FRUGAL LIVING CHALLENGE 2010, part 1. (Living on £4,000 a year)

knithappens

kalojac wrote: »

Question????
What are everyone else's experiences with the spreadsheet, do you list every item, or every receipt total instead?

i do the total receipt, i dopnt have the time to list every single item, i just put things like, the shop, or shops i visited, then rough idea of what i bought, eg nappies, general shop, milk, etc then how much spent in total on groceries, if i bought non groceries items i deduct this from the total and add it where it should go on the spreadsheet, so yesterday i bought some wellies for DS, but added these to the clothes budget.

mama67

warney27 wrote: »

8. anything else that comes up DONE thought we would sell all DVD's and CD's on music magpie. Done all the dvd i wanted to get rid of and have been now been going through all the cds and have starting copying all the good ones onto my itunes before i get rid of them.
it breaks my heart abit all the money i have spent over the years and i am selling 131 discs for £68.88. I need to check each one on ebay first though, just incase some are worth decent money, anyone know where else i could get better money? also does anyone know where i can sell videos? got loads i need to get rid of.
cheers

I sold some of the boys dvds on playtrade.com they also sell cds

hth

Frugaldom

Good morning to all,

Apologies, as I haven't read any of the posts yet, I'm just adding the link to MSE's great new budget tool in case anyone missed the update. I've also added it into the handy links section of post 1. I would recommend anyone doing this challenge tries the 'budgetbrain' tool out to find out how frugal you really are, then it will be a lot easier to see what you're aiming for when it comes to using the daily spreadsheet, kindly provided by Cheryl. (cw18)

http://www.budgetbrain.com

flippin36

Morning folks. Still snowing. A bit annoyed with the weather as I cannot go to work today (my first proper day!). Its a train journey away and don't fancy getting stuck this evening. Could have done with the money but never mind.

aeb Thanks for sharing your story. Like someone else said WOW! I'm sending you positive vibes for your business. And I promise not to complain about my situation again. Maybe when the kids are older you could write a book!

CW can you tell me whats the best time/day to get these (whoopsies), and which supermarket is the best for yellow stickers. Thank you.

Hope everyone is keeping warm and safe.

XSpender

Looked a little more into changing to 02 for broadband yesterday, its £2.40/month more than our Sky one. That was until I was looking at one of :money:guides and saw it was recommended and that you could get cash back:T This would bring it down to £1.15/month with a free laptop and house phone (to put on ebay:rolleyes:). I have to admit that I have never bought anything through a cashback site before, I don't buy much off the internet tbh:o I am so far behind the rest of you:o

I will check how long we will be contracted in for and if it is a max of 12 months and we get the laptop/phone doing it on the internet we will go for it.

The laptop will mean we don't have to buy one as when I go on mat leave in april I have to hand my work one back in and get it reissued when I go back to work. Our home one broke about 8 months ago and is beyond repair.

DH dug the cars out last night, one just couldn't cope driving in the snow on the cul de sac and is back where it was. The other, the much older one, had no problem until it kept hitting the black ice on the motorway on our way to Mr M:eek:

Spent £64 in Mr M and got some excellent offers on coffee, washing liquid and veg. A 3rd of the food part of our shopping was just on f&v, I love Mr M fruit:drool: The only thing I don't like about Mr M is the lack of offers on dog food tins. I would normally have gone elsewhere for it but one trip was enought last night. Will try pets @ home next month and get it delivered I think.

Another 4 inches of snow last night. Poor DH spent ages clearning a path and digging out the cars last night and you can't tell this morning.

aeb - I was touched by your story. You are an inspriration!

cw18

flippin36 wrote: »

CW can you tell me whats the best time/day to get these, and which supermarket is the best for yellow stickers. Thank you.

I don't think there's any hard and fast rules.....

I work in a (very small) Mr M, and first thing in the morning anything dated that day should be reduced - but only by a very small amount.

Any of these that don't get bought then get reduced again later in the day - but different depts seem to do at different times, and not every dept works the same time every day (depends on staffing levels, ability to track down a 'reduction gun', how busy the staff are filling shelves with new deliveries etc)

The bakery (where I work) doesn't tend to do second reduction until 5:45pm, whereas the chilled (but not meat) is often done by the time I leave at 5:15pm. 'Final' reductions start around an hour before closing (so different times on different days), but within the bakery/cake shop/pie shop this then becomes an almost continuous cycle until either everything is gone or the store closes. But if I don't go down before the final hour I can almost guarantee there'll be no chilled (including meat) left..... so I have to work my timings depending on what I'm short of (or what I've got my eye on from when I left work!)

