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

batcatz

flying_fresian wrote: »

Just home from work to find that the heating has been on all day while Mr F snoozed. :mad:

Back later with frugal update once he's been battered round the head with an icicle :A

Oh dear, hope you told him off. I am annoyed with myself as I left the heating on all night. I woke up sweating at 6am so turned it off then. Also left the Av receiver on all night as I forgot to switch it off at the wall. The reason..... it was Friday night, friends came round and we drank too much. :beer:

Now, I need to make up for that non frugalness asap by lowering the heating for the next few days and not using the av receiver.

So far spent £ 46.94 out of my weekly budget of £100 on groceries and cleaning stuff and had 2 NSDs.

I made a chicken curry for dinner last night. I used one freerange chicken breast. I have it again tonight and another portion in the freezer. Also still have a chicken breast left for another meal.

Hardup_Hester

Hubby managed to get to the local shop today just as the egg delivery arrived so he bought a dozen so spends for today are £1.90.
Yesterday I spent 60p listing stuff on Folksy, haven't spent anything else since last Thursday when I spent 64p on a tin of baked beans.
I still have 31 'meals' in the freezer for the 2 of us, lots of soups for lunches & lots of oats for porridge.
Hester

rachelet

My 20E that I spent on a duck and three chickens at the start of Jan is starting to look like even more of a bargain now. The guy who sold them to me is moving house and is having to get rid of the rest of his animals and has offered them to me first, but they will all be free. He has 2 silkie chickens, one male and one female, 4 maran chickens, 1 male and 3 female and 4 pygmy goats, 1 male and 3 female. So I am definitely going to get the chickens as I already have some silkies and 1 maran and would definitely love some more. Then I am contemplating the goats as well as I have 2 pygmy goats already but ours are free range and I would need to know if his would be able to be free range as well. So 20E is now for 1 duck and 9 chickens and possibly 4 goats. That is a bargain! Just got to find somewhere to house them all now.

lillibet_dripping

cw18 wrote: »

That would probably have been my fault

I discovered a small (display formatting only) 'bug' in them due to a query from someone, so I updated and re-uploaded them.

Thanks cw18 - I will try again:o
Could you add me to the challenge please - I am going to just keep tabs on the groceries for the time being until all other DD's/expenses sort themselves out. I will aim for £3200 for 2010:eek: I am wondering whether I should be on the Grocery Challenge thread rather than on here, but you all seem such lovely peeps......

Many thanks for this thread.....
Lilli

Frugaldom

grandma247 wrote: »

Nyk perhaps if people have questions that are not answered on the first page they could highlight the question and make it stand out so you only need to skim for them ?

This would be a huge help, thank you.

My personal challenge is about living frugally as I'd love to run a self-sufficient household - as in earning and providing everything we need from home. My cash budget was originally set at £4,000 for a household of 3, hence the reason the challenge was called 'Living on £4,000 for a year', but many people wanted to join me, regardless of their personal budgets. So, third year into this lifestyle challenge since bringing it to the MSE forums, I renamed it the Frugal Living challenge. It seemed like the simple solution to me.

warney27

Good afternoon all!
wow didn't wake up til 10 today, the latest i have slept in for years. Probably just starting to relax but i am supposed to go back to work tomorrow, I have been trying to sort that out, because it is supposed to come in bad again tonight and just checking that they will be alright if i can't get in. I think they should be, but i will feel guilty if i don't get in. The inlaws have been over and taken the wife to be and daughter back with them to stay, just incase i get snowed in at work.
This morning i have just received the wife to be's wedding dress that we got off ebay
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=280444942003&ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT
what a bargain i though, but i did nearly open it by mistake, because i couldn't remember what i ordered.
I have been reading about a loads of you guys wanting allotments. I started my own 2 years ago, but i turned one of my dads fields into one. what hard work and we have got nothing out of it in 2 years what so ever. we will have to get some manure on it this year to sort it out. we did put in a greenhouse last year, which we got quite a bit out of, tomatoes, cucumbers, courgettes, peppers, and the hottest chillies ever, also some mixed leaves. I put in 50 strawberry plants over there in tubs, and didn't have 1 strawberry last year. here are some pics
http://www.facebook.com/?ref=logo#/album.php?aid=33355&id=627938851
cheers

lingojingo

Oh yes, the intrepid Lingo has scaled the heights of her ladder to bravely defrost the frozen drainpipe with many kettles of boiling water, sinks now working and it was all done before friend arrived to help! (and with one poorly foot too). Must have been a funny sight, limping up & down ladder, but who cares?


