Frugal Living Challenge 2011 - part 1

alec_eiffel

Lily_The_Legend wrote: »

Good idea, thanks. I just find it a bit odd to go out for a meal for a toddler's birthday. I thought we'd just be having tea and cake or something! Maybe I am just out of touch lol. :rotfl:

No, I agree with you, I know I'm out of touch as I have no children but I do my best to hide my surprise at some of the stuff I hear about. My mum freely admits when I was very little I had a pan, a wooden spoon and a load of pegs to play with at Christmas when she thought I was too young to understand what it was all about.

Lily_The_Legend

alec_eiffel wrote: »

No, I agree with you, I know I'm out of touch as I have no children but I do my best to hide my surprise at some of the stuff I hear about. My mum freely admits when I was very little I had a pan, a wooden spoon and a load of pegs to play with at Christmas when she thought I was too young to understand what it was all about.

I don't have kids either. I was saying to DH last night the first birthday I can remember was when I was four or five. Table cloth on the floor, all my friends round it, and jelly and ice cream and that sort of thing. Lovely time I had too.

I don't think I had a meal out for my birthday until I was about 11. Oh, and a swimming party once!

lynzpower

itsallinthemind wrote: »

Depends. 95% of the time yes a O2 sim works in a unlocked Tesco mobile, but not the other way. If the phone is seriously ancient or if you have an iphone the answer is no. However, they do free sim cards https://www.tescomobile-freesim.co.uk/ (order to a relatives?). You would not want to use that one long term though as you do not get the best deal on it, but you would get to see if it works before buying the proper sim. If you give me make and model my friend will probably know as he has useful/useless geeky info in his poor head. Scary man

Ahhh ok . I have a Iphone 3 (the old one)

Im guessing this is a no then

I dont think that there is any offers for sim only with unlimited data that I have seen apart from what I have already got which ends up 30.00. I might as well get a brand new one and pay 35 a month and get a new phone, but really I cant afford that in any case, but I do use the data a lot/.

Kerfuffle

Lily_The_Legend wrote: »

*snip

Erm, quick question, how do you deal with people who think you're made of money? :mad: We're going to my SIL's tomorrow night for a meal to celebrate MIL's birthday and SIL said if she does the food can we buy a bunch of flowers from all of us for MIL? DH has already bought MIL a present, plus we sorted out all the food on Boxing Day, SIL did not offer to bring anything then - didn't even bring a bottle! So why should we buy flowers? Sorry if I sound mean.

Also, she's told us that we're going out for a meal to Pizza Express for her son's second birthday later this month. :eek: We have the Clubcard Deals vouchers but we wanted to keep them for meals for us two. I think she's been really sneaky as we can't exactly say we can't afford to go. As much as I love my nephew, I just don't think it's necessary to go out for a meal for a two-year-old's birthday.

Help!

Lily_The_Legend wrote: »

Good idea, thanks. I just find it a bit odd to go out for a meal for a toddler's birthday. I thought we'd just be having tea and cake or something! Maybe I am just out of touch lol. :rotfl:

Hi Lily,

What I would do and what I would want to do are two completely different things :rotfl:

I would prefer to maybe buy a cheaper (but nice ) pot plant and say you bought that instead of a bunch of flowers because it would last longer, and then on the day of the meal 'come down with something/sniffles/lurgy etc' :rotfl:

What I probably would do is go along with it to keep face and then live off baked beans until I've got my money straight.:D

Reading between the lines though, it wouldn't surprise me if your SIL isn't having money issues herself and she's trying to do things on the cheap. Ie not contributing to Boxing Day, 'buying' a present for MIL (you don't know what she paid or where she got it from) and telling you what to spend your money on, and then having you join them for a pizza meal for nephews birthday, which no doubt you will expected to pay half the cost of regardless of what you all ate.

The pizza vouchers via e-news letter sounds like a great plan, if she is having money problems then showing her what you can do might show her the way to go.

Toodles

lynzpower

Lily_The_Legend wrote: »

Well I managed to not spend anything at Tesco. There are lots of bargain Christmas cards, wrap and gift bags if anyone is interested.

Erm, quick question, how do you deal with people who think you're made of money? :mad: We're going to my SIL's tomorrow night for a meal to celebrate MIL's birthday and SIL said if she does the food can we buy a bunch of flowers from all of us for MIL? DH has already bought MIL a present, plus we sorted out all the food on Boxing Day, SIL did not offer to bring anything then - didn't even bring a bottle! So why should we buy flowers? Sorry if I sound mean.

Also, she's told us that we're going out for a meal to Pizza Express for her son's second birthday later this month. :eek: We have the Clubcard Deals vouchers but we wanted to keep them for meals for us two. I think she's been really sneaky as we can't exactly say we can't afford to go. As much as I love my nephew, I just don't think it's necessary to go out for a meal for a two-year-old's birthday.

