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

mumoffour77

Woo Hoo no frost/snow here:D
Just Rain!!!

Today, Dad came home from hospital, whilst the kids and I were seeing DH in his hospital:D Visit went well.....well except for the part that I had to buy him cigs...100 for £29.....I cant not get him them as he doesnt do or have anything else.! We have asked him to stop but he is unable to he wouldnt have the "capacity" to even know what we are talking about!

Also I cleared out the garage....and laid the pink gravel along the side of the garage it looks so much tidier now:D (and it was free....donated by my dad during the summer)

My house is almost spotless, which is unheard of with 4 kids and me running around....I like it:)

So after Visiting DH we came home by a local town and It was around 4.30 so we called into Asda....im so glad I did... I got 5 loaves of bread for £1....stuffed turkey slices around 15 for 20p and Limerick Ham again 15 slices for 20p:)
Im well chuffed....thats lunches sorted out for the week:) I also got a cooked large chicken for 50p so I have stripped it and put it in the freezer it will do a curry...

Milk seems to be my biggest purchase, It may be cheaper to buy a cow!!

Tomorrow, I will be doing some more cleaning, and im going to try and work out how I am going to get some debts lowered and priortise the high interest ones to be paid asap:)

I hope all is well with everyone:)

Happy Birthday trying to do better:T

Ansoff

Happy Birthday TTDB, hope you had a lovely day.

Thanks SFT the doggies are trying to get about on 3 legs rather than 4. I have all 4 sat with me in front of a lovely log fire warming their toes.

Had another NSD, yippee!!!

Made 3 fish pies from freezer stocks, had steak for dinner out of the freezer and cooked a piece of meat, which turned out to be ribs. DS thought it was wondeful to have a rib for a snack and more for his dinner tomorrow.

Hoping the schools are open tomorrow as DS has A level exams on Tuesday and he wants to go to school to revise.

Did some further decluttering, sorted out old music putting it in plastic wallets and recycling photocopies that I had. Hoovered, ironed and polished, you are such an inspiration. Thank you.

I feel so much better about my home, my family and trying to control my budgets.

Ansoff

debtmess

evening all x

Happy birthday trying to do better, hope you had a wonderfull day

woohoo the snow is melting, hopefully what has melted wont freeze to much overnight, there is a small downfall of it now but i dont think its going to stick around

another nsd as expected, but then again ive not been out since wednesday

had a rather lazy day today tarded with my friend so there is the diet out the window, though i must admit her cakes are nice

roasted all the chicken portions now need to decided what to do with whats left (2 thighs and a leg) was going to use all bones and the leg for soup and the 2 thighs in perhaps a pasta bake, managed to get ds3 to try dinner tonight (bonus)

tomorrow i plan to batch cook cottage pie, the pack of mince ive got out the freezer was one that i didnt split down fussy brother who was living with me wouldnt eat if mixed with carrots and lentals, the pack i used the other week made 9 portions so in thery this one should make 27 is i bulk the same way though ive only got 2 trays so looks like a deeper 18 portion version, may need to spend on potatoes tomorrow in order to do this

boys back to school in morning hopefully thats the last of bugs here for a little while.

had an ebay offer for my bag of £70 will sleep on it, was brought as a present over a year ago and ive only ever used it the once, not sure what im going to do with anything i make on ebay this year

muzuma have offered £78 for my phone, or £85.80 in argos vouchers, if i go ahead with ebay and muzuma ive made more so far this year than ive spent (just) if only the rest of the year could carry on like it

going to get off to bed now, 7am always comes around too quick

candygirl

OMG I just had a shock when checking my online banking, then realised the £240 cheque for the boarding kennels when I went on hols in Dec, has only just been cleared:eek::eek::eek:I wont be inc it in my FLC though:D:D
Panic over:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

NualaBuala

Happy Birthday Tryingtodobetter!

Glad you've had a good day.

Blairweech wrote: »

Nuala - Yes you can freeze bananas, they turn out really mushy once defrosted though so would need using in banana loaf, smoothies etc
.....
managed to defrost my pipes (opened all the cupboard doors and turned the heaters onto them). I can honestly say the shower I had this afternoon was the best shower ever My landlady got electric put on my key for me,

Thanks BW! Banana loaf is one of my favourites so I don't mind mushy. Although I love bananas so much they might not make it to the freezer!

Glad that you have hot water and electricity - I didn't realise there were problems. That's the problem with skim-reading as the thread is moving so quickly.

Flying_Fresian, hope you're feeling better soon.

I've had a nice evening knitting in front of the telly; the poncho is coming along slowly. It doesn't feel nearly as cold here as it was, there is still a lot of snow and ice but we might have a thaw sooner than expected which is good news for my gas bill! Tomorrow is imeasure day and I expect I'll have conniptions when I see how much I've used this week.:eek: Good luck to everyone trying to make it work tomorrow..

grandma247

shaz I only ask because it happen to us thankfully you have been brighter than we wer!!

I had plenty of time to gaze about while I was holding the hairdryer and I noticed that the exhaust thingy from the boiler was forming drops of condensation and dripping onto the small outlet pipe so I knew I had to try and water proof the wrapping somehow.

Chicken bones and bits now cooking with some of my dehydrated veg and some approved foods broth mix as a tester for my dehydrating machines usefulness smells great so far.

I did a beef casserole on Friday with some beef,a jar of my "canned" chickpeas and a variety of my dehydrated veg. I topped it with suet dumplings near the end of cooking.in the oven.It was very yummy.

stitching witch
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!
thats brilliant.

DdraigGoch

I swear this thread eats posts some times! I started up a thread for cw8's spreadsheet Q&A and thought I'd notified you all about it. Well, you know where to ask now - it's so that everyone can keep their queries and the answers together instead of having to search through this thread. The speed this thread is growing made me think it was a good idea.

Hope it helps.

I've been very frugal these days, being snowed in does that!

Just a quick reminder to everyone who logs their energy useage at http://www.imeasure.org.uk that it's time to log in with the figures. I managed to leave a 3kw fan heater on ALL DAY today... aaargh!

Paulgonnabedebtfree

cha97michelle wrote: »

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.

How long has the battery been in the car. If you've had five winters out of it that's reasonable. The one I just changed was nearly seven years old and was in its sixth winter (vehicle first used in March 03).
If you've had 5 years out of it probably time to change it.

purple_angel_3

Morning everyone :wave:

Off to work today, hope the roads are ok the higher up into the valleys I go, work 40 miles from home.

Taking lunch with me, will be in the office all day to day, so expecting a NSD.

Had a sale on Amazon last night,package it up tonight and post tomorrow.

Dinner tonight will be from the freezer.

Thats my day sorted. Hope everyone has a good safe day.

purple_angel

slowlyfading

:hello: morning everyone.

I am braving taking the car to school today - I shall let you know how it goes! :eek: Should result in a NSD though

Have a good day