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

BigMummaF

flying_fresian wrote: »

.... Also, I tend to favour Fairy washing up liquid and wondered what your experiences were about the best frugal alternatives....

I can only use the green original stuff as the perfumes cause me no end of grief with sneezing & wheezing I have found that Asd@'s own--not the value stuff--is a very close compatable to F@iry. I also 1/3-1/2 fill an old hand cleaning pump thingy with the washing up liquid & top up with water & it's still strong enough to do the job :jThe liquid has been on a long term offer of 2-4-£1 so has worked out very good value for me.

Fishcake_Random wrote: »

....left over xmas goodies to silly prices .... The biccys are good till August ....

I looked only this evening at the bits we have to see what I could squirrel away for later in the year. Then the Offspring came back home & caught me trying to hide it all again :doh:Still. I'm usually the first one up in the mornings so I'll sneak a bit away then :shhh:

citroennut wrote: »

....make endless cups of tea. Combined with Basics Sainsbugs tea bags ( very nice too ), very frugal refreshment.

We use a tea-pot & now use half 'branded' & half value tea-bags. I have been getting 300 branded from a place a bit like AppF00d for £2:49 & 80 value for 28p, so 600 bags would be (3x28=84)+21+249=£3:50 :T

larmy16

I got my gas bill this week. Just put it aside but then had a closer look at it tonight. I says that they are refunding £219 to my bank account. Yay! Also they are putting down my gas direct debit to £22 for next year.

The car goes for MOT soon so if there are any repairs that £219 will go some way towards dealing with them.

I posted on here that I was allowing £200 every four weeks for groceries/toiletries etc. Well I have already spent near on £115 and that is in the first week, but have had quite a stock up at Tesco, Lidl and Aldi.

I find Aldi very good for anti perspirant, razor blades, mouthwash and much cheaper even than Poundland. I also prefer their bin liners and black bags as they are much better quality than the supermarket ones.

I have worked out that I have £23.00 for each of the next three weeks!

I am getting the breadmaker going tomorrow and using up some sachets of Easi yo yogurts.

Homemade_2

Hello.....I would like to join in with this challenge this year but am unsure of something...
...if my budget was £4000 and I made an extra £100 a month at carboot sales, does that £100 help me out during the year by adding onto the £4000 or does it go in as savings?

We should do ok in our house as we are already quite frugal with a lot of things and we are pretty good at OS and making cards/presents etc. Im a bit unsure why we dont have lots of spare cash now actually. I wonder where it all goes......obviously spending more than we realise. lol

Back to normal is Monday for us....so roll on then! Ill have a budget worked out by then I hope.

Good Luck to everyone joining in this year....lets hope we have many succesess!

bails

I say this lots, but I'll say it again - I LOVE THIS THREAD It's lovely to see new people joining in giving support and warmth :T Chika, what a lovely post, thankyou! It always gives me a lovely warm glow to know how much we are all helping each other x
Mumoffour, thinking of you and your dad especially - your family do sound wonderful and I really hope all goes well.

Off out for the day now, to school sports day, and then staying the night at the orphanage so be back tomorrow. Have a lovely day everyone x

LilacPixie

Freisian also avoiding the Radley bag. Tempting but i really don't need another black bag

Larmy - I agree Lidl black bin bags are far superior to supermarket versions. Also tend to find that their tinned toms, oil, balsamic and tinned veg also superior quality to supermarkets. I try do a pick up shop once every 6-8 weeks to stock up.

Mumoffour hope your dads op is very straight forward.

I have been spending the evening trying to plan what I can possibly grow this year. I have a south facing balcony thing about 12ft by 3 ft. An the fact we will be moving at some point in 2010 and the balcony is concrete and we are talking tubs.

Paulgonnabedebtfree

grandma247 wrote: »

I have this on my computer and had no idea what it was,my computer man put it on.

It's not just to show the key codes for MS software though. It actually is an inventory of your computer - of which the key codes are just one bit.

Paulgonnabedebtfree

JayneC wrote: »

Not off to a brill start. Whole family went to cinema (to see Avatar - which was very good) which cost £35, including food n drink tho (which I got from shop not cinema - tho probably could have got it cheaper if I'd shopped around instead of going to the Spar just before!) Still we don't go out very often and I have got a leisure budget - just have to be more careful next month!

Doing better with my grocery challenge and have also ordered some seeds to grow veggies in my garden (well yard really!).

