From Frugal Foundations to Fortified Family Future

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Morning MFW'rs

So I cancelled the dd to EngH yesterday.  Received the lecture about "have you ever thought about internet banking" - which, interestingly the chap in front of me, doing exactly the same thing didn't receive 🙄  Apparently, once I go over to internet banking, I can go into the branch "everyday for help" if I want to - they won't mind....... hang on a minute, if everyone is doing their own banking, a physical bank branch won't be needed, so it will be closed and will re-open as a coffee shop, won't it 🤔 I just smiled and nodded and said thank you......

The boating company have informed me that they will be taking a dd for my membership - so that is all in operation.  

I'm so sorry to learn that folk on the board are having issues with the care of family members.  It takes me straight back to the events surrounding my mother's illness, needing to move elderly parents into a smaller home and all the upheaval and upset surrounding terminal diagnosis and near end of life care and end of life care.  DH and I had very little support (there was some, and I will be forever grateful to the 2 individuals who didn't have to help, but gave help willingly where they were able).  I ran myself into the ground (covid restrictions didn't help) and also missed that LG was getting very badly bullied at school.  I have found it very hard to forgive myself.  And it took a long time to get rid of the huge amount of anger I had towards LG's teacher of the time, who was completely oblivious to what was occuring in the classroom and ended up implying that LG was some how mentally weak......  

Whilst i wish that at the time others had offered practical help, what I wish I had done more was to have sought help in the aftermath.  I did have help (eventually) from an outside source to tackle LG's bullies, and as other people saw that there really was a problem with these children - it wasn't an issue with LG - I gained confidence to seek help from the school management and we started to make inroads with the issue.  But it has taken until very recently for me to actually confront the chief bully's family and tell them exactly what I thought of them, and to leave us the heck alone.  I hadn't got the spare capacity mentally, to tackle it earlier.  And whilst we've moved to sort the issue (finally), I don't know if I can ever fully forgive myself for missing what was going on with my child, when I was being pulled from pillar to post, physically, mentally and financially by wider family member 'care' issues.

Don't be like me.  

Snap is packed, uniform laid out, homework completed. 

We've sun currently, but it's cold.  Best shift-a-tail-feather.

Greying X

in_need_of_direction

Every parent is like you. We all have regrets about things we didn’t address for our children or things that we were completely oblivious of.  

Isn’t it amazing that we will beat ourselves up over our shortcomings but will rarely take credit for what worked out well?

LotsOfTea

It's very hard as a parent not to think you could have done better in so many situations but you must remember you are just a human being doing the best you can and you cannot be perfect. My MIL looked after hundreds of foster children as well as her own brood and she likes to remind me that there are plenty of actual bad parents out there and most of us should really stop worrying about the mistakes we've made which will definitely not scar our children for life despite what we might feel. 

It's very clear that you love LG and give them a secure and happy life even if you are evil enough to sometimes give them too much curry! Stop beating yourself up, you are a good parent.

Greying_Pilgrim

INOD and LotsOfTea - thank you for your kind and supportive comments.  I greatly appreciate them.

I took off to the market town across the way, which was deathly quiet.  I only had to wait a little while at the hairdressers and it was warm and out of the wind, so not exactly a hardship!  

There was nothing spiffy in any of the chazzers - and I was amazed to be the only customer in two of them 😬  Was it just a blip, had everyone gone on hols, are the prices too high, has everyone met their affordability limit?  Who knows - it was just eery.  I spent a total of £3.49 of the grocery budget on apples and lunchbox bits.  I did have a wander through Iceyland - and was just gob smacked at the prices there.  I did pop into the teeny-tiny MrAl on the outskirts of town by the carpark, but there were no bargains, and nothing specifically I needed.  I did find some more of those tatties - Melody in amongst Saxon, but they weren't all 'baking size' like the other day, and they were highly blemished and scabby.  Too much trimming needed for £1.45 a bag.

Back home to the CT bill on the mat 😱  £110 increase for the year 😱

Right, better pick myself up, dust myself down and work out where we're gonna find £25 - and counting - per month extra 🤔  But apart from that, everything is good with us - ta for popping by and checking.  

Greying X

Cheery_Daff

Dear Greying, I think you need to go and read the wise words you just wrote on my thread about being kind to yourself! Xxx

Greying_Pilgrim

Btw LotsOfTea - your 'cruelty by curry' comment did make me laugh out loud - Thank you 😁

Thanks Cheery - there have been one or two things happening recently that brought alot of thoughts and feelings to the surface.  But perhaps standing up for Family Greying was the beginning of closure for this particular chapter in our lives.  Fingers crossed it is, anyway 🙂

We had soup for tea, as the weather has turned considerably colder.  I planned to make potato soup, to use the two (large) potatoes that had been in the MrS 'waste' box.  It turned into a 'use it up'-fest, and I was pleased that the resultant soup tasted good.  I chopped two (small) onions - they may well have been out of the MrS box too, 2 sticks of celery and the broccoli stalk that was leftover from the broccoli head (which was.... out of the MrS box).  I also diced up a chunk of swede, fried them off with some garlic and then put in some water, a stock cube, some pureed sweetcorn (it's a bit on the tough side to eat 'as is'), and the diced potato and a bay leaf.  Cooked in the PC for 10 minutes.  I naturally depressurised and it was already very thick, so I added a bit more water, but instead of adding in the evaporated milk as I had intended, i just put some whole milk in to thin it out a bit more.  I then added a bit of parsley and some mustard powder.  I topped it off with the remainder of some Feta cheese, crumbled.  It was a creamy, tasty soup - that looked and tasted much better than the individual bits and pieces that went into it would have you believe.  It all got eaten too.  

