without them losing value due to those measly interest rates payable at present.....so I've bought as much food as I possibly can in order to ensure that a little bit of my money at least "retains its value").

Really really DO need somewhere soon where I can safely (ie no losses from inflation!) put a bit more than the basic emergency savings I currently have (ie I have enough to live on for 6 months as the pundits keep advising us to do...but I just dont have anything else left that I require to buy/could possibly buy anyway now - so it has got to be either saved or given away and dont want to give it away - as I know there is some VERY expensive work that needs doing on my house when I can...ie PV roof panels and a new kitchen..).

So - if anyone DOES find a safe place to stash some extra savings (ie with a rate of interest payable that will at least match inflation) DO tell...please....

Rosanna79

Ceridwen
Oh & I used to live in the same London borough where the MP was stabbed - in the news this week. It was a friendly, pleasant street for first time buyers and New Year was the most fun with everyone out on the streets dancing, being friendly. Never experienced anything like it anywhere else.

Slowly over a period of years the culural mix changed and we found ourselves ethnically a minority in our own capital city. In itself this was an interesting experience but fireworks formed part of other cultural celebrations such as Diwali and for some of our neighbours even our New Year.

Youths would start setting off fireworks in early October and it would continue well after our Guy Fawkes. When, however, our street celebration of New Year was hijacked by other cultures throwing firecrackers across the street at us it was too alien.

That and the local youngsters having few places to play and using our bay windows as goal posts for their football games led to us calling time on the 18 years we'd lived in the area.
Now we can live in the back of our property I count my blessings but that's for the other thread.

Gailey
We never buy food at our local Wilkos- agree with you on that. We shop around between Wilkos, Home Bargains , Heron and Aldi on our local High St. Anything we can't find we go to Mr.M

Good meat market in our area, Usually go at the end of business for bargains unless I want minced lamb as I always make my own burgers and kebabs, Have done for the last 25 years.

Mrs Veg Plot
I make lots of chutney for Christmas presents for family and friends. Did this first time last years and findin people asking if I'm doing the same this year? So I must be doing something right?

As for weight loss - when you are ready I really would recommend asking your GP to refer you to the hospital dietitian. I've lost weight with W/W before but the diet mentality of slimming clubs doesn't really help one to change to the mindset of a permanent healthy lifestyle to keep it off. W/W is about £5 / week to get weighed. Seeing your NHS dietitan or even your practice nurse at the surgery for regular weighing /support is free AND keeps you motivated as well as being in the driving seat.

Look at it as longterm thing - I've allowed about 2 years to lose the bigger part of 4 1/2 stone... much more do-able
If you're gardening you're exercising as well and you'll probably find a local led health walk scheme to join. As well as meeting people you're talking while you're walking and the time passes very pleasantly.

Only drawback can be the lovely lunches available at the end of some walks! but hey it's a social occasion as well so the balance is up to the individual!

Best of luck with that

jackieglasgow

seasalt, I grew up in a house with a coal fire, and my mum and gran would mix up the dross with water and pack it onto the fire to keep it going over night in the winter, they even had a "special" dross bucket, solely for this purpose. HTH

juliethemuse

my mum and dad did that too, i always preferred a coal fire which we had when we first got married back in 1983 :eek: god i feel so old, mind you we were often so poor we couldnt afford much coal i reckon it was about £4 per sack, my dad told me the other Sunday when i rang him its now £15 a bag , is that right? sounds an awful lot, anyways i used to go out collecting wood with my SIL to burn on the fire and it would be forever sparking and blowing onto the rug, it had more burn marks than wool in it!

jackieglasgow

We had an old pice of arpet in front of the fire, which was like that, it always got whipped away when visitors were in :rotfl:

jackieglasgow

I think my keyboard need vacuuming, some of the keys are very odd!

seasalt_2

jackieglasgow wrote: »

seasalt, I grew up in a house with a coal fire, and my mum and gran would mix up the dross with water and pack it onto the fire to keep it going over night in the winter, they even had a "special" dross bucket, solely for this purpose. HTH

Thanks jackie. I also remember my grandad mixing water with very small dross, practically coal dust, and packing it into sugar bags to make "bricks" which I seem to remember burnt quite well. And in the days when I had an open fire I used to bank it up with dross/ashes on winter nights too. I have now got two dross buckets - bigger dross that I use to keep the stove in/down at night and this very small but jaggy stuff that I am wondering if I can make into bricks of some kind as I have not been very successful using it, even mixed with the bigger stuff, to bank it in at night. Will have to experiment.

ETA And thank you julie too.

juliethemuse

ooh this has brought back memories, mum was so nosy , if one of the neighbours chimney had thick black smoke coming out she would say (in her broad lincolnshire accent ) ' i reckion she's bonning last weeks!!' i'm still not sure to this day what 'last weeks' meant unless it was err.. sanitary towels!:rotfl:
and i never could get the fire to stay in all night, it was always out in the morning, and would be absolutely freezing, we always seemed to be run out of something, be it firelighters, sticks , coal or matches,
i would have to get a light off the cooker,