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

Mollymop5

Have a great day SFT

cw18

Best of luck for today and the future SFT

Frugaldom

GOOD LUCK SFT, have a great day, very excited for you!!

Miserable weather here again but we are getting sunny spells between the blasts of sleat, rain and hail, so it's not all bad.

No signs of any chicks hatched by broodies. Captain Beaky and his band are all doing fine, acting like normal, healthy, inquisitive chicks and Silkie has discovered the joys of dust bathing; S/he rolls right over on his/her back to make sure no place gets missed! :rotfl:

Next lot of eggs are in incubator and I'm collecting some duck eggs to put in at the start of next week. Frugaldom mini poultry farm is slowly creeping back into existence after an absence of more years than I care to remember.

I've removed all the smaller elements of my signature because I'm not going to have the time to keep up with all the challenges. My 4k frugal living and the grocery challenge are paramount to my longterm plan of saving for house & land and my main objective is to keep working towards early retirement and a financially self-sufficient lifestyle. In the meantime, DD's wedding is only 23 weeks away, so the savings totals are fluctuating too much to leave them in my signature. It also helps that she doesn't know how much I'm spending/saving. :shhh: :whistle: :hello: (waves at DD, just in case she's on here reading )

Have a good day, everyone.

[Deleted User]

Good luck for today SFT!

On the challenge front, managed to keep hold of all our reciepts for this month but will probs add them up another time! Didnt realise how much time babys take up!! Overdid it the other day and marched around time, regretted it after taking it very easy now, all my muscles hurt! I have to hobble around like an old lady. Daisy was weighed and had lost weight, I havent been feeding her enough they reminded us again about every time she cries try to feed her. So that started last night and I phoned the midwife yesterday to see if it was normal for her to feed every hour for 20-30 mins so they came out and weighed her and she'd put on 100g OVERNIGHT!!!! :eek: And the 'normal' weight gain for a 2 week old baby is 200g A WEEK!!! So mummy is now a full-time milking machine and it is making me VERY hungry!!

Hope everyones okay xxx

lyndasharp

Good luck SFT, have a fantastic day!

Frugaldom

Deleted_User wrote: »

So mummy is now a full-time milking machine and it is making me VERY hungry!!

:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: You have my sympathies! But look on the frugal side - imagine if you'd to make up that number of bottles of formula, it could amount to 168 ever week! :eek: :rotfl:

On the 'baby' front - sudden increase in numbers here, too! I heard a funny noise from an incubator, peered in and there were 2 tiny quail chicks peering back out at me! :rotfl: I was as shocked as them after thinking I'd lost all the eggs in the power cut and then deciding to leave them until they were due to hatch officially the first day of British summertime - THIS SUNDAY!
Spring has certainly sprung, but it seems to have come crashing in on the crest of a storm wave.

MrDT

Morning all!

Had a bit of luck on ebay last night The new place we're moving to doesn't have a space big enough for my big old freezer... It was given to me free about three years ago, has been running for about 7 years in total, day in day out, never any problems. Cosmetically a bit tatty but working well. Figured I'd put it on freecycle, but gave the free listings on ebay a go first. Started at 99p, no reserve. Got up to about £14 and I was very pleased. In the last few seconds there was a mini bidding war and it eventually sold for £41 (£35.31 after paypal and final value fees) Not bad for something I received for free and was going to give away for free!!

The freezer sale has boosted my 'extra earnings' a bit further for the month In fact I'm close to a totally offset month :eek: Spends for March stand at £184.59, extra earnings that have hit the bank account currently at £133.84 for the month - and once my other withdrawals clear (paypal £35.31 and £10 tab scratchcards) I'll have £179.15 of extra income in my bank for March. I'm only £5.44 short of a totally offset month :eek:

I'm going to spend the next four days desperately trying not to spend anything and just earning an extra few quid lol! It needs to have cleared in my bank account to count as this months earnings, so I need to sell something for cash I think. Would be over the moon with a 'free month' lol :rotfl:

SFT hope you both have a fantastic day, I really like the idea of what you're doing - sounds very personal and tailored to be exactly what you want, very much 'your kind of thing' as opposed to traditional for traditional's sake :beer:

cha97michelle

Morning gang.

I didn't know if DS2 would make nursery again today as he was running a temperature last night, and also restless and in with us making us extra tired again. Must try to get lots of sleep this weekend so i can be fresh for work.

SFT i hope today is very special for you, and it goes exactly as you have planned. Have a good one.

Nyk sounds like you are setting up a farm. Frugal outing to see Nyks chicks. Sounds like they are all settling in well.

loupylou i remember fondly the early BFing days. It can be really draining though when they want to feed that frequently, so eat and drink plenty, and as you get more proficient, i discovered i was able to read a book or newspaper, or eat, or sit one handed with the laptop. I found DS1 fed really frequently like that and it killed me. I didn't eat properly or look after myself well enough, so the milk supply was a bit rubbish really. DS2 i relaxed more, and we had odd times when he fed like that but as he got bigger he would go 3 hours. Now he is a big nearly 11 month old, and i will be having to plan his birthday really soon. Where did that year go? Downside to BF, i sometimes still feel hungry like that now, and i am not burning off all of those calories. I'll have to really knock back when i go back to work and i'm not chasing the kids all day.

Anyway, i've a list of chores a mile long today. I had an idea in my head what the house would look like ready for me going back to work, and it is nowhere near there :rolleyes: So i am hoping to take some steps to get there. WM is already on its 2nd load, and i need to crack on a bit. I might also need to replant my courgettes into larger pots, and peek and see how my tomatoes and leeks are doing as they both sprouted well yesterday. No sign of the peppers still.

Michelle, x

bails

Just popping in to say, hope you have a beautiful wedding today SFT, it sounds lovely and I love your song choices! Have a wonderful time and we'll see you soon xxx

Hi to everyone else, mad busy still, hope to catch up again soon, hope all well xx

lilac_lady

SFT - I wish you a long and happy marriage and a wonderful day today. If only more couples arranged weddings like yours there would be a lot less debt in the first few years of marriage.

Nykmedia - it doesn't matter about the other totals. Please keep us on the right track by continuing your £4000 challenge and giving us all hope that we can do it too.

MrDT - I'm always impressed by your detailed posts.

Good luck with everyone's March totals.