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

NualaBuala

Rozee, Just go to User CP and on the left hand side you'll see Edit Avatar. Your current avatar gave me a giggle! I must find a pic for mine

BigMummaF

Optimisticpair wrote: »

Our frugal activities this and last weekend:
Last weekend
....
3. Bought in gardening stuff and knocked a hole in the budget. Spent a horrendous £99 on compost, veg seed, fertiliser, propgator and a packet of fruit pastilles.
....

I gotta learn how to grow those :rotfl:

cw18

Another long day at work today - and 10 hours between leaving tonight (9pm) and starting again tomorrow (7am) :eek:

Got some really good Whoopsies tonight though - a distinct advantage of actually doing the reductions (make sure you do what you want last, then grab it and skuttle back to inside the bakery ) Total at till (before discount) was £2.02, and the full value of the goodies was £11.27

Treated myself to a huuuuge tea tonight as a 'reward'. I managed to get a couple more packs of the breaded wild alaskan pollock fillets (a couple of packs in the freezer from the last couple of weeks) that are supposed to be £3.49 for a twin pack (currently on BOGOF, but I still wouldn't pay £3.49 for 4 pieces) for just 29p a pack. So I had a whole pack for tea, with a couple of small jacket potatoes (love my combi for doing these - they cooked in the time it took to grill the fish ).

I'd had a couple of Whoopsied hot cross buns about 11:30am, but other than that I hadn't eaten all day Figured a good meal now may not give me the best nights sleep, but will stop me feeling as if I'm starved at work tomorrow (7am-4pm).

Bill at the vets this morning wasn't as bad as I thought it might be - still had to add another £55 spend to that budget category though !! Have now adjusted budgets for a few categories

• increased vets
• decreased dog expenses (which includes food)
• increased groceries as elder DS was home a week longer than I expected after New Year, and hopes to be home for a couple of weeks over Easter I hadn't anticipated o
• reduced contingency to maintain my overal £8k annual budget

But all-in-all I'm happy with my target figures, as I don't think I've had to tweak as much as I did in the first month of last year. Haven't actually been back to check, but adding in the contingency category has actually made it much simpler to increase where needed without feeling as if I'm going to have to scrimp and save on something else to claw the overspend back :j

Hardup_Hester

It's my DGD birthday at the weekend, fortunately I've been offered some clothes for her & as she will be only 2 & her Mum doesn't mind thats her sorted, I will buy her some chocolate so she has something exciting, lol. Toay I need to go to the butchers for a pack of bacon & I'm hoping they will have some sevilles in so I can make my marmalade.

At the weekend my feet were very cold, I tried wearing socks under my slippers, but they didn't help much, I realised that the soles of my slippers are now so thin this the cold was striking straight through, we have no carpet in the house apart from on the stairs. So I borrowed an idea from my Gran, she died 40 years ago, but I spent a lot of time with her. I got a copy of the freebie newspaper out of the recycling bin & stood on that, result, no more cold feet.
Hug Hester

ceridwen

Re query on gloop -

I'm afraid I dont know the answer as to whether its suitable for sensitive skin or no - hopefully someone else will come along who does...

babyboysmommy

rozeepozee wrote: »

Hi BBM. Have you any advice about what sells on Amazon book wise. I've got loads of books that I'd love to make a bit of cash from but haven't had very worthwhile experiences selling online (ebay) and always seems more trouble than it's worth.

TIA

No advice really. I just gathered up all the books that had been gathering dust & had a look on Amazon to see what they were selling for. As long as I could make at least £1 profit I listed them. Most have made quite a bit more than that. I've sold university course books, cookery books, weight watchers books, a book about walking for exercise. I've not listed any novels as I always get those from the library rather than buy them. You do have to be careful about postage, some books are quite heavy & Amazon charges the buyer a set postage fee so that can dent any profits.

I sold another book last night so a trip to the post office again today, glad it's within walking distance!

JayJay14

Cheryl, I have been looking at my different allowances as we are going way over on my decor/repairs one. Tis is because OH has been fixing the shower and its things like small plumbing bits and sealant that have tipped it over. But on the other hand we have spent none of the clothing/shoes one for Jan. so I suppose it will all work out int te end. As this is our first year of looking at the budget this way it will be the best indication of what next years will look like.

OH still has no work for next week (though the agency has been in touch about a couple of possibles, including one contract which is for a full year with a 15% of salary bonus for doning the full stretch - he likes the idea of that one:rotfl:)

So will be having a run to Leeds on Saturday to visit DD1 friend who had a baby just after Xmas, and will take the opportunity to go to costco and stock up on a few bits - also a cheap place for lunch, love their jackets and tuna for a very frugal £1.22. Don't think I could pack up for much less and it will be a treat.:D

FrankieM

Morning All,
Off to Uni this morning, so getting myself organised. Did nothing yesterday so I've written myself a morning and evening routine to stick to and routines for Monday and Friday (my days off) to get the house stuff done.
I work much better with routines to stick to!

I'm doing soup and cheesy garlic ciabbatas for tea tonight and perhaps a pudding if the kinders are still hungry.
I've also got to bake something for lunches as the cupcakes that my daughter made are nearly gone...or I could just get some mince pies out of the freezer. I'll see how I feel.

Hope you all have a good day.

ceridwen

BIGMUMMAF

I know you "visit" this thread - summat of interest to you here:

http://down---to---earth.blogspot.com/2010/01/simple-living-series-food-wastedog-food.html

An article on Rhonda Jean's blog re dogfood.

i thought of you when I read the previous one - but was waiting to post up and tell you ....

I've often been amused by your references to feeding Pup "human" type food and wondered about it....but, having recently read an article about how bad the standard processed petfood is for pets....I now see why Pup eats in a "human" way.

Kiwisaver_2

Another day and I didn't have a good start, couldn't sleep and consequently couldn't wake up this morning, hence no time to get my lunch. Will I ever learn to sort my lunch before going to bed? I really could kick myself and have done tomorrow's lunch already. Anyway I felt bad about the lunch all morning and decided, stuff it, I am not going to buy something, I shall just go home at lunchtime. I don't actually have enough time to get there and back and eat in my 'half hour break'. It took an hour, but I did myself some cheese on toast and some yoghurt; it made a nice change and I don't think anyone missed me whilst I was gone.

With my grocery budget well in hand for January, being mostly due to the carry over of extra supplies from December (and prior) I decided to go and have a little splurge - bargain hunting only. I spent more tonight than I have on any other shop this month :eek: Not really stocked up nor bought anything that was needed, but just got stuff that we use all the time, if it was on special offer. Hopefully should help out a bit in February. I bought quite a bit of meat and some fish for the freezer, a couple of packs of bacon, breakfast cereals, toothpaste and 4 litres of Orange Juice - cos that's all I drink other than tea and coffee.

We've a long weekend coming up, so my normal weekly / weekend shop will be on Thursday and that'll be me done for the month. I'm well happy with the way the first month has panned out. If I did equally well for the rest of the year I could actually be a contender for the original £4k challenge. I don't think that's going to happen BTW. :rotfl:

We're in the cheap months at present, as far as utility bills go and the only way for them is UP from the end of February onwards, when the summer starts to dwindle away.

I know I've already written loads, but was thinking today of all the incy wincy little things we do that contribute to frugal living, which we don't even think about or bother to report. One of mine is to cut unbranded 'Jeyes' type cloths and washing up sponges in half and a self-satisfied smirk fell across my face as I cut into a new cloth today.