A frugal life is an easy life!

Already two weekends gone of the school holidays... where do the days go?

Driving back home after food shopping on Saturday morning, in the rain yet again, I was already grumpy from lack of sleep, I thought about a holiday.
With money being tight and the arrival of sprog2 (wouldn't change her for the world of course) it's been years since we last had a holiday.
A nice long slow drive down through Germany, to the Austrian border. From there we can easily visit Switzerland, more of Austria and even northern Italy.

I landed back home and carried the seven carrier bags of fresh meat, fruit and veg inside.
As I unpacked them all and stocked up the cupboards for yet another week, this has been the routine for what seems a lifetime.
I am tired, I have way too many jobs to do and always find myself waiting for other people or things before I can do them, in the end, I get very few finished.
Luckily, the wife was on a rare day off, (she's another one who grafts too hard) so I had cover for sprog2 for when I went shopping.

As is the "norm" in our house, once I've got the sprog all sorted, the wife comes along and the sprog falls asleep.
Everywhere I go shopping, there are tales of holidays, so I was getting into holiday mode.
The wife informs me that a parent can no longer put their sprog on their passport!

I checked it out, not only must sprogs have their own passport (a five year one) but applications take anything up to three weeks to get processed, longer if at busy times, ie, when I need one!
There is also a charge of £49 for it!
Fast tracking is available, if you make an appointment and drive down to Liverpool to get it, this increases the price to £96.
Why, when we have people coming into Britain from everywhere, does it cost so much and is so complicated, for us British to get out of the country for a holiday?
We all know how much a baby changes looks, eye colour, etc. So surely any passport picture would show little resemblance after a year or two?

So with the holiday idea shot down, I slumped in the chair and chilled out.
The wife made us her own burgers, made from fresh braising steak, with fat cut off and some silverskin pickled onions, a perfect way to end yet another day.

I know, I know, what happened to days 3 to 6?

You tell me!
Everything's upside down here for one reason.... teeth!

Sprog2 has had no bother at all with her front gnashers, they through no problems with a bit of calpol and some gurning, we have been really lucky.
Her back gnashers are starting to come through, her sleeping routine normally changes every two weeks, it's been all over the place. Up at 2am, sleeping in until 10am, then back to midnight playing and being wide awake. My body clock is not adapting as fast as her routine changes!

I'll probably get slated for this, but I have upped the number of advanced feed bottles I have been giving her. She is chewing everything in sight, but struggling to eat solids, so I've gone back on to the smoother jars of baby food and given her an extra couple of bottles.
Calpol of course, eases the pain and this cools her down, but I have not seen much in the way of slavering.
She appears to be happy enough with it, until she wakes in the night and the nappies have gone back to rocket fuel, but I can handle that if it means she maintains her weight and she continues to eat regularly.
I am not a fan of rubbing medicines on her gums, or giving her various drugs to sort things out unless it is essential to her health, I don't trust what is in them.

If I bump into you around the markets or in town and I am not the happiest of campers it is because I'm having to grab an hour in the afternoon and then nothing until 2am.

IMPORTANT UPDATE:

As of June 2011, it has now been confirmed that Little treasures children's trust have secured a license with our local council for carrying out doorstep collections.
Frugal ways welcomes this, as it was the whole purpose of the original post.

There are of course, other companies/charities making collections on our doorsteps, that are not legitimate and have no license to do so.
It is essential that our local councils, even in times of cutbacks, operate to protect the people who elect them. The licensing issue is a hotbed for all concerned, are the profits made per tonne excessive? Is the charity genuine?
These are questions that are asked prior to council's giving licenses out. It is therefore the local council's responsibility to answer to us and make sure that the proper checks are in place, to verify those who post bags and ask for our donations are who they say they are.

I will continue to believe that those businesses collecting on behalf of charities should not take any profit whatsoever from the money made from the collection.

A huge thankyou to all the site visitors who took the time to post regarding this issue. I hope at the very least we were able to make people aware of what was going on at the time.

Little treasures children's trust (charity no: 1119024) are having a clothing collection to raise funds, by a company called East London Textiles Ltd (ELT).

BE WARNED - IT IS EITHER AN UNLICENSED SCAM OR INVOLVES THE THEFT OF CHARITY BAGS!

ELT's representative posted a collection bag through my door yesterday, and everyone elses letterbox on our street, completely ignoring the "No cold callers/leaflets/flyers" notices in all our windows.
I immediately ran out and threw the bag back at her, into the street, questioning wether or not she could read!
I just got a dirty look for my trouble, after I went back inside, the representative picked up the bag and threw it into my garden and walked off.

I phoned the licensing officer at my local council, to see if they have a license to do household collections - (you can search your own council licenses at the lalpac website here) - both ELT and the little treasures childrens trust, do not have a license for household collections in my area.

I spent this morning double checking that they didn't have a "National license" with the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) - Once again, they are not licensed nationally.
All licenses are given out by local councils I was informed.
I was advised to report this to the Charities Commission who told me unless they get a large volume of complaints about them then they do not normally investigate!
However, if I was to visit their website and put the complaint in writing, it would be filed along with other complaints about their practice.

