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

Frugaldom

Back yet again, I'm still tinkering with next year's budget and trying to stretch £4k as far as I possibly can without things getting too silly. This is what I have come up with, so far, if anyone can spot any glaring mistakes or omissions, please let me know.

Contents Insurance - £47.50
TV Licence - £139.50
Electricity - £900
Coal - £105
Logs - £120
Telephone - £165
Internet - £240 (This is for 3 of us on Broadband)
Mobiles - £60
Groceries, toiletries, cleaning & laundry products - £1200
Gifts for family & friends - £300
NTS family membership - £78
Travel - £100
Pets & livestock - £300
Savings - £180
Everything else - £65

Total budget = £4,000


Pets & livestock - I've included costs for keeping a small dog or cat (which we don't have at the moment), the guinea pig and 3 hens (that we don't have yet).

Edited in: Redglass, the split peas are recent purchases, but now I think I'm just not cooking them for long enough; I only simmer the soup for the same length of time as I would have for lentils. Oops!

looby-loo_2

Good evening. I noticed how the price of supermarket eggs has gone up. My local farm sell them for £1.70 a dozen but my DH wont pop in to buy them. He maintains they are not free range as there is a fence around the field. The field is about 3/4 acre!! and they aren't crowded - they sit on the fence post and can hop out for a walk if they wish, but still he says not free range.

Now he is retired he does the shopping and we are having a bit of a power struggle to buy certain things before the other buys it - I do 'best value' and he does ' top brand'.

I've even stated pouring value products into branded bottles, putting biscuits into a biscuit tin and hiding the wrapper (Lidl Ginger Nuts are just as good!) and topping up his expensive shop bought eggs with the farm eggs. Oh, and a quick slosh of my T**co ss milk tops up his full cream Yeo Valley every so often but nearly got caught out on this one so little sloshes from now on!

I've been tempted to see if I can suck value toothpase from my tube into his most expensive branded tube if I hold them end to end. Is this power struggle going too far or do I stick to my principles.

B rating on imeasure is brilliant - I haven't dared do mine yet.

Frugaldom

Hi Looby Lou, could you get DG to work within a budget so he appreciates how much more he's spending than is necessary? Many (not all) males of the species are notorious for assuming everything is affordable so long as they know they have that amount of cash available at that time, but few (not all) seem to grasp that there are other costs to be factored into the equation. Does your OH know exactly why you need/want to live within your chosen budget? Hopefully, once it's explained in simple terms (no offence meant to any male readers) he'll understand why it's now his responsibility to ensure that finances follow a certain route.

looby-loo_2

Pressure cooker
I just noticed this offer at Lidl. It seems a very good price for a stainless steel one, I'm sure somone was asking a while ago

http://www.lidl.co.uk/uk/home.nsf/pages/c.o.20081211.p.Pressure_Cooker__-_6L.ar3

looby-loo_2

nykmedia wrote: »

Hi Looby Lou, could you get DG to work within a budget so he appreciates how much more he's spending than is necessary? Many (not all) males of the species are notorious for assuming everything is affordable so long as they know they have that amount of cash available at that time, but few (not all) seem to grasp that there are other costs to be factored into the equation. Does your OH know exactly why you need/want to live within your chosen budget? Hopefully, once it's explained in simple terms (no offence meant to any male readers) he'll understand why it's now his responsibility to ensure that finances follow a certain route.

I could try but he maintains that 'at his stage of life' he can buy the things he wants and shouldn't need to think about saving a few pennies here and there. My philosophy is if I can save a few pennies here and there they all add up to me being able to afford something extra. I think we both wind each other up, a little bit deliberately;)

On the other hand I tell him he is just like his mother - now that winds him up big time

1274

Thanks for the dessert advice all. Only problem now is that my virtual basket now has the following in it: cream, custard, fruit, chocolate (for trifle), mulled wine (for the sorbet suggested by Lyndasharp), xmas pud and vanilla icecream (for the xmas pud icecream suggested by Shaz), mincemeat, pastry, apple and cinnamon (thanks Loobyloo) merengue and soft fruits and more cream (for eton mess suggested by the old style board and it would also make Janey's suggestion), lots of cheese and biscuits (another from OS). Thanks to anyone else I've missed off also.

Just have to make a decision before the 17th or I'll get it all delivered and be spectacularly sick. There's nothing else in my trolley ATM, so if I can't get my behind in gear I may just be eating dessert for 2 weeks (actually that's not a bad plan:rotfl:)

Nyk I do recommend MS Office Accounts. Not just because it's free, but you can use it to directly generate your invoices in word and also export the data into Excel, for many happy hours of fiddling around with spreadsheets.

Skint_Lynne

Penny2myName wrote: »

HRH Princess Ann came to college today, security swarming all over the place. When I heard she was in the Library, I avoided it like the plague and went up to my room instead. I knew she was visiting the main church in town, just not the college till I got there. One of lads from my course saw her, and complained that she looked just like any other old biddy..lmao, ahh the youthful age of 19

Was her assistant with her, she lives in the borders, I think she is called Nyk..........................:rotfl: :rotfl:

grandma247

just popped in for a quick read before bed.
I have used dried eggs in baking when homebargains had some in really cheap last year. I substituted the equivelent of 1 fresh egg or two if the recipe had more than two eggs. All my baking was fine.I used only dried in my rock cakes and they were very good. You have to add more liquid to compensate but the pack has the amount on it. Also I used some for binding burgers and they were better than usual because the dried egg soaked up more of the liquid than just breadcrumbs. I add grated carrot and onions to my burgers and sometimes other veggies wizzed up in the processor so they are a bit wetter than just meat burgers.
I probably would only buy them from the supermarket for an emergency storecupboard item as they are very expensive there. I usually freeze fresh eggs either 2 beaten together and bagged or 1 in a ziplock bag to use as a fried egg when thawed.

looby-loo_2

1274 wrote: »

Just have to make a decision before the 17th or I'll get it all delivered and be spectacularly sick. There's nothing else in my trolley ATM, so if I can't get my behind in gear I may just be eating dessert for 2 weeks (actually that's not a bad plan:rotfl:)

That sounds like a very good plan to me:j

dND

redglass wrote: »

Hi
I've always kept salt out of pulses until they are cooked, but one of my swisher cookery books says this is an old wives' tale. I reckon if you play it safe you can't go wrong, after all you don't lose anything by only adding salt at the end. What really does make a difference, though, is the age of the pulses. They look like things that will keep forever but they don't, they get harder and harder. The last time I used up some ancient yellow split peas they were like bullets :eek: . Perhaps age is the problem with yours, Nyk? Chick peas also get very hard and can become so tough as to be unusable. In general it's not a good idea to buy tons of dried pulses unless you know you'll get through them fast. The exception might be lentils as these cook so quickly anyway.

Hi Redglass,

I'd heard that too but I've had tough skinned pulses even when I've know they were fresh so I still cook without salt first. Just had a look at the BBC recipe site and they too say no salt. It's like a lot of things, there are two sides to everything

I know the bullet problem with split peas too - I once decided to use some up that were of unknown vintage, at least 3 or 4 years old. even liquidised it was a bit like eating sand. :rotfl:

For chick peas I sometimes pre-soak with some bicarb too as this seems to help soften them but I do have to say that the haricot and butter beans I grew and dried myself, so they were only a few months old, were the softest ones I've ever had