How about this :

1) Milk 4 pints...then you don't have to go again for a week or more
2) chicken wings for the dog...something cheaper like offcuts from the butcher?
3) potatoe wedges...just some potatoes, a bulb of garlic and some Rosemary...cut, drizzle with oil, put crushed garlic and shredded Rosemary...bake 45 minutes on foil covered sheet. Much better for you.

4) coffee...try dropping a brand, or only buy on offer?
5) hot chocolate...need or want...be honest?
6) chicken nuggets...buy a chicken breast, cut, roll in flour, egg and breadcrumbs (from the bread) and shallow fry in olive or veg oil. For added fun, cut a little slit and stuff each piece with a spoonful of garlic/Rosemary butter before coating with breadcrumbs.

Yes agree with the milk, only seems to be 11p difference between 2 and 4 pints. (If you have a dog he can always have the 'dregs' if it startsto be past it's best before you use it up)

Firewyrm please stick around can see me learning a lot from you!

My last set of curtains came from a charity shop, Only £2 and much better quality than Id normally have bought. So many charity shops around nowadays, go for a trawl, bet you find something you really like It feels like youre beating the system when you get a bargain like that

Milk which is 'past it's best' is just half way to yogurt or cottage cheese....Or bread pudding...yum.

Well done julie2710! I need to stick to a shopping list!

FireWym, those rosemary wedges sound lovely, will be giving them a try and instead of buying rosemary I think I'll get a cutting off my moms plant and grow my own :-)

I've got 2 birthdays in January which I need cards for, but I have loads of card making stuff so will make them, so I don't need to buy them!

Firewyrm, thanks for the suggestions! Only problem is I didn't actually get to the supermarket at all so on the plus side spent nothing. On the down side I now have to add Calpol as my youngest is off colour and bottle is nearly empty!

I took the boys to the pantomime today. Had been booked since March. Didn't want to go to the supermarket first thing and thought I'd go on the way home, that way could do Tesco which is cheaper than the one in my town. Loved the panto. Drove back explaining to the boys that they needed to help me just get what I have on my list. Drove into a virtually empty car park at 4:55pm thinking wow thought it would be busier when it suddenly dawned on me that they had been shut nearly an hour as it's Sunday!

I might look at off cuts from the butcher. Not sure how likely they are to be cheaper. I only have a small dog and he has a completely raw meat diet. The chicken wings cost me £2 for the week so much cheaper than dog food. Coffee I always buy cheaper as its mostly for visitors. I put it in a dearer jar. The chocolate is for the boys but I'm going to try a cheaper one.

Right time to crack on with the eBay stuff!

Have you tried f*cebook for selling. I'm lucky that I have really good selling groups near me. No fees, cash on the door, Great.

This time of year the days all kind of blur into one.

Depending on how old the child is, crush a quarter to a half tablet of adult paracetamol into a teaspoon of honey. Does the same job. Calpol is just paracetamol in a sweet suspension and you pay a wad for the priviledge.



Calpol also is available in tablet form, and as a syrup in sachets and bottles. Calpol sachets are sold in several different strengths, each appropriate for a different age range:[citation needed]

• 0-5 Months (containing 0.5 mg of paracetamol per sachet)
• 5-12 Months (containing 30 mg of paracetamol per sachet)
• 1-2 Years (containing 50 mg of paracetamol per sachet)
• 3-5 Years (containing 70 mg of paracetamol per sachet)
• 6+ Years (containing 150 mg of paracetamol per sachet)

I normally get the sugar free one. It's for my youngest who is 4! Wonder if he'd take paracetamol in something else? Might be worth a go?

Rosemary seems to grow very well in pots in this country. A neighbour of mine has a whole front garden of the stuff.

You can use any strong flavour such as Sage or Oregano to achieve the same effect.

Own brand 'calpol' is loads cheaper but loving the crushed up in honey idea. Spent a fortune on the stuff over christmas.

Jam works too although I'm not sure why you would bother with 'sugar free' since its less than a teaspoon of sugar being consumed. Surely, the name of the game is to aleviate the symptoms?

It's no dearer and my poor youngest (4) has had so many antibiotics, gloopy yellow amoxicillin stuff that coats teeth making him look like he's radioactive, it has had a bad impact on his dental health, confirmed by his dentist. I probably feel so bad about it I go overboard in trying to get him to avoid sugar and acidic stuff

Please don't mess around with paracetamol, having seen a child die from paracetamol poisoning it a really unpleasant death.

Just buy the cheapest generic paracetamol suspension

The wikipedia article you have linked from has the wrong doses.

There's always one. Paracetamol is perfectly ok for children if it is taken sensibly and carefully. The solution values are correct.

People dont die of paracetamol poisoning. They die of liver failure caused by excessive paracetamol use. In adults, that's in excess of a 20 tablets to produce such an effect. In childre, considerably less, but more than the quarter to a half tablet suggested here.

When you untwist your knickers, look it up in a reputable medical text.

When I was a kid i would be given half an adult painkiller in a spoon of jam to make it more palatable.

Or scones yummy

Not sure if it's the same all over the country but here in London we have a minor ailments scheme, basically if you need medication such as calpol, cough medicine etc. You can see the pharmacist who can help you fill in a form and you get the medicine in the same way as a prescription, ie free for children or for those on benefits. My daughter has 2 kids and has saved a fortune by using this scheme. EDIT found the link to find out if your local pharmacies offer the scheme, scroll down to the bottom http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/Pharmacy/Pages/Commonconditions.aspx Other alternative is to ring the surgery and ask for a prescription, HTH

Ok Ill bite

Yes paracetamol can be a perfectly safe drug.

I used the word poisoning as a more easily understood term, perhaps i should have used paracetamol toxicity refers to the whole syndrome of which liver failure is the most significant part but with your extensive knowledge you will also know that there is a some direct renal toxicity in overdose.

You with your extensive clinical experience obviously know that you can generally have two types of overdose. Acute and chronic. Acute being taking a whole box at a time and yes you can need a reasonable dose about 10g (20 standard 500mg tablets) to generally cause toxicity if you have a normal liver. The chronic overdose is in someways worse this is where a little extra is taken each day often by mistake (eg taking lemsip as well as paracetamol) Chronic overdose is the commonest in children due to errors with dosing them.

Right lets do some maths

A standard 500mg tablet
so half is 250mg and a quarter is 125mg (assuming that you divide it exactly)

So if we use the dosing from the table you provided you are giving all the age ranges except the 6 plus an overdose with a quarter of a tablet

So having seen a child die first hand of the effects of paracetamol toxicity and seeing potentially dangerous advice given out I will get my knickers in a twist.
Liver failure is a really unpleasant way to die, it leaves a really haunting picture for the relatives especially when their blood stops clotting and blood starts to ooze from every line site and the hope of waiting for a transplant but the reality that its probably not going to arrive.

Oh perfect thread for me too, Hope i can join in. I do have some needs for January to declare

4 suits for the children/hubby..but this might only be partial suits and just a jacket for dh as i have been given some just need to see if they fit!

Draw fixing things new runners and save a base..wardrobe completely broken to bits.

wants..new winter coat 7 years old and 4 pregnancys later its looking worse for wear however still ok for another winter or two.

Good luck all xx

Ok, I'll bite too. No-one says that dying of liver failure is a pleasant way to die, it isn't and thanks to stupid programs like Coronation Street the majority of people think that you can do a 'cry for hhelp' suicide attempt by swallowing a few paracetamol and all will be ok. You and I know different. You are absolutely right to highlight the dangers of an overdose.

However, the instructions on a Calpol bottle themselves advise a dosage of 4 times per DAY. A single quarter tablet in a teaspoon of honey onther than a commercial preparation will do the same job and is in effect less dose than the Calpol makers suggest. Especiallu if you can only buy 100mg tablets in blister packs of 16 thanks to those same twits as portrayed on TV. Additionally, Calpol contains at least one substance banned in Australia and France as well as others proven to have adverse effects in children. It is grossly overpriced thanks to the greed of the pharma companies and collective blindness of this society that have been brainwashed into believing that they are unable to understand medicine without their hands being held. Thus, you have glorified sales assistants in Boots who believe they have a right to enquire after your medical history before they will sell you that blister pack of 16 tablets for the same price you used to pay for 100.

I trust that the idiot parents who poisoned the child you refer to were prosecuted for murder since the Childs poisoning could not by definition have been an accident. No child will eat bitter paracetamol and mistake it for sweets. They will however drink Calpol given half a chance.