SIL has been ok lately, but in the past has been a total control freak and it looks like she's back to her old ways. :eek: (Doesn't help that I'm a control freak too :rotfl:) But the thing with her is that if you try to reason with her etc she gets worse/lays on emotional blackmail/cries :eek::eek::eek:)

Help!

Lily have you told them the truth?

I wear my poverty on my sleeve as it were- even when Im not actually poor I would lay it on with a trowel.

Now it is actually real and I'm not earning its a lot easier anyway because most people couldn't afford to do this themselves ( give up work and go to uni) and they are wondering how do you manage it. Well we manage it by going without over the years.

mind you I simply tell people what i can and cant afford and what I will and wont spend money on and I dont care who knows.

As someone once said, I dont have to save face, just money.

I would tell them straight personally.

2 year old wont want pizza express, its for the parents

and no, flowers are not necessaries. they only die. I don't like to give flowers. If you felt inclined you could knock up a HM cake for pence would mean a lot more than some dying blooms.

Feel for you xx

mooomin

Lily_The_Legend wrote: »

I don't have kids either. I was saying to DH last night the first birthday I can remember was when I was four or five. Table cloth on the floor, all my friends round it, and jelly and ice cream and that sort of thing. Lovely time I had too.

I don't think I had a meal out for my birthday until I was about 11. Oh, and a swimming party once!

I always used to have a party at home with a home-made cake when I was wee and loved it - the highlight used to be going to the video rental shop to choose our own film

I have a friend whose daughter is 12 or 13. One birthday my friend hired a limo for her kid and paid for a group of her friends to get a "makeover" in some shop then took them all out to the cinema too. She was complaining this year that "parents have to keep up with each other for parties etc" but it's parents like her who make it hard for other people in my opinion.

I have a 2 year old nephew and wouldn't go out to a restaurant for dinner to celebrate his birthday, he's too young to understand (and is a little terror!!)

Kerfuffle

[QUOTE=lynzpower;39888466]Ahhh ok . I have a Iphone 3 (the old one)

Im guessing this is a no then [/QUOTE]

Oh my goodness lynzpower, if your Iphone 3 is 'an old one' my O2 X3 must be positively fossilized!:rotfl:It's such a shame 'cos it's a cute dinky little thing too .

Lily_The_Legend

Kerfuffle wrote: »

Hi Lily,

What I would do and what I would want to do are two completely different things :rotfl:

I would prefer to maybe buy a cheaper (but nice ) pot plant and say you bought that instead of a bunch of flowers because it would last longer, and then on the day of the meal 'come down with something/sniffles/lurgy etc' :rotfl:

What I probably would do is go along with it to keep face and then live off baked beans until I've got my money straight.:D

Reading between the lines though, it wouldn't surprise me if your SIL isn't having money issues herself and she's trying to do things on the cheap. Ie not contributing to Boxing Day, 'buying' a present for MIL (you don't know what she paid or where she got it from) and telling you what to spend your money on, and then having you join them for a pizza meal for nephews birthday, which no doubt you will expected to pay half the cost of regardless of what you all ate.

The pizza vouchers via e-news letter sounds like a great plan, if she is having money problems then showing her what you can do might show her the way to go.

Toodles

Maybe she is having money problems. She got Deals vouchers for Christmas too, so they'll probably be using them. :think:

I did say to DH perhaps they could buy all of our food with their vouchers! :rotfl:

lynzpower wrote: »

Lily have you told them the truth?

I wear my poverty on my sleeve as it were- even when Im not actually poor I would lay it on with a trowel.

Now it is actually real and I'm not earning its a lot easier anyway because most people couldn't afford to do this themselves ( give up work and go to uni) and they are wondering how do you manage it. Well we manage it by going without over the years.

mind you I simply tell people what i can and cant afford and what I will and wont spend money on and I dont care who knows.

As someone once said, I dont have to save face, just money.

I would tell them straight personally.

2 year old wont want pizza express, its for the parents

and no, flowers are not necessaries. they only die. I don't like to give flowers. If you felt inclined you could knock up a HM cake for pence would mean a lot more than some dying blooms.

Feel for you xx

That's a good idea, I could make her some birthday buns or a cake.

Also, DH made some peppermint creams over Christmas, so maybe he could make some of those for after the meal.

I know what we'll be doing tonight then! :eek:

I do feel like sending SIL an email to give her a gentle reminder that my husband i.e. her brother is losing his job this year! :mad:

Kerfuffle

The first time I had a birthday 'party' ( and I use that word lightly!) was when I was 7 years old. I remember some presents, I don't remember us having any food let alone cake or jelly, and we all went looking for frogspawn.

The 'party' drifted away and that was the end of that.:o

The second time I had a birthday party I was 40 and we did have cake and jelly!!:rotfl::rotfl:

Kerfuffle

Lily_The_Legend wrote: »

Maybe she is having money problems. She got Deals vouchers for Christmas too, so they'll probably be using them. :think:

or maybe she's already used them to 'buy' the gift. Do you know what it is yet?