Kiwisaver_2

I have had an AWESOME day! Awesome not being a normal word in my vocabulary and not being used lightly here. Thanks to Rozeepozee who mentioned having money in an overseas bank account, I was reminded that I still (after five years) had an account in the UK that I had left open to pay some direct debits, a couple of donations and to pay my Ma's phone bill.

Long story shortened; I fluffed up my password and lost access to the account. The Halifax refused to re-issue passwords or send statements abroad - so I lost track and had absolutely no idea how much was left. :eek: Coinciding, my memory to call, with time differences and overnight computer shutdowns made it a nightmare to deal with from afar. BUT today I phoned and managed to successfully get through the telephone banking security to get my balance. Wow £1,561.92p :T

Imagine that? One quarter of my year's budget sitting there; converted into dollars it's a sizeable chunk towards my mortgage overpayments. So, I've been on the net most of the day on a big sending spree (still have Debit Card) and booked almost all of the remaining accommodation costs for our trip home in June. Just five more nights to be booked and paid for. :T

Of course it's not a good look having seemingly spent ALL that money, BUT it was of course in my budget to be paid out of existing and future savings, which I now don't have to spend. Yay! It will still end up coming off the mortgage.

ETA: At the end of the day I spent piles of money, but it's still a NSD. I spent money I didn't know I had and it was all via Quidco, so I will eventually get some back.

In more frugal news, we had a wonderful Greekfest for dinner - HM lamb shish kebabs, pitta bread, HM hummus, tzatziki and greek style salad with feta cheese and olives - all leftovers from pre-Christmas or from the freezer (except the salad).

Lilacpixie- it sounds like you have it all sussed and are on the right track; a really good clean through of all surfaces will do the trick without spending loads. Most people aren't too fussed about d!cor as long as everything looks fresh, clean and uncluttered.

AEB - you really are a trooper and thanks for sharing your story.

Kazla - we quite often have buttered toasted bagels with scrambled egg for a weekend breakfast. However, you might find that they are not so good if they have been in the freezer for so long. Like a lot of bread products they do deteriorate over time and may have dried out. I sometimes take one for my lunch at work. I defrost overnight, whack it in the toaster whilst I'm doing my morning coffee, then let it cool whilst I am getting ready and shove it in my lunchbox to have with cream cheese or peanut butter.

bails

Has anyone seen the ad beside FB about secret UK grants? Is this a scam or what? You have to pay £1.95 to get the info.... I'd love to know if anyone else has looked at this.

Mumoffour, you sound like a lovely person, your adopted daughter is very lucky x

I've managed to save myself some money by not needing to buy clothes for the funeral (as I haven't been able to get home to get access to mine) - MiL suggested we look through her wardrobe and I was thinking nothing would fit as she is much smaller than me, but I'm fully kitted out and in size 12 too :j I'm really pleased to save the money as we've already spent a FORTUNE getting here and on travel here. OH got me a ticket home for Tuesday for £9.50 so that's great, I'm just crossing everything that the trains are running!

I have to say, I'm absolutely miserable to be back here - lots of reasons.

savingfortravel

Hi Everyone!
Had a lovely lie in this morning. Woke up to light snow. Mr SFT has already got the fire going..bless him he is a real cave man and loves making a fire. I’ve had to learn how to do it too just in case. Not sure about today’s plans yet….

Kiwi-Wow! Congrats on sorting out that Bank Account. That’s a great amount to add to mortgage overpayments.
Welcome KazLa
Xspender-more great money saving. Well done!
You sound like a very strong, determined woman Gilli.
Mumtoomany-you sound a very giving person.
Fly-fresian-I was enjoying some delcious Mr T’s Finest cod, cheese and herb fishcakes the other night which were heavily whoopsied – would never buy them at full price but worked out cheaper than making them myself. Congrats on your turkey crown. We lived just down the road from Mr T at our old house and saved a fortune visiting at reductions time.
Thanks for sharing your dreams Lilac/Natalie
Lilac-I remember what we had to do to sell our old house. Did have to spend a bit of money but was worth it in the end. Plastering is expensive so pleased to hear about your lovely uncle helping out.
Minjara-Hope you managed to work things out.
Warney-Very interesting reading about your plans. I fall into the camp of saving rather than making money. Looking forward to hearing more..

Catch you all later

sft

candygirl

Morning all:j:j
SFT love the sound of the real fire:D:D
I found this http://www.hotukdeals.com/item/578441/rachel-allen-6-5l-slow-cooker-was-2 for all the peeps wanting a slow cooker, it's a total bargain:eek::eek:
Just had Boo overnight again and she's cut her 2nd top tooth on a carrot:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:bless her.She is now watching Peppa Pig and singing nananana to it lol:D
Going bargain hunting with my friend later, so will report back with my catches.
Have fabby frugal days everyone xx:A