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

MushyPeas

Evening everyone I'm really enjoying the posts and trying to be frugal.. even though I haven't worked out my budget yet .

Yesterday I tried to make some gloop and it hasn't been that successful! Needless to say I didn't follow the instructions exactly... but after a lot of faffing I have 4 litres of gel to try and use in my washing machine. It will be interesting to see how it works.

After spending a whole £12.06 at the supermarket on Saturday I'm still cooking! I've been working out the cost of meals and I'm thrilled that they are are working out at much less than a pound so feel very proud . My freezer is looking lovely and stocked.

Off to my OH for a few days, can't wait to see him.. but at the same time I'm just starting to 'find my feet' living at home (I haven't really lived here since I moved in a long time ago.. long story). But the good news is he is interested in frugal ways... so he doesn't think I'm too bonkers :rotfl:.

Off to read more of the thread, keep safe and warm everyone.

Ooh P.S. Found another good 'add ingredients to find recipe' website earlier, Supercook: http://www.supercook.com/

Pea x

MushyPeas

chika wrote: »

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!) .

Glad your mum is ok chika Ooh, good tip, I missed that one! Was wondering though... I guess there are some you can't freeze and would they be soggy when defrosted?

Ches

I love the new expressions that are emerging from this thread. Nile Mince will be a classic and Froup is brilliant.

I finally made it to a Sainsburys today and was able to cash my 2nd weeks money and do some shopping. Only 3 days late. With the money left over from the 1st week I now have £59.56 cash in hand and that only has to last me until Friday so very pleased with the way things are going. Made macaroni cheese for tea tonight with the cheese leftover from last week so haven't broken in to any of todays shopping yet. Sainsburys didn't have a great deal of milk and had a notice displayed apologising for the low stocks, but weren't rationing it.

lynzpower

I did quite well today, as I didn't eat lunch as I was too busy. Did have to grab a sandwich though at 5 from M&S as i was dying I got the cheapest at 1.30. Also some YS asparagus and sugar snap peas for 50p each.

Tonight Ive roasted the chicken and gave my kenwood chef another go and made a potato, leek & cheese dauphinoise type thing, using the end of a pot of C fraiche, half a leek, 3 small potatoes. The processor is so fine Ive got 2 out of those few ingredients - so one for the freezer :T sprinkled the top with a tiny amount of cheese. This was just so good - both agreed we could eat it on its own no need for chicken or anything next time ( v frugal dish)

I was wondering whilst some have mentioned about what I can plant now for cropping later in the year. I dont have a garden only a patio but I do have a massive bag of organic compost sat outside. I do have a lean to on a roof terrace, but no central heating ( as yet!). Would love any suggestions of anything I could "get going" now?

Went to the gym and was horrified how packed it was, I walked out straight away there were queues for the machine. Still get my pru points for that I wonder?

Have been told that I can get a free shelving unit from a house clearance through work, so very very pleased if this is true, as our previous house clearance one gave up the ghost it was swaying a lot so we had to take it down in case the worst happened and it damaged the pc :eek:

There is also a small chance that I might be getting a free piano. Ill have to pay to transport it but I reckon its worth it. I have always wanted to learn to play. I do hope I get the piano for free, i know it will really make me happy to try to do something, learn a new skill like that. I used to play keyboard at school and remember being quite good

I have made OH drink the rest of the mulled wine so I can take my flask to work tomorrow, I have a busy day. I really want a NSD. Luckily the roads don't seem bad at all, although Im expecting traffic to be bad tomorrow. Must go to the kitchen to whip up a pack up for me to take and put the BM on so I have a loaf to take with soup.

chika

MushyPeas wrote: »

Glad your mum is ok chika Ooh, good tip, I missed that one! Was wondering though... I guess there are some you can't freeze and would they be soggy when defrosted?

Thank you. I read on here that they were fine to freeze, I just made sure I didn't get any with salad in or egg because I think that they might taste a bit dodgy when defrosted.

mooomin

Hi all,

Not a bad day for being a frunchkin today due to being off work. I would rather not have this sodding head cold though. My sinuses are deeply unhappy with me

Still, good things on the frugality front:

My spare telly is being collected tomorrow night by a Freecycler - one thing out of the spare room before our lodger moves in....1,000,000 to go :rotfl:

£8 cheque received for old phone

£18 cashback tracked for signing up to free trial with LoveFilm

First attempt at flapjacks went well, I ate three to make sure :A

Labels received for Music Magp!e stuff, just need to wrap them up and post them

I also spent most of the day snuffling into tissues and watching free telly online (4OD & iPlayer are amazing!)

Hope everyone else is ok.

f_f

Thriftkitten

Well if he disappears at about 3am you know where he is clad with todays newspaper under his arm!!!

grannynise wrote: »

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:

rozeepozee

Have given up on trying to catch up with the thread today. I'll just have to make do with saying HELLO! to everyone.

Interesting day today as we went to Costco and stocked up on basics (butter, milk, tinned toms etc) and in my budget I haven't allocated anything for my clothes or my son's because I have such a stock pile and if I do buy these days is for pennies at the car boot sale. When I got to the counter however, there were a bumper pack of sports socks and boxer shorts that had been deposited by my dear OH. £23!!!! :eek: I can't really begrudge him that as he's hardly a consumer and most of his boxers have holes in them but it'll be interesting to see how much of these (unbudgeted for) sneaky purchases are racked up over the year.

Used the gym well today (it's a bargain £13 a month for me via Pruhealth and £12 a month for my son which allows me to put him in the kids club/creche for two hours everyday). He had two hours of play while I had a relaxing swim.

FrankieM we're looking to buy a smallholding in Wales eventually. The Welsh are lovely and friendly in my experience. I'd love to see the link to the property. There are a few specialist estate agents (I'm sure you know them if you're looking in Wales) that have a load of Welsh smallholdings and I've spent many an hour fantasising about which I'd like. Whereabouts in Wales are you looking?

I'm feeling so much more in control of my finances now and, like a PP who felt they couldn't live on £4K a year, I'm not even going to attempt that but I'm developing a much better awareness of where my money goes so that if we were ever to go for that (semi) self sufficient lifestyle, I'd have a much better understanding of how it could be achieved.

Frugaldom

cw18 wrote: »

NualaBuala

A lot of the really low budgets (Nyk's included) don't include rent/mortgage, council tax or debt repayments. I've seen other excluding a lot of things like this, as they have no control over them.

This is because I don't have any debts, I don't have a mortgage, I don't own a car, I don't eat out, I don't go holidays, visit hairdressers, wear makeup or do any of the million other things that I could do. But I do work from home, so I have a lot of extra overheads included in that to cover the cost of 2 people being here almost 24/7

cw18

nykmedia wrote: »

This is because I don't have any debts, I don't have a mortgage, I don't own a car, I don't eat out, I don't go holidays, visit hairdressers, wear makeup or do any of the million other things that I could do. But I do work from home, so I have a lot of extra overheads included in that to cover the cost of 2 people being here almost 24/7

And I so totally admire you managing on half my budget even without that - even more so as you have an additional person in your headcount :T

I have a car, but don't do any of the other things on that list. I don't work from home, but there's not actually many hours a week when the house is devoid of human occupation (6 hrs Monday, 6hrs Wednesday and 4 hours Thursday is about the lot). Even discounting my car and dog expenses, I'd still 'need' a budget of £6,200 - and that's without building anything in for the odd trips out I'd need to buy a bus ticket for (a couple of days a month would come in at around £100/year). Discounting Council Tax and Water would bring that down to around the £5k mark - so still 25% more than you for one person less :eek: