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

Skint_Lynne

sophiesmum wrote: »

Skint Lynne
Started posting some of my money neutral gifts on jamtarts thread if you want a nosey;)

My nosy nose is on it's way now sophiesmum, thanks. JUst in from doing a jewellery party, I have 5 in total this week.

Speak tomorrow,

SL x

Janey51

Good morning Frugal Friends:wave:

I had a lovely day at Nyk's yesterday after I had a slight trauma with my car which is getting fixed today but will mean I have to prise my purse open :eek:
Take no notice about Nyk's comments about her soup. It was lovely and, I have to say, I was highly honoured to have non-whoopsy bread and pink wafers. I was made very welcome as usual.
New house has great potential and is in a lovely part of the country. We oohhhed and aahhhed as we drove through trees just asking to be liberated onto the open fire :rotfl: I see a lot of wood gathering in the coming weeks.

We talked...a lot We were talking about frugalism naturally and I said I find it easier to stick to a budget if I take my full budget money out of the bank all at once so that I know when it's gone, it's gone.
On the long drive home....I saw a beautiful sheet of rainbow for ages, not an ordinary one, it was a great mass of colours across the horizon....I digress. On the way home, I was thinking about money saving and the predicted recession and stockpiling :rolleyes: as you do.
And I thought, having viewed other MSEers cupboards (you know who you are) could I actually buy enough food to last me for a year all at once?
I know there have been discussions on other threads about this and I have looked at various websites that tell you what to buy and how to do it.
I am going to get an unexpected little windfall which I was going to put into savings but maybe this would be a better use of the money

I suppose I would have to consider the loss of interest but I would save time and money by doing this.

My food budget as set by the CCCS is £120 per month plus £30 for the cats. I don't spend this much but it is what they recommend for a single person

I know I would miss out on the "reduced" deals I pick up.

And, I do struggle with huge volumes of purchases which I would be dealing with.

I suppose I could start off by going for a 3 month plan at first and see how it goes. But, food prices may have gone up significantly by then and I would be kicking myself.

If you have got to the end of this post...:T
Any comments greatly received.

Mum's Memory of the Day
Mum was in the WRAF. She joined when she was 17. Dad was in the RAF and they met playing ping pong. They were married in Dad's village because Mum's parents couldn't afford to pay for a wedding. Mum had a bouquet of sweet peas and she made her own wedding dress. It was used for years to dress up with by me and my sister. They were married for 52 yrs and were devoted. The last thing Dad said to Mum before he died was "I love you".

bails

Oh man, how to set me off first thing in the morning Janey - what a beautiful memory :T
The stockpiling debate is an interesting one, I haven't made my mind up on it yet either...
I'm off up to my brother's wedding today (once I've posted some Ebay parcels and been into school) so I'll be back on Monday now. Have a lovely few days and weekend everyone and happy frugalling! I get to drink champagne for free - now that's my kind of frugalling xx

whitewing

Janey, tears to the eyes again. Really lovely memory and I love sweetpeas.

I think stockpiling a year's worth in one go is an intriguing idea. Especially if the challenge is not to buy more. But I would only do that on basics. I am tempted to 'go seasonal' too, for a bit of variety in the year. So for example, if I stockpiled tins of sweetcorn, I would find out when harvest time for sweetcorn is (how sad that I don't know) and then save it til then (mainly). Need some fun back in my healthyish eating.

Stockpiling my extra weight will have to be pasta etc (dry or tinned/jarred foods for savoury). I won't be doing this until next month as I need to wait for some money to come through first.

sophiesmum, how do you post photos into the thread?

Skint_Lynne

Morning all,

I had another NSD yesterday, 2 in a row, but I will need to buy petrol today, so that's it blown. I've got a busy one, 2 jewellery parties and I need to go into town first with my repairs, so won't be around much.

Sophiesmum, I am soooooooo impressed with your stock cupboard and your prezzie pile, I think I am going to become your disciple, you have brainwashed me:p , first costco, then 2 pound coins, then your food cupboard, now the prezzies, what is happening to me ???????

