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

whitewing

Mr DT,

Under Qype regulations, any vouchers you earn must be spent on your girlfriend (...I may be telling porkies).

I will be using mine for toiletries etc. But I'd be happy to spend it on wine, if all else fails! They may even be paper rather than electronic vouchers. If so, you can always give the actual vouchers to someone?

lingojingo

Whitewing - I agree entirely with your advice to Mr DT - I'm sure his gf would love some of the jewellery!
I'll be buying some for my sister, who really likes their stuff, and then toiletries for gifts.

I've found it quite easy to write 37 reviews (32 are first reviews earning £1 each) just by thinking of all the places I like to eat or drink in, followed by theatres and the cinema, then reviewing every little shop in the area (for example, no-one has ever commented on the tiny shoe shop in my village) and things like the hairdresser. But now I've come to a standstill, with my total at £34.50

skint_chick

CW you're usually better with a nominal amount owing on your mortgage - as little as £1 -mortgage lender keeps your deeds for free and if you ever need cash for home improvements etc then it's easier and quicker as you apply for a further advance rather than a whole new mortgage and having legal fees etc. My parents found when they got a new car it was cheaper to take a further advance from the bank over 5years than a personal loan interest rate over 5 years.

All of my wardrobe is in black, brown, grey, blue or white with a couple of green tops so everything goes- saves having to buy lots of items just to match. My jewellery is all smiliar too - silver with amethysts or plain. I got a few pieces off Etsy so I have matching sets that go with everything. I'm even more dull with shoes and boots - sports trainers, Adidas adicolour with changeable stripe colours, and blue Converse. Then black knee high boots, black heels, black flats and a pair of Skechers for holidays. I'm very minimal when it comes to clothes - I only have about 15 things hanging up. OH takes up most of the wardrobe space!

I'm eating from the freezer today and making chilli tonight - leftovers for the freezer. Got some tuna on mystery shop y'day so going to make pasta tuna bake tomorrow and freeze extra. Doing this challenge has reduced our grocery bill dramatically - we used to spend upwards of £40 a week and so much of it ended up wasted. Now we've spent £62 this month and still have enough food left to last for weeks! I'm so glad I found you guys

cw18

Our mortgage provider doesn't hold the deeds even now -- something a lot of places stopped doing some years back !!

Possibility of 'draw back' for a replacement car in a couple of years is another of the reasons I'm looking at keeping the mortgage running -- now I've lost my job (and been widowed) there's pretty little chance of me getting a new loan from anywhere these days

Tried calling the first card to cancel the account, but as I suspected they don't operate that section on a Sunday. Called the second one, and closed no problem. The chap asked if there was a specific reason I wanted to close it -- I guess this would normally lead to a lot of offers being made to keep the custom -- but as soon as I said 'major drop in household income and can't afford to run cards anymore' he said the account was closed, I will get written confirmation in the post, and I should chop the card up.

Need to try and get my accounts up to date today/tomorrow -- I'm seriously flagging in that department. I think I need to start drawing myself up a rota for all the jobs that need doing, and allocate 15 mins or so each evening for spreadsheet work :rolleyes2

bails

I love this thread!! :iloveyou:

Morning all

dND, can Mr DT and I share your extra sleep please as I was up at 5 this morning, how rude! :rolleyes:
CW, what a great job you're doing with all your payments, it must feel wonderful :T Great bargains Mr DT, I'm never that lucky in Mr M especially. I've just ordered (through my mum ) a 5kg bag of potatoes from Aldi as they're 49p this week so will see what they're like. Had to buy some veg in Mr S yesterday as we missed the market and it was so expensive!! Which reminds me, where on earth did you get your FR eggs so cheaply SM? :T Eggs feature quite a lot in our house so would be great to source them more cheaply.
SL, it seems your family are slowly coming round to our ways of thinking, well done you for sticking at it :T
Nyk, hope the rest of your garden is still intact? The rainproofing on my pig cage has broken and there are a few things in random places in the garden (not the pigs thankfully!) but we seem to have got off fairly lightly.
I'm making a card for my mum - found some perfect photos but do you think I can get them to print correctly onto the card size photo paper?! Luckily OH has offered to help me if I still haven't mastered it by the time he's back from his ride so I'll leave it now before I waste a whole pack of photo paper! It was a great deal, £1 from a pound shop, wish I'd bought more now, especially as I'm going to try and use my own photography for presents this year/next. OH found the instruction booklet for my camera :TIt's been showing an error that we couldn't fix so hopefully now we can (and I can also learn how to use it properly , only a couple of years after buying it!). So that's another creative project I can start
Glad to hear the migraine's gone SM, they sound horrible. Sorry to hear about your friends SFT, hope they're okay x
As for animals going where they're not supposed to, my kitten has a penchant for plant pots! :eek: I have no idea why as we trained her in exactly the same way as our last kitten but she still insists from time to time :rolleyes: Unfortunately we have 3 very large plants which seem to make perfect loos in her mind. OH thinks you can get something to put on them to stop her doing it, forgotten what it is right now...
Frugal new parents or parents to be, I'd be interested to know how much you think FrugalBaby costs you please...Whitewing, keeping my fingers crossed for Valentine's Day.
Did I mention I love this thread?

Frugaldom

Good afternoon to all, just a quick update and will fully catch up later

Thinking of you JENNYBEE! If I recall correctly, your frugalmite is due to arrive today! :j

Greenhouse update - completely wrecked but not being binned as there are plenty of alterations that I'm thinking of to avoid total write off, it just won't ever be the greenhouse again, not after pretending to be the garage roof and then a road block! :rotfl: So far, damage is remaining minimal but we aren't out of the storm yet, literally; it's howling out there again! :eek: The only other thing noted was the pheasant in the garden but I think he wandered in himself, I honestly don't think he was blown in on the wind the way he was strutting about helping himself to the bird feed. :rotfl:

Had an email from App. F00d saying they had refunded me for out of stock items. I've updated my signature to reflect that, seeing as this seems to be a very reflective day.

Bails, I wouldn't go down the 'cost of frugalmites' route if I was you - it could get really scary or depressing to think of it that way. Then there's trying to offset 'free' income provided by the Government in whatever way/shape/form and then trying to allow for inflation over a period of at least 18 years, plus trends/fashions/what society dictates, and then you still need enough to set aside for the 'big' stuff that comes along, like extra study, setting up first homes, engagements, weddings, grand children... it's a never ending story, so why even contemplate costs? My parents (and my gran!)STILL try to provide for me and I'm a grandparent! :eek: :rotfl: Even if we never had any children our own, there will always be plenty of children on whom to spend, be it time or money and, regardless of financial situation, good parents or relatives will always be good parents or relatives.

Back soon, still catching up on here.

MrDT

whitewing and lingojingo, you've guilted me into doing it haha! I'll see if I can't get m'lady a nice little something from the jewellery/toiletries category thanks to qype.

It's taking me ages though lol, so far I've written nine reviews, eight that already had reviews, another that had nothing, so that's £5 worth so far. It has taken an hour to get only 10% of the way through!!!

I can do it, just maybe not all today as planned. I think it'll get difficult adding more and more as time goes by though. We don't have that many shops etc in the area

nickynoo08

Afternoon peeps. I've not had chance to catch up with this thread properly, i'll try to tonight tho.
Had a really good day yesterday. First i found 2 £5 vouchers in an old jacket pocket, then my dad gave me and OH £50 belated xmas pressie as he was out of work then so we decided to go to tgi's for tea. Only ended up costing us £20 coz i had £30 of vouchers too (we had a few cheeky cocktails:p ). Went to Somerfield this morn as i knew they would have loads of stuff reduced (i work there;) ), so got £38 worth of stuff for about £25, including 18 loo rolls on offer. My freezers are full to the brim with reduced buns, loaves, pizzas and pies now. Gutted tho i go all the way home then realised i'd forgotten to buy mozzarella:rolleyes: , so looks like i'll have to pop out tomoro.
Must admit i'd been panicking a bit about the amount of money i'd been spending on food this month and last then it dawned on me - we've been feeding an extra mouth. My OH best mate has been out of work since before xmas and he's been eating at ours A LOT - most nights in fact. It's money we cant really afford ourselves but i'd feel awful him sat there not eating while we were. At least i know where my extra money has gone this month.

Todays plan
Wash n dry removable setee covers - done
Help mum put up new curtains - done
Do meal plan for next week - work in progress
Go on wii fit - will do tonight
Make pasta bake with left over tom sauce - to do

lingojingo

I've just completed my reviews :j - done 60 of which 53 were first reviews!!!!! Got an email to say I'm a Qype Ninja but nothing about the virgin voucher yet (it says it can take up to 24 hours).

I did all the really small places i could think of, as nobody else seems to bother with them. I've done the vet, the fish & chips shop, the newsagent etc. Also things like my GP surgery, library and hairdresser. Some places like the Town Hall were already reviewed, but I did it anyway. Some people did really short reviews, without much info, but they are still there and presumably got the points, so maybe you don't need to spend too much time on them Mr DT.

In_Search_Of_Me

in haste...re cats peeing in plant pots - I put stones/colored pebbles on top of all mine and thats worked plus they hate tin foil so if you dont mind that on top of plants it should do the trick!! Wondering whether to try and train mine to use that cat potty thing you put on top of the loo...reacon I spend at least 3 a week on cat litter so financially it would be worth it - just not sure of they would use it...