Live on £4000 for a year - Part 3

Brighton_belle

redglass wrote: »

Mmm, in that case I'm baffled, can only suggest you stir it and if you get sour milk you could use it for soda bread, or let the curds drip dry in muslin and turn into cottage cheese, or give up and chuck it away. Going back into lurkdom now having failed to suggest anything really useful.

Aw, redglass, I really appreciate you having a go (and I think I didn't explain properly the extremeness of the result.) Anyway, I feel duty bound now to try making soda bread so you HAVE suggested soemthing very useful:D . Made more yog overnight with definite 'bacteria filled' yog starter and perfect yog this morning in easiyo:j . Off this moring to start a mosaic class witha local artist. Haven't included in in my monthly spending, as we don't have holidays so this is my sort of 'holiday' treat and it is the sort of thing I am trying to afford through cutting back on day to day expenses. Hoping I get on well enough to make all my xmas pressies this year.

Nyk I think you qualify for saintdom for trying to feed your crew on a tight budget (if fact even with all the money in the world) with their level of likes and dislikes. Makes me very grateful to have an OH who appreciates anything I put in front of him (as long as it isn't fish).
Fizzle - your 3 little boys look gorgeous - total hats off to any parent bringing up kids on their own.

whitewing

Redglass, you're great! Thank you for a) making me laugh, and b) reminding us that sometimes it is appropriate to give up! Who wants to be perfect anyway.

Fizz, I am counting Xmas in with my challenge this year (to make me tight-fisted). At some point in the next decade, I will endeavour to do an Xmas savings or earnings challenge. My ultimate goal is to try to save the year before for the next year's living costs, as I think it would be much easier for me to not spend a pot of total money, than to try to balance income/outcome/shake it all about, you do the hokey cokey and you...oops..

I have some preparation to do today for a meeting tomorrow, some preparation for my wedding, some preparation for the job issue, some for the self-employment to cover the time we're on wedding moon, and now everyone's asking what I want for my birthday. I've tried saying 'nothing' on the basis that those folks will probably give wedding gifts, but they're insisting. I am going to sit in the garden and dabble in and out of everything and achieve a big fat zero, but at least I will get a sun tan, hopefully.

I shan't take my mobile so no one can lovingly hassle me any more!

Marru, my DS' father turned up unexpectedly the other day having not seen DS for more than two years. I wasn't best pleased. But am having to accept him for what he is, and the little part of himself he is prepared to give DS. (I think it's a lack of confidence in his parental skills that bothers father, so he tends to only have him at granny's, which means he never really has to look after DS on his own. DS views him as a playmate I think). Goodness knows what will happen if he finds out about the wedding.

Must stop rambling.

Marru

whitewing wrote: »

balance income/outcome/shake it all about, you do the hokey cokey and you...oops..

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:Oh thanks - needed that!

No chocolate for 4 days and counting...

And by the way :jthis is me today!

Wishing you all a great day.

sophiesmum_2

Well today was supposed to be spent catching up on work in office but have just been informed by my line manager that I am booked in for a training session with the local council at 1:00pm,:eek: luckily it is local so will have to leave for that in a minute, apparently she forgot to send me the details. So I will be spending the afternoon on vulnerable adults abuse awareness training.
Looks like lunch will be an apple and a banana.
Spends for today;
Life insurance DD £14.49
car insurance DD £26.28
so £40.77 to deduct from my totals later. Need to order some sausage skins later on net so that will be another £8.? also.

Gotta run

whitewing

****shock****I've never met anyone who makes their own sausages before!

sophiesmum - your pedestal is getting so tall, I can hardly see you...

whitewing

*unexpected delight* £100 cheque from the Inland Rev ....pootling off to the bank now so have a great afternoon everyone.

Frugaldom

Hi all, I have just caught up with all of yesterday and this morning's posts and am delighted to say that I WILL be joining the merry band of yoghurt makers, as my cheap 1litre flask just arrived from Woolies clearout sale. I'll need to readjust my digures as it was cheaper than I thought, at only £1.79 with free delivery! :j

On the Christmas spending subject, I am including it in my 4k budget but will also be spending the vouchers I acquire throughout the year. I spread the entire cost throughout the year and also have a gift store that gets added to whenever I spot an unmissable bargain. The first of my Woollies clearout sale order arrived about an hour ago and I am soooooooo impressed that I further fear for the solvency of the company and the sanity of those who are in charge there. :rotfl: You know those bar butlers you can get that hold 4 bottles of drink for dispensing shots/measures? Woolies price £30, reduced to £15 in half price sale? Final price after all discounts was £4.97 less the cashback because I went via cashback site, less the cashback because I paid using a cashback credit card! That's just one example. On counting it all up, I probably ordered over £100 worth of items, mainly for Chrissie pressies, and paid a total of £28.75 less 2 lots of cashback.

My latest shopping trip has been to the Body Shop online sale that's currently offering items at less than half price, free delivery on orders over £20, a free gift worth £6, a 10% off voucher for next visit plus you can shop via cashback. I just got another 3 major Chrissie pressies for £21 less cashback via from 2 different sources. :j I really need to do a pressie inventory soon as I suspect that almost all my shopping, barring 3 major pressies, is done! :eek: All cards to date have been homemade and my Chrissie cards were bought in January sales.

