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

cw18

Have had a busy day today - and looks like being a 'chase my tail' week !!!

Morning - help out in pre-school (having collected GDs from DD and "amused" them for the best part of an hour)

Late morn/early aft - A!di for milk, make dinner, eat dinner, catap for quarter of an hour while younger GD colours... fortunately she's happy to colour in books intended for it when here, and doesn't wander off looking for 'new' surfaces once left unsupervised (which they both do at home!)

Mid aft - back to DD's workplace to collect changes of clothes for GDs, and present for the party younger GD had been invited to!! DD forgot about it this morning, so had to dive home and collect them in her lunch break Home in time to grab elder GD from school. Get GDs changed, and off to party at an indoor soft play centre.

Early evening - run GDs home, and get them into nightwear while waiting for DD to arrive. She called in to visit a friend who had a baby last Friday on the way home, but party finished earlier than she'd told me and she was later home than she'd promised - so I'm not best pleased with her :mad:

Tomorrow isn't too bad - apart from the fact I have GDs until 6pm instead of 5pm (DD has an appt), and I'm on a 12 hour fast from 9pm.... so will almost certainly be an early night.

Wednesday - have to 'contend' with both GDs before school without being able to have anything to eat or drink (other than tap water). But once I drop them at school it's straight round the corner to have blood taken, then home to get the kettle and toaster on At least I have a 9:15am appt - they initially offered me 10:30am :eek:

Thursday - business as normal, with just elder GD around school.

Friday - off to a farm with the children from the Reception Class (I believe this is Y1 in Scotland - it's the first year full-time, and the school year in which they turn 5). I was asked as soon as I arrived at school this morning if I could help, as they've been let down by a couple of people and don't have enough adults to maintain the correct ratio to children. So I'll be in charge of a number of children I don't know (cue a very quick learning of names and faces, and hope I can remember them for 6 hours!), and need to head to their classroom - with my packed lunch - as soon as I've seen elder GD into school. I've been promised they'll be back by 3pm, so then I'll have to hang around to collect GD at 3:15, and then stay "with it" for another 2 hours until she goes home.....



I can see me spending most of this weekend in bed :rotfl:

patchwork_cat

Apple trees will drop some of their fruit, is there still one fruit per branch? What is recommended by some is that you pick off all but 1 fruit per cluster and let that one fruit develop inot a larger fruit, but again I am sure that plenty of people don't do that and get better crops than we ever did! ( I know that my Grandpa couldn't possibly have done that with the size of his fruit trees - unless you have an 85 year old up a ladder!)
http://www.ipm.iastate.edu/ipm/hortnews/1995/5-19-1995/fdrop.html

whitewing

For those of you thinking about (or actually) overpaying your mortgage, here's a thread to get you going:

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1636733

whitewing

(Sorry, didn't mean to change the subject so abruptly).

DdraigGoch

Dear fellow citizens of Frugonia,

I hope the sun is shining where you are - it's brilliant here

It's fine, Whitewing - abrupt changes and announcements/hints/personal news is what happens on here and what makes it so interesting! And, had you not mentioned it, we might not have known about it, so thank you. My reply isn't quite what they were looking for ....

My frugal shop the other day went well, in that I spent relatively little for what I got, but I still spent over £125 in two shops ....:eek:

I dived into the Boots "clearance" bins and ended up with Speciality H&Shoulders x 2 @ 95p each, lots of high end conditioner at less than a pound, plus speciality stuff for my daughter [should endear me to her!], then I went clothes shopping. Now, bear in mind that I always end up looking frumpy, virtually no matter what I do - I have all the style and clothing choice ability of a penguin! - I came out of TKMx with a well fitting pair of trousers [v difficult to find, am 42 long ... with NO waist!] and three tops, two white linen ones and a rather spiffy short sleeved jumper for evenings - should I ever get the chance to anywhere other than the recycling centre! So, though a lot of money was spent it was a] saved up and budgeted for and b] cheaper than I had allowed for = result! All that, and two books too :j:j

There are so many hugs and congratulations that, not coming on each day, that I can't speak personally, so please accept my condolences, commiserations and, best of all, congratulations as appropriate.

I'm working my way towards a new bedroom - anyone want about 120 square metres of 2nd hand Junkers beech flooring? I think eBy is probably the way to go, any idea how much to ask for? - a new end wall [virtually] of the house, a new end wall in the bedroom itself plus all the usual stuff, floor, windows, doors never mind the furniture!! It could take me a while - but I want it done by September, am I mad? :rotfl:

All the same, Happy Monday to everyone
an infrequent poster but devoted lurker
DG

Brighton_belle

always good to hear from devoted lurkers draig:D

I'm mrs chuffed of chuff land today. 10.30 last night (it's dark then down here you far Northern folk) saw me scuttling down the road to pick up a set of drawers that had been left out to take that I had been mulling over all day. (I didn't have to wait til it was dark, it was a legit offer, as that's what happens here; cut out the middle man of freecycle and bung it on the pavement:D) Anyway it took me a few hrs to justify having them, as I spotted them on our return from a perfect afteroon: took a picnic and headed for a local village to watch a cricket match (my first); blissful, surrounded by stunning scenery of the rollling Downs)
Any way - I do mean just the drawers were there, not the frame work. They fit perfectly into my put together shelving/storage that I have in our new bedroom: I should take a picture and show them to you when they are finished as it is nearly all constructed form stuff I found on the street.

Then today, talking to my neighbour, who has a beautiful front garden full of growing veg I offered her the use of mine to do more - I'd get the benefit of a beautiful looking garden and non of the work and she gets to grow more veg, so everyone's a winner. I am realistic in that I just don't have the energy to do the watering required and it just looks a deglected mess at the mo. And I'm doing my bit for frugalisation, if only by encouraging someone else:0). It's only very small. and it will be all in pots... again I'll take somephotos soon. Must recharge battery.

Blairweech

BB - Well done on furnishing your pad with stuff you found on the street - looking forward to seeing piccies

I have just done a renewal quote for my car insurance (due in September) and it is looking to be half what I paid last year :j (thats without doing a particularly extensive search, or trying to price-match, or looking at cashback). This means I can pay it all in one sum (as I am no longer being offered 0% APR and the £31.71 DD that I currently have can go straight into savings. Hooray!

Here are my totals for June. As you can see, I have blown my budget.

xnatalie81x

I joined in Jan and have not updated for a while. Have had to revise amt to live on but so far am doing ok. I have spent 6100/11000 but this should be easier as i have done most of xmas and b'day shopping now and also no more car ins till oct. Also have huge stockpiles of food and my own harvests will come in soon! Some of cost went on prepping my garden for first ever veg growing!

Frugaldom

Good morning to all

What are you all doing for the final day of the first half of the 2009 challenge? Although we aren't 'officially' half way through the year until Thursday, it's the halfway stage for all of us who have been here since 1st January and I'll be starting the new thread for tomorrow, 1st July 2009. CONGRATULATIONS TO EVERYONE WHO IS STILL WITH US! :T

Well done BB, on getting into the garden sharing, I spoke about that quite a bit last year and think it's great. Well done on the drawers, too.

Ddraig, nice to see you posting again, I hope you'll pop into the new thread to keep us up to date with how the house is coming along.

Blairweech, good news on the car insurance front, bet you're pleased. Don't worry too much about the budget as you can use the figures as a rehearsal for next year - yes, of course there'll be another challenge! :cool:

XNatalieX I hope you are enjoying your veg growing. It will be so satisfying when able to go shopping for free in your own garden, even if there were costs involved in the preparation. I got my first decent strawberries yesterday and am going to start looking for potatoes later this week.

Back to catch up later, just thought I'd pop in and remind everyone that the new thread will be starting for tomorrow. I'll link it to here, as usual, so nobody gets lost

lyndasharp

Hi all, I updated my spends yesterday and I've got just over half my budget left for the rest of the year, spent £5500 of the £12k leaving me £6500.

Thanks for the slug suggestions. I'll see what I can do with the old milk bottles we have got for recycling, and try to make little collars!

I nearly fell over in the work car park today. I was getting off my bike, but hadn't noticed my trouser leg was caught! I'd leant sideways to put my foot down, and there was a horrible moment where my foot wouldn't come away from the pedal. As I was leaning already there was nothing I could do... luckily my trouser came free just in time and I managed to stop myself going over. Having also hit my head on the garage door this morning, I'm not sure I'm safe to be out today!