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

HH62

Morning everyone.

Vixstar- I don't pay off the card in full but I should be able to do that next month, with some money I'm expecting from a job I had. Fingers crossed. The card's got a reasonable LOB rate (5%) but I'll be glad to see it gone...And yes, I will be cutting that one up. I have another card that I use for grocery spending and do pay that one off each month. There are two others with high balances but they are both on 0% till next summer so they're not a priority just yet.

Rainy and a bit miserable here although I suppose it's marginally better than the heavy fog we had yesterday.
Because of the rain I'm going to be driving into W town to make my credit card payment. It's a 25 minute walk to the railway station and it's a horrible walk in the rain through fields etc..Train fare is £4.20 so it's probably a bit cheaper anyway to drive the 10 miles and parking is less than £1.
So while I'm there I will pay the credit card, go to Mr S and do a shop. I need tea and coffee, butter, mushrooms, cheese and if there's enough left, some bacon. Goal is to spend no more than £20.

I've just noticed that i've got a library book here that's overdue, and can't be renewed online, so I'll have to return that too. They usually send out an email a few days before the books are due back but I definitely didn't get one for this book. It's 10 days overdue so that's £1.40 which will have to come out of my 'personal petty cash fund' . I'm up on that so far, didn't break into it at all last week so I've got £10 from last week and this week's £10 too.

I'll be walking round W town with blinkers on, they have a lot of my favourite shops there so I'll need to be strong and avoid any temptation!

When I come home I've got lots of veg to make up some soup for lunches this week, and I've just checked my freezer and there's plenty of stuff there for suppers. I'll be a bit tired of chilli, salmon fillets and brocolli by the end of the month though

Out tonight at a talk in the village hall - that will be £1 entry fee that covers the cost of 'a cup of tea and a slice of cake', in the words of Worzel Gummidge!

Hope everyone has a good day.

BigMummaF

Glad your first day went well cw..tis like being back at school isn't it
Had a look at the doggie cookery books on B00k Pe0ple & Am@z0n cheerful; the self same book on the first was £7 cheaper than the second :eek: Shame really, as I've some vouchers for the second place, but not worth wasting THAT much for.
Thanks for the Quidc0 info horsechestnut..I'm afraid it means nowt to me just now but I WILL find out how these things work
The cheese sauce was scrum-diddly :T In the end I used Mooloo's cornflour method but was a bit wary of it turning into a breeze block & ended up going t'other way It wasn't too thin--I'd imagined it thickening up with the cheese once it was in the oven--but still tasted good over the bacon & mixed veg. Pup had the bit left for his second helping so we have the pegs within easy reach for possible repercussions later today :silenced:_pale_:rotfl:

cheerfulness4

CW- Glad your first day went well. Now don't go spending all your wages on the £3.99 tins of choccies on Thursday! I'm thinking things will get very busy that day judging by the comments on hotukdeals. :rolleyes:

Very cold and grey here today so I shall pop telly on with a suitable cookery type programme while I menu plan till the end of the year and think hard about my stockpiling tactics for 2010.

Just been invited to a family do with the in-laws and we need to bring along a few dishes for the buffet. Was thinking it was a couple of weeks but its this Sunday. :eek: I know from experience that the other take posh nibbles and readymade stuff from the supermarkets. Yikes!

I know in my head that HM is lovely but no sure they will think the same. Was thinking of taking:
HM cheese and onion scones (buttered),
Twinks hobnobs with adza value choc drizzled over,
Lemon drizzle cake (few reduced lemons in fridge :rolleyes:)
Fruit and nut cookies (have dates somewhere and 1/2 pk mixed nuts),
Cheese & ham quiche (cooked a hock yesterday )

If I try and cook it well and make it look nice on the plates it should be okay, do you think?
I know that if I'm to stay in budget next year I need to start doing stuff like this instead of taking a couple of carriers round to this type thing as I would do before. Just don't want to appear mean when others have spent a bit on food.

Frugaldom

Good morning frugalers

It's raining here, so the freezing temperatures didn't wait around long enough for any snow. Guess it's back to the mud bath, which is what it is out there every morning.

Hope work goes well for you, CW, it'll take a bit of time getting into a new routine. Hopefully your back is just rebelling against the sudden changes and will soon settle into normality. I get fed up with the early starts and count winter 7am starts as long lies. The hens & ducks make sure life here starts at the crack of dawn every day and ends at dusk. You can see why winter means early nights.

I've a batch of lemon curd to make today for tomorrow's LETS trading plus several quiche, so I made a start on the pastry earlier; it's in the fridge chilling out now. The duck egg I used was a lovely big double yoker, so I;m wondering how many more of them we'll get. Duck eggs are great for baking. I haven't tried them for lemon curd yet, but may do that today. Eggs are becoming as scarce as the winter daylight hours! We've only had about a dozen or so hen eggs over the past week and 4 duck eggs! The feathered critturs are on partial hibernation mode. :rotfl:

Forgot to mention, SFT, when I was out at dawn yesterday, the flocks of Fieldfares were arriving on the farm. They seem to cover the fields here until about April or May. Watching for the Redwings, too, but haven't seen any of them yet. Must remember to keep the binoculars handy and the camera batteries charged. The local wildlife is our free entertainment, far better and cheaper than going into town to see a film at the cinema, in my opinion.

bails

Well done on your first day CW, ease yourself in gently and have a hot bath for your back.

