5 Frugal things post 43 – Cake, Football and Back to School
This is my re-cap of week five of the summer holidays. It feels like an eternity ago that we were in Corsica, although we were reminded by a glossy Mark Warner brochure dropping through the door on Wednesday. The boys were looking through for images of them, they hadn’t made the cut but did know some of the children and the staff!
This week has been the first full week of switching agents and selling the house with eMoov, I think we need to wait until the children go back to school for the market to pick up, we have had one viewing though. I have had a day in London for work meetings and we had a day at Tottenham for a football game with Dylan. Also this week the boys went off to the in-laws for a few days giving me time to focus on work, ultimate frugality is the grand-parents looking after the children for free.
Baking three times
The day the boys came back from their mini-holiday Josh wanted to bake a cake. I don’t get much chance to do stuff I actually enjoy with the boys. Its normally play football,watch football, play golf…can you get that I am feeling a bit left out a the moment. So when Josh say he wants to bake we bake. This week we have made 2 Victoria Sponges and wholemeal bread rolls. It’s been educational, we learnt that Victoria sponge really does need baking powder and whipped cream filling is a must.
We also learnt that wholemeal bread rolls are not to the taste of boys under ten. I really love them, so have frozen the rolls for a breakfast/lunch treat.
Meetings in London from 10:30 onwards
One of the best things about being self-employed is that you can decide your diary. I spend one day a week in London and try to ensure all my meetings and social events are combined into the one day. I managed that this week and held all my meetings in an easy location of Old Street. Easy meaning its £13 return journey as it is overground trains all the way. As long as my meeting is 10:30 or later:-).
School Uniform last few bits
I have been through all the back to school bits and have worked out what is left to buy. I needed two navy jumpers and plimsolls for Jack. Asda looked to be the cheapest place to buy them. £6.50 and I can collect in store. We have decided to do packed lunches for the boys this term rather than school dinners. School dinners come in at £26 per week (as I now have to pay for Dylan and Josh but not Jack) I am sure I can get lunch box ingredients for much cheaper. 2 lunchboxes were needed. These were purchased from Amazon as I had some vouchers sat there waiting to be used. This handy blue lunch box was just £3.50.
Also if you have anything you need from Sports Direct like school shoes, football boots, PE kits, coats or rucksacks then use my code mummpenny10 for an extra saving of 10% on your purchase.
A football trip to Tottenham.
We normally have many miles to drive to football training or games. So far this pre-season we have driven Dylan to Wolverhampton, Ipswich, Leicester and West Brom, so to get a fixture against Tottenham was great, just 30 minutes away at their academy training ground in Enfield. We love going to be big grounds and playing at that high level, Dylan and the boys did so well, winning their first game 2:0, losing their second game 3:1. Lets call that a draw overall, not bad against Tottenham academy boys. We went well prepared with lots of food and snacks so spent zero pounds and it was sunny. A perfect football day.
Complaining to HSBC
I did a mystery shop two weeks ago at HSBC and needed to shut the account down that I had opened. This process took an unbelievable three phone calls and two hours of my time for a simple account closure and refund of monies in the account. I made an official complaint all dealt with very quickly and efficiently, the result was £80 compensation for my loss of earnings (in addition to the £80 earned from the mystery shop) whilst sorting out the issues! It really does pay to complain, if you are unhappy with a product or service, complain and get some compensation.
I am linking up with Cass, Emma and Becky in this week’s Five Fabulously Frugal things I have done this week linky.
