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

grandma247

skintjenny wrote: »

knit a snood/scarf thing for myself!
!

Thats what I have been doing, I made a hat last week on circular needles and now a snood/ cowl both patterns from the internet. I bought the wool at bury market a couple of weeks ago.
I am very new to circular needles but I am getting quicker so it must be getting easier.

cw18

I love using circular needles, but find gloves much easier using 4 needles than one of "double ended with wire" type they seem to promote these days

Was chuffed to pieces to get several sets of 4 (various sizes) in a charity shop in 2008 - cost me 10p a set 'cos they "couldn't sell them" and wanted rid

NualaBuala

NualaBuala wrote: »

I am setting my target at €11,400.:o:eek: Very high I know but a lot of the costs are beyond my control like prescriptions. I hope I'll be able to shave a little off this during the year, I'm hoping that this thread will frugalise me good and proper! I will probably juggle money between my different categories but this is what I'm working with for now!

Many thanks to Cheryl for all the helpful techy tips like how to do screenshots; I downloaded the program you linked to. :T:T:T I'll post up my budget tomorrow as the software won't let me save again today.

ETA, thanks Nyk, will stick with the spuds then!

ETA - here's the budget in all its "glory".

aeb_2

Here I am reading at stupid o'clock again so I thought I would log in and say HI to all the new people. Also a big thank you to NYK for setting it all up and running - all those links being so useful. it must have taken ages, so thank you:beer::beer:

aeb - add me to the list please

I have no budget just aims. I have rough budgets in my head but as there is only me spending it I am in control, or not!

Aims:
Spend as little as possible on day to day living e.g food, fuel, clothes, phone, etc
Grow as much as I can
Sell as much as I can (garden gate worked well last autumn, not sure how much was the sympathy vote when passers by spotted three pre schools standing there, but they may return);)
Scratch cooking - healthy meals whilst introducing variety to the children’s diets

In order to achieve:
Major house renovation (will break this down later)
Not having to got to work - which would be difficult to organise anyway

TWINS - Congrats on the twins for April, hope all is well, sorry I can't find the post again to name you

Main thing for me is to go with the flow, take each day as it comes and accept whatever life offers me with good grace and a smile:D

cw18

****waves to aeb****

Great to see you posting again - wondered how you (and all the family) were over Christmas

Hope things are going OK, and that you're starting to get some sort of a routine sorted

aeb_2

cw18 wrote: »

****waves to aeb****

Great to see you posting again - wondered how you (and all the family) were over Christmas

Hope things are going OK, and that you're starting to get some sort of a routine sorted

routine - :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

I'm just going to clean out the guinea pigs now! (much easier on my own) To be honest I do have my routine it's just that others don't see it.

LilacPixie

PMSL AEB. I remember those days and I only had one at a time!!

ceridwen

NualaBuala

I've been thinking further on your comments re the difficulty in affording healthy/ethical food as I'm reading my way through "Local Food - how to make it happen in your community" by Tamzin Pinkerton & Rob Hopkins - and I came across a chapter on food co-ops and the comments about how some people are able to buy better food because of belonging to one of them.

So - I'll give the links they gave for them:

www.foodcoops.org
(Sustain's new food co-op website - complete with tools, tips and an online directory)

www.localfoodcoop.org
(a major American food co-op has freely donated software for food co-op use)

www.oklahomafood.coop
(the American food co-op concerned)

www.foodforallbristol.org.uk
(a fair-size British co-op covering some of Bristol)

www.communityfoodandhealth.org.uk
(a government-funded organisation with grants available within Scotland)

www.communityfirst.org.uk
(grants available for community projects in Wiltshire and Swindon)

Maybe you might find something useful there.

HTH

ceridwen

Blairweech wrote: »

I may be eligible for a refund for my TV licence, council tax and phone bill but will have to find out.

One thought on that - when I got shot of my TV (as I barely watched the thing) I got a refund - but it wasnt as much as I expected (or had been wrongly told on the phone by the person in TV Licencing:mad:) - as I'd forgotten that back when I started paying my monthly direct debits for this that they have summat re the way they charge that meant that I got some months worth less back than I thought I was going to have. Still - was still worth getting back the few months' worth that I managed to get.

ceridwen

NualaBuala wrote: »

Great to know I'm not alone! I buy similar organic stuff to you - milk and cheese when I can, porridge, pasta lentils, organic or free range eggs

Re the organic eggs - I swopped back from organic eggs to freerange eggs - after reading about/being told about how farmers are entitled to call their freerange chickens "organic freerange chickens" after only quite a short period of time (2?/3? months) and that some of them do that - rather than those chickens having been fed organic food all along IYSWIM. So - short of checking up on the particular farmer concerned to see whether they've been on organic "nosh" all along I just decided to stick with "standard" freerange eggs. (Though I think I've now found a source of supply that will provide me with genuine "organic freerange eggs" hopefully - so that I can be sure I AM getting what I'm paying for:D).