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

xnatalie81x

Wonderfully Frugal Wednesday - MY B'DAY

Aims:
1. Collect my lovely hens eggs and make a cake for my birthday
2. Do something with the turnips i pulled yesterday
3. Look for recipes using 2 leeks i have in front garden (ha ha)
4. Go and 'will' lettuce leaves in cold frame to grow
5. Go to work
6. Enjoy b'day lunch with H2B while DS at schl, DD at nursery and DS2 at MILS
7. Eat cottage pie made on Sun (all 5 of us!) that is in fridge after hectic work/childminder
8. Food shop with budget of 95.17 CASH (any money left over into 'LO' envelope for end of year debt payments if any left) budget 67.69 week but some left from week before.

WEEKS FOCUS

Lunches: DS and DD today kids had left over pasta n sauce which was budgeted into dinners so FREE - yoghurt 8p, hm cake 20p, juice 10p,
DS2 at MIL's FREE
me and OH - going out for lunch for b'day so for me FREE (as his budget is seperate to mine)

total cost for 5 ppl for lunch 38p lol :eek:

Work 4.30-6.30 today

Tomorrow builders in morning, coffee out with aunt at 1pm (must think of frugal plan as no money - might convince mum this can be my late b'day treat lol as she is coming too) and DS1 is having friend over after school. Frugal dinner to plan

Friday i am going to the allotment when DD goes to nursery at 12.15 and plan on spending 12.30-2.30 there doing digging and planning and fun stuff. I still have brussels, purple sprouting and cauli in which were plug plants from ebay so could be ready anytime as i didn't really pay attention lol.

I am going to start a word document of meals made ENTIRELY from food i have grown (includes eggs so NYK i shall be frequenting you '100 ways with eggs from PAGE 1 LINK ) want summer grocery budget to be mega low so any excess of 67.69 can be saved to shift the debt low as i want that 29k cleared by Jan 2012 which is gonna be TOUGH! I have all my seeds ready to start growing!!!

Do have a prob - my seedlings. If we move end of April i will ave to move all my plants as i have no greenhouse at my lottie!!!! OOOOOOOOOOOO ME O MY!

Savvy_sewing

:bdaycake: Happy Birthday, Natalia!! Hope you have a good day. xx:T

gilligansyle

babyboysmommy wrote: »

This is only something small but made me smile anyway. The wheelie bin went out today, it's normally so full the lid doesn't close. This week it's only 1/2 full. I'm really pleased, less waste so good for the enviroment & less money wasted Hope to do even better over the coming weeks.

That's one of the things I noticed too! Because there are only 2 of us, we only put our bin out every 2 weeks anyway, and it isn't even half full at the moment.


xnatalie81x Many happy returns of the day - have some virtual cake!:bdaycake:

knithappens

gilligansyle wrote: »

That's one of the things I noticed too! Because there are only 2 of us, we only put our bin out every 2 weeks anyway, and it isn't even half full at the moment.


xnatalie81x Many happy returns of the day - have some virtual cake!:bdaycake:

since i have been living more frugaly and making a consious effort i have noticed we have far less rubbish , we recycle a hell of as lot more, and i am now constantly finding ways to reuse.

xnatalie81x happy birthday mwaaaa x:beer:

candygirl

Happy Bday Nat xx:bdaycake:
Woke up and felt v dizzy and sick and almost fainted, so staying in today, which means a NSD:j:j
Got my £40 cheque from travel in for flight delay, which along with my 2 cold weather payments, almost cancels my clothes spends out this month:oI am not usually a mental clothes buyer, but have gone down 5 sizes since last year so desp need stuff:o
Am experimenting making baby food later for DGD, so if anyone has any veggie ideas for a 10 month old let me know.I am trying to save DD money but she insists on buying the uber expensive Hipp jars of food for Boo:eek::eek:
Have fabbily frugal days all:A

knithappens

candygirl wrote: »

Happy Bday Nat xx:bdaycake:
Woke up and felt v dizzy and sick and almost fainted, so staying in today, which means a NSD:j:j
Got my £40 cheque from travel in for flight delay, which along with my 2 cold weather payments, almost cancels my clothes spends out this month:oI am not usually a mental clothes buyer, but have gone down 5 sizes since last year so desp need stuff:o
Am experimenting making baby food later for DGD, so if anyone has any veggie ideas for a 10 month old let me know.I am trying to save DD money but she insists on buying the uber expensive Hipp jars of food for Boo:eek::eek:
Have fabbily frugal days all:A