SF, just to let you know that how you're feeling is [STRIKE]completely normal[/STRIKE] for a PGCE year - up to that point in my life it was definitely the most difficult year I'd ever had so you're doing great :T
Cheerfulness, your menu ideas for the weekend sound SO much nicer than a carrier bag of bought stuff to me. I LOVE it when my friends tun up with HM stuff :jIt isn'y just about money but the effort that went into something that's important so I'd say you're giving your 'share' definitely.

BMF, Quidc0 is great so PM me if you want some help to get started

Seems interview will not be til Thursday or Friday now :rolleyes: Come ON! :rotfl:At least OH will be home to hold my hand :j
Off I go for my free Tibetan lesson :T I taught my first Tibetan refugee lesson today and it was luvverly

Frugaldom

Cheerfulness, go with the homemade, I'd say, as nothing beats it and it's made specially with the occasion in mind. I love all your suggestions, especially the quiche and the lemon drizzle cake as I've done both those things for visiting family and they REQUESTED same again on next visit! I had 12 guests to feed when they visited for DD's wedding and they got choice of hm curry or sweet & sour plus home made soup & bread, it was ALL made from about £3 worth of chicken drumsticks! Quiche making is always done after I've cooked a ham hock. People can be amazed by homemade food and never even wonder about the cost of ingredients. I'm more amazed at how shocked folks seem when you tell them you cook from scratch. They look at you like you're either mad or else some sort of domestic goddess! It's lifestyle, finances and a few basic culinary skills that dictate what gets eaten here each day, I think we should be proud of what we can achieve! Go on, bask in that glory amidst a sea of pre-packed ready-food that costs a small fortune. Make it a fun day.

HH62

So I'm back from W town and done well on the spending. :j

The first and most obvious way for me to save money when I go there is sooo simple but I've never thought of it before. In the car park, its 50p for up to one hour. Then for two hours it's 90p. I've always gone for at least two hours sometimes 3 (its a pay and display). So, it occurred to me this morning to only put 50p ticket on my car, hence I'd have to be back within one hour and that would only give me enough time to pay my credit card bill, go to the library and go to Mr S and not have time to start wandering round Boots/Waterstones/M and Co/Monsoon etc.

So I returned my library book - the fine was £1.26 a bit less than I expected but still annoyed at myself :mad:.
Then I went to pay my credit card. They tried pushing me to apply for another card and this is what bugs me about the cc companies. Why would I need another of their cards?? I dont. I've got a big credit limit on it which I'm nowhere near (thank goodness). The cashier was quite pushy, I told her I didn't have time today so she offered to make me an appointment, and then I said I didn't want or need another credit card and anyway I didnt want my credit report to show yet another application for one.

Then I went to Mr S and spent £9.75. So that leaves me £39.25 for the rest of the month for groceries.

CW- congrats on making it through your first day yesterday!

cw18

bails wrote: »

Well done on your first day CW, ease yourself in gently and have a hot bath for your back.

A bath!!! You've got to be kidding!! That costs a fortune in water (and gas to heat it) :rolleyes2

Can't actually remember the last time I had a bath Showers all the way for me, and I've put a water saving gadet onto the hose for that, which means even that doesn't use as much water as it used to



As you've no doubt gathered, I'm back from day 2. The dept manager seems very nice, but I also get the impression he'll let you know straight if you're not pulling your weight (which is the way I prefer things to be). Didn't stop all day, and back was fine until after 2pm - but it didn't take me long to realise it had started to twinge as soon as I started an activity I'd done yesterday - which means the surface I've been pushed onto for packing mince pies is too low for me, and I'm bending too much/for too long. Could have moved to another area today (was in on my own again by then), but had almost finished by the time I realised. But at least I know it's one to watch out for/address in future.....

bails

cw18 wrote: »

A bath!!! You've got to be kidding!! That costs a fortune in water (and gas to heat it) :rolleyes2

But if your back gets really bad and you can't work... You know best of course, just a reminder that some things can be false economy. I'm biased of course, because I won't trade my health for anything now (not even scary wedding plans :rotfl:)

Hope it feels better soon x

Well done HH62 for resisting the lure of the shops :T

Said wedding budget gets scarier and scarier but I'm not done with it yet mwah ha ha! When OH gets back and has recovered, we'll go through it together and work out our priorities and what we really hope for. It's still not the huge budget I've seen around but will take a good MS challenge to get it all saved for

cw18

TBH, I've never been convinced a bath helps my back. I'm either in and out very quickly (which is why I resent paying for the water and heating), or soak for hours - but the 'lying' position in a bath isn't actually good for my back, and I've been known to find it more of a struggle to get out than it was to get in :rolleyes2



I'm sure you'll manage to find the ideal balance for your wedding plans and budget Bails..... I agree that it's not worth totally skimping (as it's something you hope to only ever do the once), but I wouldn't want to spend the next several years trying to get myself back out of debt either. I still thank my lucky stars that my Dad believed in doing it the 'traditional' way, so he paid the majority of the bills (but only 'cos he could afford to).