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

Frugaldom

Lesley_Gaye wrote: »

...interested in your reply re 3 years for usable willow for fuel. Smallholding living is something I aspire to at some point, I picked up a load of smallholder magazines from freecycleand have been sitting reading them and dreaming.

It's known as SRC (short rotation coppicing) and there's a bit about it here. Basically, once the willow whips are planted and start growing, they just keep growing and can gain 6 feet in a year. Still researching possibilities as I don't have the space to grow it to tree height, but it could be financially helpful to grow enough to cut and store as kindling and selling extra as cuttings

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LINGOJINGO! :bdaycake: More cake for you, just in case you haven't had enough already. :rotfl:

Quick summary from here:

• Fire's lit
• Frugal chick still doing well
• Free cash topped up by £10 from scratchcards
• Household spending curtailed in an attempt to catch up
• Huge chicken cooked, split into portions, got enough for 5 meals
• Stock made in slow cooker
• Washing done but sun now gone and it's rain & sleat :rolleyes:
• Got electricity down to below £25 for last week but would like to get this further reduced to below £20 soon
• Nowhere near defrostng freezer as it's still full
• Housework calling, hope you all have a good day

purplevamp

sophiesmum - no cd, it was "lost" the last time it was on loan, why they didn't check when it was returned I don't know I think there are a couple more copies available so I might be able to get it next time.

ilovetea

Haven't posted for a while,so hello every body,new babies,Bails dog and Nyks chick.
Done no thing exciting,nothing worth writing about.Which can be a good thing when so many people are having a rough time.
I've joined a knitting thread on the OS board and making things for prem.babies.Such tiny little garments.Feel I'm doing some good (and it does stop me nibbling:o )
Been through the survey sites I do and have managed to get a few vouchers, so hopefully go shopping soon and stock pile a few bits.Can only do this when I can get a lift as "proper" shops are miles away.
Take care,

ilovetea x

taka

:bdaycake:
Happy birthday LingoJingo!

Sarah147

Hello frunchkins, hope you've had good weekends!

Had a lovely frugal day today. Went to a free preview screening of Marley & Me in the cinema. It was wonderful. We laughed... We cried.... In fact, you could hear half of the cinema blubbing at some points Got a couple of things for baking from the Co-op totalling about £3, bought the new Take That CD single from HMV (paid with giftcard which was a present from a friend, so FREE), got a beautiful No7 nail varnish from Boots (used £5 voucher so paid only £1.10 and got Boots points), then got a free coffee from Starbucks for the metro home. Not a bad day I thought

Then spend the rest of the afternoon making my first loaf of bread! I was very surprised at how easy it was and it tasted glorious. I made a vegan wholemeal loaf and it was so soft and delicious mmm mmm mmm. Definately all going to be home made all the way for me now I think. Looking forward to experimenting with making different kinds. I also made some wonderful potato 'scones' which tasted delicious so am feeling very smug with myself and am insisting that everyone here calls me Delia :rotfl:

lingojingo

thanks for all the birthday messages!

Had a lovely day, lots of visits from friends including one friend's 2 1/2 yr grandson singing his own version of Happy Birthday.

Then a very nice Italian meal with one friend.

DD phoned from Spain, that was really unexpected and also had another surprise - the family she's staying with have invited us to go over in the summer!!!!!!! so now I'm trying to find cheap flights to Alicante or Valencia in August - not much success yet.

SmlSave

Glad you enjoyed your birthday LJ. Belated birthday wishes from me_party_

Congrats to Weezle too:beer:

I'm still lurking and keeping myself up to date with the thread. My grocery budget is holding up very well but have been spending a fair bit of DIY bits and bobs:rolleyes:

We were a naughty and used the £101 usually for Council Tax to treat our family to a meal out in February. March’s £101 was going towards getting trellis for the garden but a trip to IKEA whisked the money away.

My peas have sprouted :T and I can't wait to plant them out. As I don't have a coldframe I'm hoping plastic bottles will keep them safe - what do you think?

Hope everyone had a good weekend and see you soon!

Brighton_belle

gosh it's quiet on here today.

Today's simplifying/frugal tasks:

1. take non recyclables to dump DONE
2. lightly sand varnished shelves and screw to wall brackets
3. soak and wash manky shower curtain
4. have another NSD
5. update cash spends onto spreadsheet & impress self with how much I haven't spent.
6. 1 hr creative me time

Frugaldom

SmlSave wrote: »

My peas have sprouted :T and I can't wait to plant them out. As I don't have a coldframe I'm hoping plastic bottles will keep them safe - what do you think?

Mine too, and the runner beans! :j I plant mine out under either 2L fizzy drinks bottles or else in pots under polythene bags. My first lot outside (in pot under poly-bag) have also sprouted, as has rhubarb, cauliflower, artichokes and spring onions. :j I also noticed my first potato starting to sprout through the soil in a bucket. Maybe spring has sprung - wil need to watch for Mr Hedgehog coming out of hibernation soon.

Spent £30 feeding the electricity meter this morning and have ordered a load of logs as I'm almost out. Next, I'll need some more coal but think I have enough to last another week or so. Trying to stay away from shops and use up food we have in store or freezer but it isn't working! I got 3 lots of soup out the chicken carcase, so 2 lots into freezer along with 3 lots of cooked chicken. :rotfl: It's still the incredible filling freezer!

Bought 3 dozen quail eggs for incubating (from my 'misc' budget that's to become cash-neutral this year) and hope to start them off mid-week so I can get my quail egg project up and running by May. I might need to invest in a water butt and a garden shed, though, as we've no outside tap and I'll be running out of space for quail if the eggs all hatch. :rotfl:

Frugal chick says 'cheap, cheap'.

MrDT

I expect my spends to get a bit wobbly over the next couple of months, but they should settle down again soon enough (once I get a handle on revised outgoings).

I'm going to be moving house in three weeks time :eek:

LF has been living at my place for the past 6+ months. Soon it'll be that we're living together in 'our' place, not her staying at 'my' place if you know what I mean

It's a rented house that will suit us so much better than where we are now, and shouldn't really hit my budget too badly - in fact, I might even end up better off (wait and see what the bills are like)! House buying is now firmly on hold, minimum contract of 12 months at the rental, figure I may move my savings into fixed rate bonds and isa's as we won't be touching our savings for at least another 12 months now :cool:

There's an outside area at the new place that may soon see some tentative attempts at greenfingered money saving... I'd like to try growing some tomatoes and lettuce. Sadly, I'm the kind of guy that would manage to kill plastic flowers, so I'm not expecting great things lol!

edit - it's just typical that we found this place a couple of weeks after I finished repainting the kitchen and cupboards etc :rotfl: