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

shaz_mum_of__2

sorry to hear about the greenhouse nyk

Congrats guesty i really need to look into this mystery shopping

Hubby got loads done outside its been lovely here..................no wind and sunny??
before(and in summer)..................



................and after(today)


Made soup for lunch , casserole for tea organised MIL's house insurance (with £30 cashback for me)

She is moving next week to be nearer to us so lots of phone calls ahead about utilities etc on her behalf

Having an early night with CSI etcso see you all tommorrow


Hugs to Janey


Shaz

sophiesmum_2

Went to town with friend earlier, spent £1 on a cabbage and butternut squash and 70p on 6 free range eggs.
Had a peek in superdrug and picked up 2 of the pebble soaps/dishes for 49p each and a box of bath bombs for 49p now added to pressie stash.
Also picked up royal jelly gift set in boots £1.50, hacket gift set £3.75 and no 7 nail varnish using £5 off voucher so total came to £6.37 and got another £5 no 7 voucher. Went back and bought another nail varnish for £1.12:D Going to save fpr DD's stocking next xmas.
Also spent £2.30 on postage.

Nyk - hope you can salvage the greenhouse,:eek: wind is getting bad here now too, Going to give swimming a miss tonight as have a bad headache so will just chill instead.

Total spend today £12.96 of which:

£1.70 food spends
£2.30 postage costs.
£1.47 superdrug sale items for gifts
£7.49 Boots sale items for gifts

Also DD for cable/telephone/broadband out of bank today £82.00

Total deductions from budget £94.96

angelatgraceland

Fizzel81-do you post photos with your freecycle items? It tends to stop the timewasters of that sort as they can look before they turn up? If you want to know how to add photos-I can send you the step by step instructions I put on my group.
Don't give up on them tho-out of many thousands in a group it really is only a handful who are rude. But that's better than taking it from you-changing their minds and dumping it! That would be bad.
I collected a big bag of approx 100 beanos and other mags today for my big kids! That should give them something to do hopefully apart from stare at the computer! So I'm about to send out a Received saying a big thanks for that!
Just popped to waitrose and bought some more nestle snackapacks-the vouchers are still in them-just slide the boxes about a little and you will see the serated lines where you cut out the coupons so these actually work out free. Used a voucher there from "the grocer" website worth £2.15 plus my nestle ones worth £3.50. Bought a couple of lowfat items for myself-some salmon and steamfresh veg. I have to stop eating bread-just looking at a loaf piles on the pounds so I dare not bake any for a while! Will update sig late but still have spare cash and hardly touched my purse for "other" spends which are non grocery so Im happy that I will have enough to buy some of the things we need in Feb-like new door handles,new taps etc. These were the spends which would have got missed last year but will be accounted for this year. No heating on today-Ive actually not felt cold today until now and as its only 15c Ive just put on the fire. Had lecky bill today-£445.80!!!
Gas won't be much though(I hope). £360 paid by dds so the rest goes onto next quarter-should even out. So-Im actually glad the increased the dd to help cover this-at least I owe them so Im still in pocket at the mo and they dont have money of mine.
Thawing out a turkey for tomorrow-well-I needed the freezerspace!

dND

So sorry to hear about your greenhouse and other items suffering in the gales Nyk, it sounds quite horrendous :eek: I was wondering if this would be of any help

http://hedgewizardsdiary.blogspot.com/2008/01/making-dead-hedge.html

It should be relatively easy to construct and might give a wind-break and you could grow peas/sweet peas etc over it in summer.

I hope everything else is tied down and that the greenhouse is reparable along with the other items.

Deborah

Frugaldom

Thanks for the suggestion dND, but I think we're forgetting about even attempting to repair the greenhouse as it's just too exposed here. It was already protected on 2 sides by dry stone wall and side of garage, so barely a greenhouse at all, more of a shelter. I think we'll be reverting to original plan of using that particular corner of the garden for veggies and I'm abandoning any ideas that involve lightweight structures. As we're still at planning stages for the garden here (our first year in this house) it isn't too bad. We just need to sit out the storm and hope the power lines and phone lines stay in place. Hope everyone else is weathering the storm safely - Janey, thinking of you and hope you decided to go visit friend in the village!

