From Frugal Foundations to Fortified Family Future

redofromstart

I don't think I went in until my mid teens, and went in for the first time in my mid teens on a school day trip to London.  Didn't eat them again until I was a student because I don't like burgers.  Turns out I didn't like cheap home cooked burgers. Funnily enough I didn't think I liked pizza either.  As a grown up who travelled for work it has reasonably priced drinkable coffee, even on the motorway.

anyway the self service thing is easy to use - card payment.  Press the button to say you are not a member and it is simple after that.

If you go on the right day then the spicy veggie wrap is £1.99.  Mondays and Thursdays.  Coffee is £1.39 (white or americano)/Tea is 99p

The happy meal is £3.59 for which LG gets veggie dippers, a drink and some fries. Can choose book or toy.

They still do a 'fillet of fish' at £4.09/£6.39 for the meal.  The 'McPlant' or the 'Veggie Deluxe' are veg burgers at a similar price.

You can customise (take off things you don't like) on the self service machine.

It asks if you are eating in or taking out, and if you are eating in you can take a plastic number display thing, input it on the self serve and they will bring it to you.

Once you have paid it gives you a reference number and they tell you when it is ready.  If taking away ask for straws etc when you collect as they don't always out them in.

Hope this helps.  I have the App because the one who doesn't eat will happily eat McDs and it is easier to do it on the App.

Mummy Dongalls - lightly toast the muffin or burger bun, add your filling, then wrap it in baking paper and put it back in the oven for a few minutes so it steams.  It was in the 'Takeway Secret' book years ago.  I still do this sometimes.

Pollie

The tastiest part of a Mcd  meal is the hand wipe!

EssexHebridean

Oh The Takeaway Secret is a great book, I must get my copy out again for a browse! 

rtandon27

ooo - what a facinating series of books - I've just bookmarked for the next time I'm asked what book I'd like for xmas/bday/special day!

Greying_Pilgrim

Oooooohh Redo - you've made me want to use the touch screens in my local mccy'd's now......in the name of research of course......🤔  You have made it sound straightforward - thank you.  Actually, I had heard that about the reputation of the coffee - not necessarily the best cup, but pretty uniform, reliable, widely available and affordable.  

Pollie - you cracked me up with your comment 🤣

Tea was pretty pedestrian.  Omlette, mash and baked beans, and the mash was lovely - I think it was predominantly the MrS tatties from last week...... Osprey?? Yoghurt and tinned pineapple for pud.

Strong possibility the secondhand motor opportunity will come to naught.  This is probably ok, and wasn't meant to be.  Will we have to replace the car at some point?  Yes.  Does it have to be at this very moment in time, no - thankfully.  

Today I am grateful to have received a great deal of help both online and in RL.  So for that I am truly grateful. 

Thank you.

Greying X

themadvix

I’ve had a filet o fish in the last few years GP - pretty sure they’ve not changed in 20 years - you’re not missing anything! (They do a couple of tastier veggie options now, but not in France and McD’s was the cheap lunch option when taking the brownies to France.) The veggie options are better but still not a patch on real food.

Cheery_Daff

Lovely greying, if the worst LG can say about your parenting is that you didn't go to the big M then I think you're doing something right 😂

ALL parents share their experiences with their kids, and that includes things they don't do, as well as things they DO do. I have friends who are very physically active, for example - their kids do martial arts, swimming, climbing, canoeing etc. But neither of them play instruments, for example. At the band I play in, people's kids are often musical, but those kids don't go on long walks. And other friends' kids spend a lot of time playing video games, or in the garden, or kicking a ball round in the park.

They are ALL having happy, loving childhoods, and I don't have a single doubt that LG is too xxx

Greying_Pilgrim

themadvix said:

 The veggie options are better but still not a patch on real food.

Oh tmv - i did larf at your comment 🤭 I think I am getting wrapped up in what I ought to do (perhaps because 'everyone else is doing it'?), rather than what LG is necessarily asking for, or what I want to do.  Even if we did go, I would only ever see it as a "treat" or an occasional visit - I wouldn't want to open the floodgates of going regularly.  

Cheery_Daff said:

Lovely greying, if the worst LG can say about your parenting is that you didn't go to the big M then I think you're doing something right 😂

ALL parents share their experiences with their kids, and that includes things they don't do, as well as things they DO do. I have friends who are very physically active, for example - their kids do martial arts, swimming, climbing, canoeing etc. But neither of them play instruments, for example. At the band I play in, people's kids are often musical, but those kids don't go on long walks. And other friends' kids spend a lot of time playing video games, or in the garden, or kicking a ball round in the park.

They are ALL having happy, loving childhoods, and I don't have a single doubt that LG is too xxx

Dearest Cheery - that is such a great comment.  Seems blindingly obvious when you think about it, but I hadn't thought about it in those terms.  And yet, is what my own childhood experiences amounted to. 

I couldn't swim/didn't like swimming when I was a child.  My parents weren't swimmers, we never went to a swimming baths (can't even recall a paddling pool), and I discovered later in life that my dad was actually scared stiff of water.  I always thought I couldn't swim - and hated school swimming lessons.  Thankfully, as an adult, I did something about it, and I now swim and like swimming.  This, in turn has had some (positive) effect on how LG sees swimming. 

And your point about different activities is a good one.  When school get a bit onerous with their homework requirements, I wonder how you're supposed to "fit it all in" - what if your kiddo has gymnastics/swimming/Taekwondo/cricket or dance classes after school, and homework, and you want to go for a walk/to a NT property/bike riding or DofE training on a weekend?  Throw in other peoples' birthday parties to go to, as well, and you're filling up the week pretty quickly.  But what the parent(s) do/don't do does have an influence.  

Again, although Mccy'd's were a fledgling company in my youth, we didn't as a family, go there.  We didn't eat out much either.  Hence I think why it's not something that immediately springs to mind to goto now I'm an adult.  I flip-flop between thinking "we're not missing much" and "but that's the way of the modern world".  Hence my doubting myself.  Heck, when I was a kiddo, W1mpy had sit down cafe's with knives and forks (I think actually they may have returned to that model) and as for 'National M1lk Bars".......  that was about the only cafe I remember going into - about once a year, if we were lucky........... 🤭

Thanks team.  At least thanks to you I now know how to order a burger if we do go to Mccy'ds.  I know we're not missing out if we don't, and that it is still possible to have a varied and interesting childhood without doing everything everyone else is doing.  Which I know is the case deep down in my heart, but sometimes you forget. 

Frosty start with us.  Shopping day today, although  i may not go if it is too slippy.  No point.

Greying X

LotsOfTea

I really wouldn't worry too much about LG missing out on fast food joints. My DS has occasionally had a BK burger when we've stopped at a services on a long car journey which he regards as a high treat but despite most of his friends talking about going to Maccies and KFC he's not bothered that he doesn't have them. In fact every birthday (he's 12 and at secondary school now) he wants "party tea" which is sarnies, cocktail sausages, crisps and party rings. The 3 of us have that together and he's so happy with something that is very simple by modern standards. I think maybe that parents can get conned by all the advertising into thinking their kids need more to be happy than they really do. Sometimes simple is best!

Greying_Pilgrim

Thanks LotsOfTea - that is a really heartening comment.  And I'm all for "very simple by modern standards".  

Anyhoo, I did go shopping. The roadworks are still going on, and I suspect that if the contractors are in a penalty clause now, they've just decided to get done for £100k as £10k - or whatever the penalty would be.  As rushing they were not.  The traffic lights were in the wrong location again, and as folks insist on going through traffic light boxes, irrespective of whether they can exit, it is currently a log jam to access/exit MrL 🙁

I went to MrAl, MrL, hB and MrS.  I have however totted up my spending in terms of what was plain and simple grocery budget for this week, what I bought today but in actuality won't be used until 'at least' December 1st and what is not in the grocery budget, but what will be gifts. 

In MrL and a couple of other food bits I got elsewhere, I spent a total of; £33.13.  I did buy a net of red onions from the PoTW.  There were boxes in MrL today, but frankly they were a **** take.  I don't know what was greener, the copious sprouts or the green tatties......  Having said that, one box did get sold in between the time I entered and exited the shop.  Just not to me.  I spent £8,50 in MrS, but that will come from December's budget.

It was very busy everywhere, I suppose it's 'payday' for some at the end of the month.  I chose to do a smartshop (I know, go me!), on account of i only wanted a couple of things, and it was just easier to put stuff in my bag as I went along.  The till procedure was seamless today (the screen froze last time I used it - not just for me, but for the assistant as well).  

All the shopping has been packed away/shoved in the freezer.  Right, I had better crack on, as I've had a slow start today, and then shopping has used up the morning.  Will amend siggie too.

Ta for popping by, interesting convos - as ever.  Greying X