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

gilligansyle

Afternoon all

hardup hester you could try your local freecycle for yarns etc. I gave away a lot of embroidery stuff a year ago, as my eyesight wasn't good enough to so it anymore.

On the frugaling side, have had pizza for lunch, remnants from DS and friends takeaway last night, with jacket spud and salad. As he earns decent money and has no debts he hasn't quite 'got' the frugal gene yet! Have cleaned the fridge out and found a bit of pepper, some onion and the remnants of cheddar from Christmas so a quiche seems like a good plan.
My big box (5.4kg) of Daz that I bought last June when it was on offer for £6 is finally coming to its end. £1 a month for washing powder isn't bad, may still get another month out of it if I eke it out.
Still managing to keep in budget, and at the moment I find I begrudge spending the money. Went shopping today, budgeted £20, left list at home, spent £17.50, only forgot one thing, and bought 3 things that weren't on the list, but they were fresh herbs in pots on offer for 50p each so will easily pay for themselves.

Have found some puff pastry also in fridge, so need ideas for that.

Happymrsh

Hi,

I am new here, been reading for a few days now and i find you all so inspiring. I am defintiely going to join in and am currently doing my budget

Today is going to be a NSD here today, having a lazy day with the children and OH, and tonight we are off to a friends house for a Monopoly night which should be good fun

Whilst reading I have noticed everyone talking about bottom of the fridge soup. Obviously the ingredients are pretty obvious :rotfl:but can anyon tell me how to make it???

I have lots more questions that I can't think of right now, but i will be back

Look forward to getting to know you all, I am in awe of you all :j

ifonlyitwaseasier

fishcake - love the elephant!! very gorgeous

a few THANK YOU's going out, first the lemon biscuits nomnomnomnomn
RE - halfcost fab got a few of OH's pressies for next year plus some for other peeps too!!

and a general THANK's to everyone as reading this thread keeps me on track (although i have bought some thermals this week, mine just weren't warm enough )

have some temping work but need to get the train so am not going to count the train fare as will deduct from the salary amount before i count it in the budget, and it'll be about 200 more a week for at least the next few weeks so thats a good boost, fingers crossed it go's long term

Paulgonnabedebtfree

I have found another way of making a (very) small saving on my costs. It's not much but, as they say, every little helps.
In Poundland, I notice there are refill pads for £1. They contain 400 sheets (a normal packet of paper is 500 I think). The paper is poor quality (very thin) and has punch holes in it so is no good for quality work. However, especially as I am self-employed, I do have a use for poor quality paper for certain types of jobs and this does the job just fine. Not to be used for marketing your business if you want to make an impression but certainly adequate for printing out internal records etc. that customers will never see. Indeed, for some things I even use the plain backs of received mail (ensuring that there is no confidential info contained within) as it's only for making photocopies of banked cheques, printing out work lists etc.
I haven't seen any packets of paper for £1.25 or less so presumably this represents a small saving.
If paper is to be used anyway, I suppose that thinner paper is a bit more eco-friendly as I assume it takes less raw material to make. It can be recycled too (after shredding if necessary).

Intergalactic_Floozie

Hello all, I'm plucking up the courage to finally join you in your adventures in frugaldom as it's such a friendly thread and lovely to read.

It seems like a massive amount compared to what some of you are living off, but I need to try and stick to a budget (which seems quite tight for me) so I'm not counting mortgage, bills, travel & kids activities or petrol and am concentrating on what's leftover for groceries and everything else which on average is £480 per month or £5760 per year.

Frugaldom

Happymrsh wrote: »

Hi,

I am new here, been reading for a few days now and i find you all so inspiring. I am defintiely going to join in and am currently doing my budget ... Whilst reading I have noticed everyone talking about bottom of the fridge soup. Obviously the ingredients are pretty obvious :rotfl:but can anyon tell me how to make it???

Welcome to the challenge. Bottom of the fridge soup (or anything else, for that matter) is simply soup made from all the leftover veggies, bits and pieces in the fridge rather than throw them out. You can literally chuck anything into the soup and just season it to taste. I usually blend mine and have even gone for the touch of luxury by adding leftover cream. But I still haven't worked out why creamed soup made from chard tastes like cream of mushroom when I didn't have any mushrooms in it! :rotfl: You can bulk it out with some rice, barley, broth mix, lentils, split peas, beans etc and that makes enough to freeze leftovers into even more meals. I'm doing fridge foraged cake just now, using up eggs and pineapple slices.

Welcome, also, to Intergalactic Floozie!

grandma247

http://canningusa.com/IfICanYouCan/FruitSyrupPineapple.htm

This is easy all you need is a pan deep enough to take the jar and a couple of inches over the top of the jar of water. I use any jar and I reuse the lid that came with it so long as it has not had curry or any garlic in it. They do recommend using new lids but I have used lids twice and had no failures yet.
I will be buying a stack of new lids this year. You can get lids to fit most jars.

Also pineapple preserve is good on toast. Lots of recipes for that on the 'net

savingfortravel

Hi Everyone!

Slept until 11.45am this morning. Must have been exhausted after the first proper week back at school (and the extra stress of our inspection coming up).

My current MS plans are:

• Buy all my school clothes for this year from Ebay. Have Spring/Autumn, Summer and Winter wardrobes-Have to have 5 outfits (one for each day of the week). I am so not into clothes and can’t bear clothes shopping so Ebay not only saves money but means I don’t have to wrestle with the crowds in shops. Wish I didn’t have to buy anything but you have to be presentable as a teacher.

Must remind myself to use Quidco every time I buy something.

• Keep up our Grocery challenge-have 11 days to go before I get paid…then I can pop another £80 in our savings piggy bank (a vw camper van) I have most of what we need until then. In Feb/March and April will get most expensive items from M and S using the vouchers I got for Christmas and the remainder from Mr T.
• Have as many NSDs as possible
• Buy only what I need-apart from the occasional treat of wine and chocolate.

oh and we've got 40 tins of Bran BBeans so far. x

Have a few days of posts to catch up on but I hope everyone and their loved ones are ok

sft

ceridwen

Hardup_Hester wrote: »

Afternoon all
Still sticking to minimum spends here, so very pleased.
I'm a bit stuck for free entertainment/hobbies, hubby & I often walk along the Thames path, but it's not passable at the moment. I like to knit, sew & crochet, but buying fabric, yarn etc is expensive, we both like to read but it cost £5.20 return to get to the library, there must be some free stuff we can do, but can't think of anything at the moment.
Hugs Hester

Are you sure now Hester? - ie cant think of anything....<cough>:rotfl::rotfl:

I couldnt resist that......goes off vowing "beHAVE ceridwen....sit...":D

ceridwen

Nessa56 wrote: »

I just did a comparison hoping to get cash back if I switched - turns out that I can't get cheaper than I am on at the moment so sort of good

v
x

Well...theres other things to take into account as well as the direct price comparisons. I swopped to e-on recently for my fuel - and they (so far) seem to be one of the few firms I have encountered where people know what they are doing/the computer system is set up properly. Its got to be moneysaving to deal with a firm that is actually efficient for once - saving all the phonecalls/letters/emails/etc and sheer loss of temper involved in dealing with many firms because they are just so awful - <cough> lost my temper with Virgin AGAIN this morning....lost count of JUST how many times I've been mucked-around by Virgin.....:mad: