A Year of Living Frugabulously

vasseur

Lula-Hula wrote: »

I feel a lot better knowing the situation & what I have to work with,

Forewarned is forearmed (or something). You're more than equipped to deal with this and the fact that you didn't think about it means you're more relaxed about it.

Lula-Hula

Hey guys,

thanks for the ego boost cherryjack :A, I am looking around, but still hoping to stay where I am & help shift the business in a new direction.


I went to meet up with guys at the pub yesterday, it was a bit of a small group though; only Highly Annoying & Laidback Dude were there. I was driving so only spent £3.50 but we all agreed to have another 'proper bevy session' soon .

I got home & got on with my home-job & then attempted to fill in the form for claiming help with the rent. Actually, I think I'd prefer to be a bit worse off, it's a heinously tedious questionnaire & I've put it aside for a day or two ...

I still have every one of the pounds that I had this time last week so decided to call in Davina for a workout with weights. I'm leaving out all lunges & my knees have finally stopped crunching & aching :j.

After a long soak I did a bit of survey work & have now claimed another £10 Amazon voucher; I now have £25 .

This morning dear Littlest alerted me that she would be needing ingredients for Food Tech tomorrow so I had to trot off to Sainsbugs after work & got her stuff & a new basil plant for me, spending just £3. I got a £2 coin in my change so fed that to Jasper the Cat & now have £72 .

Quick march round the park in the sunshine, the pond was all frozen & the ducks look a bit disconcerted but it was lovely & blew away the dusty old cobwebs from being in the office with the Goblin in the corner.

She had a go at Grumpy today too, seems to have no sense of how to behave towards the bosses. I have a laugh with them, but she's really rude, raising her voice & contradicting them.

It's funny, but the more irate & cranky she is, the happier & sunnier my disposition :rotfl:.

I'm off to get some supper now & have to admit that so far I'm enjoying finishing work early, .

RosaBernicia

Sorry to hear about the job situation Lula. Do think they're lucky to have you though especially as you're prepared to stick with them and continue helping the business get better.

Rosa xx

Lula-Hula

Oh dear, I logged in yesterday & then got distracted by something or other & never got around to posting :rotfl:

It's been an ok week at work for me; Grumpy keeps me busy with lots of little projects & I've been making sure I do enough stuff to earn my keep . The Goblin has not been appearing until about 11 - 11.30 & I think this must be her new hours, which is great as far as I'm concerned; only 2 hours of her :j - does explain why she's been so foul tempered though, I'd be very hacked off if I started work at half eleven. Ah well, this is what you get for being so amenable, flexible & desperate to please :rotfl:

I've still not finished off the intrusive HB form, they want copies of bank statements, WTC award etc etc & I'm still waiting for amended ones to arrive.

I did receive a tasty payment of £180 in to my account though :T so I'm guessing that's the additional amount I am due up to the end of the tax year & that usual weekly payments will continue.

Anyway, I woke up to the most beautiful scene today; about 4 inches of snow overnight & it looked stunning out there.

Took DD to school, stopping off at the cashpoint on the way - I'm getting quite good at remembering now - & was in waitr:)se by 8.30. Had a bit of a fruit & veg buying frenzy & despite all good intentions of coming in way under budget ... I eventually handed over £55.57 at the till :eek:. This was only possible because I had an extra £10 on me that I'd discovered in another bag & I was quite cross with myself, although I really didn't buy anything extravagant.

About £8 of that total was on household & toiletries & of the £47 remaining, nearly £10 was on dairy ( milk, yoghurts, cheese) £7 on chicken & sausages, £8 on basic groceries & the rest was on fruit & veg. It just happened that I needed a couple of herb pots ( coriander & parsley) as well as the usual veg.

I came home, cleaned out the freezer before stacking stuff in there & then threw my half price organic broccoli along with an onion, potato, parsnip & carrot into the slow cooker with some water & stock & then headed off out to the woods with my wellies :j.

I parked up at my usual after-work place & took a different route. It was just *m*a*g*i*c*a*l* out there, trees glistening with snow, birds tweeting & me crump, crump, crumping along in my wellies . I walked for about an hour, through the woods, around the ponds with disconcerted ducks & saw many lovely doggies having fun too, FABULOUS

Eventually the cold started to get to me so I headed homewards, stopping off at the garden centre on the way to see if they had any herb pots/trays. Being a bit of neat freak; I do like them to be all tidy on the windowsill They had the sweetest little set of 3 white pots embossed with white hearts on a white clay tray for just £12 so I treated myself to that with some of my ever decreasing pocket money from the fairy purse, very FABULOUS

I did not buy the 2 tier china cake stand patterned with hearts for £15, I did not buy the pretty bone chin mug pattterned with spots for £3 & I did not buy the pink kitchen scales that are exactly the same as my black ones for £13. Nor did I buy the equally tempting purple ones . Very FRUGAL

Strangely, it was having to choose between the pink & the purple that actually saved me from buying either, I realised just how silly it was to buy an identical product to one I have, based purely on colour. This is how retailers are still emptying our purses, colour is the last means of getting us to replace items that are in otherwise perfectly good working order . How shallow is that .


Ethics & intelligence intact, I received a £2 coin in my change so that has gone in the Jasper the Cat pot where I now have £74 .

The funds were topped up yesterday & are all quite healthy :

ChildCare : £210
Xmas Savings : £60
Gifts : £60
Fun : £51.20

After my waitr:)se frenzy, I have just £7.80 in the weekly household spends purse, but DD is on packed lunches next week as at lovely childminders, & we've plenty of meals & supplies in + 2 bottles of milk in the freezer. Interestingly, according to the label, you cannot freeze either sainsbugs or co op milk, whereas it says you can with the waitrose stuff.


Postie arrived bearing a rather tempting £4.50 Tatco clubcard voucher. Usually these went on fuel, but clearly, as I no longer shop there this year, I cant use it for that, but would it be perfectly fine to use it to pay for something that is exactly £4.50 I wonder :think: ... ?

Off to do a spot of hoovering before DD gets in ( have to make it look like I've done something domestic:rotfl:)

Bye for now
xx

DedicatedDFW

Lula-Hula wrote: »

Oh dear, I logged in yesterday & then got distracted by something or other & never got around to posting :rotfl:

It's been an ok week at work for me; Grumpy keeps me busy with lots of little projects & I've been making sure I do enough stuff to earn my keep . The Goblin has not been appearing until about 11 - 11.30 & I think this must be her new hours, which is great as far as I'm concerned; only 2 hours of her :j - does explain why she's been so foul tempered though, I'd be very hacked off if I started work at half eleven. Ah well, this is what you get for being so amenable, flexible & desperate to please :rotfl:

I've still not finished off the intrusive HB form, they want copies of bank statements, WTC award etc etc & I'm still waiting for amended ones to arrive.

I did receive a tasty payment of £180 in to my account though :T so I'm guessing that's the additional amount I am due up to the end of the tax year & that usual weekly payments will continue.

Anyway, I woke up to the most beautiful scene today; about 4 inches of snow overnight & it looked stunning out there.

Took DD to school, stopping off at the cashpoint on the way - I'm getting quite good at remembering now - & was in waitr:)se by 8.30. Had a bit of a fruit & veg buying frenzy & despite all good intentions of coming in way under budget ... I eventually handed over £55.57 at the till :eek:. This was only possible because I had an extra £10 on me that I'd discovered in another bag & I was quite cross with myself, although I really didn't buy anything extravagant.

About £8 of that total was on household & toiletries & of the £47 remaining, nearly £10 was on dairy ( milk, yoghurts, cheese) £7 on chicken & sausages, £8 on basic groceries & the rest was on fruit & veg. It just happened that I needed a couple of herb pots ( coriander & parsley) as well as the usual veg.

I came home, cleaned out the freezer before stacking stuff in there & then threw my half price organic broccoli along with an onion, potato, parsnip & carrot into the slow cooker with some water & stock & then headed off out to the woods with my wellies :j.

I parked up at my usual after-work place & took a different route. It was just *m*a*g*i*c*a*l* out there, trees glistening with snow, birds tweeting & me crump, crump, crumping along in my wellies . I walked for about an hour, through the woods, around the ponds with disconcerted ducks & saw many lovely doggies having fun too, FABULOUS

Eventually the cold started to get to me so I headed homewards, stopping off at the garden centre on the way to see if they had any herb pots/trays. Being a bit of neat freak; I do like them to be all tidy on the windowsill They had the sweetest little set of 3 white pots embossed with white hearts on a white clay tray for just £12 so I treated myself to that with some of my ever decreasing pocket money from the fairy purse, very FABULOUS

I did not buy the 2 tier china cake stand patterned with hearts for £15, I did not buy the pretty bone chin mug pattterned with spots for £3 & I did not buy the pink kitchen scales that are exactly the same as my black ones for £13. Nor did I buy the equally tempting purple ones . Very FRUGAL

Strangely, it was having to choose between the pink & the purple that actually saved me from buying either, I realised just how silly it was to buy an identical product to one I have, based purely on colour. This is how retailers are still emptying our purses, colour is the last means of getting us to replace items that are in otherwise perfectly good working order . How shallow is that .


Ethics & intelligence intact, I received a £2 coin in my change so that has gone in the Jasper the Cat pot where I now have £74 .

The funds were topped up yesterday & are all quite healthy :

ChildCare : £210
Xmas Savings : £60
Gifts : £60
Fun : £51.20

After my waitr:)se frenzy, I have just £7.80 in the weekly household spends purse, but DD is on packed lunches next week as at lovely childminders, & we've plenty of meals & supplies in + 2 bottles of milk in the freezer. Interestingly, according to the label, you cannot freeze either sainsbugs or co op milk, whereas it says you can with the waitrose stuff.


