Frugal Living 2011 - the preparation stage

londonirish_3

morning sparkel76, I use bold/ariel at the moment and have loads eft, its a strong lavendar smell so I intend to use the soapnuts (i assume they dont smell of anything???) and pop a little plop of bold gel into the fab con part. wiill only do this with the bedding and school shirt wash, so it stretches.

I already pop a tiny bit of gel in the softner part and clothes smell gorgeous, no problems with gel remaining on clothes or anything like that.

londonirish_3

thanks nualabuala , I am strangely excited to get them and try them. ;D

NualaBuala

Haha, I know what you mean .. I get excited about these things too! :rotfl:

Sparkle, not sure about using them with washing powder as I've never tried it. I guess it would give them a boost. Can't see the harm if you've no issues with skin sensitivity to washing powder. I've heard some people say they successfully wash clothes just using the water and the agitation provided by the washing machine so I'm sure we all use a lot more detergent than is needed anyway! If it's just for the smell ... I use essential oils to get a nice smell (but not sure what the Bold smell would be!). I just add a few drops to the little cotton bag holding the soapnuts - I found that worked better than adding it to the fabric conditioner dispenser.

lynzpower

I tried nmaking gloop last year which worked out ok, but I did get some patchy white bits where the gloop didnt work well no low temps and didnt melt. One day I hadnt realised and I went out in it, someone thought a bird had poo'd on me I also notice that soda crystals have really gone up as well, has anyone noticed or am i just shopping in the wrong places?

So I am back on powder, but the cheapie, and it is 75p a box that lasts us 3 weeks. Although I could easily stretch it to four weeks by being more careful with it I suppose :think:

I am trying to work on the budget and will post up later today.

sparkle76

Hi all,
Hmm will give the soapnuts a try then with the Bold powder to try and make it last longer. I only ever get the powder when it's on a deal anyway, so the soapnuts will make the savings last longer. I do have loads of essential oils too but tend to use the for beauty products which last ages and feel bad to 'waste' them in one wash in the machine... still, when some are losing their scent I can use them up in the machine I suppose.

Only thing I can think of cutting back is LoveFilm, we're just waiting for a series that we really really want to see, then will cancel it.
Shopping together was a bad idea as spent too much, so OH goes now and this saves cash and time, as I can do bits in the house when he goes.
Our cat needed treatment as doesn't get on with the high sodium cat foods from supermarkets, so we now get him low sodium ones from the vet. Makes me mad that the cat food brands are allowed to add salt, he was weeing blood as a result. I guess he's more sensitive to it than others but it's crazy they can do that... so we can't save money there.
Hmm, thinking cap on, as will need to save whatever we can for when baby arrives, and we're still not used to the idea!

lynzpower

Hiya sparkle

have you tried shopping around with the vets? we were taking our dog to one vets, then we found another one. The second one is slightly cheaper for the consultations ( about a fiver in it) but massively cheaper (1/3rd to half) on "consumables".

You can also get a prescription from the vet and go to online vets to buy things if it is a prescription item?

Sometimes I think vets should be "wearing a mask" once all the vet did was stroke our dog and that ended up being 75 quid plus vat! I keep trying to encourage OH to veterinary training but he is having none of it

slowlyfading

It's so cold

Arctic_Sky

slowlyfading wrote: »

It's so cold

Ain't it just? It was -12 when I set off for work this morning... and that was at 9am, having been rung by the Team Manager at quarter to eight to be told that one worker was already there and couldn't get in as the locks were frozen. Cue PA (that'd be me) to the rescue, hunting down the facilities number in my own cosy home and getting someone out to see it.

i was dreading the walk to work - It's all downhill from where I live, but thankfully (in some ways) the snow hadn't even begun to melt yesterday, so it was all just snow, not ice!

Got some fab pictures when I went for a walk in the woods with Le BF on weds - up to my thighs in some places!

Aaannnyway, back to budgeting *cough* Am going to spend a little this week in getting an emergency supply pack together, i.e. beans, UHT milk, rice pudding etc. Thankfully this shouldn't cost much, as I always buy Sa*nsbury's Basics and add some salt and garam massala to give it flavour the thought of paying 50p - 80p for a tin of beans now makes me :eek:

:beer: (non-alcoholic for you, naturellement, sparkles) to all - we made it to the weekend!

sparkle76

Hi lynzpower it's Hills Nutrition that is costing, it's called CD think, not prescription but they do order it in. I don't think he's supposed to me on it for good, only until vet says he's back to normal. Then we have to 'find' something he's om with - seems to be most supermarket stuff won't suit, so it might have to be Hills 'nlrmal' dry food for once he's 100%.

slowlyfading tell me about it - am only one who made it into the office, so my shoes are off and feet ON the actual heater! Will leave just after 3 I think as so treacherous out there and slippy now sun has come out...

Arctic Sky sounds fun in the snow - I hadn't braved it until this morning, took an hour and 45 mins to get to work, plus craving chips with salt and vinegar at 10:30am.... No more alcohol for me indeed, haven't even wanted any and in fact, last time I had a glass of wine I only had half, and I suddenly thought 'hmmm, that ain't like me, wonder what's up?'... cue weeing on a stick the very next morning

[In the hopes that only you secret people read this thread and no-one else will, and because I already knew some of you pre Sparkle... I'm secretly, shy, EagerLearner ]

slowlyfading

OOoh, I didn't know that, Sparkle! :hello: