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

Frugaldom

Good Morning to all

I thought I'd write a post about what life comprises of in frugaldom, it might explain why it takes me all day to keep up on here and why it's easier for me to count spend days than no spend days (NSD).

6am - awake to cockerels crowing (it's closer to 4am summer months)
dawn - outside to see to hens & ducks
8.30 approx - cuppa, tidy kitchen
sign online, check email (usually 100+)
Access work spreadsheets
Do free scratchies whilst downloading work
Print labels, package any orders, prepare outgoing post
Update work spreadsheets
9am - have breakfast (usually porridge or cereal)
Put breadmaker on
Put on a washing if needed
See to incoming post - another book arrived for review
Try to catch up on here
Update websites
Shred more papers for hen nests
Change bedding in hen nests & collect eggs
Rake up all the good soil from lawn that the moles have dug up
Decant soil to square foot garden
Sweep paths
Clean out fire grate
Spread wood ash on garden
Ensure enough kindling, logs & coal in for the day
Light the fire
Catch up with paperwork
Rescue bread & hang up washing
Make lunch

And that takes care of the morning. Back later, I need to get the bread on or we'll have none for lunchtime.

babyboysmommy

I feel exhausted just reading about your morning! Was also amazed that it was 'just' your mornings activities, makes me feel very lazy.

slowlyfading

Wow, Nyk! That's a busy morning for you!

yummymommy

Gosh NYK I'm worn out just reading about your morning !:T

BigMummaF

xnatalie81x wrote: »

....Definitely needs to be more than one person running thread tho. Most challenges have a few 'volunteers' - just need to figure out some way of sharing the roles!!! Maybe with advice from other volunteers........... I would be happy to help out but just need some guidance. xx

Having a ponder here, so please bear with me...Would it work if one person was allocated recipes, another garden tips, another household tips etc :think: I'm still trying to work out quite how it would help & the mechanical processes involved but till then, anyone got a theory? One way to work it would be--as an example only I hasten to add!--Grandma was responsible for collecting recipes, Shaz stuff about universities, of course Cheryl & her notorious spreadsheets! & Lynz transport..that sort of thing, & then when people need the info we can refer them to Post No xxx.
Like I said..ponderings...

xnatalie81x

BigMummaF wrote: »

Having a ponder here, so please bear with me...Would it work if one person was allocated recipes, another garden tips, another household tips etc :think: I'm still trying to work out quite how it would help & the mechanical processes involved but till then, anyone got a theory? One way to work it would be--as an example only I hasten to add!--Grandma was responsible for collecting recipes, Shaz stuff about universities, of course Cheryl & her notorious spreadsheets! & Lynz transport..that sort of thing, & then when people need the info we can refer them to Post No xxx.
Like I said..ponderings...

Can see some good ideas here!!!! Keep pondering and get scriblling lol maybe a list of people willing to volunteer would also help

Frugal Thu here and have been to mr T for food to last until Mon 8th Feb total cost was just under £60 for me, OH and 3 kids (although OH has bought all cleaning stuff for 2 weeks and his own chicken brst and salad)

Great offers i want to shout about
1. buy an iceberg lettuce and get a free one next week
2. 20 BE fish fingers £2 (2 for £2)
3. Branded fish in butter sauce from 3.99 to 1.99 (great for quick fish pie top with mash)
4. apples/pears/oranges 2 packs for £2
5. cathedral city under £2 for lump mmmmmmmm
6. meat 3 for £10

Tonight i am cooking bolognese for dinner with 1/2 pack of tesco healthy eating frozen mince. I shall cook the other half and add carrot, mushrooms and tin of beans and add gravy to make cottage pies for 2 more dinners so 1 pack 500g mince makes bolognese for 5 and cottage pie for 10

FOCUS ON : Lunches (this week i will be concentrating on my lunches) MONDAY - SUNDAY

DS1 and DD - egg mayo (eggs from own hens of course and hard boiled) sarnies x2 = 30p, 2 hm cakes 20p, cucumber sticks (cucumber 99p) 9p, youghurt 8p, squash 10p (tesco value blackcurrant squash 58p for a big bottle) = 77p for 2

DS2, me, oh - 3 packs approved foods chow mein noodles 30p (plus enough left over for DS1 and DD lunch boxes tomorrow which is effectively FREE)

By having a weekly focus i find i have a chance to really investigate my current spends and usages for each category chosen and have the opportunity to the reduce this

pink_numbers

nykmedia wrote: »

Well done on seeing the positive side of this. I chose to become car free in 2004, but have had access to a car whenever I needed to borrow one. As it turned out, that hasn't been very often. Now, however, after being told said car needs repairs amounting to more than it's worth, HS has agreed to do without one as well. I've rejigged the budget to reflect this and will explain all my changes soon. My new budget is in post one and covers absolutely everything except the rent and council tax.

Not having a car saves a fortune doesn't it! In my head, I always knew this, but to actually take the leap was another matter.

I am also very glad that you are feeling happier & less overwhelmed. I'm not sure how this thread would survive without you, you are our inspiration! I think we should call you St. Nyk from now!!

Lily_The_Legend

Hi everyone,

Well I've had a bit of a quiet morning at work, so have looked back through the last 24 hours of posts and made notes of my replies to people! I'm not replying to everybody, as there are just so many posts and some I feel either don't need a reply or I have nothing to say that will help really i.e. stuff about babies as I know nothing about them LOL!

So, here we go:

pagangirl – Thank you for the tip about Mr A soya yoghurts. I usually have Alpro, and hadn't heard about Mr A's so will look out this weekend. :T

jtb2412 – Congratulations on becoming a stay at home mum! :beer:

candygirl – You are allowed to have a shopping spree seeing as you dropped 5 dress sizes! :eek:

blairweech – Have a fab holiday!

babyboysmummy – Well done for selling another book

nykmedia – I don't know how you have chance to post, but I really appreciate that you do! You are inspirational Don't worry, I don't expect a reply! Or from anyone else!

gilligansyle – It would take me three times as long and probably as expensive to take public transport to work, so I know what you mean!

Flyingfresian – That's a good idea about going somewhere you can all afford, and at a carvery you can pile your plate high

Natalie – Happy belated birthday! Hope it is good news about the puppy.

JayJay14 – Let us know if your OH hears about the job.

mama67 – Thanks for the link, I'd like to reduce our waste.

rozeepozee – You probably appreciated the lattes more by not going all the time, plus think of the money you have saved.

Happymrsh – Everyone's lifestyle is different and frugal for you is still frugal if you see what I mean.

As for me, I got paid yesterday so have sorted out my money for the month. I borrowed a couple of books from work to get some frugal ideas – Make do and Mend and the food one that goes with it, so will post if I find anything of interest, although you all probably know all the tips already. I am lagging behind in being old style frugal!

Right, I have square eyes now, so I'm off to do some work

Have a fab day all!

xxx

Frugaldom

BigMumma, this is a brilliant idea and simple to implement. If we had a couple of different people collecting relevant links then it would just be a case of them keeping the info up to date, PM'ing me the links and I can update the main links section that gets included in page 1. Each new part of the challenge gets the original post copied over so there shouldn't really be any excuse for someone to miss the first post if they join the challenge. :T This should work. :j

Just having a quick 10 mins on here whilst bread is baking. I hate to say this, but that's just a typical morning here, not a busy morning. HS helps out a lot nowadays, doing loads of the outside jobs like chopping the kindling, barrowing logs, digging, cleaning out hen runs etc, etc, etc. OH2B training is coming along nicely. :rotfl:

Lunch today is pasta & cheese leftovers from fridge, a nice quick and easy meal served with freshly baked, warm bread. This afternoon, I have 12 chicken breasts to be cut, seasoned and dry-fried to see how many lunches it will make up for DS, as he's now onto chicken & salad wraps for lunches and has been forking out £2 a day at work. So, I'm finding out how many I can make for £10 using whoopsied & special offer chicken. I'll need to reorganise the freezer again just to get everything in, so I guess we're having chicken for dinner tonight, too.

Just finished off my end of month budget, won't bother copying it here, as I've just updated the homepage of my blog to show the updates. I'd quite like a list of blogs frm anyone doing this challenge, because I can then add a link to them from my own page and that makes it much quicker to see them if they're all in the same place. I'll check usernames later this afternoon and copy the links - if anyone objects to this, please let me know.

Must dash, have read all the posts, back later.

Happymrsh

Thought i'd pop out and get the bread i needed at Mr S, and ended up spending more than just that :rotfl:, but i bought alot and thought i did quite well. After reading a post about the Mr S basic range i thought i'd give some of the things a try too.

I got
2xboxes of 4 breaded fish fillets - £1.00 instead of £2.00
2xblocks of cheese - £4.00 instead of £6.78
2xpacks of ham - 15 slices in each - Bogof £3.00 instead of £6.00
Basic variety pack biscuits - 84p
Basic soap pack, 3 bars - 13p
2 x shampoo - £1.02 instead of 2.04
2x conditioner - £1.02 instead of 2.04
2x shampoo and conditioner - 46p instead of 92p
Summer dress for when DD starts school(September) £2.00 instead of £4.00
2x loaves of bread - £2.00
18 Basic barn eggs - £1.85
2x sugar - £1.38
Basic SR Flour - 43p
Basic Fish fingers - 69p

So i spent - £19.82 but saved £11.28 so not to bad, and i should now have enough shampoo and conditioner to last me a good while and enough soap to make laundry gloop for a couple of months. The ham and cheese should last a while too. Does anyone know if you can freeze ham???

Feeling much more frugal today