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

JAMIEDODGER

have been working out the cost of buying a plastic greenhouse and all other things needed, ie ground sheet, slabs, bark and staging, have altered my 2009 budget slightly to accomodate this, will now have less contingency fund and will use some of the xmas money budgeted as will hopefully be offsetting this with ebay/amazon/quidco.

sounds like everyone is coming along nicely with their preparations for next year!!!

loveday69

Can I join in too please? 4K for me please, starting 1st Jan 2009

Electricity 1040 (hope to get this down)
Gas 1040 (hope to get this down)
Groceries 1560 (hope to get this down)
Mobile 105
Smokes 780 :eek:stopping Tuesday fingers crossed and a lot of willpower:eek:
Total 4525 (this will reduce when I've quit)

angelatgraceland

bails wrote: »

Ooh, exciting, I spy another West Country frugalite Angelatgraceland! :T There are quite a few of us now (Marru and I only live 10 mins from each other) but I think the Scots are still outnumbering us! Anyone else want to declare their allegience to the SW?

Good luck with all your preparations everyone, not long to go now :T:j

Ah you are so right! Ive been lurking on quite a few threads over the last 2 years or so-got to keep focused and these forums do that!

JAMIEDODGER wrote: »

have been working out the cost of buying a plastic greenhouse and all other things needed, ie ground sheet, slabs, bark and staging, have altered my 2009 budget slightly to accomodate this, will now have less contingency fund and will use some of the xmas money budgeted as will hopefully be offsetting this with ebay/amazon/quidco.

sounds like everyone is coming along nicely with their preparations for next year!!!

Are you a Freecycle member? Its worth a try! You may get one that needs recovering or something. I run my local group and sometimes I think "they'd be lucky"! Then-a few days later the person has received what they wanted! Also try to get the base for it-slabs etc. Nothing to lose.Glad to see you on here-I remember your name from other forums-good luck!

JAMIEDODGER

angelatgraceland wrote: »

Are you a Freecycle member? Its worth a try! You may get one that needs recovering or something. I run my local group and sometimes I think "they'd be lucky"! Then-a few days later the person has received what they wanted! Also try to get the base for it-slabs etc. Nothing to lose.Glad to see you on here-I remember your name from other forums-good luck!

I am a freecycle member, so thanks for reminding me to use it!!!:D

Buzzbox

I love the fact that you guys take photos of your progress.... makes this thread unmissable!

Good luck with the budgets for 2009!

bails

Ha ha, I love your sig Buzzbox! Feel free to join in any time, even if you don't want to do the challenge, everyone's welcome!

2NDTIMEROUNDER

loveday69 wrote: »

Can I join in too please? 4K for me please, starting 1st Jan 2009

Electricity 1040 (hope to get this down)
Gas 1040 (hope to get this down)
Groceries 1560 (hope to get this down)
Mobile 105
Smokes 780 :eek:stopping Tuesday fingers crossed and a lot of willpower:eek:
Total 4525 (this will reduce when I've quit)

All the best with the smoke quit! :T Your health will improve a thousand fold! I did it myself last year. It was hard at times but now I would not go back to smoking. Its as if I have shed 5 years off my age...:j

fizzel81

good luck with quitting smokeing

why not save what you would have spent in a seperate jar as an incentive, then treat yourself to something nice

angelatgraceland

Well Ive just done my new Asda order and noticed pressure cookers on there. I used to have one but I hate to admit that I didn't fully appreciate it but now with 5 of us I just might. Just asked for one on Freecycle and have now offered my old slowcooker as I bought a new one last year and kept it "just in case". I fancy a Remoska but not the price. Hope Lakeland have a sale? Do they?
Happy chicken looks so different to unhappy one(even without its head) :rotfl: :rotfl: Different shape and not messy in the packaging. Even looks different roasted-or am I losing the plot? Well hopefully it will taste as different as it looks:rotfl: :rotfl:
I must declutter my garage so I have room for a sack of spuds. We are growing some stuff next year and have prepared a chunk of our lawn for this. I refused to pay prices of salad stuffs in the summer so we grew a lot in bags and pots. Getting more organised this time. Our soil isnt great though and takes a lot of prepping as it was full of rocks and very clay. Still keeping guineapig manure/hay for rotting down-we have had a lot of compost free!
I always buy mini bales of hay for them from a local farm for a couple of quid and sawdust/shavings from a sawmill. Its worth noting all the places you pass on your travels and its far more convenient to just pop out twice a year or so for it! Not been happy with market fruit and veg-half rotten before it arrived! I think Ive been unlucky though.
Was watching a woman on tv the other day who lives on £1 per day and that includes presents food toiletries-clothes-virtually everything! Amazing! Darned if I'm getting that absorbed with it though. I do belong to european compact where the idea is to spend nothing except of course bills and food. I just may go for it again for a while.
Just refilled my Daddies sauce bottles with the Asda stuff at 25p per bottle. They never know! Bought DH 2 showergels also from Asda at 10p each-told him they were expensive!

fizzel81

on the subject of remoskas they are very energy saving so dont think it would take a mega long time before it had paid for itself via energy saving, im getting one once xmas is over to cut back on gas bills (my cooker is gas)

off subject ive been sooooooo naughty tonight, landlady brought me round a box of roses and ive nearly scoffed the lot (damm me they would have made a nice little pressie for someone) still they boys can use the wrappers to make pictures with tomorrow