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

Skint_Lynne

Hi all,

I have had a no spend weekend, so am being a really good girl! Not posting much at the moment, I've been reading most of the posts though, the thread is rather busy just now, which is a good thing.

SFT, you did make me laugh when you were talking about mean queen's blog again re: the pants.:rotfl: It is an interesting read and if the pants suit her, then why not. (I have a very large backside, so have no chance of getting into a pair of boy's pants).:p

I'm going to get the dinner ready now, roast beef from the freezer, roasties, HM yorkshire puds, veg and gravy. I've already had my soup.

Speak later folks. xx

KarrieBee

rachelet wrote: »

I have loads of knitting projects planned and I never know what to start first! Yay another knitting planner - let us know what you make!

I am going to make Baileys chocolate truffles for presents this year as I seem to have a couple of bottle of Baileys in the cupboard which I don't drink very often and won't be drinking any until after baby is born in May.
mmmmm I made some of these for a friends birthday a few years ago and she still talks about them, a great use for baileys (as is baileys cheesecake...)

Think thats all for today but need to sort out my tax return this evening so won't be able to do any knitting - boo!

I use Green Metropolis to sell (and buy:rolleyes:) books on the net. Go to http://www.greenmetropolis.com - you get paid £3 for each book but it does sometimes take a while for them to sell, no longer than amazon tho?
HTH

Brighton_belle

shaz_mum_of__2 wrote: »

BRighton Belle - Do you think its possible to do a mosaic using x stitch patterns ?? i have some great patterns but hate xstitch and thought i could replace the stitces with a tile the same colour iykwim also wheres cheapest for special square tiles

Shaz great stuff re the mtg and making future plans possible:T.
Logically I can't see why this mosaic thing wouldn't work, though it would turn out much larger than the xstitch pattern of course. It's potentially a cracking idea.I have never used a pattern for my mosaics , I'm more freestyle so can't say form exact exeperience. I have drawn my own design on to the base but then decide on colours and shape as i go along all a bit instinctively.
I also only use large tiles that I break myself, so I have never bought architypal moasic tiles or 'tesseri' as I believe they are called. I get my tiles through local small bathroom and kitchen shops who are prepared to tiles individually and not just a box at a time. There are some good online shops you could brouse, and a bit later I will PM you the addreses some in my workshop use to give you an idea of what is out there.

Cake21 - I was thinking of the huge city of st Davids:D. I remember the light there being amazing due to the water on both sides of the peninsular.
Had a great afternoon with bails Much frugal talking amongmany other things.

Just cut my OH's hair for the first time with his new trimmer set. Not too bad but one slightly bald bit he didn't have before:rotfl:

Paulgonnabedebtfree

Came close to a no spend weekend but the battery died in my van so it ended up being quite an expensive one. The only spending apart from that was 20p so I am well happy with myself.
I've been watching weather forecasts like a hawk and it looks like there may be a window of opportunity opening up to get a few days work in. I'm going out tomorrow to give it a try as it's looking like temperatures are going to be above zero for a while. Will have to tread carefully though but I do have some very good, slip resistant work boots.
I want to do a sub 3 grand year on my spending. Might end up scrumping and blackberry picking later in the year to achieve it though .
When I do shop in the evening, I often come across vastly reduced vegetables. Normally I just grab a few for the next couple of days in case they become unusable. In future, I will just take as many as I can, cook them (the same night if I have to), and freeze them. I've no problem with mashing up vegetables together and storing them in freezer packs. It's only me that's going to eat them anyway. Not eating meat or fish saves a few quid too.

ellemm

Belated Happy New Year wishes to everyone-been out of the country for last 3 weeks and have not been online so a lot of catching up to do on this thread alone!!

Looking forward to getting to know everyone and getting down to the challenge.

tryingtodobetter

I've had a fantastic frugal birthday :bdaycake: today, all I requested was a card made by DS1 & DS2, a lie in and not to have to cook. All requests were fulfilled and we had a great time sledging all afternoon :j

I made £75 on ebay today so I am really pleased as this should offset DS1 & DS2's birthday presents :j

Still snowing here, so maybe another day off school and work tomorrow.

Hope everyone has had a good weekend

TTDB.x.

Savvy_sewing

I have lost the "will to read", sorry everyone.
Just want to tell you that Ihave had 5 NSD's now. Due to the fact that I cannot get out of the house!. One way of saving money.
I still cannot get the budget to balance, and now lossing the last laptop I have to start recording things all over again. So there is a lot of work to do to catch up.
The freezers are both full, and the cupboard reasonably full, so I am hoping that its only going to be milk and fresh fruit for the rest of the month. Fingers crossed as I am still not managing on the reduced income that hit me 4 weeks ago!.
Studying the various budgets, etc, but it worries me, as I am still trying to reduce things, and trying to get Everything into the ESA benefit is just not computing.
We dont even seem to get cold weather payments, even though my daughters on Income support do? Maybe as they have children. But thats not that fair as I am looking after one of the grandchildren. But Mum spent the money before I could get it from her!.

cha97michelle

NSD here today. I had to go to the supermarket yesterday as we needed some nappies and vegetables, and is spent £42.

Tomorrow may be pricey. My car needs an MOT. My brother in law replaced a senser on it before Christmas, and we did an idiot check that all the lights and wipers etc are working, so it should be ok. The only downer is the battery has gone flat over Christmas while we were away. The battery was jumpstarted yesterday and DH left it running on the drive while he was out there, but it needed jumping again today. We took a long way round drive to my parents house today (1st visit since boxing day) to see if that would sort it out, but if it won't start again tomorrow i might need a new battery on it. Hope the car doesn't need anything else on it or i might start to fret.

Not much i can do now though so i'll try not to worry.

Frugal meals today - i made a fridge bottom quiche which was delicious, and turned some skimmed milk powder into milk to make a rice pudding in the slow cooker which went down very well with DH. He can cope with frugal if his stomach isn't complaining too much. I also made some mince pies while the quiche was cooking to make full use of the oven and use up the pastry scraps. Once the snacks from Christmas go down i will have a go at some of the lemon biscuits. I guess the lemon rind could be substituted for whatever you have. Orange zest, choc chips?


I bought a brisket joint to do in the SC this week, and some stewing steak. I need to spend this evening entering more details into the spreadsheet i am using.

I'm happy with how the first 1/3 of this month has gone. Hoping i can keep it up.

cw18

Mooloo wrote: »

We dont even seem to get cold weather payments, even though my daughters on Income support do? Maybe as they have children. But thats not that fair as I am looking after one of the grandchildren. But Mum spent the money before I could get it from her!.

Depends which ESA you're on. If you're on Contributions based benefits you don't get the payments, but if you're on means-tested benefits you do.

stitching_witch

My sofa desperately needs re-covering as one of the arms has worn through. There is no money to replace it, or even to buy a throw. I thought I would need to keep covering it up until I had a surprise gift today.:D

I have just made a pair of curtains for a friend who is on benefits. She was given the fabric but can't afford to pay me for my time so said I could keep any left over fabric to "do something with". There is 8 metres of good quality fabric left and the colour is almost the same as my original sofa!

My friend gets her curtains and I get sofa covers without a penny being spent. That's what I call frugal! :j