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

Frugaldom

CW, I'm beginning to think that perhaps country-bumpkin living may not be the best choice of lifestyle for you. :rotfl: Cream with yer Gold coffee, indeed, this is Frugaldom, not Carnegiedom. It would be home grown chicory with the top off the milk if you were lucky, and there isn't much 'top' on UHT skimmed. :rotfl:

cw18

Ah! But please note that I did say I only have coffee as a special treat a couple of times a year :rotfl:

I'm currently working my way through App Foods T-bags - have the last of the first of three large bags in my 'caddy' now And these aren't really as strong as I like, but they saved me some pennies so I'm [strike]coping with them as best I can[/strike] quite happy to use them :rolleyes2

whitewing

You can apparently buy replacement keyboard letter stickers (I don't know these people):

http://www.keytools.co.uk/product.php?productid=16298

I wonder if WHSmith would have them cheaper?

I love the idea of elderflower fritters. MIL has made elderflower juice and it is the best thing she has ever made.

Good morning everyone.

sophiesmum_2

Good morning frunchkins:D

Not much happening so far today here seeing as how my plaans for the weekend were spoilt. Will spend a little time in the garden and greenhouse , visit the parents, but after that not sure. I may finally start on the plate rack which needs sanding and painting for cottage
Picked more gooseberries last night for jam making so jm stores are building up again.
Need to sort out the storecupboard soon too, there are few things in there that haven't been used at all so need to use them up and not buy any more when restocking later in the year. Still looking quite healthy though overall, and not been topped up much except for things like baked beans,uht milk and tomatoes - brother been getting me the beans though 17p from Heinz staff shop so no big expenditure there
Budget wise , not counting what we have spent on cottage , I am coming in just under budget for the first 6 months. The cottage spends are from savings put aside for our future home so not counting those, but have been counting food and electricity costs as we would still have been spending on those.
CW - Even in the short time we have spent oop North, I have to commend Nyk for her food spends as everything is so much more expensive there and no chances of bargains, woopsies etc much. Add to that fuel costs everytime you need anything and rural living can be expensive. Without getting out in the garden digging and planting, food bills would be very high.

angela110660

nykmedia wrote: »

Hello everyone

Weather is still hot and dry here, so I got out for my evening stroll and even managed a tiny bit of jogging just to see if the knees would hold up to it. I haven't done much since my little accident last October but they now bend and hold me upright Must stick with the get fitter, not fatter, as I've gained a(nother) stone since knee incident! :eek: But I digress, again. :rolleyes: The evening walk is when I normally gather my kindling sticks and cones in the forest but we stuck to the road tonight, so it was only kindling sticks and an inspection of the hedgerows. There are thousands of little green sloes on the bushes, plus miriads of elder flowers and flowering bramble bushes. When I got home, I ticked something off a list that has been there for some time now...



:jI made elderflower fritters and they were delicious! I used self raising flower and then thickened up the extra batter to make pancake mix then added some flowers to that, too. Tomorrow I'll make the elderflower pancakes. I'm also going to have a go at frugal elderflower champagne. :beer:

And when the berries are there - get them before the birds and make some elderberry wine too. It is scrummy. We have found an orchard near here that makes apple juice with elderflower but never use the berries so they allow us to pick what we need for our wine which is very lovely of them.

cw18

sophiesmum wrote: »

CW - Even in the short time we have spent oop North, I have to commend Nyk for her food spends as everything is so much more expensive there and no chances of bargains, woopsies etc much. Add to that fuel costs everytime you need anything and rural living can be expensive. Without getting out in the garden digging and planting, food bills would be very high.

I totall appreciate where you're coming from with this, and think Nyk is doing brilliantly with her GC spending :T

Where we used to live we rarely got Whoopsies, and "affordable" milk was a 6 mile round trip away (but fortunately just around the corner from the child-minder then pre-school nursery we used for the boys over the course of 6 years, almost next door to the swimming pool where the kids had lessons for a couple of years after that, and only a small detour on the route home from work anyway - so I could alway nip in when we were short of stuff). Totally expect that petrol is a "silly" price up there too, as I know I dreaded having to fill the fuel tank when we were on holiday in the Lake District (even on a day out to a 'major' town)

The one thing I'm finding daunting about trying to grow my own is not having a clue what I'm doing - I've never even planted flowers, not even in pots!!! But if I had 'neighbours' (ie. within a mile or 6) to give me lessons, then I'd feel much better about tackling it

Frugaldom

Whitewing, thanks for keyboard letters info. I use the frugal version - write the letters on the extra edging around sheets of labels that I need to print most days, cut to fit, stick on, replace every 2 weeks or so.

SM, thanks for pointing out the shopping differences, I'm glad you've now seen for yourself and know only too well how prices and bargains compare to elsewhere. To be honest, I was more shocked finding out how cheap others can get stuff. :rotfl:

CW, Thanks for that, I don't feel like I'm doing brilliantly on the grocery front when compared to previous years. Price increases are taking their toll. Hopefully, the garden will curb future spends once it's fully 'operational'. Petrol prices aren't all that different here, we just don't have discounted petrol. It's just that a car is needed to get anywhere, even to the wheelie bins if you don't want a 2.5 mile round trip walk :rotfl: Quick veg-growing lesson coming up especially for you. I think tubs would be best for you as serious self-sufficient style gardening is like a fulltime job. I am already very sunburnt from being out in it almost all day, everyday. Also found a down point to the weird house that has struck it completely from my list - it looks like there's no vehicular access right to the house, so everything would need to be carried across the raised walkway that links upper floor of house to the road. Not sure, but that's how it looks when passing.

Angela, thanks for mentioning the elderberry wine. I hadn't forgotten about that or the cordial and will be doing some later in the year once the berries are ready.

QUICK FRUGAL VEG GROWING LESSON FOR CW

(Don't forget sun hat & Factor 50.)

1. Find some old buckets, pots, tubs or containers, even empty milk cartons will do
2. Carefully stab some drainage holes in the bottom
3. Fill with soil/compost
4. Water thoroughly
5. Sprinkle a few seeds of your choice
6. Cover seeds lightly
7. Leave to grow

Size of container will determine what you can plant, but you can grow almost anything in a bucket. For potatoes, just put a layer of soil/compost/straw or whatever about 4" on bottom and sit potato on that. Cover it up and keep it watered. Each time shoots get to be about 6"+ above ground, cover them up molehill style until only top couple of inches shows. When bucket is completely full, leave for plant to flower. Once flowers, leaves the stalks look wilted, you could have a kilo of tatties in your bucket. As a trial, just let a store bought potato sprout and use that rather than buy a whole bag of seed potatoes. If you get several sprouts on a large potato, chop it into chunks with a sprout on each chunk, plant one chunk per bucket for even more potatoes.

1 Litre milk cartons are still experimental for me, so I have restricted it to 1 carrot per carton. I don't think it's too late to plant seed carrots, radishes, beans, peas, turnips/swede, coriander, parsley, salad leaves and even a late potato or two. Freecyclers usually offer surplus plants too. Don't throw out the used compost, plant something different into it and start learning about home composting for next year

Hope this helps then we can celebrate the arrival of another frugal food grower. :T The more tubs and veg beds you have, the less mowing needs done, too.

Brighton_belle

[STRIKE]Morning [/STRIKE]afternoon all. This weekend so far has consisted of me lurking in shade alot and the continual slow declutter. What's wonderful is that really, over a day I don't achieve a lot, but over 2 weeks that 'not a lot ' has had a huge impact and I can't belive what I've achieved. We are loving our separate bedroom an feels like we've just moved intogether for the 1st time:smileyhea
NO clutter will be allowed to build up in that room. Don't know how I did it; moved all the junk and stuff that was in there, repainted and then 'constructed' storage for clothes etc out of stuff I have found on the street and attic a small paint spend making use of a voucher in the local paper.
NOw I am slowly working on our front room and it is taking shape by me continuing to do a little each day.
SM - thanks for your lovely comment re my mosaics etc. You are quite right, I won't ever be able to charge what they actually cost in hours to make, which is why I am only thinking low key activity, so I continue to love doing it and maybe get some small (very) income for extra's. I wouldn't have a clue what to charge anyhoo, but one step at a time.

Bought 2 tops from @sda yesterday to suppliment dire summer wardrobe; possibly 1st clothes spend of the year. I need a few more things - I'd be happy with a very capsule wardrobe. If we are in for a hot summer I desparate do need a few more things though. Groan, I loath clothes shopping.

Hope the burn is feeling a ,little better SF. Not long til your holiday now:j.

thriftylass

nykmedia wrote: »

Only 2 days to go until many of us have reached the halfway stage of the 2009 challenge. If you started the year with £4,000, how close are you to having £2,000 left? I'm a little too close for comfort but am still within my own 'limit'. I'll have a full breakdown ready for Tuesday so I'm ready to start into the third quarter on Wednesday.

I wish :mad:....I'm way over (didn't really keep track recently but it looks like I spend about 3500 out of my 5000 :eek:). But still my spends look better than the previous years, so do my savings. I think I'll set myself a new half year budget of £2500 as a new motivation for the next half year and join you more regularly again.

I'll catch up with all your posts next week
See you later :hello:

cw18

Thanks for the gardening lesson Nyk Still suspect I'll manage to kill off more than actually grows though :rotfl:


Grocery shop done, total spend today of £23.21 for heeeaaaaaps of stuff (even allowing for the fact I had £6.59 of free goodies - 60p as a 'thankyou' for pointing out a labelling error in Mr A, 99p in Mr T as the lass only scanned 1 of my 2 bags of sausages, and £5 from my Mr M voucher)

And I reckon I have everything in that I need for July bar milk, bread (loaves and rolls), potatoes, salad bits (mainly for sandwiches), sandwich meats/fillings and more ice-cream and pop!! But our local Mr M opens on 13th July, so at that point I'll be starting a daily watch for Whoopsies (especially on meats) for using in August and beyond.......