You are so organised it is untrue, makes my meagre haul look very poor, but I will change for this time next year. Oh, I forgot your allotment and freezer, do you ever sit down?:rotfl:

Catch you all later folks,

SL x

whitewing

thriftylass wrote: »

Finally getting more into the frugal spirit in terms of cooking. :jAlthough it probaly sounds ridiculously obvious to most of you. But today was a good example, made 4 nice big chicken pasties as before, but instead of baking them all and munching away, we only had two for tea and I froze the other two unbaked for a quick tea another time.

thriftylass, I can well remember the joy and excitement when I started to do things like this, and it is still something I have to think about, rather than do by habit.

cw18

Janey51 wrote: »

My food budget as set by the CCCS is £120 per month plus £30 for the cats. I don't spend this much but it is what they recommend for a single person

Can someone please enlighten me as to what CCCS is? I've seen two mentions of it this morning having never seen it before -- and can't for the life of me figure it out

Dread to think what the figure would be for a family of 3, but I do know I'm currently looking at comfortably coming in under my £145 budget this month -- and the current plan is to keep the same budget next month but to include cleaning and hygiene products as well as food :eek:

sophiesmum_2

Janey - A years stockpile would tke a lot of storing. Although you are just one whereas we are 3 often 4 so it probably equates to my six monthly store. By the end of the year if I spend all my contingency money i will be coming in at around £350 for 6 months for 3 of us:j :j . Judging by my stores I will also have a surplus to start next year with too.:D
I am going to set next years food budget at £800 and try and cut it even further by more home growing and more veggie meals.Also trying to persuade OH to take up fishing again:rotfl:

Financially my store has increased quite a lot in value, especially since I bought most of the goods when they were on offer. For instance my red salmon was bulk bought at around £1 a tin and is now £2.98 (i Have 32 tins left!!) originally I had 40 tins so savings of £80 just on salmon. I could not have got anywhere near the same amount of interest if i had invested my £260 at the start of the 6 months.
Best thing is though I always have in store whatever i want and as I mostly buy ingredients I can vary the meals I make depending on how we feel.

I need to get some chickens somehow as eggs are one of the things I end up buying:mad: although we have cut down how many we use now.
I haven't felt restricted at all by using my stores as they have been supplemented by the home grown stuff and foraged stuff, and occasional reduced buys and we have eaten well and healthily, bar from DD's current obsession with remoska flapjacks:rolleyes: :rolleyes:
I would say give it a try!!!

PS love mum's memory today:A

sophiesmum_2

cw18 wrote: »

Can someone please enlighten me as to what CCCS is? I've seen two mentions of it this morning having never seen it before -- and can't for the life of me figure it out

Dread to think what the figure would be for a family of 3, but I do know I'm currently looking at comfortably coming in under my £145 budget this month -- and the current plan is to keep the same budget next month but to include cleaning and hygiene products as well as food :eek:

cw cccs is a debt management thingy like payplan - think it stands for consumer credit counselling service or something similar. It is one of the well known ones which are recommended as being the most impartial and non profit making as opposed to some of the companies out there fleecing people with debts.

sophiesmum_2

Skint_Lynne wrote: »

Morning all,

I had another NSD yesterday, 2 in a row, but I will need to buy petrol today, so that's it blown. I've got a busy one, 2 jewellery parties and I need to go into town first with my repairs, so won't be around much.

Sophiesmum, I am soooooooo impressed with your stock cupboard and your prezzie pile, I think I am going to become your disciple, you have brainwashed me:p , first costco, then 2 pound coins, then your food cupboard, now the prezzies, what is happening to me ???????

You are so organised it is untrue, makes my meagre haul look very poor, but I will change for this time next year. Oh, I forgot your allotment and freezer, do you ever sit down?:rotfl:

Catch you all later folks,

SL x

OH dear sounds like a developing case of severe frugalitis emerging - I think you are showing all the symptoms:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:
You had better ask NYK for a second opinion