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

top_drawer_2

hey again everyone!

Fishcake - that is amazing!! I am a elephant lover too, such beautiful animals and so intelligant.

BB - Sounds very exciting, can we see some pics?

I have added Research veg garden; I will base it around what my Guinea pigs eat as at the moment I am spending £6 ish on veg for them a week alone:eek: Thanks to everyone who posted links - theyre are going to keep me busy this week.

2nd time rounder - You are very brave.

BabyBoysMummy - Thank you for the banana cake recipe! Thats going to come in so useful.

Nessa - lol any tips on living the frugal single life?

Hardup Hester - Have you thought of making clothes for sleeping babies - they are a really worthwhile charity. The patterns etc are all on the website. I manage to find quite a lot of fabric in charity shops too, I made a wash bag from an old duvet cover (bought for £1.50), then some pj's bottoms too

I am hoping that the Knitting group will take off as it would give me the chance to meet people as my social circle is diminishing fast.

I have been very productive today (and had a NSD!! thankfully after yesterday :eek:). I have tidied and cleaned my room out, found loads of stuff to be Ebayed/freeagled tommorrow, I've had an enquiry about my pet cage so could even have earned some money (!!).

I was wondering whether its possible to put fabric on a headboard, I have old one provided with the house and would like it to fit with my (forthcoming) new decor. Could I just staple it into place? with a proper stapler....

Tommorow I will finish my draft excluders and do the clothing alterations I have to do .... My LL is coming to do some jobs too so I can ask them to hang a picture for me in the lounge.

TD

grandma247

Cheryl sorry
It can take all day and with very wet stuff some of the evening too.
Some things like kale, cabbage and spinach dry much quicker. herbs also dry pretty quick.

I have found that watery things such as tomatoes,courgettes and aubergines dry quicker if they are prepared,frozen then allowed to thaw in a colander ( I save the juice for soup) then I put them on the trays. It helps when I am pushed for time to have them ready to dry.

Mushrooms can go in anything you would normally put them in,same for tomatoes. It just saves me freezer space for more woopsies.

sophiesmum_2

2TR - Hope everything goes well for you and your mum,looks like it will be a long journey for you both , take care of yourself too:A, caring for someone long term can be very stressful so accept any help you can get. When she is ready to leave hospital ask to see the hospital social worker. Request a full care assessment for your mum and a carers assessment for yourself, also ask for her to be assessed by the occupational therapist for any aids or minor adaptations which may be available to help your mum gain her independence back. Social services will have a duty of care to your mum if she is still debilitated when she goes home.
Some things you may like to look into in the meantime are ;
disability allowance/mobility allowance (under 65) or attendance allowance (over 65) for mum – sorry can’t remember how old your mum is.
carers allowance for yourself
direct payments ( can also be paid for carer’ s needs!) (social services will assess what level of care she needs - you can ask for the funding for this be paid to herself which allows you to have much more control over the quality of care and services you buy in for her )
http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/DisabledPeople/FinancialSupport/DG_10016128

Don’t forget if your mum has a pension/income support benefit she may qualify for a severe disablement premium, which is also a gateway benefit to opening up other funds or raising thresholds.
Also check out if there is a Disability Advice Information Service or benefits advisor in your area for specialist advice or advocacy for your mum, get all the info you can from your local council’s Older Peoples Service and check out any local services provided by voluntary groups in your area too. There is lots of help and advice around just sometimes you have to dig a little – start on your council home page there is usually stuff on there to point you in the right direction.
If you have to adapt your home to help with her disability you may also qualify for a deduction in council tax – if you drive look into the blue badge scheme too (local council) - all things to look into which may help in some way .

lynzpower

On this subject- has anyone ever been able to do sundrying? I was pondering the possiblility of sun dried tomatoes in olive oil. OUr roof is VERY exposed- this summer was so hot we couldnt really sit out there!

grandma247

lynzpower I havent tried since it is never hot enough for long enough although this has a good idea for using your car. You should be able to find simple plans on the 'net.

Intergalactic_Floozie

Okay - so, this is my first frugal post nicked from my own DFW diary: I thought I was very frugal yesterday.

• Used Boots Points (£14.99) to buy a second Xmas present – probably for FIL or oldest BIL. It’s a Ben Sherman “London Calling” Aftershave / smellies set, which was reduced from £22.99. (I have 15 adults to buy for, and about 7 kids not including my own). Still have 160 Boots Points left.
• Was going to get DH a shaving adaptor plug from Argos at £3.29 but forgot to go to Argos when I was in town, so thought I would see if local DIY store had any. Result – they did at £1.70
• Braved cheapie card shop hell (Cheapest place for cards in town so subsequently it’s always a nightmare, I don’t know if it’s the layout or the lighting but it always makes me want to throw myself on the floor and start foaming at the mouth). Anyway got all cards needed for up to next pay day – a total of nine (gasp) at £7.31. I paid a bit more for some of them as it’s DH and DS2’s birthday, and obviously Valentines Day so they’re priced a premium at the moment. I seem to spend a lot on cards and they’re something I don’t like paying a lot for!
• Did a Mystery Shop for £5 + reimbusement, but it was the shop from hell so I wouldn’t be surprised if there are loads of queries on it. They were only released this morning so I was in the right place at the right time again. I also baggsied another one for next Saturday.
• Went to fruit & veg market and got 20 items of fruit for £2.25 – bargaintastic. Clementines, Pears and bananas.
• Went to frozen discount food shop and spent just over £5 and got 2 x 300g packets of ham for £1 each // 2 x 6 pack of crisps for £1.50 // 2 x 4 packs of WW yoghurts for £0.39 each // and 2 x 4 packs of Bakin Boys cupcakes for £1.00
• Went to M&S and got 3 of their special offer meats at 3 for £10 – chicken, pork and lamb, and 2 bags of veg which was £1.50 each. I was taken in by labelling like I was at Morrisons and thought they were 2 for £1 so it wasn’t very frugal – BAH!!! But it’s not just any veg, it’s M&S veg!
• Got the bus home, which means I have got extra use from my bus pass as I normally only use it during the week.
• Managed to avoid calling into any other shops even the charity shops other than those I had set off to go in.
• Reading another book called “In the Red” by Alexis Hall. It’s just like a long DFW diary without the interaction and to be honest there are posters on here who have written far more entertaining ones.

