Thrifty Gifty Santas Challenge 2014

Anglea

Hi all

It did seem strange to see two Thrifty thread come up today, hope teabag finds their way over here.

I won't go into the details on a public board but after a sleepless night, I have called off the house idea, friend wasn't happy but I know I made the right decision.

What I now plan to do is think outside the box and come up with a list of alternative options that I might not have considered before including wacky ones.

Mum2one, that's a good idea re notebooks, I seemed to have been paralysed beginning the diary.

Do you think Miss H inherited the allergies? I know you had those bad episodes in recent years and wonder if there were any problems years ago too?

Susan, good luck with your money aims this year.

mum2one

Angela - sounds like you did the best thing about the house, its different having a friend crash over than giving up half the house.

re miss H and her allergies, one of the thoughts was my childhood but nothing bar asthma, mine didn't arise till 39, but the GP thinks it could be the amount of medication I'm on lowered my immune system, although I now take an anti-allergy tab, it gives some protection, so its all up in the air.

We've had Miss H at the docs - she keeps getting sick bugs - apparently she has a virus, they think she has burst blood vessels in her stomach and throat by being sick and shes got blood in her urine, so new sample to go in Wed and there rushing the testing through.

Bar that we're all ok, back to school 2mor - so sort out day for me, see if I can get the gas insurance cheaper, and ring hol company to see when they want paying as mislaid the documents... xx

Anglea

Hi all

Mum2one, poor Miss Hoodie, she really is going through the wars that's a nasty set of problems she has acquired. Re your allergies, did I imagine it but do you also have migraine allergies - I know I mentioned mine in the past on here and someone said they also had them.

House idea. I hadn't entered into the decision with a logical mind in the first place and was overriding the warning bells. Yesterday several things happened which made me face reality. Apart from these, I also had severe stomach pains on and off for a few days which I'm sure related to it all.

mum2one

Anglea wrote: »

Hi all

Mum2one, poor Miss Hoodie, she really is going through the wars that's a nasty set of problems she has acquired. Re your allergies, did I imagine it but do you also have migraine allergies - I know I mentioned mine in the past on here and someone said they also had them.

House idea. I hadn't entered into the decision with a logical mind in the first place and was overriding the warning bells. Yesterday several things happened which made me face reality. Apart from these, I also had severe stomach pains on and off for a few days which I'm sure related to it all.

thank you, just seems to have come at once. I get the ocassional migraine but there stress related and that triggers IBS so its all fun, I think someone has to keep the doctors busy - thats us!!

At least with the house idea, maybe it sounded great at first, but the logical mind kicked it, - hope your ok with the stomach pains, they could be stress related, as stress kicks in different ways. Hope you feel better soon, have you got a hot water bottle you could curl up with, watch a DVD and say sod the world... (although sometimes easier said than done) xx

mrs-moneypenny

morning all
hope everyones new year problems start to ease (both health and moneywise) hope miss hoodies allergies get identified so that you know what she needs to avoid.

needed to get a friend a birthday gift for next week -so ended up going to the boots sales. spent £50 but got 2 birthday and 3 christmas gifts sorted in their 50% off sale so happy.
need to add DD2 partners kids to my birthday lists and they are both coming up in the next few weeks so must get those sorted.

did a bit more on christmas stocking over the weekend

here is my latest update.

tree and deccys are down and all went back up in the attic yesterday

Gettingtherequickly

Oh my good God, thought I would finally get a chance to see what you lot are up to and what do I find, you can't half yak! Will have to try again when I get a chance.

Happy new year everyone, hope you had a wonderful stress free Christmas and New Year and well on way to this years prep.

Lina_T

Hi everyone, I hope it's ok if I join in! I only posted very sporadically in the 2013 thread and managed to half the cost of Christmas but am hoping to properly go for it this year, and have a money-neutral Christmas AND birthdays AND Mothers Days/Valentines Days etc.

It's gonna be tough but I'm off to a good start.

Bought all my Christmas cards and wrapping paper for next year in the Card F@ctory sale - got all of them for £8.51. The only card I didn't get is a boyfriend one, in case I get a proposal during the year and need to buy for fiance. Ever the optimist :rotfl:

For birthdays in the next couple of months I've put away some regifts from Christmas, and will be using cashback/loyalty points to top them up a bit if they need it. I picked up a hand cream for £0.30 at Boux @venue after using my loyalty points which has gone into one of the gifts.

Total cashback in account is £21.71, total spend is £8.81 so I am £12.90 in credit (can you tell I'm doing this to the penny?)

mrs-moneypenny

just been sains local loads of christmas stuff is rtc really cheap little girls lego led torches were £5.60 now 80p wrapping paper was £2 now 20p. even birthday boy and girl rosettes are rtc to 10p each.

Anglea

Hi all

Sorry this post is like an essay, things on my mind.

Mum2one, luckily the stomach pains didn't last long both times, but arkward as I was out Saturday.

Today I overslept, got woken by text from excessive texter friend at 11.30 !!! I was in the middle of a nightmare about losing DS1, I'm sure it's all related to those 2 calls I had to house friend, today it's all going round my head non stop to the point I was actually wondering whether to say it's ok for him to move in - not a good idea..

I am also overthinking the birhday/Christmas/Dairy Diary it's as though I'm coming up with too many ways to begin - this may sound a bit mad to some of you, but it's as though I want the most perfect way to organise myself (after last year's fiasco) so too scared to start in case it's the wrong way..This is also probably related to the worry I've got at the moment re the lodger. He said it was ok and we were still friends but he was upset. I did remind him that originally I was going to do this only as a last resort in the summer and I felt under pressure to agree to it by a group of friends when he asked me some weeks ago. I didn't have enough time to think it all through properly.

I'm currenly going through MIL's home, sorting out suitable clothes to take to care home as house is being sold (which means me trying them all on she's got loads to see if they will fit her - as they are a variety of sizes) and also going through stuff - I'm taking home bin bags of stuff eg photos, handwritten notebooks, one is a very old one of recipes, hand embroidered bits by DS's great grandmother as well as the maid who lived in the attic which was very dark, ex said they didn't add the skylight until years later (when he was small) so must have been embroidering in very bad light , some clothes that would have been thrown out by ex. At a later stage they are getting auctioneers in, I might end up with some chairs or something else if no one else wants them.

No-one wanted the rolls of wrapping paper - Christmas and birthdays so I took those home. You can guess I was thinking of this thread.

Ex found over 500 birthday cards written to them over the years.

Hi Lina welcome to you :T

Mrs M, the stocking is coming on really well.

Lina_T

Thanks Anglea, nice to virtual-meet you

I just ordered 10 free sample business cards through Moo I found on the freebie board here https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/2285295

I got them in a lovely vintage typewriter design and changed the text on the back to:

To:

Happy Birthday
Have a Lovely Day,

From:

I've had Moo cards before and they're lovely quality, so these should make some nice free tags for birthday presents. Bit cheeky but we have to save where we can!