I then rang little treasures children's trust up, directly and spoke to a lady in their offices.
She told me she was disturbed by ELT collecting in their name in areas of England where they did not have a license - which is most of the country - and would be contacting them urgently to sort the matter out. The lady said she would ring me back with information about what had gone on and what would be done about it - this was about 6 hours ago and still no callback!

I grabbed some dinner, then phoned my local council's licensing officer to let him know what was going on, as he requested.
It cannot have been more than an hour from when I spoke to the lady at the little treasures childrens trust.
The licensing officer informed me that out of the blue, someone from East london textiles ltd had contacted his office, he was about to ring him to find out what was going on.
The licensing officer rang me back 30 minutes later, telling me, "a bloke calling himself Ivan admitted that ELT didn't have a license for our area."
He continued, "He told me that east london textiles ltd have had thousands of their collection bags stolen and they were being posted through people's letterboxes all over the country, but he did not know who had stolen them!" - conveniently, this "theft" hasn't been reported to the police either!

"There will be no collections made in our area tomorrow, as stated on the bags posted through letterboxes" - which was a token statement at best, according to our licensing officer.
As three people have informed me today, often they find that the people making vast amounts of profit from these clothing collections are also involved in setting up charities they claim to represent. It will be a case of trying to spot them collecting tomorrow, and reporting it to the licensing officer, so that the local council can bring a case against ELT for household collecting without a license (as they have now admitted).

I rang the little treasures childrens charity back, armed with this information, to find that the lady I spoke with this morning (who didn't call me back), had been "called away to an emergency meeting" but I could leave a message if I wanted to.
The lady phoned back - "I spoke with the director of the company and passed your details on, he will speak with the delivery team."
When I replied that a man called Ivan, from ELT had contacted our licensing officer, stating that no collection would take place and that the bags will have been stolen, I was told "There is a turf war going on in the north of England, we had 3000 of our bags turn up in someone's house not connected with anything!"

I have reported the case to trading standards officers in my county, if they get their act together, in our area tomorrow they will catch ELT in the act of household collecting without a license, or at the very least, catch whoever stole their bags.
What are the odds of that?

UPDATE:

It would appear that trading standards cannot be bothered to catch illegal, unlicensed scams in our area.
Gave them all the information via consumer direct yesterday, they haven't even bothered to phone back! (Remind me again why we pay so much in tax to fund them? What exactly is their job?)

I spoke also, with a community officer regarding what these people were doing - it was a bit vague about posting through letterboxes and household collections, despite pointing out that if I personally trade house to house without a license, I would be in front of a judge, yet these people are allowed to get away with it.
I was told it was "a civil matter" and as such down to the local council to bring a civil case against them.
After further reading up on it (I'm sad like that) it appears it is indeed a criminal offence to do house to house collections, in a licensing area, without a license. This was confirmed this morning by the licensing officer himself, in person.

At 11.40am today, a van pulled down our street, with "Little treasures children's trust" plastered on the side of it!
I phoned the van reg in to the licensing officer (he told me he would be out on the road today to try and catch them at it - which he was) then I rang the police and told them that the licensing officer was out looking for this van as they were committing an offence.
The officer told me they were out on patrol and the local bobbies would stop it if they came across it.
Then a knock at the door, it was the licensing officer himself, out trying to catch them at it, confirmed details and reg of van, off he went.
Then a phone call from the police, to let me know they stopped the van and warned the driver about posting sacks through letterboxes (why?) but that posting things was a civil matter to be taken up with the council (if it's not licensed then it's a criminal matter!) they then let the van go.

I repeated to the officer on the phone, that the council's licensing officer was trying to catch them and that he confirmed that it is a criminal offence to have a household collection without a license. The officer informed me of where they had stopped the van then ended the call so she could notify officers to stop the van again and call the licensing officer (Why don't these people work together?)

If there is anymore information I will post it.. just goes to show how easy it is for people to be misled and deceived for money!
What was it that little treasures childrens charity told me yesterday... ah yes there was a turf war going on and their bags have been stolen by other doorstep collectors!
Maybe I'll ring them and ask, exactly why one of their own vans is doing collections around my area today then.

UPDATE - As of September 2010, It has been brought to my attention, the little treasures children's trust charity are seeking to have this website removed (at least whilst their claims are investigated) by employing a solicitor to recover my personal information for the purposes of a legal action that this post is "defamatory" towards them.

Little treasures children's trust have not contacted me via this website, rang my phone number that I gave to them when reporting what their collection agent or van collection did, nor have they contacted me by mail at my home address which they have had from the outset as they said they would give this to east london textiles directors, so they could "stop this kind of thing happening again."

I can only guess, but it appears from their solicitor's letter, they would rather have the website and the information on it, removed from public view altogether, or at the very least, cause enough panic for a domain registrar to make this website "unusable."

