Frosty the Snowman - it's the 2025 Christmas thread!

Spendless

mandco said:

Spendless must be very stressful not knowing what’s happening for dd all the time & planning you’ve put in and now it’s all basically in limbo waiting for them to decide if/when they going to allow international Students to get the visas they need 

Tell me about it  We've had to make the decision to continue DD's tenancy at her current place just in case she is delayed going if she gets at all. This is costing us £3K more than anticipated due to the double rent situation! Sigh!

We now need to make cutbacks in other areas to accommodate for this. Parents are at the theatre tonight and other than reminding Mr S to get FIL something and purchasing a couple of cards I am really glad that this year's birthdays and occasions are almost done. I'm happy for me and Mr S to not actually have anything for our birthdays and just put some money into an account we're saving for a hol next year and Nan's is the only other one left and at 100 it's more a case of what can I get rather than I need to be upping the budget due to it being a milestone birthday.

I also think I need to go through what I already have in the present cupboard cos looks like it's going to have to stretch!  

Abbafan1972

Hi all - hope everyone is ok.  Sorry it's been so long since I've posted here. 

Thank you everyone who asked about my doctors appointments.  My bloods had to be repeated and they came back saying that my iron levels were low, so I have iron tablets for 3 months.  The docs want to repeat my bloods in a months time.  Am still no closer to finding out why I ache so much though.

The idea of going to the Toby Carvery for Christmas dinner seems have been put on the back burner at the moment - it hasn't been mentioned again. 

Even though this thread is about Christmas, I am nowhere near starting to even think about that yet. 

Speak soon. 

theoldmansmrs

My sister very rudely told me to go away when I told her it was only  196 sleeps until Christmas.

What she doesn't realise is that when we meet each month, the pictures I am taking is so she can have a photo book with our "adventures" in it. Each month, we make a conscious effort to meet up as life/family get in the way and it so easy to not make time for our family. As she is the only member of my immediate family that I have left, and we spent a couple of years putting our own family members before we did things for ourselves, our families know that if something happens and we cannot see each other on a planned date, it will be happening the following week.

She can't have a book of "monthly memories" if we haven't seen each other

mandco

Spendless wow that’s a crazy amount of money to have to find as a back up. I did see that advocy groups are appealing for interviews to resume asap and with certain country’s now on a total ban from entering the states which will likely reduce the amount of visas needing to be processed hopefully they will reinstate them for countries that aren’t included in the ban sooner rather than later and things will be sorted in time. 

Have you booked next years holiday or is it just in the planning stages? We’re hoping to go away next year if I can get cleared for travel insurance-as I have stuff under investigation it means they won’t cover me at the moment.

theoldmansmrs the memory book is a lovely idea I think many of us are guilty of taking lots of photos but never doing anything with them - I definitely want to get some of my favourites printed physically this year rather than just being on my phone.

abbafan long term pain & fatigue can be very hard to get a definitive diagnosis for it’s often a case of ruling out other things one at a time and vitamin deficiency can take months to correct to a level it actually starts to relieve any related symptoms so it could still be the low iron levels if that is the cause,

had a lovely week away the weather was a bit mixed 1 very wet day but overall pretty decent and found a lovely cafe that was reasonably priced right by the beach - taz got a cookie that was bigger than his face. Change of scenery was much needed and took my mind off all the appointments I have going on.
They’ve gone back to the pre Covid offer of a bottle of fizz for privilege club members instead of a £10 voucher so I now have a bottle of Prosecco for the Xmas stash( I don’t drink it) personally I’d have preferred they stayed with the voucher or at least offer a non alcoholic alternative but a freebie is a freebie.

argos have upto 1/2 price on some toys including Lego so might be worth a look - I picked up a unicorn art set for dgd now £5.50 which comes with a 3 tier storage unit which is a pretty good deal at that price - might pick up another for the Xmas donations box which is still looking very empty so far this year.

Spendless

mandco - As student visa interviews are now allowed to resume I am wondering if I panicked too early. The other side though is we would have been looking for accommodation instead in Jan to last around 6 months and who knows what would have been available and at what price then. So yes has cost us more but bought us piece of mind. . I'm guessing with today's news the US president has decided he has more pressing things to attend to rather than arguing with Unis about international students.

Dont know if this any use to anyone but saw in our cop op these little boxes of seashell chocs. I suspect aimed at the Father's Day/gity for teacher market. Thought them very cute for a £1 stocking filer if you can resist eating them between now and then. 

https://www.coop.co.uk/products/guylian-original-seashells-33g

PennysIntoPounds

I found a pack of Christmas cards on the street today that a neighbour was getting rid of so feeling very prepared card-wise!

mandco

Spendless   Great news that they’ve restarted the visa interviews. I think it’s always better to be prepared and there was no way of knowing how long it was going to be till they decided to reinstate the visas plus you still don’t know how long it’s going to take to catch up with the backlog. At least now you have options whatever happens rather than frantically trying to sort stuff last minute which no doubt would be more expensive too.  Is there any chance of a refund or sublet if dd gets approved to go and doesnt need to keep her current tenacy? 
Those chocs would be great little stocking fillers so thanks for the heads up 
 

Pennysintopounds very mse -  it always amazes me the amount if stuff people throw away that could easily be up cycled or donated.

had a small issue with Tesco and they’ve given me £30 worth of club card vouchers as a goodwill gesture which I was going to use for a reward partner voucher this week but apparently I can’t request the voucher immediately and have to wait for the next statement - do any of you do the Tesco xmas savers with your vouchers? I saw you can now top them up with cash too to get a bigger bonus so wondering if it’s worth doing that instead?

popped into b&m today and they were filling some toy clearance bins - there were 2 people blocking the bins and grabbing stuff as fast as it was being put out so a supervisor came over and told the staff member doing the reductions to go on break but did managed to pick up a couple if small stocking filer type bits for the grandkids between 20p &£1 per item out if what was left once they’d moved on. 

Dd found a tiny power bank in tkmaxx £4.99 they only had ones with the usb c type charger but if it’s any good I’m thinking they might make good stocking fillers.

PennysIntoPounds

Absolutely @mandco I'm always shocked at the stuff people throw out though I'm not complaining as it saves me money! I dont know about Tesco Xmas savers but well done on getting those vouchers, £30 is a very useful amount 

Abbafan1972

@mandco We do the Xmas savers with Tesco Clubcard and I just go on the app and put £10 in there once a month when I get paid.  I think it's worth doing yes.  We do our weekly shopping at Tescos and hubby uses the petrol station, so we always have a good amount of vouchers by Christmas time. 

I can't comment though on using a reward partner voucher though, as I've never done it. 

PennysIntoPounds

Found a book in the street that will be perfect for Mr PIP's stocking (we do a stocking challenge of £10 or under for each other)