Live on £4,000 for a year - 2009, Part 3

Savvy_sewing

sophiesmum wrote: »

Good morning frunchkins:D
Just having a pootle on here whilst the apples are boiling their pants off for the crab apple jelly to be made today. Already had an early morning coffee with frugal neighbour and been chicken watching through the lounge window for a while:p
Hope you all have a good day:D

Hi Sophiesmum, it would save me hours of trawling, if you could tell me what you put in the crap apple jelly. It was so windy here yesterday, there are hundreds of apples on the grass now. So I am going to search through them and pick up those that are usuable and compost those that are not. I have preserve jam, Is there anything else I need to put in? I had lemon juice in the plums that I made two days ago?

sophiesmum_2

Mooloo wrote: »

Hi Sophiesmum, it would save me hours of trawling, if you could tell me what you put in the crap apple jelly. It was so windy here yesterday, there are hundreds of apples on the grass now. So I am going to search through them and pick up those that are usuable and compost those that are not. I have preserve jam, Is there anything else I need to put in? I had lemon juice in the plums that I made two days ago?

Mooloo - I am trying this one
http://www.dooyoo.co.uk/recipes/preserves/1056625/

hope you aren't really making crap apple jelly:rotfl: , I didn't use a lemon just a few spoons of lemon juice but it says you can leave it out if you want to.

slowlyfading

Michelle, nice to see you posting again
Whitewing, ooh scan time already! how exciting for you! xx

sophiesmum_2

Good faternoon frunchkins:D

Yesterday's bag full of crab apples have now been transformed into more stock for my preserve storecupboard, which is filling up nicely.The crab apple jelly is made and now looks like this, it made 7 and 3/4 jars, the 3/4 jar will be put in the fridge and used first. I still have half a bag of apples left to try some rowan berry jelly over the weekend, or add to blackberries to make jam.

the jelly is now cooling and I can hear an occasional pop as another lid seals. Will drop a jar in for frugaldom neighbour shortly in exchange for the lovely free range eggs I was given earlier. Frugal bartering is going well here

chika

Hi everyone. I've been away for a while but have been lurking a lot. I'm on uni holidays and working as a nanny in wales which is fun. The kids are sweet and I get to practice being frugal. I've been doing lots of baking and even made pizza yesterday. Enough pizza for six hungry children for less than £2. Amazing!

The jam looks amazing. I'm thinking of having a go. Can you make jam out of any fruit? There are apples, pears, blackberries, yellow plums and blackcurrants going to waste and feeding birds. I might get a couple of tubs and harvest some for when I go back up north.

Frugalwise I'm doing quite well. Trying not to spend too much money on rubbish or new clothes. Had a slight slip up last week when I bought seven pairs of shoes! But and its a big one, I got all seven pairs for £19. I have wide size 9 feet and I can't get shoes that fit from hardly anywhere so I snapped them up.

Hope all is well in frugal land.

sophiesmum_2

Chika defintely have a go at the jam making it is really easy to do, you can use all those fruits except the pears. If you do the blackberries add some apple or plums to it as the blackberries have low pectin so the other fruit would help the jam set better. You can make jelly with the pears but it is a bit more of a faff doing it.
Shoes sound like a bargain :T

andromache_2

Hello! I haven't posted in ages again It's so nice to read up on everyone's frugal adventures - particularly loving hearing about the jam-making, chicken-keeping and other self-sufficiency measures!

nyk - You can still keep the number from your old sim card! You need to ring up the provider for the old sim card and ask for the PAC code, then you can give this number to the provider for whatever new sim card you get, and they can transfer the number across; you'll just have a temporary number for a couple of days. Hope that makes sense! I did it a couple of months ago when my contract expired and it was pretty straightforward

sf - You're sounding nicely busy. Sorry about bf's gran - I'm sure he'll just be glad if you're there to talk to if he needs to. I'm pleased it's going so well with him. I was thinking about you working in the bakery during the hot days we had earlier this week; hope you coped ok! Can't believe you have essays already before officially starting the PGCE!

sft - I've really enjoyed the travel updates. Central America is now definitely on my list! Hope the journey home went OK.

bails - Likewise with the updates. Hope you feel better soon! I shall PM you in a sec, I'd love to hear how it's going ETA: your inbox is full!

whitewing - Lovely to see you posting - hope you had a nice time in Devon. How exciting about the scan! Let us know how it goes

michelle, chika - nice to see you posting after a break too.

I've been having a lovely chilled time staying at the boyfriend's house being intermittently productive; I'm involved in quite a few societies next year so I'm getting stuff sorted in advance for those and am enjoying having time to read novels and so on. He's coming down to London to see my parents at the weekend which I think he's a tad nervous about! It's going really well :grinheart

OK, the past couple of times I've posted I've made excuses for not having updated my spending total and I *still* haven't, so I'm going to get it done asap and will post back tomorrow (OH about to wake up from his nap after a night shift!). No, really I will, honest! I had to spend a fortune (£97!! plus £4 for photos) on getting an accelerated passport application done since my last one has just disappeared and I couldn't find it anywhere but I'm going to take that out of the 'holiday' budget which is separate from my main one but otherwise I've not spent *that* much in the past few weeks... I think! :cool:

See you all soon xxx

slowlyfading

Okay, so I have something to admit. I've just put about £40 of stuff onto my credit card. One is a foundation from MAC, which costs £19 (plus P+P) but, in my defence, lasts me about 6 months, and it doesn't irritate my skin like a lot of other make up, so I can justify this. A lot of people don't understand how I can spend so much on a powder, but I don't really wear any other make up, just mascara which is £6 from Boots every 3 months or so, so I don't really spend in this area at all. The second thing I've put on is a dress from Topshop for £14 plus p+p. Now, I intend to wear this with leggings, and with a long sleeved top underneath might be good in school as well, so I can justify it as well. Don't know why I feel so guilty? I'm on budget, in fact I have a bit to play with, but I still feel a bit strange lol.

In other bargains, I've been looking in the charity shops over the last couple of days to see if I could spot any bargains, and today I bought 3 books, all at the cost of 50p each, which to me is a complete bargain! Also bought some skittles, but we won't mention those

andromache - nice to hear from you! its going great with the bf, i'm just going to try and be there for him as much as i can. it has been hot in the bakery, and i hate it! lol i only have 11 days of working there though and then i leave for good - can't wait!
SM - the jam looks lovely! I can't wait until I have my own house, and can do things like that! Mum and dad don't really eat jam, and I have no where to store it here, but it looks so yummy! Its nice that you share things too
Chika - those shoes sound like a bargain!

Have a good evening everyone

sf xx

grandma247

Chika you could try pear butter. Just google it and you get tons of different recipes. I like one with cinnamon made in the slowcooker. Its the easiest spread I've ever made, can't find the recipe right now. It goes quite a dark brown but if you have ever had apple and pear spread from a health shop you will have some idea of what it looks and tastes like.
SM love the jelly it looks very pretty in the jars.
Also shaz yours looks good too.
SF thats the trouble with being frugal it is hard to spend when you have been doing it a while. I understand about the powder. My eldest dd only buys what I consider very expensive face creams and makeup but she gets excema if she uses anything unsuitable for her skin and it has taken her a long time to find things she does not react to but she has lovely skin now,I am very envious of that, I never had great skin.

xnatalie81x

Have worked budget out now we are coming to the end of August and all spends for August are complete. I started with a budget of 9k i believe in Jan. That stretched to 10 - which has again stretched to 11 lol. (lucky i have the income!) - now it is looking to be even higher than this! With 2336 to last me 4 mths that would be just £584 per month! I didn't even get that low on my extra extra frugal months! I need to start finding money from somewhere as i have not even completed my xmas shop - JUST IMAGINE HOW BAD THINGS WOULD BE IF I HADN'T BITTEN THE BULLET AND JOINED THE CHALLENGE IN JAN!!!!!

On a positive, my hens are now all laying DAILY - so 3 lovely fresh eggs a day and the white ones are huge!!! 21 eggs a week means i could maybe sell 12 a week and still be comfy...... I know next year will be so much better now i have the chickens and the allotment!

Right off to crunch some more numbers arghhhhhhhhhhhh