JAMIEDODGER

Morning all,

hoping to have a small spend day here. didnt get to shops yesterday to buy milk so will have to go today!

dd had a lovely time at the party yesterday and us mums had a laugh sitting in the cafe while the kids played. couple of pounds spent, why are their drinks so expensive though? could have taken my own i suppose but didnt think at the time!

lots of housework needs doing, so must get on and tackle that today, ds3 back from carers at 2pm and ds1&2 off to their dads thi morning and back at tea time. will be doing something easy for tea, eggs probably.

must sit down with tescos reciept and do my meal planner for rest of month, so far in january i have spent £228 on food, so should manage to stay within £250 budget, but if i see any bargains i will buy them and take off of febuarys food budget. I am aiming to keep food costs this year under £3k. This will include our food and cat food plus any cleaning products. Toiletries and meds are under a different budget and bought from boots using vouchers etc. I think my boots points are up to about £8:)

lots to do today so need to get on, have a great day....

Kiwisaver_2

Had a total no-spending weekend here, and haven't been any further than the end of the garden. Had a real lazy and non-productive day yesterday, way too hot to be doing much in the kitchen. I did manage to made one huge pot of chilli for dinner and froze a couple of portions. We had this with tortillas and salad and I also made some guacamole with an avocado that's been hanging around since Xmas.

I made up for it today and worked like a trojan. Kitchen got blitzed, cookery bookshelves all sorted and rearranged into order of usefulness and every scrap of ironing is done. Cooked whole 'fall-apart' chook in the slow cooker and that will also do us for tomorrow.

Read Mr Kiwi the riot act, with my annual blow-my-top about how I am the only one who ever does anything around here speech. It's been a long time coming and he got all fully loaded barrels all in one go. It did the trick and the grass got cut.

Like cha97michelle doing odd jobs around the house I seem to have generated quite a list of things I need to get tomorrow, including 9V batteries for smoke alarm and some weedkiller for the paths.

mooomin

Good morning frugalmites

I was very busy yesterday - I cleaned the kitchen from (almost) top to bottom. Mr Fresian is doing the top of the cabinets today as I'm too short to reach them from the ground and have been told I'm too accident prone to be allowed up on the counters :rotfl:

I have reorganised the kitchen cupboards and will not be buying anything store-cupboard based for a long time. We need to free up a cupboard for Mr F's sister to use for her food when she moves in and there is no space in the kitchen. A challenge I think!

I also streamlined the cupboards by getting rid of crockery and pans that are not in use anymore. I have someone coming from Freegle later on who is taking (most of) a dinner set, some lost due to my clumsiness and some pans which I have replaced but which would do someone who couldn't afford anything else. Our Freegle group is embroiled in a hoo-ha at the moment as someone gave away their baby buggy (Worth £800 so they say) and was shocked and appalled to see it on Ebay. It's getting hard to find the giveaways amongst all the "Disgusted of Tumbridge Wells" style comments :rolleyes:

Plans for today?

I've been ignoring Ebay and it's Free Listing Day, so I'm going to get out of bed soon (Woo for laptops), make some breakfast then list and list and list! Thankfully I use Turbolister so I can do a run of them and upload at the same time.

Homemade soup for lunch later (Made about 4 litres of it yesterday) and will be putting a lot of it in the freezer for work-lunches. Apart from that, no real news.

Have a lovely Sunday all.

BigMummaF

ChinaTea wrote: »

....
Does anybody know if the BBC are doing the Dig in free seeds and newsletter again this year? ....

I was thinking about that too! I've kept the newsletters in a file on the poota & wondered if the links still worked so must check that out in a bit...

sophiesmum wrote: »

2TR - Hope everything goes well for you and your mum,looks like it will be a long journey for you both , take care of yourself too:A, caring for someone long term can be very stressful so accept any help you can get. ...WOW!!!...

Thank you so much for all the information Sophie; I know this will sound like sugar-coated saccharin but I truly cannot express the extent of my gratitude. Like KarrieBee, I know the time is coming when I shall have to give serious consideration to how to do things for mum. It is always there in the back of my mind but having your "cheat sheet" as reference will make things a whole lot easier to navigate. Bless you for taking the time to post...

Hugs to those in a dark place just now & Hoorahs to those who are not.
Congratulations on the successes & Well Done for the stoic endurance being shown.

Frugality is kinda shaping up here with experimental evening meals beginning to work in my favour. A few bills coming up in the next eight weeks or so but they are mostly annuals & they will be out of the way for another twelve months. Price rises in the supermarkets are a bit :eek: & I haven't had chance of a good charity shop rummage to replenish the presents stash but will probably resolve that tomorrow