It's dry, it's sunny... I'm thinking garden and winter preparations! I have a logmaker that makes firelogs from scrap paper, so I'll need to start logmaking and stocking up soon because I will never stay within budget trying to heat this house through the winter if electricity prices hike another 50%!! We'll hear back from landlord next week about what's happening with the house, but it still feels like a very precarious situation to be in when it's the roof over your head that's shaky! Now that we've no carpet in the livingroom (that was removed by LL yesterday) and still no resolution to the cooker situation, it isn't looking that great. There's no heating at all downstairs (the stirage heaters are faulty) and the living room is upstairs with a single heater and the fireplace has been removed. The hole in the wall is still there and the chimney is intact - we swept it earlier this year. I guess it just needs a grate and it should be OK for kindling small fires, I hope!

Now I need to go and make some lunch, as I forgot again!! :rotfl: Must make sure I get at least 1 of my 5-a-day in and then I'll be back looking for sneaky ways of disguising tuna into meals as neither DS nor OH2B will touch the stuff but I'm not getting enough fish into their diets! I'm not getting enough fat in either! :eek: Help! I need a nutritionist that can help solve my fussy food dilemma with 2 reting to gain weight and one trying to lose it. I live on a fairly low fat diet because I don't want to have gall bladder removed but am still overweight because I eat the home baking. I need to lose weight to avoid further damage to a hip joint and knees that I don't want to end up having replaced!!! :rolleyes: :rotfl: My basic problem is laziness with regards to doing exercise - the bike is fine for burning calories but no good on the knees - eating tuna, for some strange reason, seems to alleviates joint pain. :rotfl: I've totally confused myself now, must go make food of the low fat, high fat, including f&v, low carb, high carb, weight loss for some, weight gain for others variety.

Edited in after reading WW's post - congratulations on the cheque! Maybe that means the tax rebates will be sent out soon and I'm expecting about £80ish

Brighton_belle

nykmedia wrote: »

Hi all, I have just caught up with all of yesterday and this morning's posts and am delighted to say that I WILL be joining the merry band of yoghurt makers,

Yeah, another yogurt maker:j . I've just bought 1/2metre of muslin (90p) to try turning my yog into greek yogurt by straining. Failled to resist 2 half priced folding camping spoons (with fork prong on the end) from millets,probably not strictly necessary but it's always a bit of a pain taking a standard fork with our packed lunch (don't have sandwiches often, to aid weight control) where as these fit into a couple of old plastic sunglasses cases and don't prong everything in your bag.
Mosaic class fun. I think some peeps will be getting mosaiced flowerpots for xmas:D . Exercise is difficult when you have joint (or most health )probs Nyk - I have a similar problem. Legs really iffy today so had to get a bus home rather than walking. I've started swimming recently, but then I have a small pool 10mins walk away so that is an easy choice for me and Dr has given me half price vouchers:j
Well done on the choc restraint marru:rotfl: . I had the classic mse vs weightloss dilemma yesterday at Lidls: really bargain cheap lge pkt of bourbon biscuits... and I know they are sitting in the kitchen calling my name.

Frugaldom

Hello
As you can see, I haven't got as far as the garden, as more work arrived, but I did manage to stick the slow cooker on with a heapload of peppers, carrots, onions, muchrooms and tomatoes. 100g of minced beef and a crushed clove of garlic now added, so plenty of F&V in tonight's meal, at least 2 portions each.

Lunchtime was wholemeal bread sannies with cheese, homegrown lettuce leaves and tomatoes followed by a yoghurt. I also made the others a banana smoothie/milkshake, so that's us up to 3 out of 5 so far, plus the 2 at dinnertime and whatever extra is contained in my sultana biscuits, which have now been scoffed! I reckoned 3 sultana biscuits was equal to a portion. Sorted! Have now run out of hm biscuits, so am going to try adding sultanas to the oats for twink's hobnobs tonight.

I MUST try to get into the garden now, as the chilli pepper plants are beginning to look like a mini jungle on the window sill. Big Jim the giant pepper plant has erupted into a floral display and there are tomatoes on most of the plants in the greenhouse. I can't even begin to think how many potatoes are out there and, since we are staying, I may even try planting some late ones. Leeks coming along nicely, onions look ok, so far the cats haven't managed to wreck the row of beetroot but my brocolli seems to have shot past the edible stage and gone straight to flowering! Anyone got any ideas why? Cauliflower planys are extremely sparse now - cat damage beyond repair
OK, I'm off out into the garden for an hour before dinner.

sophiesmum_2

Called into farmfoods on the way back from my meeting this afternoon as someone told me they were selling smoothie fruit very cheaply. It is tropical fruit pieces in bags ready to add to yoghurt/juice and blend to make smoothies. I bought 10 bags which were 39p each so good value. When I got home I added one bag to 500ml of HM yoghurt and it made a blender jug full of smoothie,reckon there is 1-2 portions of fruit in each tall glass full:D
You could also defrost the fruit pieces and use in other recipes, a bag weighs 500g and consists of mango,papaya,pineapple and banana.

F&V today:
Brekkie - porridge with prunes OJ (2 portions)
Lunch - Banana and an apple (2 portions)
Snack - smoothie (1.5 portions)
Tea - Not a clue yet:rotfl: must get off here and go and sort something. DD is out and OH going to work so just me to see to:rolleyes:

Must update my totals and add the £3.90 smoothie money deduction from my contingency money