Brighton_belle

sophiesmum wrote: »

woo Hoo!!! BB we have our first comission:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

IPersonally I have a bit of a basket fetish - you can never have too many baskets,and hampers, and leather storage boxes, and wooden storage boxes, and box files, and lovely preserving jars, and plastic crates, and lock and locks........think you get the drift.........hve to have somewhere to keep my stationery fetish items

Well, we can highlight that as a feature of our business and you can shop away:rotfl: . Or would I have problems getting you to part with them and I'd be refunding customers all over the place:rotfl: .

CW - you sound my OH's sort of woman in the 'mountains of stuff' dept:D . You are doing amazingly well tackling it all and being motivated by the childminding plans:T . Fantastic on the CC front:T .
Fizzle - good to see you over on the remoska board:T . Do ask away there, people love talking about their moskies.

Weekend 17/18 frugal/simplifying plans:

• take 2 bin bags to charity shop (have a tendancy to hang on to them 'just in case').
• Finish painting kitchen
• remove corner wall cabinet in kitchen and re locate contents elsewhere.DONE
• Blackmail OH into putting up red roller blind on back door (all glass)
• put up tea towel hooks
• tidy [strike]nuclear wasteland [/strike]dining room
• work on mosaic project
• order lakeland voucher through pigsback points
• work out how to use new freecycle video recorder without instructions so can get rid of old one that only works if you swear at it a lot.
• Advertise old round sink and glass worktop on freecycle

Bought a lecruset mini heart shaped dish for £2 from charity shop, so should be able to make something for valentine's day with that.
Cut my toothpast tube for the first time today to get out every last bit. And bought spray containers for starburst and white vinegar for cleaning.

Skint chick - enjoy letting your mum spoil you.
Taka - I love the pay it forward idea - perhaps though, giving any earnings to a charity would be less felt as an 'unexpected blessing' than if you did something for an individual? Just a thought, but obviously, do what feels right to you.
shaz - love the raised beds.
Beautiful sunny day here too, but wind beginning to reach us now. Sounds bad Nyk:eek:

sophiesmum_2

Shaz - love your front garden,:T :T what are you planning for the raised beds??

fizzel81

angelatgraceland

it wasnt a offered i put it i was responding to a wanted from what was put they did seem in some need so i figured as i had it spare that maybe they could use it more than i could

my remoska seems to take longer when cooking is this normal? ive done my chicken legs (they were in about an hour) but im still waiting on the potatoes

whitewing

It's blowy here too but one of our young neighbours is having a birthday party so hopefully it will keep them mainly indoors and not outside with drunken mischief! I was young once!

Just ordered my brother his glasses from glasses direct and got the 10% off (quote LIFESTYLE), so hoping that will be fine. I got the cash up front too, which helps a lot with budgeting. I used to be terrible for doing stuff for my family and not chasing up payments and kind of saying, 'oh well, do it as part as your present' and then ending up writing off a fortune over the year. And always buying an actual birthday present as I never had the heart to turn up empty handed. I'm tough now.

Dad has been in doing some diy for us; mending the bathroom so that has only cost us for parts. Thank goodness.

Car tax is due this month. Apart from that we are doing well. Actually, I have saved for car tax as I went along last year but am too tight to take it out of my savings! May have to though.

MIL is now contributing a small amount regularly for fuel for the work/school journey so that is helping.

We've slipped up a bit on cooking and have popped to local shops a little more than we should this month but am aiming to get back on track.

Hello everyone. At some point I will go back and read this thread. I feel happier now I'm back posting. I've missed you guys.

cw18

angelatgraceland wrote: »

Fizzel81-do you post photos with your freecycle items? It tends to stop the timewasters of that sort as they can look before they turn up?

Although I've not seen anything in the rules (I admit I've not read them in fine detail from top to bottom), my local one doesn't seem to allow this

I've spotted a couple of ads from last year where it said pictures had been removed -- so I'm guessing the chaps who run it did this before releasing the ads to the public!! Seems odd to me, as I've seen quite a few offer ads with very little detail - -so a photo would make a lot of difference....