Live on £4000 for a Year, 2009 Challenge, part 1

the_cat

Hi everyone

Not much to report for the last couple of days. Had to spend on food as doing family meal for 10 on Sunday - not too bad though as only spent £17.22 including some on offer bacon from Lidl for storecupboard (£1 for 400g if anyone is interested) Need to make puddings and birthday cake either today or tomorrow so prob won't need to be spending today.

Saying that, if I have the energy I might do a whoopsie trawl tonight. I have a set routine now which seems to get me a fair number. MrS final reductions around 6.30pm, then MrM reductions around 7.30. finally MrA at 8.30ish which is a bit further to drive but often worth it as even meat is reduced to 10p at the end of the day. Do this roughly twice a week and honestly can't remember when we last had full price fruit/veg or sandwich stuff. Meat is either bought on special offer or, most often,whoopsied. Hope the info on times helps someone.

Have a great day everyone
Cat

Marru

bails wrote: »

Got lots of activities up my sleeve for Mission: Tire Monkey Out

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

I really hope it all goes well. I will bring lots of DVDs that she can't watch at home for you to snuggle with if you both get too tired.

I am trying to finish all my calls, correspondence, animal cleaning, shower, packing, work... before half five today. And I have a meeting with the Head Mistress at eleven. Well I was given two times 11am or 2pm so I will go and hope that she is avalable at 11 so that I don't have to go back later.

On a positive not it will be a NSD for me today. Only costs during the weekend that will affect this challenge are my lunches: £10 plus I need to get something for supper on Saturday.

Have a great day everyone, and great weekend if I don't post before I am back on Sunday evening.

Marru

Janey51

Morning frugal people and what a foggy yukky day it is. I had to keep checking the clock as it was still dark at 8am.
Spent a happy hour shredding DS's bank statements :rolleyes: but I will be using them for fire lighting to conserve newspaper (which I don't buy....steal from re-cycling boxes )

Had a productive visit to Matalan yesterday. Mega sale :j Picked up 3 Christmas presents for kiddies for £1 each and a summer jumper for me for £2 :T Bargain.
Then went to the Indian and was pretty frugal there as well.It's a real bonus when you can't eat a lot :rotfl:
Had a great gossip with an old friend and felt heaps better after my bad time the other night....thanks again for all the hugs

Off to a friend's today. I am taking lunch....some of the lovely Spicy Carrot soup...thanks to the Frunchkin who posted the recipe.
See you all later.

In_Search_Of_Me

morning all...just popping in. A day working at home today but am struggling to get going (not am am person!). Been to gp and now snuggled in at home in pj's with socks, jumper, heating and fan at the mo as cold to my bones...probably because feel tired... A nsd for me today!
Have a good one all...Good that you had a good natter with friend janey - always helps! Re Marru/Bails...sorry if being dull but assume that Marru's little boy/girl staying with Bails for w/e?

2NDTIMEROUNDER

Goodmorning to all Frugalites.

All ok with the frugal challenge front for me. I have been doing some thinking - yes its true, I never give my brain one single second of rest :mad: -though in order to rationalise why it seems so easy for me to downsize in everything and still be happy in myself with no sort of (withdrawal) symptoms, and I have finally decided that it is due to the fact that a frugal life has always been ingrained in me - that is who I am in essence - but it had just pushed to one side for so long. Its as if its going back to a normal way of thinking and life even though this is the first time I have managed to gather the strength to go against the social flow and put it into practice.

Not feeling very well today though, so tired and drained. Need to rest but I am involved in so many things outside work that I always end up in the same exhausted state, I never learn sadly. So p***ed with myself but I have tried so many times to cut back on these things I feel passionate about that I think its time to just accept that this is the way I am.:mad:

For today one of my most favourite thoughts on life::D

“The sculptor produces the beautiful statue by chipping away such parts of the marble block as are not needed - it is a process of elimination.”

Elbert Hubbard

Have a good day everyone and smile to all that you come across today. Its free.:)
==============================================================================================

Aldi apparently has started offering holidays with good savings over other travel operators. Have a read if anyone is thinking of booking a holiday.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1110052/Were-going-summer-Aldi--Budget-chain-offers-star-holidays-50-less.html
www.alditravel.co.uk

dND

2NDTIMEROUNDER wrote: »

For today one of my most favourite thoughts on life::D

“The sculptor produces the beautiful statue by chipping away such parts of the marble block as are not needed - it is a process of elimination.”

