Live on £4000 for a Year, 2009 Challenge, part 2

savingfortravel

Hi Everyone!

Here for my MSE fix. Hope you are all well. Thanks BB-you're right Stage 1 complete. 13 days to go.

Today started (at 10am I'm afraid) with a walk in the country with Mr SFT and my parents. Took some more wildflower photos for the calendar-dog roses/red campions and buttercups. Then got some groceries with some Waitrose vouchers. Now sipping wine (pressie from Mr SFT) so a NSD.

Lingo-Daddy is still asking what on the menu for £1.99?????

sft

liloandstitch

Hi everyone, glad you are all enjoying the weekend - sorry you got no sun until 6.30 nyk, hopefully it will be better later.

Have had a fairly frugal day, took MIL for her weekly shopping - always an experience with her in a wheelchair, however, this went better than normal until my DH run over my feet with said chair, and then shouted at me for getting my feet in the way! (tempers are always on edge when taking MIL shopping) we hadnt recovered from this spat, when he dropped the Iceland bag on the floor, which broke the bottle of olive oil, all over the yoghurts. £3.00 wasted, plus I have got to go out tomorrow and get a new bottle. Not impressed. However all is back to normal now.

I only spent £1.00 on a book for DS in charity shop and the £4.00 in Iceland so not too bad. Dinner was cold chicken, jersey royals (yum and paid for by MIL) and salad so a gorgeous meal. Dinner tomorrow is lamb roast so a full week of no takeaways, my budget is looking totally transformed.

I need to look up recipes for fish - ocado delivered 2 packets of frozen cod fillets with my shopping that I didnt order(or pay for!), so will probably have some this week - I only usually have fish shop fish, so dont really have any recipes. I am sure I have got one somewhere for like a chicken nugget type thing for fish (a healthy one) but not sure if this is a bit too much faff. Anyone got any (easy) fish recipes I can try?

Hope everyone that gets the sun this weekend gets plenty of time to enjoy it

Lilo

Skint_Lynne

Evening everyone,

I'm just back from my friends house (the one who is having DH trouble), it's a shame, she is coping as best she can, and the wee fella is finding it hard, he has started asking to have the light on at night, cause he is frightened cause his dad is not in the house with them.

Now, my DH is a pest, (as you all know:p), but if he caused trouble like that one, I would be:mad::mad::mad:. It's a pity that they don't take their kids into account before they decide to run away with bits of skirt. Anyway, rant over.

I've been pretty good, not a lot of cash spent and I was working with my job today, the sisters were in the shop.

I'm going out for lunch tomorrow with the sisters and mum, DH is away hillwalking and will be back tomorrow. He checked in and has very sore legs as they went up a really steep hill, that's what happens I guess.

Talking about things that make you feel rich, I really like it when I produce something great to eat and you get told that it tastes like something that a top chef would make, (has happened a good few times:o), but the thing that makes me feel really rich is seeing my wee nephew who is gorgeous and funny, and you get unconditional love from him, :A.

Will check in later. xx

lingojingo

savingfortravel wrote: »

Lingo-Daddy is still asking what on the menu for £1.99?????

My menu is usually cheese and home made chutney or left over chicken etc. sandwiches on home made bread, not sure what the pub serves, haven't been to look yet.

Skint_Lynne

lingojingo wrote: »

My menu is usually cheese and home made chutney sandwiches on home made bread, not sure what the pub serves, haven't been to look yet.

Yum, one of my faves, cheese and pickle, :drool:. Even better if all the ingredients are home made. xx

cha97michelle

Morning frugang.

What a beautiful day here. DH is just cutting the grass, then we are all going out to enjoy the garden. I'll probably end up sneezing most of the day, but never mind. My plan is to get lots of washing done before the rain tomorrow.

Yesterday we were shattered and spent a little while shopping. We picked up DS2 a ride on tractor with trailer for the garden with his birthday money, and i got myself a hair dye kit as i'm afraid i am reaching that stage. I hated the shopping. It made me feel really not trendy and old before my time. I don't even want to be like that, but everyone seemed so groomed and well dressed and i felt like a slob. good job we only stayed a short while as we ran in for some work jeans for DH and some bras for me. I would be seriously tempted to spend though if we went more regularly. The feelings faded as soon as we left.

We got some great news yesterday. The ILs want to give us a large chunk of money, but to spend on a project like doing up our bathroom and kitchen which really need it to be honest. It would make our lives a lot easier, and if we also did the boiler, also cheaper. We've been trying to save for it for the past 5 years since we moved here, and got nowhere really as there is always a bigger priority than that and it costs too much to do it all in one go as we would want to. Hopefully now we can be proactive and try and sort it out for the school summer hols. It has been a big shock to us they want to do it, and is really appreciated.

Only other thing i can think of you'd all appreciate is we harvested our 1st crop from the garden yesterday. 4 lettuces, and 1 cabbage. All delicious, but wilted so quickly when brought indoors, so just shows what rubbish is put on our food usually. Hopefully the 1st of lots more to come. Enough of my mutterings anyway,

have a good one everyone x

SiannieLaz

Hey Lilo, I get the frozen fish fillets & just put them in the oven wrapped in foil with a little butter or oil, some herbs and a bit a lemon, they taste nearly as good as the fresh ones!

patchwork_cat

Michelle - with my lettuces I don't actually pick them, just take off as many leaves as I need - they seem to keep growing for most of the summer that way.

savingfortravel

:cool: Hi Everyone!! (sorry Nyk)

Wow! What a beautiful day it has been. Hope everyone got their fair share of sunshine and are enjoying the last few moments. Then I'll beable to read everyone's news as its been very quiet on here today.

My morning consisted of planning and marking. Mum made us all a delicious Sunday lunch. Then I prepared resources for some school activities before my Auntie/Uncle and Cousin with baby daughter came over. We went to a local country park to feed the ducks and were going to buy ice creams but the queue was enormous. So we came back for tea and had a choice of mum's home made coffee and walnut or fruit cake without having to pay £2.50 per slice (which they were charging in the country park coffee shop!).

So a NSD. Just been updating my blog. It is on

http://sftandthe101challenge.blogspot.com

if you are interested, although there seems to be a bit of a problem with them suspecting me of spam at the moment. Honestly. You should read it..full of my innocent ramblings and that is all.

Have a great evening all.

sft

cha97michelle

patchwork_cat wrote: »

Michelle - with my lettuces I don't actually pick them, just take off as many leaves as I need - they seem to keep growing for most of the summer that way.

I'm doing that too. I planted a sprinkling of seeds from a pack with about 750 seeds in. About 40 grew, and i have planted 12 outside and been pinching leaves off the indoors ones, they are now starting to look a bit bedraggled though and i am sure the cat sits on them overnight.

I took some photos yesterday, so i should try and upload onto here.

sft i have a 1001 list too. I'm nearly 100 days into mine, so i will take a look at your blog and leave you a post so you can see mine if you'd like. Mostly going well, although i have not been brill at the stuff i said i would do on a daily basis, but i'm trying so that to me is progress.

Just chilling now, the kids are asleep. The house is a bit of a pigsty but we'll deal with that tomorrow when the bad weather is here. We also want to go rellie visiting.

Hope you all had a fabulous day.