Frugal Living 2010 -The Cost of Living Challenge, INTRO

cake21

cw18 wrote: »

I've personally found it useful precisely because I rely very heavily on Whoopsies - it gives me an indication of what I'd have to set my GC budget to if I lost access to them

I might finally get round to running down my surpluses if I lost access to whoopsies

flying_fresian wrote: »

I'm going to be trying to use this section as otherwise I think I would be on the "value" meat, something I'm not too keen on if I can avoid it.

One of the few advantages of living alone as that as I'm perfectly happy with meat-free meals I don't need to buy meat

flying_fresian wrote: »

I piled my trolley high on the glorious day that I wandered into Tesco and they had reduced loads of organic mince to 70p a packet

Right with you - still got some meals in the freezer left over from the day Tesco had free range chooks for £1.70/kg :j:rotfl:

ifonlyitwaseasier

ifonlyitwaseasier wrote: »

[STRIKE]ok so after working out what we spend a month (not including food but to cover debt repayments, mobiles, rent etc) i am almost ashamed to say that we need £15k a year to cover it, however this means we could live as we do now on one salary, not ideal but worth knowing[/STRIKE].
[STRIKE]hopefully an interview i have coming up will mean we'll have more than double that coming in which would mean that we could afford to double the debt repayments and clear that down (please!!!! i have my fingers crossed!!)[/STRIKE] so until i know how that goes i'm going to reserve judgement on how much i can set our budget at, mainly cos if we can "snowball" the debt down then we'd be able to live on about half that amount

good luck all and i'm really looking forward to seeing how we all do (and for the moral support!!)

ioiwe :-)

ok on reflection i think looking at debt repayments as part of this for me isn't going to work so i've sat down and worked out that hubby and i have (drumroll please)....................... £7500 as general money and the rest of whatever we earn will be to our debts and that'll be seperately.

didn't get the job i was going for so hopefully i'll get a different one (am appliying for loads) and i'll have to find the p45 last place sent me and go and sign on, ah well at least it'll be sthg coming in and thats better than nothing. hubby's job is secure if not enjoyable (i told him tough and to stick it out, esp in the current job market)

so heres to going forward and looking to the future

ioiwe x

tryingtodobetter

Thank You CW18 for the spreadsheet it is fantastic :j:j I have had great fun playing with it this evening.

rozeepozee

Still living on leftovers. The leg of lamb we roasted for Xmas dinner has now stretched to sandwiches and two evening meals for 3 adults plus we spun out the remains of the rehashed meal from last night into bubble and squeak and veggie fritters for lunch today. So far, in the last week, we've only bought milk! How long can we keep this up???

I'm afraid of sounding totally dim here, but what is a whoopsie?

cw18

A Whoopsie is a 'reduced to clear' item. In Mr A they have (or used to have) the word 'Whoops' on the labels, so I assume that's where the name came from

rozeepozee

:mad: Just found the time to input my data into cw18 (do you prefer that or Cheryl?)'s spreadsheet and managed to mess it up then realised I've lost your email so i can't redo it - arrrgh!

I was getting so excited too.

Can you send me another please?

I've pm'd you my email

MWAH!

....oh, wait, I've found it - phew! will try again

R x

LilacPixie

I am in a possibly enviable position, my DH works for a food distribution company and he gets meat ay heavilly reduced prices but its in bulk. does wonders for the grocery budget but its a bit repetitive when he comes come with 2kg bacon, 40 chicken breasts, 2.6kg sausages and 5kg diced stewing steak. I will be recording this stuff in the whoopsie section. I do find meals get a bit repetitive.

How does everyone else manage to make things interesting??

cw18

rozeepozee wrote: »

:mad: Just found the time to input my data into cw18 (do you prefer that or Cheryl?)'s spreadsheet

Quite happy with either

Answer to most things - including 'old one' and 'dinosaur' from my elder son !!! Think an 'Oi! You!' on here may get the attention of more than just me though :rotfl:

cw18

LilacPixie wrote: »

How does everyone else manage to make things interesting??

Interesting?

Depends on whether you count sausage with pasta & sauce, sausage & mash, sausage & chips, and sausage & savoury rice as totally different things....... We generally get one of those each week, with the different versions repeated on a 4-weekly cycle

DTG21

Cw18 new to website posting although have been reading threads for some time how can I get the spreadsheet that you are refering to?