Its worth a go isn't it?

Fire_Fox

I presume some veg is cheaper frozen because there is a glut and it can be purchased from the farmer at knockdown prices. Also there is no real risk of waste, a supermarket loses very little frozen food to old age but fresh veg has a short sell by. It may be that the quality is lower in some cases - but who cares for spinach you are going to bung in a curry?

See the price per 100g very clearly here:
http://www.mysupermarket.co.uk/
If you look on Weezl74's eat healthily on 50p a day threads (link a couple of posts up courtesy of TheBex) they eat mainly frozen veg and dried fruit. She has painstakingly costed out loads of meals - some out of date now, but it's interesting to see what is cheapest per portion. Apparently nettle pesto is very good ... :eek:

babyhead

Just found your diary - you are doing really well.

Lots of good food tips too TheBex :O) I would agree that it is probably better to put your savings towards your debts.

Good luck!! and keep it up

Itsarandom

Hey folks - Finally home from my camping trip - was wonderfully relaxing, until I stepped in my front door and made the fatal mistake.


My one bit of advice? When you go away on holiday, don't open your mail until the next day.

It has meant to have been my flatmate's job to sort out the council tax, it is in both our names and I gave him the cash to sort this all out.

Now there is a letter through my door about old council tax saying that they are going to send it all off to the sheriff officer because there has been no payment. This is because my old flatmate didn't sort out the council tax and supposedly they sent us a letter before this - I haven't seen one but I don't know if my flatmate hid it from me.

Now on the plus side - they only have contact details for my flatmate, as well as only his address - not mine. Bad side is that if we don't sort this out, we get summary warrants and everything against our name - I dunno what to do now.

I came home on a high - then get the letter and suddenly I have sunken pretty low. I was hoping once I handed the keys over to the landlady this would have been all sorted... wrong.

I have two choices - sort out a direct debit so that i pay it off over the two months (its about 282- so an extra 141 each month) and get my flatmate to pay his share to me - or get him even to pay it straight to the council so i can pay the other half!! Or end up having to take him to small claims court to get back the other half.

Or - i just let it go ahead, lose my good credit history (I have debt, but I have never missed a payment and it has been steadily going down...) but they don't have details about me and will only chase him.

I know what I will end up doing - at 3pm today I will be setting up the direct debit to save my credit history and will get that money out of him one way or another.

What makes me laugh as well - as the letter for me had to be redirected first of all (set it up so it wouldn't pass on my new details to whoever sent the letter) so he would have had the letter at least maybe a day or two before me - and hasn't contacted me or done anything to sort this out. Add to this I have been on holiday... what has he been up to?!:mad:

I dunno anymore to be honest - am thinking for the next two hours will also email him, text him again, then call him again (i feel like a debt collector ) and then just start sorting out the paperwork.

Itsarandom

Right that is that crisis sorted out.

Supposedly ex-flatmate is going to sort it all out - and it is just another 150 quid I need to pay out.

Glad I had taken out that 280 - seems everyone wants a cut of my money.


I have told myself that this month is just going to be a rough month for me. After this month then all will be sorted and I will be able to get on to some real debt-busting. Instead of moving lots of money now, however, towards paying my debts, I will keep some back ready in case he doesn't do what he is meant to.

For now - just gotta sell all my ebay stuff and keep filling in surveys to get some extra income!

Itsarandom

Today just has been one of those days.

Posted off an old mobile phone - that should generate 15 quid when it arrives!

Found 10 pence around my house - into the sealed pot with that!

Got a day off today, which is very, very nice. Am planning to do as little as possible - well I am meant to be listing things on Ebay however OH decided he would forget to bring down the camera on Thursday. Should remember it next week though... am tempted to just get started with my mobile phone though and get it done. Maybe just one or two little items.

I have a lot of books to sell at the moment - but I suspect they aren't worth very much - I had a look on Amazon and a lot of them are just listed at 1 pence... While you still make your money back on the Postage/packaging - I wonder if it is worth the effort of listing them? What do you folks do?