Postie arrived bearing a rather tempting £4.50 Tatco clubcard voucher. Usually these went on fuel, but clearly, as I no longer shop there this year, I cant use it for that, but would it be perfectly fine to use it to pay for something that is exactly £4.50 I wonder :think: ... ?

Off to do a spot of hoovering before DD gets in ( have to make it look like I've done something domestic:rotfl:)

Bye for now
xx

Hi lula :wave:

I 'met' you on the clothes challenge this year and spotted your thread so thought i'd have a little read

Really sorry to hear about the work situation but can see that you have worked out everything you can so far - hopefully with help from HB etc. (sorry i can't help with these things as i don't have a clue about them ) then things worn't be so tight *fingers crossed for you*

I might have to pinch an idea from you if thats ok? you just mentioned a fairy purse? Do you have an actual separate purse for your own personal 'spending money' as such? I think this is a fab idea and would be brilliant for me and stop my money frittering away to goodness knows where Now just got to find out how much spends i can allow myself I am on the debt free journey but firmly believe if we didn't have a little bit for treats / spends there's be a massive splurge :eek: Actually my lovely mother treated me the other day to cheer me up - some new shoes from primarni - very fabulous indeed , some new pjs - did make me wonder if she'd seen the actual pants and jumper i normally wear - also from primarni and so snuggly warm and in the sale too :T I wore them last night and i felt like i was a piece of toast :j And a pair of leggings and a top from a shop that was closing down and these were hugely reduced. She wouldn't hear of anything being returned either

Good news on the extra money you've received - with the shopping - not to worry, it happens to us all - maybe try and trim a bit off over the next week or so if thats possible?

Very perceptive of you on the colour of things too :cool:

Ohh - what actually made me post was i was de-lighted :T:T:T with the way you describe walking in the snow crump absolutely perfect word :j:j:j

vasseur

Sounds like you have had a marvellously frugabulous day Lula.

I love the word crump too. There's a name for words that sound like the thing they describe but I can't think what it is......

Mags_cat

polesalot wrote: »

Sounds like you have had a marvellously frugabulous day Lula.

I love the word crump too. There's a name for words that sound like the thing they describe but I can't think what it is......

Onamatopaeic.

I think.

Karmacat

Magical crumping sounds wonderful, Lula!

taxi73

crumping sounds wonderful

Lula-Hula

Mags_cat wrote: »

Onamatopaeic.

I think.

Crumbs, you're exceedingly erudite Mags_cat :T what a lovely word, will have to try that one on Grumpy when we're playing WWF. I love your signature :rotfl:

I've not mentioned it recently as he keeps winnning :mad:. Admittedly when I do win, it's by a good 60+ points, but as that's only about one in every 5 games, it's barely worth a mention .

Haven't left the premises today; woke up late & had to do some laundry, surveys - £3 & some points earned - & then spent a large part of the day moaning at DD & the state of her room. I ask if she has any more stuff to be washed, she says no, I load the machine & turn it on, go in to her room & discover at least another 5 items on the floor :mad:.

Withdrawal of all communication equipment had the desired effect & now the messiest place in the home is the dining table, covered in my paperwork :whistle:.

I now nearly have all the paperwork ready to send off to the HB people, just need an ISA statement ... only get those once a year so might have to request one.

I've earned £3 from surveys so that's in my paypal account & will be used towards any ebay purchases - one bid in progress as I type. Which brings me to the next hello ...

Dedicated DFW :j lovely to see you here, & very welcome you are too .

Yes indeed, I do have 2 separate purses. One I keep for my weekly spends - I withdraw £50 from the bank & only carry that money + my debit card & 3 supermarket loyalty cards in that purse.

In my other purse I have my pocket money in cash + my clothes challenge bank account card & also my CC for any emergencies & my Boots reward card + all usual driving licence, RAC, blood donor card etc ...

I've only been doing this for a short time & while it may seem backwards to some, for me, only having the cash & loyalty cards in my weekly spends purse is more effective than in my other purse ... I was always overspending on groceries & then using the CC to pay for it, rather than face the embarassment of not having enough cash at the till


I did actually hear a very well spoken & finely dressed gentleman ( well, it was waitr:)se :rotfl:) ask the lady on the till to tell him when he got to £100 as that's all he had on him, & no cards. I was impressed at his candour & of course he got nowhere near £100 but it made me realise that I could do that too Ideally I would add up as I go round, but I always lose count somewhere & end up begin shocked at how much the total is.

I'll need to be more diligent during my next shop; I only have £61.43 left in the grocery budget :eek:.

We're going shopping tomorrow as DD requires new pyjamas so there'll be some spending going on.

Bye for now :wave: