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

Thriftkitten

Cor Blimey the soup is smelling rich here, doing it in the presure cooker without the little thingy on though, the pugs have lost their mind over the smell, so may treat them to a miniscule amount too, although they did have some of the left over sunday dinner yesterday and the black pug woke me up at 3am scratching the cage door as she needed a number 2 hahaha!! good old country cooking keeps the pipes lubed!!!

grannynise

I made soup out of the bits of vegetables that I'd normally throw away today. The dark green bits of leek, the 'core' of the cauliflower, the very ouside bits of the celery all went in the slow cooker for the day. I blitzed it and added some low fat soft cheese and some dried herbs and we started our meal with it - very good it was too. The joke is that Mr Granny hates cauliflower with an unbelievable passion but had no idea that he was eating it. 7 more servings in the freezer too.

Frugal soup -- is it froup?

Oh - just read about thriftkitten's dog - hope good old country cooking doesn't have the same effect on Mr Granny :eek:

candygirl

Lol at THRIFTKITTEN'S doggy:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:Mine get all my veggie left overs mixed in with their food, and love it, even curry:eek::eek:
GRANNYNISE I like your style;):D

savingfortravel

Hi Everyone!
Nice to see thread is settling down to a more gentle pace.
My word the children in my class were bouncing off the walls today. Feel there’s a lot of hard work to be done before we return to where we reached last term. Still it was lovely to see them…and the gaps from their missing teeth!

Frugal things today: 16 tins of Br*nston b.beans from Mr T-aiming for as many as poss./Lunch provided by school/HM muffins and soup for tea/Watched Charlotte’s Web DVD for free –school copy as its the focus of our writing week next week. Currently sipping (whoopsied) 20p can of lager.

Flying-Are you feeling any better?
Mumoffour-Glad your dad is out of the hospital and well done on that whoopsie haul
Franke-Tell us more about the small holding.
Granny-Well done for making that delicious frugal sauce.
Kiwi-Where is your mum in England?
Hope you’re feeling better Cheryl?
Top-Drawer/Fishcake/Xspender-Great frugal plans and results.
Danielly-Fingers crossed for your allotment.
Knithappens-Congrats on paying off the credit card.
SF/Rictus-Congrats on all those NSDs
Congrats Nessa on your new star.
Aril-Can I have the recipe for tuna bake?

So sad to read about all that wasted milk..

sft

ellemm

Hi all, still trying to catch up with all the posts - this thread really moving fast.

Had various things planned for tonight but came home from work to find we had no water-been off since early afternoon in several streets around us. Finally found out there's a major burst at Glasgow airport just a mile from here which is causing the problem.

Managed to cook some Lamb Kleftico in the oven and a batch of mince so not a completely lost night. (Rest of time on here :o)

Really should be getting back into the meal planning mode but can't be bothered , after first day back at work too tired.

cw18

savingfortravel wrote: »

Hope you’re feeling better Cheryl?

Much better thanks

HR reckon I'm fine to return to the bakery tomorrow, and (while I quite enjoyed seeing another side of the store today) it will be nice to be back to what I know

The poor chap who had me landed on his team wasn't quite sure what to do with me either......

We had a delivery today which was much bigger than we'd been expecting - and it arrived just before the start of my shift !! So he had that to unload, and then to organise a team to get as much of it onto shelves as physically possible in the shortest possible time - due to the fact we only have a small warehouse, so no room for it there - but had to bear in mind I don't know where everything is in the store, and probably wouldn't be working as fast as his normal crew. In the end I got the toilet rolls (first pallet off the wagon), then was set to trying to clear as much as possible off a pallet that's been used as a dumping ground (for 'odd bottles/boxes' there wasn't shelf space for when the majority of the pack/outer box was put out). Got quite a way through that, and it was a job he was going to have to give to someone in the next couple of days - so at least it was a useful job

What did amaze me was that management did nothing about getting someone into the bakery to cover my shift - so from 2pm until 5pm there was no-one around to restock shelves or slice bread for customers :mad: I could have understood to some extent had I not phoned until noon (or waited until I got there to tell them I'd not been well), but I spoke to the HR manager at 8:30am



Got a few grocery bits today (milk, a couple of 19p 'Super 6' grapefruits, and some Whoopsied Mascarpone), and had 2 D/Debs go out of my bank. May need to put my bread machine on tomorrow night or Wednesday (very little white bread left in the house, and DS won't eat anything else - though he's not aware that it's always at least 25% brown or wholemeal flour when I use the machine :rolleyes2 ), but other than that I'm hoping to avoid any more spending until my next D/Deb goes out (which will probably be Friday). Just need to sort out what we're having for tea for the rest of the week, but I think Chicken Enchilladas one day and Curry/fish pie another (I don't eat curry). So that's 2 of the 3 before I want to have to shop again.... and I may make the third one pie and mash (loads of pies in the freezer, but no chips which would normally be DS's preference!!!)

xnatalie81x

Hi

My daily catch-up. Went to work 1-2 but no work from 4.30-7 as the car park was an ice rink. The swimming teaching is in the same place lol. So, as i pay for childminder even though i don't get paid, the kids went to her house and i went to tesco

Got lots of whoopsied ciabatta loafs and rolls and 2 packs raisin and cinnammon bagels. DD started nursery so she had packed lunch at school and lunches usually under 60p so now DS and DD both have lunch at school just me and DS2 at home to munch

Also got a ben 10 b'day cake reduced form £8 to £4 and then to £1.85 - was going to freeze for son's b'day in March but decided to eat it instead - now 1/2 saved for packed lunch boxes this week (cannot make it cheaper than 1.85!)

kittiej

Hello how's everyone doing?

We've got heavy snow forcast for tomorrow in S Wales so maybe I'll get snowed in at work? Hopefully not, especially with my boss, the old goat :rotfl:


Spent another £8.50 on diesel, OH very nearly didn't put this amount in my car cos he thinks it's a stupid amount but he's quite OK with putting just a fiver's worth in, I don't get the logic in that

I'm waiting for my next gas and electric bills to come in at the end of the month so I can see if I should change suppliers, Eon want £69 per month for electric and £79 per month for gas if I pay by DD and I'm not really happy paying that much tbh.

I'm going to downgrade my phone package as well but I can't do that until May, and I'm considering ditching Sky once we get Freeview around here which should be March time.

As for the food spends, it's really hard getting OH to get out of his takeaway mentality :rolleyes: I can't help thinking that one takeaway a week is the equivalent of most of the food budget. He did buy me chocolate though so I sort of forgave - him on this occasion anyway.

Spent so far £35.19 of my £3000 budget.

chika

Hello fellow frugal people How are you all.

Wow I had a bit of a up and down weekend so frugalness went out of the window. I was at work on Saturday morning when I got a text to say that my mum had been taken into hospital because she was having chest pains. I'm normally quite an optimist but when it comes to things like that I automatically think of the worst case scenario - so in true drama queen style I broke down in tears behind the counter, much to the horror of the lads that had come in to buy lager on their stag do outing! Anyway abandoned the shop, caught a train straight to Yorkshire where mum lives and got to the hospital. Thankfully she's ok and the Dr thinks it's a chest infection and pulled muscle. Her spirit is fab, about half an hour after she was discharged we had a stand up row in Mr S because she wanted to buy cigarettes and a bottle of beer :eek:

Frugalness is being practiced well here today. I've made three loaves of bread using value flour - the results are just as good as the expensive strong bread flour and free yeast from Mr T. Popped into Mr T today and managed to get some reduced sandwiches for 10p which I've popped into the freezer (thanks for the tip!) and a whole roast chicken for 50p which will make risotto tomorrow and possibly soup, chicken pie later in the week.

Skint_Lynne

Hi everyone,

Not much to report, went to Mr T tonight and got 5 blocks of danish blue for £1, so they are in the freezer, also got some finest cold meat, reduced from £3 to 50p, so not a bad night all round.

Will have ham fried rice tomorrow and will use the cold meat for that.

Hope everyone had had a lovely day, will check in tomorrow. xx