Will have to wait til Friday to be 100% sure that my flatmate has kept up his end of the bargain regarding the Council tax... will see what happens then.


Right now I think I should make some Coffee/Tea (I want both!!) and start working out what I need shopping wise tomorrow!

Bex - am going to try to make up your chilli! I do enjoy a good chilli and going to try it with soya mince!!! One small step...In fact thinking about it - chilli and lasagne because Even I can get that right!!

Itsarandom

So it has been an interesting few days.

1) I shopped for 16 meals - cost came to 15.83 quid yesterday
2) Then I bought some goodies today at 3 quid odd... However this included two rolls each 5 pence, a loaf of nice crusty bread at 40 pence and 8 muffins at 129 pence. Plus the most expensive item - two bottles of juice at 1.60
The muffins I could say were a serious not-needed... the rolls however cover me for two lunches/dinners and the bread is 5 breakfasts - less than what I would pay for for a loaf of asda value bread at 50p these days and will last the same amount of time. I also looked and the muffins were freezable - so worst comes to worst they are luxuries for at least a month (two muffins a week I reckon).
Also I think the MSE bug has bitten - i was dancing around and singing "cheap rolls cheap rolls bargain bargain bargain!" while i was getting the in little bags and freezing them... I was so chuffed I found such a perfect deal for me!!

3) Am going for a serious MSE weekend - spending tomorrow making lasanga (with a bit of a twist - will explain tomorrow!) plus Spag bol for my dinners for Saturday, Sunday and the rest of the week (I Hope)!! This all came about when I went into Asda and saw they were selling 500grams of mince for a pound. Cheaper per KG than soya mince i found - although on looking the only stuff I saw was quorn mince... very very expensive!! Tuna Mayo pasta for lunches for me and weetabix for brekkie! However my OH is visiting this weekend and doesn't like Tuna... So need to think of a MSE way of feeding him saturday and Sunday.

From a survey site a joined (I believe you get in trouble if you post the name - it involves trees!) I got my first, and completed my first survey!! Yay! Am happy with that!

Got my new flat council bill through today - they want 160 odd quid per month!!! Thankfully I have noticed they have missed off my 25% discount I am due - as such should drop to about 120 a month - PHEW! I might also ask to pay it over the full 12 months nicely just for this year - rather than the ten months thing (at the moment I would be paying 24/07/09 - 31/03/09 in 5 installments whereas over 7 installments would make it just under 90 quid a month which gives breathing space... then again it is only about an extra tenner a month on my SOA - which means I will just have to cut back elsewhere to make up for it).

Will phone them first thing tomorrow and sort that. Busy few days ahead... cannot wait until passed this hill of a month - and can stop worrying so heavily about who is charging me what!!

At the end of the month - I am going to buy/find a small notepad and use it as a spending diary for each day. I just don't get the time I want for posting on here everyday that I thought I would, but I think carrying a pen and notepad around shouldn't be difficult! I will then use that to keep track for a month and see what is going on exactly. I know I have some leaks in my finances even though I have tightened up, but I need to see black and white exactly where it is going wrong, certain days - changes to routine maybe? I know it is usually when I try to change what I "usually" do is when things go pear-shaped. Need to work on this.

Another good note however - I found 95 pence in my desk drawer today that I obviously put there in case of choccy emergency - that has gone into the sealed pot! Am tempted to scrap my counting of what is in the sealed pot, defeats the purpose knowing exactly! But I have a rough-guessimate of the total... why not?


Bedtime I think for me... Need to post on here more - I need to do more work though!

Primula

What a bummer about your council tax. I don't want to put dampners on things, but are you sure you can trust your old flat mate to sort it out? I'd check with the council to be on the safe side.
MSE wise, sounds like you are doing great with your shopping. Well done and keep up the good work.

TheBex

Hi random -

been away for a week. Got offered a job this morning, so went out celebrating tonight. (!) Corpus mentus enough to read, but not to reply. Catch you tomorrow, hope you have a wicked day.

- Bex

Itsarandom

Hey folks! It is stupidly busy at the work at the moment... haven't had a chance to write on here as usually am working through lunch (think of the overtime I keep saying)! :rolleyes:

At the moment I have 5 minutes spare before i need to start doing some work - and grab a cuppa!

Quick summary of good things I did:
rare game finally put on ebay - so far 25 quid
Found an old mobile phone - sent it into one of these mobile phone people - 15 quid!!! - should be in my acct in 11 working days
Found a perfect notepad that is portable in my house for my soon-to-start spending diary!:T

Kinda bad things:
Bought more food - ended up with another 10+ meals for about 12 quid - not so good but the things i bought on there will last a lifetime (eg i discovered I have no tomato puree, no mayonnaise...etc...) so it was more expensive. However my bargain hunting skills are getting top notch as i bought 10 normal burgers for 3.25 and 8 asda "finest" beef burgers with cheese for also 3.25! About nine meals right there!!

BAD things:
Been told I can't keep my bike in the stairwell at home in the flats - can't tie it up outside cause there are only lampposts and the council get very narky about it, or if they don't know the owner they bin them! So at the moment am either walking... or i am sad to say hopping on a train . The problem has been the mornings at the moment as I have adjusted myself for getting up for bike riding time - which is over half an hour later than getting up for walking time!!! Just gotta go to bed earlier... however what makes it bad is I really should be walking both ways - its about a tenner a week if i only take one train, or over 450 a year!!! :eek:

Although one thing I am really chuffed about - I should be ending this month with about 400 spare in my bank account!! Guess where that is all going

This has been a tough month - lots of expenitures and a lot of heartache... hopefully this is just my off-month and next month everyting will just calm down...

Now I need to go get ready to make a quick call - need to find out if my flatmate kept up his end of the bargain..........

Itsarandom

Hello again! Am so glad I did a random copy of the text i wrote - else all this post would of been lost :eek:


So I have updated my SOA. I have been meaning to for a while as I did my last one in such a rush that I missed off some pretty obvious things and some of those readings were just estimates (council tax). Also I just today got rid of my virgin credit card debt (65 paid today, they take the other 25 on the 3rd september) so that is gone :j

However obvious missed things - like my Guitar lessons, 22 pounds each for an hour - I used to have a lesson every week - but have since cut back to two a month (whether they are fortnightly, two weeks in a row..etc..) - the reason i forgot is because I haven't had a lesson in over a month due to holiday clashes between me and him!

I have thought long and hard about this one -this is an obvious, OBVIOUS luxury that I don't need. But I enjoy them so much and I enjoy learning the guitar and have been doing it for over a year and I cut them back to fortnightly for this exact reason. I should stop them altogether - what I will do is see if I can't "earn" them back in overtime or selling items first - If you think about it 44*12 = 528 quid a year!! 3.4% of my take home pay. You got to enjoy life they say - but at the same time 44 quid a month!! ARGH! Will see if I can't figure out some way of convincing myself that yes, I can keep them IF I do x, y and z!!

I might ask him if he is ok with the lessons dropping to 45 minutes - because I would say a tenner per month... that makes them only 34 quid...

Remember that game i told you about? That has shot up now to 40 quid :T:j:T so maybe for now that can be how i pay this month so I can think of a plan for next month...

Talked to Vodafone - they have removed my insurance and a silly bolt on i got ages ago and forgot to cancel - but they won't lower my package to anything lower than it is.

However a quick online search tells me if i were to renew if a package pretty similar to the one I have - It could be 15 quid a month... with cashback on top of that (if i went with vodafone again...) it would be 7.5 quid a month. Roll on renewal date!!

Am also kicking myself drastically for not looking at quidco before now (completely forgot) if i had done my BT online... I would have got 60 quid cashback !!!:mad::mad:

Now that I have rediscovered ipoints + quidco - I have nothing needed bought:rolleyes: - am doing all my surveys though!!
Will be checking on Friday that Flatmate has held up his end of the bargain - due to time supposedly for payments and stuff to sort themselves out it should show up on the system by then - or he hasn't done it.

best get back to work!