You can view the full legal post here

UPDATE2:

It would appear that more areas are being targeted in this scam. Not my view, it is the view of Warrington trading standards:

 http://www.tswarrington.co.uk/pdf/ican/188littletreasureschildrenstrust.pdf

 Related posts:

Little treasures children's trust threaten Frugal ways with court action

Charity commission respond to our little treasures children's trust complaint 

DAY TWO - Sunday 25th July:

Sprog2 woke me up at 6.30am, once I'd fed and watered her, she then decided to go back to sleep.
I was still groggy after the exertions of yesterday, so I was drifting in and out of snooze mode whilst upright on the chair - only one thing worse than this, is driving whilst trying to stay awake!
I grabbed a quick coffee (which went cold before I'd got half way through it, as is the norm) and nipped upstairs to collect a pile of washing.
Got that on the go, sprog2 decided to awaken from her slumber, I tried for more than half an hour to force feed a bowl of weetabix down her neck, she was having none of it.
Washed and changed her, got her dressed (for those without children, this sounds like a simple task - which it would be if it wasn't more akin to trying to untangle a pile of long snakes with the occasional screaming in the lughole!) sprog2 kindly decided to scratch her own bits as I turned to get a new nappy out of the bag, covering her hand in vaseline in the process, which I only discovered later on as she tried to manually claw out my front teeth with her nails of razor blade sharpness.

I then attempted to hoover the front room - another task that sounds easier than it actually is.
Have to move all those buffers* and all her toys, one side of the room at a time, whilst wedging my left foot before the baby walker, to stop her grabbing the hoover wire or the hoover itself. It's ok in the middle of the room, but once you move your foot wedge to reach the edges, she's off like a bleedin rocket. Once completed as best I could under the pressure, I shifted direction and repeated the task on the other side of the front room.

I followed up by hoovering out all the kitchen, doormats and assorted bits of carpet in between.
As I was on the road on saturday, I stopped off at the local garage for the customary two loaves... they were out of bread, so I had to face the dreaded Tescos eeeeeek.

They kindly had a "local community fair" on in their carpark. How they can be "supporting the community" after doing so much to destroy it god only knows, but that's another post.
So of course, there was nowhere to park, I had to get some brass out of the speedbank as well, pre payment electric was running out. (I love using supermarket speedbanks - 1. It totally messes up their figures as regards how much people draw out from it and confuses their figures/statistics about how much people then go on to spend in their store - 2. This works even better when you don't use their store at all and just draw the brass out)
After walking to the furthest corner away to pick up two loaves (10p per loaf more than my local expensive garage might I add) I paid up and left, walking ages back to the car.
From there I drove across town to get some electric credit on my key.
Finally I got home to peg out the washing I had put in earlier and put another load on.
It started to rain... so out I go again to bring it all back in.

By now it was 1pm, the wife was off to work and I had a return wrestling match with sprog2, to get some scram down her neck... this time she scoffed the lot without much of a fight.

Now one thing not mentioned so far, is a thing that every parent knows about, but daren't utter the word... the POO!
Religiously, once a day it lands, it could be a 5am surprise, it could be an after dinner delight, but almost without fail, it will come. What goes into baby - must come out, in a larger quantity!
Today I got lucky, it was relatively solid, still involves changing and another "keep still or I'll cut yer legs off" battle, but at least the clothing survived.
Under normal circumstances, exactly 2 minutes before going anywhere, one arrives, often a "back burner" (one that shoots straight up the back and involves changing all clothing bar socks - factor in a baby who thinks they have a bit part in the great escape and you can imagine the carnage).

I put in some more washing and pegged it out, managed to find time to wash the pots, sprog2 had just woken up in her chair, so I popped the TV on for her, Oliver was on, I left her to make a brew and get her some tea on the go, with the melodic "who will buy" song wafting through the air, only to return, just in time to witness Bill Sykes battering Nancy to death then being shot as he tried to escape!

After food was consumed and pudding, sprog2 boarded the ankle basher (baby walker) and started turning the front room upside down.
I managed to grab a piece of toast, then it was wash time for baby, pyjamas, a quick bottle and hope she settles down.
She didn't settle, but I got a few hours of talking out of her and then we had a play.
The eye rubbing started about 9pm, by quarter past she was flat out.
Another day gone before you know it.

* Buffers - Large household things/toys, that are placed around the edge of the front room, to keep a baby in a walker away from cupboards, TV, etc.

A broadband tax of 50p per month was to be brought in to pay for "Super fast broadband" as part of the previous government's digital white paper.

A new goverment takes office, then proceed to scrap the new 50p per month tax!
Hurrah!

I received a letter yesterday from BT - the only company we are able to rent our line from in our area - who opposed the new broadband tax, they now inform me that they are INCREASING the cost of our line rental by 50p per month.
This is not a "new tax" nor is it a government plan, it will result in more profits for BT who own our line!

BT were kind enough to give an explanation on their letter, it read as follows;

        "We appreciate it's not the kind of news you'll welcome..."

That was it!

Forgive me if I sound a tad miffed, but in May 2010, British Telecom announced pre-tax profits of £1bn!!!
That is £1,000,000,000 - or 1000 MILLION earth pounds to you and me.

Perhaps BT would like to tell all it's customers, why it opposed a new "broadband tax," yet it is happy to increase charges to customers by exactly the same amount, as the new tax would have cost, when these increases go directly into their profits?