Elbert Hubbard

Morning everyone. I think that we will all have to assume congrats, hugs and commiserations as required as trying to keep up with everyone is getting difficult - but I don't want people to stop posting either

Wonderful quote 2ndtimerounder and so pertinent . We shouldn't expect to be perfect straight away, we have to re-sculpt ourselves.

I watched the Victorian farm last night and think it could be interesting - apart from having a diesel tractor rather than steam engine or horses it was very close to me out here so I'm hooked - Oh I don't have the steady stream ov experts to help either :rotfl: much more trial and error and using hints from here.

Another gardening book idea. I think it was NYK who's thinking of propagating cuttings, I came across this book. 'The Gardening Which? Guide to Successful Propagation' that I've found really good. I was lucky enough to find it in a charity shop for not very much:j but libraries might have a copy.

It won't be a NSD here as I am going to make it back into town and see if I can spend my 10% off voucher. Nearly everything should come off the house renovation or farm budgets but.........

Deborah

Frugaldom

Good morning, just a very quick update, back later to catch up with you all. Nice to see you back Cha

£1 log in bonus with scratchcards, spotted half priced hampers on the Te$co D!rect site when doing my free clicks for cashback (but didn't buy any, still too pricy for me) and thank you to whoever mentioned the tv prog tonight on Ch4 at 7.35pm - I hope we get it here too. Had a laugh at the Victorian Farm as the guy didn't seem to do very much ploughing, they never gave any recipes and we didn't get to see them planting out the garden for food, yet it was October by the time programme ended. Oh well, guess we can't have it all ways if they are doing it on a budget to a tight timeframe. Pity, though.

Did lentils/mince/veggies overnight in slowcooker, so no panic about getting dinner if I forget the time whilst outside. Frost is disappearing, so I'm off out into garden to see if I can dig holes for fruit bushes. Carch up later.

fallen_angel_shelley

Just read my meter and buy my workings out its going to be over £400 :eek: :eek: :eek:, we are all elec in this house, I have rang e0n and they are ringing me back in an hour because she was unsure which is the low reading and which is the high one. The last bill was £167.20 but that was october, so we hadn't been using the elec much.

Shelley x

HH62

I can't keep up - am reading but can't even begin to try to reply to everyone. But it's nice to feel we're all in this together

So much for NSD. :mad:

Butcher - £16.56 - stocked up on some good braising steak as I'm cooking supper for my lovely ex OH (that's specially for you bails :rotfl: ) next weekend so I'll either cook it up today or freeze it raw. Also got a couple of nice (huge) pork chops and he had rump steak on offer so I've got quite a bit of that too.

General store - £1.00 (well it came to .95p but I stuck 5p in the charity box which was probably a bit silly - I need to be putting myself first right now). I'd run out of A4 envelopes and need them for my OU assignment which has to be in by Monday.

I'm feeling a bit down actually. I've added up my totals for the month. It's only the 9th and I've got some DD's to pay yet, they come out next week.

Anyway on a brighter note, I've saved a tenner on my train fare tomorrow - I'm getting a lift to my OU tutorial so that's great.

ps Bails if you're reading this I do hope you know what I mean about the ex OH and it doesn't come out wrong..... I'm referring to a comment you made earlier in the week about me still thinking ex OH is 'lovely' :rotfl:
He is, though.

skint_chick

here's some pictures of lemurs I took!






only thing I have to buy today is a bottle of water for the plane for my weekend away and a sandwich for my dinner when I get there. I have a budget of £85 for the weekend which I have saved from last year - this will cover entrance to 4 museums 3xdinners 2xlunches 3xbreakfast fruit/croissant and transport. I've checked the websites for all the museum prices so I think this is pretty accurate. Have left OH with a menu list from freezer and list of things he has to do around the house and strict instructions not to spend any money. He has so much beer in the fridge we could open an off licence! Overpaid my mortgage by £500 last night because my savings interest is so tiny and my mortgage is flexible so if I need the £500 back I can call my lender and it'll be back in my account in 4days.