I'm recording all my spends on Spendingdiary.com I did think about using a spreadsheet but I use several different computers so won't keep up with it.

Anyhoo off to have a mooch about on other threads.

Jayne x

If you want to use one, there are free online spreadsheets that you would be able to access from any computer. Just google online spreadsheet.for a selection. Alternatively you could just upload your sheet to a bit of web space of your own from any computer - though this latter method would require you to have the relevant software installed on each computer. Even that need not be a problem if using a freebie such as openoffice.

jtb2412

Morning all,

A lovely sunny frosty morning here (I love it when it's like this ).

Not much planned for today, probably getting kids ready for their return to school tomorrow. Uniform is already ironed so they just need to sort their bags out and make pack lunches. I've pledged to make cakes for lunches instead of buying expensive choc bars and I've also bought them a water bottle each so they can fill up each day rather than buying individual flavoured lunch box drinks so I should save a bit of money on groceries there.

2 joints of roast pork being cooked today (making the most of the oven being on). One will be eaten over the next day or so, the other sliced and popped back in the freezer for other meals. The rest of the ham was sliced up and frozen last night and we've got a good 3 meals for 5 of us left - probably be for ham egg and chips (yumm !!!)

We're going to pop down the allotment later to check on everything. Garlic and onions were coming up well before Xmas so I want to check the snow hasn't ruined them :rolleyes:.

Bails lovely to hear from you - did you have any luck with your flights? I might have missed your post so apologies if I have . I hope you managed to get sorted xx

Homemade I think the idea is any extra money made should be used to pay off debts first and foremost. If no debts then you could probably spend it on what you want (please correct me if I'm wrong nyk/folks !) I tend to use extra money made for presents first then filling up my ISA.

larmy great news about the gas bill :T.

F*iry WUL gives me bad hands :mad: I get dermatitis (sp?) whenever I use it so now that the dishwasher has broken (will be getting a new one at end of January) I have to use rubber gloves whenever I wash up :rolleyes:. Only problem is I'm not used to using them and keep breaking things - good job I've got plenty of mugs/glasses :rolleyes: !

Right better go and get dressed, have to go and pick DDs b/f up as he's round for lunch today.

Have a lovely Sunday everyone xx

shaz_mum_of__2

Morning all

been up since 6 due to hubbys snoring...grrr (Nyk and SM you should be pleased we arent next door as he is really loud when he gets going..:rotfl:)

earned my first £20 of cashback yesterday and it has tracked already for arranging MIL's contents insurance

Have to go to shops later for a few bit for packed lunches but i will only buy whats on the list..........

ran out of sugar whilst making jam yesterday so no marmalade done yet! off to a retail park that has a poundstretcher(for t- bags ,10 bags of 69p sugar and jumbo kitchen rolls) and a Nett0 for branston beans and the few other things

Back later with the results
Shaz

ceridwen

Inventories - yikes!:eek: Errr.....I just think "I've got LOTS - so I must have enough":D

Got as far as putting all my dental floss and toothbrushes neatly together - and found I have 20 toothbrushes and 18 packets of dental floss stashed away....err...think I should have very clean teeth somehow.

In my defence - I'd bought a pack of childrens toothbrushes (figured they'd have a head that was small enough and soft enough for me) from Poundland and asked my hygienist what she thought of them and she said that they were fine and I was doing just as good a job with them as I would with the electric toothbrush she would recommend:D - so I stacked up with a few packets when I spotted them:D. Dental floss too is something they often dont have - so more stashing away when I found some:D (Just wish they'd stock interdental toothbrushes too - grrr! - as I'm still getting "stung" for a charge of about £3 a go for a pack of 5 - having to buy them at chemists or my dentists).

I think I'll just work on the basis of "that still looks like a lot in the cupboard/freezer/etc - so I'll take out a couple of bits from there and decide what to have for dinner based on that" until such time as my stocks are a bit lower...

Speaking of food - a spend yesterday (£7.75 for my copy) was ordering a book from Amazon. I'd borrowed a copy of it from the library and decided that (even for a vegetarian like me) there were way too many ideas I can use to copy them out. its:

"The Thrifty Cookbook - 476 ways to eat well with leftovers" by Kate Colquhoun.

There are few decent leftovers cookbooks around - but I felt this one was good enough to justify getting - even though I've already got the only 2 decent leftovers cookbooks I'd found so far.