£25 extra a month to find is just the start.  Car Tax will be going up/become payable, the energy prices are going up (although I am not sure what impact it will have versus conserving use going into summer).  Dearest DH is already talking about foregoing his little bit of 'pocket money' he has each month. It really is nothing - and without it, what is the point of going to work?  I know he's loyal and wants to provide for his family, but heavens, he's got to have a few pennies to himself, hasn't he?  He doesn't go down the pub, doesn't have any expensive hobbies - he needs to have a bit of cash to spend.   

We are not the only ones having to go through our budget with a fine tooth-comb.  Onwards and upwards!

Lovely to "see" you, thanks so much for popping by.  Appreciated.  Greying X

Suffolksue

Are you able to get a part time job around school hours now LG is older ?
I think most of us have had to do this .i certainly did 40 yrs ago and there was no apparent damage to my children but my poor DH mental health improved a lot or could you work at home ?

Greying_Pilgrim

Certainly an option Suffolksue - although in terms of mental health, DH is prone to worry a wingnut off a wotnot, and would do so, even if we were millionaires 😟

LG has a full on day at school today.  Hoop jumping, assessing and performing.  Nothing that they are not capable of, but a bit full on.  I don't think I said, but activity ended up being cancelled on Monday, as the trainer was ill.  In some ways it was a relief, as it would have just added to all that is already going on this week.

I need to make curry today - although I shall try very hard to not to feed it to LG at teatime 🤣 There were a clutch of parsnips in the MrS box, and I want to turn them into curry, using a PC recipe I have, and store it in the freezer for another day.

Right, homework is done, and uniform set out.  Best go and pack up some snap.  

Greying X

Moneywhizz

I am sure most families are finding it difficult to meet the increased cost in bills this year as well as the continually increasing cost of food. I suppose it is either a case of increasing income or cutting back but it is hard when you are already on a tight budget and trying to save at the same time. Even if you could find a part time job during school hours there is all the headache of child care during the holidays to consider. Maybe looking for some side line that you could do at home would be the best way to increase your income even if it is only to keep your standard of living as it is at the moment. So hard to manage the household budget these days. 

Greying_Pilgrim

Hey Moneywhizz - I think most folk are finding it hard financially, not just families.  With different incomes and differing outgoings, it's difficult to know where solutions lie.  It may well be that we have to review what we save towards the windows.  I'm loathed to - but know better than to rule out anything - because we're already playing catch-up from when things were tighter when we were renting/the impact of furlough etc etc.  And of course, and I know many will identify with this - whilst we are trying to focus on saving for new windows, the car is really starting to creak and groan......  we're definitely at that tipping point of repairs being more and more expensive, and you get to the point of spending every penny on repairs, at the expense of saving for a new (to you) car.  Having finally got back into the position of being able to have budget pots, and allocating money to them, it's frustrating that the car's giving up before we've sufficient for a replacement.  And - like everything, second hand car prices have increased in the last few years.  Please don't read that as a moan, I'm just saying what the position is.  

Today has been a good day -  I came on to report all earlier, but there was a knock at the door (travelling sales), and I lost my post 🙄

Anyhoo, I cooked up a load of chickpeas in the PC.  Not one of my better ideas as i hadn't pre-soaked them and they ended up taking 3 x as long as usual.  Once I started with the first load, I got invested, and used the hot water to cook some more.  In total I cooked approx. 1.5kg, and filled something like 6 tubs and used the remainder in the curry.  I then made Parsnip curry.  It made something like 3 curry portions - or 6 portions for a curry plate.  Not bad for 500g of parsnips (before peeling).  The curry used up some of the root ginger, a couple more onions and the parsnips from the MrS box.  There are a couple of onions, the root ginger and some of the blueberries (now frozen) left from that box.  Other than ditching the 2 kiwi fruit, I have used up everything else in quite a timely fashion I think.

Tea tonight was veggie sausage, vegetable pasta with Broccoli (frozen - I've used up the fresh stuff).  There's a scant bit leftover for my lunch tomorrow, but LG declared this type of tea their favourite, so it was clean plates all round.  

LG had a good day at school, so that's worthy of note. 

I spent no money today. 

We're both eligible for the NW £50 payment, so that - although it's a one-off - can be offset against either the rise in water, or CT.  Clearly not a long term solution, and yes, I'd rather be putting it towards the windows if I'm honest, but having it to put towards increased bills is at least something, and for that I'm grateful.

Greying X