Just for fun

Butts, tut tuts & food for mutts – this week's MSE Forum highlights

Features Writer

21 April 2023

This week's MSE Forum highlights round-up is image-heavy, so polish your specs, turn up your screen's brightness and get an eyeful.

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A few of this week's top threads

Whether through wisdom, humour or usefulness, these are some of the threads that stole the show this week:

My father-in-law passed away almost a year ago and Scottish Power still hasn’t returned the £1500 it owed him
I’m 58, stressed and thinking of taking early retirement – help me decide
I want to grow rhubarb, raspberries & potatoes. I’m a total beginner – where do I start?
How much spare change can you fit into a wine bottle?
I have a friend who has no ID documentation of any kind – how can they go about getting some?

A wine bottle full of 5p coins, stood on a table

Can you beat this many 5p coins in a bottle?

Photos of the week

Crafts folk of the MSE Forum have treated us to photos of their recent projects. The aptly named Stashbuster made these hair scrunchies (below left) out of leftover scraps of material, and plumduff55 completed this sweet baby quilt (below right). Visit the 2023 – No Craft Spending thread for more like this.

An upright arm displaying multiple hair scrunchies, and a homemade quilt

Hands up if you like crafts

Senior Ambassador sarah1972 now has an allotment and is documenting its transformation. Cue brilliant photos of their homemade accessories. On the right are sticker-decorated bins and water butts; on the left is the allotment's glorious guardian, Freda.

A scarecrow with a purple bucket head and a long pink dress, and some bins and water butts decorated with flower stickers

Please note: We love seeing your photos in the MSE Forum, but if you're uploading one, make sure it doesn't include any personally-identifiable information such as your face or address.

Money Moral Dilemma

Every week, the Money Tips email features a real-life Money Moral Dilemma (MMD for short). They're intended to encourage debate and, as such, they're usually among the most discussed threads each week.

Should I tell HR that I'm now able to approve my own work expenses?

My boss is off work with a long-term illness, and responsibility for approving leave and expenses for his team has fallen to me. I submitted overtime hours for work I did over Easter using our HR system, and they came straight back to me to approve. My instinct is to point this out to payroll and avoid any conflict of interest. But moving these approvals to someone else could take months - my employer is quite slow with stuff like that - and in the meantime, I won't get paid for my overtime or expenses. What should I do?

You can find out what our MSE Forumites think and add your own two cents on the Money Moral Dilemma discussion thread. Heed the MSE Forum rules: keep it kind and keep it clean. Remember, there's a real person behind every Money Moral Dilemma.

Got a Money Moral Dilemma of your own? Email us at MMD@moneysavingexpert.com and it could be featured.

Someone is doing expenses, looking at paperwork and a calculator. We can see only their torso and hands.

Latest comping wins

The ever popular Competitions Time board is where compers find and share competitions. We're always seeing new success stories. This week congratulations are in order for BayGin, who won a £4,000 holiday to Dubai.

Want to peek at some MSE Forum highlights from recent weeks?

Bonds, blossom & bailing builders (14 April 2023)
Voles, vendors & voided documents (6 April 2023)
Golf, gifting & granulated tea (17 March 2023)
Creaky floors, chatty solicitors and chicken tikka (17 March 2023)
Shrubs, shirts & schnapps (10 March 2023)

Your two cents

Have you used a Lifetime ISA (LISA) to buy your first home, or are you planning to? We're keen to hear your experiences. Drop the deets in our Lifetime ISA (LISA) experiences thread.

If you're not a member yet, it's easy to register for the MSE Forum.