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

candygirl

Guesty6 wrote: »

Right, I am joining, my budget (excluding Debt payments and one tank of petrol per month) is £333 so £4,000 a year, its going to be hard, I have already spend £430 in January on "Non-Essential items" so the cutting back begins!![/quote]
:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: We'll whip you back into shape don't worry;)
I'm off to town today to get yet more baby stuff with DD.She wont even consider anything off freecycle and I had lots of stuff lined up for her:rolleyes: :rolleyes:
Am popping in Home Bargains to see of they have any cheap toys for birthdays, as I have a few on the horizon:o
Going to Mum's for takeaway tonight so free food again:T :T

Raychee

I've just been to see Mr M for my weekly shop. I took my list, and made only one extra purchase (some whoopsied melon/pineapple mix, which I will snack on this afternoon). I've spent £22.24 - for 2 of us, and will just need to buy 2 pints of milk later on in the week, and some stewing steak for next Saturday (I'm quite fussy about our meat).

I hope this is right and it lasts the week- we're very good at popping to the corner shop (which happens to be WAITrose :eek: ) for little bits and pieces. I've planned our menu and everything!

I made 'bendy veg' soup last week - carrots, parsnips, onion and potato (not the onion or potato were bendy) and it was fab! Looking forward to using more leftovers for soup.

Would love to stockpile, but space here is so limited. oh well.

lingojingo

Farmfoods has 2l milk (all types) for £1 - got some yesterday, now watered down and frozen! Also Pataks curry sauces 69p each, we really like these but hardly ever buy them as they're usually way too expensive.

needtoearnmoremoney

Seems like you beat me to that fish poacher then. Oh well!

carolbee

needtoearnmoremoney wrote: »

Seems like you beat me to that fish poacher then. Oh well!

pm me and let me know where you live, and if you want to borrow it any time, I won't be using it every day!!

sophiesmum_2

Back from costco, we managed to fill the boot and backseat between us,cw now on way home with her booty and I'm just about to drag OH out to lug mine in. I bought 2 lots of bacon, chicken breasts, skinless chicken thighs, a huge pack of minced beef (around 11 lbs) , 10 tins tuna, catering size tin of pineapples, catering size parmesan cheese, catering size lazy garlic, 12 cartons of pure orange, catering size (1kg)glace cherries, 5 kgs rice, 1540 teabags, tortilla wraps, bananas, and six rolls of brown parcel tape. Came to £88.27 but I have enough stuff in now to last a minimum 6 months. From now until June I will only be buying eggs,uht milk, butter and a small amount of fruit and veg. Plenty fruit and veg already in freezers (2) and also tinned fruit,pulses etc in storecupboard,. When the next offer is on at costco for paper products - kitchen and toilet rolls I will stock up on those but still have quite a few left yet.
I am aiming to have my food bill come in at under £400 for the 6 months. I will deduct what I hve spent so far this year on costco ,approved food,bulk veggie buying etc and post what I have left from the £400.:D

I started my stockpile challenge last June on the £4000 thread as it made sense to me to buy in bulk at cheaper prices, or when there were really good offers on and then shop from my stores. It also saved me lots of time that would otherwise be wasted shopping every week.It also kept me out the supermarkets and stopped all the other "stuff" being picked up whilst we were there. I combined the bulk buying with bulk/batch cooking,menu planning veggie growing, baking, preserving,breadmaking etc and worked out how to get the best value from my stockpile. Turning meat from freezer into batch cooked foods to put back in freezer etc, turning HGveggies into pasta sauces for freezer, chutneys, crumbles, pies etc, foraging for blackberries for jam making and more pies etc.Making use of dried beans and pulses to bulk out meals and make them more healthy.

By doing all the above I managed to feed my family 3/4 adults (son drops in when he feels like) a healthy diet plus treats for 2008 on just under £900 without any difficulty. If I had shopped weekly or even monthly I would not have been able to make the savings tht I did. As it is I ended 2008 with a huge mount of food left in storecupboards, 50 jars of assorted jams, marmalades and chutneys, and two freezers full of home cooked food, home grown veggies, pies, crumbles etc so a great start for this year.
I'm not saving my stockpile for an emergency or anything it is there to be used as part of the household budgetting, and as I use stuff up it will be replaced at the next bulk buy stock up in June or when I find any exceptional offers.Good to know though that if for any reason we had to cut back our expenditure I wouldn't have to worry about feeding us all for months. I am posting my menu daily too so that people can see that we are eating a healthy diet and not suffering from a lack of freshly bought foods.;)
So those are my reasons for stockpiling - works for me:j

Sarah147

Hell everyone, just checking in quickly while my cheese on toast is cooking, yummy.

had a busy morning here, already had two loads of washing in, done the dishes that have been piling up, cleaned the kitchen, fed the rabbit, carried a load of stuff upstairs that was still lying around from Christmas, decluttered a bag of stuff for the charity stuff and, the most important thing... wrote a beautiful list of what to do for the rest of the day :rotfl:

Going to chill and read the NOTW now, bit annoyed that Martin's DVD isn't actually free in the paper (you have to send away for it, which is a bit of a faf, when usually the free DVDs for films you don't want and will never watch, are usually included in the actual paper :rolleyes: ). Going to plan my weekly 'menu' in a bit and make a huge veggie lasagne for tea (already washed a load of plastic containers ready to freeze portions).

Apart from going out for the paper I am not moving from my pit, it is just tooooo cooollllldddd outside :eek:

Hope you all enjoy your day, shame it is not a bank holiday weekend!

andan

Just quickly popping in myself. Need to update my total, but seemed to be ticking along nicely.

I ordered my first lot of food from Approved foods the other day, lots of bargains that i would normally use, so this should help with the grocery bill.

OH has gone to work so it means i can have the heating off today, dread to input meter readings tomorrow and see what the total is!

Yesterday ended up being more expensive than i first thought, thanks to a food mysery shop i was meant to do, not serving food. A friend and i then ended up trapesing somewhere else for something to eat, so that was £10 gone! Still, we had a good time!

Hoping for a NSD today. Am enjoying this challenge though and continuing to be mindful of my spends.

kittiej

After seeing the neatness and amount of things in the store cupboard it has inspired me to sort out my 'shed' on the side of the house.

It used to be the old coal shed and storage shed but we've knocked a door into it from the inside and tidied it up by painting it, carpet tiles, new ceiling etc. The only trouble is it's full of OH tools so I think a radical clear out is needed.

Besides there's a brand new 8'x6' shed in the garden sitting there empty.

Whoever mentioned the value washing powder thank you. I shall give it a try seeing as though it tends to be the cost of perfume which increases the price, there's no real difference in wash performance usually. I wish I still had my twin tub, I used to love doing my washing with it and everything really did come out clean.

Brighton_belle

ooh, body's on a bit of a go slow today. Decided to post some goals in the hope I may achieve one or two things:
fugulfying/simplifying goals 11/1/09

• paint one kitchen cabinet door
• continue mosaic project.
• Sort 2nd bag for charity shop.1st bin liner full:D .
• menu plan for next 7 days