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

purplevamp

Snap Frankie! I potted 20 pepper seeds today. And out of my 18 chilli seeds planted a few weeks ago, 4 are coming through now :j. My toms and carrot plants are doing well, still inside though, and I did order a sliding door mini greenhouse-type thing. I've been thinking about getting something for ages now and where I am it's so windy the plastic covered ones would blow away. Luckily I'll get commission on it and it was reduced a bit, so I'm quite pleased with that. Made some bread, and spent nothing else today. Off to get some more pain killers as the headache is coming back, along with a really achy shoulder and neck. Hope I'm not coming down with something. :cool:

Frugaldom

What a fantastic day we had again! It was really, really warm and I think I probably have mild sun-stroke, plus I look like a cooked lobster! :rotfl:

Went out just after 7am, as usual, felt the heat in the sun and belted back in to stick on a washing. We have spent the entire day outside in the garden and I really think it's starting to look like a garden now, rather than a mini overgrown patch of field. The outside of the fence has been wood stained, just needs the inside doing and then it will be ready for fitting a few hanging baskets I've ordered. (Another of Sophiesmum's ideas I'm pinching ).

Chicks are all doing well and I can, at last, confirm that Silkie chick is a little girl! :j I found this out because we've been letting her freerange in the garden. she prefers to follow us about than the other hens, but they seem to be quite friendly towards her. I threw some food for them all and Mr White came clucking along and began picking up the food and putting it back down in front of Silkie chick, inviting her to eat before he did. He does this with both the other hens, too, just like Mr Grey does with her babies. It was so cute! If silkie chick had been male, Mr White would have been chasing it from the food and 'his' hens.

CW - was reading your lawnmower saga and £200?? :eek: Are there any local gardeneing services who would come and mow the lawns cheaply?

On the pepper seed front, I now have sweet peppers, chilli peppers and 'Big Jim' peppers all sprouted. No true leaves yet, but they have sprouted, nonetheless. This sunny, hot spell should see things coming through much faster, but it's still a little bit frosty in the mornings, so everything's still in the greenhouse with the overspill on the kitchen windowsill.

I was desperate to have a BBQ but frugalisation of the kitchen meant there was nothing for cooking on a barbie. Must start putting together some al fresco meals, like mixed kebabs, drumsticks and homemade burgers, but I still haven't any space in the freezer. I went to use up some soup today and discovered it was mashed potato! I guess I forgot to label the containers again.

Hope everyone has a good day tomorrow. I'm expecting visitors, so it will be excellent if the weather stays good and we can all sit in the garden.

cw18

nykmedia wrote: »

CW - was reading your lawnmower saga and £200?? :eek: Are there any local gardeneing services who would come and mow the lawns cheaply?

Gardening services? Yes. Cheaply? No.

It's £15-£20 a fortnight. So, based on 6 months at fortnightly, that's £195-£260 a year - so £200 for a mower actually doesn't sound that bad apart from having to find it all up front

And if I go down the child-minding route, then fortnightly isn't often enough for young children to be playing out in the garden. Added to which the chap who was supposed to do it last year often didn't come for 3 weeks at a time - and we had a 5 week gap during July/August when he 'damaged his eyes with a bright light and couldn't drive' right after they'd been round pushing notes that they had to put up their prices due to the increases in the cost of fuel..... but it was too much for them to get in touch with us and let us know they wouldn't be coming :mad:

Frugaldom

Oh, sorry to hear that, CW. I guess when you look at the longterm, a decent lawnmower is a bit of an investment rather than risk relying on someone else. Isn't it amazing how difficult reliability is to find?

It's another lovely day here, so it looks like spring cleaning will be delayed yet again :j:o. Outside is beginning to look like a garden, inside still looks a bit umm.... 'lived in'. :rotfl: I have managed to declutter loads of stuff since down-sizing, so there are fewer and fewer boxes and I can now see a little bit of the garage floor, however we are a long way short of completing the declutter project.

Good weather keeps basic household spending down, for me. The heaters are all at low after trying with them switched off but there's still icy winds and frost about, so it's not feasible just yet and I refuse to freeze. Still, £20 per week on electricity is better than £30 - £35 per week and I haven't used any coal or logs for at least a week. :T

We have Wrens and Great Tits nesting in the wall next to the house and I'm sure I can hear babies 'cheeping' already! The swallows have returned and there are lambs & calves (and chicks) everywhere here.

Hope everyone has a great day and can make the most of the sunshine but have a good day, regardless.

BigMummaF

cw18 wrote: »

Gardening services? Yes. Cheaply? No.

:mad:

Sorry to chop, but I don't suppose the college your son attends is doing a horticultural course? Or perhaps he has a friend who would be interested in earning a bit of cash towards [STRIKE]the pub[/STRIKE]expensive tuition?
Also, some areas have a 'Good Neighbour' scheme, that may have a gardener or three looking for any excuse to be outside. My aunt found a lovely couple who helped her with so much, just by bothering to read the parish magazine. Good Luck.

thriftylass

Hi fellow frugallers.

I love hearing your garden stories, can't wait to have my own, and those chicks look so cute. I'm sure they'll be delicious too unless they're just for eggs?? At least in my little windowsill garden everything is growing fine, the tomatoes already started to flower. Might go and get some more pots and seed some more to be able to harvest in stages throughout the summer. Even BF seems quite interested and can't wait for the first harvest so I guess I'll get away with blocking more windows with pots .

Good news. I finally made it and have been smoke free for a week. Doesn't sound much but it feels different from the times I tried before and it was so much easier. Plus it means I already saved £21 :T. Had to nearly laugh out loud yesterday when I realized what I spent on fags while getting excited about finding 5p on the street or winning 50p in free scratch.

Have a lovely sunny Sunday

cw18

Nothing like those I know of around us

I have a son living at home who I could get to do it for me -- but to be honest it takes enough out of me to get him to walk the dogs, without also fighting him to use a mower even I don't 100% trust/like using !! I've been 'window shopping' on the www last night and this morning, and I think I'm going for a cheaper, smaller and lighter electric mower.... That and a strimmer (good make and pretty good reviews) come in at pennies over £110 - and if they do the job easily, then he could well find himself being pushed into doing it sometimes

He actually does very little around the house (except eat, sleep and use the Internet), and it's starting to get me down. But he's in for a rude awakening when they break up for the Summer as he's already gloating about how many weeks they have off.

The deal at the moment is he does dog walking on non-college days (Sat, Sun, Mon and holidays), but I often have to nag him from lunch until almost tea-time to get him [strike]off his back-side[/strike] out of bed. Come the Summer holiday he will have to do that every day - plus I'll be expecting him to help out with pot-washing etc.

The only reason he gets away with it is that he's actually very understanding about the money issues, and doesn't just help himself to food without asking (unless he's been told it's there for him, and if he eats that faster than I intended he doesn't ask for top-ups as he's been told when it has to last 'til). He's actually always been the best of my three for this, so it's a bonus that he's the one still at home if I have to have one here :rolleyes2

lilac_lady

Washing on the go, wondering what to have for dinner (family coming over), trying to fill black bags with old clothes etc so that I can take them to the recycle bins. Going to cut grass, clean kitchen window inside and out then email a couple of friends.

What an exciting life it is when you're trying not to spend money!

Thanks to all who keep posting and a special thanks to Janey for her wonderful posts even though she's having a struggle with life at the moment.

purplevamp

cw18 wrote: »

...I have a son living at home who I could get to do it for me...

Me too! He borrowed £10 last week and I told him if he cut the grass he could keep it and not pay me back. He did about a quarter :mad:.

cw18 wrote: »

He actually does very little around the house (except eat, sleep and use the Internet), and it's starting to get me down. But he's in for a rude awakening when they break up for the Summer as he's already gloating about how many weeks they have off..I often have to nag him from lunch until almost tea-time to get him [strike]off his back-side[/strike] out of bed.

Same here. He got out of bed the other day at 6pm :eek: He's also got about 8 or 9 weeks off over summer and he won't get his EMA so I've told him he needs to get a job. That went down well :rotfl:.

cw18 wrote: »

...he's actually very understanding about the money issues, and doesn't just help himself to food without asking (unless he's been told it's there for him, and if he eats that faster than I intended he doesn't ask for top-ups as he's been told when it has to last 'til).

This is spooky! Are we talking about the same person?? Teenagers, eh?! :rolleyes: :rotfl:

Frugaldom

thriftylass wrote: »

Hi fellow frugallers.

I love hearing your garden stories, can't wait to have my own, and those chicks look so cute. I'm sure they'll be delicious too unless they're just for eggs?? ...

:eek::eek::eek: Cover your [STRIKE]ears[/STRIKE] eyes Silkiechick, she's only pretending!:rotfl:The hybrids are just for eggs but the purebred ones will hopefully help make a bit of cash to help pay for the upkeep of the others. I'm a complete and utter woose and could never kill any pet-reared stock for the table. I could rear it for market/someone else to kill but even that, HS/OH wouldn't hear of such a thing, so it isn't worth the hassle.

CW - I also have a teenage DS who does nothing about the garden unless asked, then grumphs as he does it. I guess I'm quite lucky that there's no arguments about it. To be fair, he does leave for work fairly early every morning and between boxing, gym, running, weight training, hill walking and late nights at weekends, he's hardly here! He's quite handy at decorating and he does keep his room tidy and has learned to cook the essential 'man basics', as I call them, but my teenager will no longer be a teenager in a few weeks and could be off soon, anyway. Isn't life crazy at times? I spend 3 years in Suffolk on airforce bases, come home to Scotland because none of the 'kids' want to be 'down south' and now DS is heading to a base just a few miles from the one I left to come back up here! :rotfl:

Sophiesmum - HUGE THANK YOU! :T I am now the proud owner of some homemade SM produce! I feel really privilidged :T:T. It was such a lovely morning, too, with the sun shining, the chairs out and being able to sit in the garden, albeit with Silkiechick in attendance.

HS/OH is getting the fence finished so I can get the baskets hung up and I'm going to potter and water then cut more wire mesh to protect the bottoms of the fruit trees.

Hope the sun is shining wherever you may be.