I have started making all my own baby food. he slow coker is good for this especially for cookgin in batches
so far have made
veg soup - any veg thrown in - she loves this pureed
shepherds pie, with sweed and potatoe mash on top
fish pie with cheesy mash
lots of fruit purees that have een whooised - alot of it organic fruit too
sweede and carrot mash
I also cook sweet potatoe wedges ad potatoe wedges as finger food
also chunks of carrot broccoli steamed - cheddar cheese, and soft fruit she likes ango and they are 29p at the mo in Lidl - lots of good veg there at the moment.
i love this site on baby led eaning just foor the ideas as i do a mix of finger foods and purees

http://babyledweaning.blogware.com/blog

and there is a good recipe section, at 10 months little one should be able to handle almost anything.

I hate those hipp dinner etc, as they are so sweet and artificial tasting, no wonder babies find it hard to transition to everyday food, plus they are so expensive. The only baby dinners i have bout are organix ones when they were on offer in hombargains, have them in the cupboard as an emergency

candygirl

knithappens wrote: »

I have started making all my own baby food. he slow coker is good for this especially for cookgin in batches
so far have made
veg soup - any veg thrown in - she loves this pureed
shepherds pie, with sweed and potatoe mash on top
fish pie with cheesy mash
lots of fruit purees that have een whooised - alot of it organic fruit too
sweede and carrot mash
I also cook sweet potatoe wedges ad potatoe wedges as finger food
also chunks of carrot broccoli steamed - cheddar cheese, and soft fruit she likes ango and they are 29p at the mo in Lidl - lots of good veg there at the moment.
i love this site on baby led eaning just foor the ideas as i do a mix of finger foods and purees

http://babyledweaning.blogware.com/blog

and there is a good recipe section, at 10 months little one should be able to handle almost anything.

I hate those hipp dinner etc, as they are so sweet and artificial tasting, no wonder babies find it hard to transition to everyday food, plus they are so expensive. The only baby dinners i have bout are organix ones when they were on offer in hombargains, have them in the cupboard as an emergency

Thanks hun, I will try these things and look on the site.I gave her bits of banana yest and DD wasn't happy, but she managed it well with her 6 teeth:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

patentgirl

Happy Birthday, Natalie!! have a good frugal day
Skint Lynne loved your post!
Nyk Sorry you are feeling overwhelmed I really enjoy your posts I strive to be more like you, you are very inspirational to everyone, you are certainly the main person who inspired me to begin this frugal year
3rd no NSD on the trot for me and will be the 3rd leftover tea from roast on Sunday main base is pasta but leftovers will be added

I also agree about rubbish I put out one bag weekly not always full used to put out several if not 3 a week my recycling box is always overflowing though!

BigMummaF

NualaBuala wrote: »

Well I for one don't expect anything from you - I don't expect you to read my posts and if I really needed to ask you something I'd find a way to get noticed without you having to make the effort to "notice". I think we can all tell how busy you are with life in frugaldom!

I love hearing about your lifestyle, it's so inspiring to me even though I'm far from your level of frugality. So I really hope you continue to share tidbits about what you're up to whenever you have time. I do like your blog but I tend to have MSE open all the time and I like the friendly group that has formed on this thread - and we have you to thank for bringing us like-minded folk together. So three cheers for Nyk - hip hip, hooray! :T:T:T

Definitely agree with the entire post Nuala. I guess with something like this, it just needs someone to open the first couple of posts onto the next thread for continuity, altho the 'handy links' bit can only be edited by the person who posts it :think: Perhaps we could do something to make links stand out from the other posts--maybe put a :exclamati or :search: or something to show it's information?

Skint_Lynne wrote: »

....
I know that everyone has different reasons for challenging themselves with frugal living...
I don't post everyday anymore but I always read. The information and virtual friendship are very important to me and this helps keep me on track....

Yup agree with these little nuggets especially & the main reason I'd be lost if this thread & its idiom were to disappear.
Thanks for the link Ceri; looking at commercial petfood prices & what I can feed Pup for, methinks I've made a financially sound choice. A very pleasing side-effect to him eating 'human' food is his breath doesn't smell &--providing we are careful with cheese & dairy--other 'emissions' are far less offensive too :T
I second the value bottled water too Chika; me muvva lives less than a 10 min walk from us & her tap water is perfectly fine, whilst I can't stomach ours. It's a bonus that the sparkling is the same price too
Nit a soap fan here either Rictus, but if you were talking forensic/who-dunnit/medical/ sciencey type of thing.....:whistle:

Kerry_Woman

xnatalie81x - Wishing you a great Birthday.