Also done first tiny grocery shop of the year and discovered local corner shop now stocks Stardrops!!!!! Quite a bit more expensive than Wilkinsons, but then no bus fare into town.

ceridwen

Well - I've sat down and analysed my Week 1 spending - to see where its going and come to the conclusion that a combination of being too busy/combined with being at work has cost me £4.24 extra on food (ie buying readymade bread - rather than making my own). Also realized that winter is likely to mean substantially higher foodbills rather than the rest of the year - I realized what a high amount of fruit/veg I get for free normally now, with it being a time of year when I had to buy the lot and that meant £10.48 on fruit/veg alone. So the food bill was quite a bit higher than normal - at £30.15 this week:eek: (though that did include stocking-up with 4 packets of coffee as well). Hmm....
So - basic living costs this week were:
£35.40 - living through the week (including my newspapers as normal)
£3.99 - sheepskin insoles for a pair of footwear
£10.48 - a household diary for the year

Total £49.88. Based on my wondering whether I could live on benefit level income - and having calculated I would have only £29.09 left after bills - then I'd have "raided savings" already. I wouldnt have spent that £4.24 on bread (having made my own because of more time) and would have had to give up having my newspapers (saving £4.80) - but those savings would have been counterbalanced by "mentally lobbing in an extra £10 into my bills fund as a guesstimate figure for how much extra fuel I would have used by being home more (because its been such a cold week).

Anyway - to keep it simple - that comes to a £20.79 shortfall so far between income and expenditure - and thats just end of Week 1:eek:

ITRW - I've been buying a few books from Amazon and ....errr....a "drink or two" - which I duly counted out - as I wouldnt be buying any alcohol and wouldnt require those books (now I've duly got them).

MEANIE BITS DONE (as I call them in my own mind) = using up all leftovers (even leftover sandwiches these days get "recycled" by being made into breadcrumbs in my liquidizer and then chucked over the top of a savoury baked dish) and a leetle bit of "scavenging" (I dont miss the chance of that if I see it...) - which was picking up 2 peppers I spotted in the street.

in_spired2

My "frugaleering" efforts one week into the challenge.....

I've set a budget. Hoping that at the end of the year I will have spent less than the budget allowance. Tracking it regularly to keep me on track. Adding ALL left-over money to my credit card payments. Will keep a spending diary for anything I spend money on which is not in my budget - 0 entries in this diary would be good.

Have become more aware of using food before it's ready for the bin. Eating toast more often, and sometimes only taking out enough slices from the freezer for what I want that day. I'd think that previously we've been throwing away at least the equivalent to to a loaf of bread each week. (the birds probably aren't happy about it tho :$ ) Made pancakes to use up some milk that was at it's best before date and probably would have gone off before we used enough on breakfasts.

Used the oven less - when making cakes etc, I put them in just before I cook a meal - instead of making them at a different time of day.

Lids on saucepans and making sure not too much water in the pans - to save on electric.

Made draught excluders from rag-bag items. It's recycled the items and helps cut down the heating bill and saved money instead of buying some.

Keeping packaging - jiffy bags etc, so I don't have to buy them if I sell stuff on ebay/amazon etc.

Washing at 30 instead of 40 unless necessary.

Extra layers of clothes so we can have temperature a bit lower in the house - good for my fuel bill, and good for the environment I guess?

Checking my meters weekly so I can keep track of how much I'm using and challenge myself to "try lower for next week" each time. Unused appliances off at the wall whenever we remember.

As little waste in the normal bin, and as much in the recycling bins as possible.

Apart from xmas/bday gifts for family - trying not to buy anything that I don't actually NEED

I keep reading this forum for tips :money:

^^ Just a few of the changes I've adopted so far.

Planned later for the year - switch or get better broadband deal when my contract finishes. Pay off my credit card. Find a suitable savings account - I'm not happy with the interest I'm getting on my current ISA, but almost no savings anyway, and wont be starting to save until I've kicked that CC.

Paulgonnabedebtfree

I have decided to delete the bit about how much "left" I have remaining in my spending budget and will just record how much has been spent. The problem with setting a maximum is that it is too easy for me to think of it as a target rather than an absolute maximum limit.
I had to get a new battery for my van today. The last one gave me seven years so it did OK. I am keeping the removed battery as it will have a use as a backup to pump the water system in the back of my van. Although it no longer has sufficient ooomph to start a vehicle without being removed and recharged each night, it has plenty left in it to power a 100PSI water pump at 1 - 2 litres per minute on an ad hoc basis. It will only be a backup to the current battery that does the same job.
Anyway, I only have 15% of my van for personal use so only that part comes out of my budget as it's my only vehicle and is mainly used for business.
Also, a £4k allowance would probably be over generous for me as a single person. Even £4k would represent a significant saving from years gone by but I want (and need) to strip my spending further.