Live on £4000 for a year - part 4 (Oct - Dec 2008)

cha97michelle

Evening everyone

It is lovely to see Janey and mumzy contributing again. It's good to hear everyone is safe in spite of the nasty weather. I've mostly been staying at home with the kiddies as it is too cold to be walking about with them, although i did pop out to see a friend of mine and her 3 week old baby, which was lovely but not frugal as i spent about £30 on a present for the baby and some on a jigsaw for her little boy too. I need to curb my generous streak for presents before next year.


I went to Meadowhall christmas shopping, and it wasn't as expensive as i thought as i only went to a couple of shops. I popped into boots to get some baby toiletries, and managed to get £5 off as a kind lady on here sent me a voucher, then i popped in poundland asi wanted some of the moulds sophiesmum mentioned, but i couldn't see any and i had a good root around. I did get myself one of the sealed tins though to save our change in next year with the aim of having a foreign sunshine holiday.

foodwise - i am stretching an extra couple of days before food shopping, and i just made calzones for the 1st time, and i can see that is a good way of stretching food out. I just used spag bol as a filling tonight, and got away with using less than i would have with pasta, and it was hugely filling. I also was shown a website today for purchasing cheaper food approaching its use by date, and it is fairly close to our house so we could pick stuff up and save a delivery charge. http://www.approvedfood.co.uk/deals-31-c.asp

Oh, and i realised that some DVDs i told my mum to get for DS2 for christmas were region 1, so i found a code online to make my DVD player a multi-region one, saving the cost of returning the DVDs or buying a new multi-region player. Made me happy anyway as we have region 1 DVDs we haven't been able to use since the old DVD player broke.

Enough of my ramblings anyway. I hope you all stay warm and safe tonight.
Michelle, x

lingojingo

Just totalled my cashback & vouchers for the year - £222.61 :j and hopefully there will be quite a bit more as I'm very near to a couple more vouchers. This has made my birthday and christmas presents money neutral except for DD's 18th and DS's birthday (next year he'll be 21, so that will come out of savings too). I'm amazed, it hasn't been all that difficult or time consuming to do, so I'll certainly carry on next year.

Sorry I missed a few birthdays the last couple of days _party_ belated greetings Lynda, Penny and I'm sure there was someone else!

congrats on the house and the Icesave money Lynda :j, hope it all goes smoothly now.

Glad to see you back Janey, I've missed you!

Hugs to everyone that needs them.

Hope you're all wrapped up warm ready for the snow. DD's college told them this morning that they will be closed tomorrow, so she's happy! I have to wait till 7am to see whether the school where i work is going to open or not (hopefully it will be obvious as soon as i look out of the window - I love snow!!)

Penny2myName

That sites looks fantastic, how cheap could you do a decent pack up with that, and as for some of the fabulous hampers I have seen made on this thread, imagine the savings.

phonepayment

How can it be possible to live on £4000 in one year, does this idea account for mortgage repayments?

Penny2myName

No it doesn't include Mortgage/Rent payments. Its to cover costs of daily day to day living which we can control, such as making energy bills cheaper, becoming better food shoppers, and actually being aware of what we are spending our cash on, rather than just spend spend spend. It helps us to cut out the wastage spends. But for full details read post 1.

grandma247

Sophies mum I love dried pears and cox's apples.
I also candied and dried pineapple just to try it in the summer.
After joining a yahoo food preserving group I did all kinds of stuff. I even had a go at minced beef from a tin and then rehydrated and cooked it with potatoes a few days later and it was ok. I will try fresh mince next time.
Powdered dry veg is great in lots of meals especially mushrooms and tomatoes. they are now staples for spag. sauce and soups.

cha97michelle

Penny2myName wrote: »

That sites looks fantastic, how cheap could you do a decent pack up with that, and as for some of the fabulous hampers I have seen made on this thread, imagine the savings.

unfortunately some of the stuff is very short dated, like this week, but some stuff had 6 months on, and personally, i still eat out of date stuff, particularly tins and it has never hurt my family yet, but i know a lot of people are really funny about it.

Penny2myName

if its not walking yet, and hasn't got a blanket of mould on it, should be usable, after all, 50yrs back or so they didn't panic over dates on food. 100yrs ago, aslong as it wasn't rock solid it was usable. Dairy and fresh meat products are about the only real thing where I can sometimes be fussy.

cw18

I'm 100% in agreement with Penny2myName --- unfortunately younger DS doesn't agree with me, and can get very funny if anything is more than 1 day out of date when I try cooking with it !!!!!!

Frugaldom

Cha97Michelle, Brilliant site link, I've registered for their email updates just in case there's anything worth ordering and paying the £5.25 delivery Thanks for that.