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

Lily_The_Legend

top_drawer wrote: »

I returned an alarm clock to Ald! as although it said it was colour change it didnt say it would do that every other second meaning that when I woke up at various times through the night I thought aliens had landed in a colour change spaceship..........

You may have had a bad day frugalwise yesterday Jen, but that really made me laugh when I was reading back through the posts! :rotfl:

Lily_The_Legend

NualaBuala wrote: »

Slept for most of the day once I got home, don't know why I'm so tired all the time. But hopefully the blood tests will show if there's something wrong other than depression and I can tackle it.

Hugs NualaBuala :grouphug:

Erme

I want to join this post. I want the challenge ....I think it'd be really cool. So what is the weekly spend for a woman in her 30's on food? Just me that's it....could you let me know...know £80 of my precious £ goes on cigs right now but have a disability and not quite well enough to quit yet...but aim to at some point. Currently I'm living on about £40-50 (depending on the week) for food and cigs and often I have £ left over. Often food is about £10. I drink a lot of milk. I buy it for 45p long life from farm foods. I also try and avoid coffees out but have the odd one or two. I budget for that every 4 weeks on a starbucks card (no contract...you get wee extras with it. Like with the card you can get a double espresso for £1.35 ) and when that's gone for the month I have no more coffees out. Elec is quite dear at around £60 a month (but then I don't have gas) but I usually only heat one room and don't keep the microwave and cooker on standby.

Going to check out thrifty fun (google it...can't post links yet) for this shampoo recipe. Yep I also use soap nuts and love them . What do you recommend using the old ones for? Kitchen cleaner/shampoo and how long do you boil them for to get the last of the sap out. £4 of soap nuts lasts me over a year . (buy online. They are lovingly packaged ). So much cheaper than any other soap detergent and compact too (not least when my laundry is 15 floors below me!)

So yeah....bodged the starbucks card today. Got tithe to pay (not going to count that cos that'll take me over 1,000 before I say boo) and paid debts for this month (now I'm ahead).

Ummm...anyone else made clothes out of duvets etc? Just a thought...

Yep going to sub to this...looks a really cool thread. Tx guys (everyone)...

E

Kerry_Woman

Today I put my recycling bag (council orange bag for home recycling) in the communal bin (live in a flat) and took foil to the recycling centre. Brought 6 energy saving light bulbs at a diy store, reduced from 99p to 10p each. Have only got to replace the kitchen light bulbs, but will try and do that this year. Had a NSD today. Used £1 off voucher for Quorn mince. Was on offer for £1 in Sainsb..... so got it for free.

grandma247

Chika I would definately recommend a convector heater with a dial to turn the temp up and down. If you get one with frost to 2kw settings you can turn it to what you need at any moment. I find ours is very economical in our dining/living room which is large with a high ceiling. It heats up quick on high and you can then just have it on a low maintenance temp.

Re The Pdf file I don't mind at all. I think the file will only be there another week or so but will upload it again in the future if anyone else wants it. I still have not found my book yet. Did you know you can rub the inside skin of an avocado on your face as a moisturiser?
rozeepozee If you get the newsletters from aldi,netto and lidl you will be able to see what their offers are the coming week so you can plan your moneysaving shopping. That's what I do.

chika

Thank you Grandma247. I just went to Argos and bought the convector. It was £19.99 I was going to spend an extra tenner on one with a timer but then realised that I've got lots of timer plugs at home so I can just use one of those instead.

I suspected it would be better than a fan one and your post confirmed it. I'm sat here snug as a bug in a very warm rug, hopefully I'll be able to get on with some studying now. I couldn't concentrate before as I was too cold! I've procrastinated the whole day away!

pagangirl

Afternoon all - so many posts to catch up on -

nykmedia wrote: »

Pagangirl - I can only apologise for having not added your name, I know I read the post but have been so busy that I probebly forgot and the thread had moved on several pages since then. Just read your budget and am amazed at gas/electric £280 - that's only like £5.37 a WEEK and I can spend that a DAY during winter and still have coal & logs to pay on top of that, so I am :eek:

nyk figured you just forgot to add name to list, so no probs. Re gas/elecy - I live in a flat, try to keep heat on in 1 room only, although when it was really freezin' had it on in bedroom too. This week I have halved what I used last 2 weeks so am a happy bunny :j

Up to 14 NSDs here - (well, not much money to go spend)

Today was a frugal spend
47p 2nd class post for Dogs Trust - they collect used stamps
67p loaf saved 13p
18p mushrooms
£2.78 - 2 x 6 pks Pork n Apple sausages saved £1.20 - enough for 6 dinners
£1.18 mixed red/green grapes saved £1.19
Only £8.27 spent since last Thursday so being very good here.

Went in S0merfields around 11am - they had sooooo much meat reduced to half price, but didn't buy any, as freezer is still full from last weeks buy. It seems to grow, the more I cook, the more meals seem to go back in it

Just had letter to say house insurance will be going up from end Feb - not by much but any increase is not good atm. Will update sig at end of month with all DD's etc.

Be Well all.

Hugs
Denise

rictus123

Hey everyone hows it going? Today is NSD number 21! Just 6 days and we are in the second month of the year already! I cant wait until my 3 weeks paid holiday in the summer, when i go back after my pay goes up And il be in such a better position, iv spent £414 this month so far + on top of that £326.61 to credit cards and £53.81 to my loan.£414 is alot less than it would have been had i not been keeping a spending diary and budgeting. £500 a month average means i should be left(after payments to loans etc on top of the 6k i should have a fair sum left

ChinaTea

A productive morning here shame about the rest of the day. Couldn't stand the sewing machine giving me black looks anymore so mended dressing gown, repaired a split seam in a top, made 4 old tea towels into triple thickness oven cloths (can't get on with oven gloves but like this they work well one in each hand) finally made the bed cover for my DGS using some camouflage fleece bought on ebay before Christmas. Oh and last night sat and darned a couple of socks, very theraputic.

Feeling very pleased with myself and it was quite a nice afternoon despite being cold went to look at gardening stuff. Spent £5+p on some fresh veg and fruit and a jar of honey. Not affected the budget too much and I only have cat biscuits to buy until pay day on the 3rd Feb.

Dinner was Branston beans on HM bread toasted, the beans were very nice and not a taste of pickle in them :rotfl::rotfl:

I'm on a role with the making and mending now and shall either do some knitting or darn another sock this evening. The sewing machine is happy & smiling so will put it to bed for a nice long sleep.

ceridwen

gilligansyle wrote: »

You must have been posting at the same time as me, have put some comments in red. I was horrified when I realised how much shower gel/ soap/cleanser/body butter I have, even before Christmas presents.

Can I ask about the shampoo? When we were young, my mum always rinsed our hair with either vinegar solution or lemon juice, but can you use this to keep your hair clean? Mine needs washing every day, this is probably caused by the shampoo.

Well - I've read in a couple of books now about the idea of making ones own shampoo by grating up a bar of cheap soap into a saucepan. Cover with a pint of water and heating gently till it melts. If its too thick - add more water. Add lemon juice OR a strong infusion of rosemary.

So - I'm wondering whether that would be worth an experiment. So - lemon juice is used in that recipe - but its not THE basic part of the recipe by the look of it. I always understood that vinegar solution or lemon juice are basically just things to use to rinse hair with after shampooing it...

I am guessing that the role of the lemon juice (or rosemary) in this is to stop the soap having the effect that I got once many years ago by trying to make shampoo with some sort of green gel type soap - and my hair went all clidgy and horrible. But that green gel soap stuff was nowt like bars of soap and I dont recall adding anything to it other than water.