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

Aril

Hello fellow frugallers [I do so love being part of the challenge rather than just a lurker- why did I spend 2 years dithering:D]
It should be a NSD today as although we're going to see Avatar later tickets [used a voucher in part] have already been bought and I'm going to take the tube of Pr!ngles I've got hidden in the garage as snacks. [I hid all the Chrimbo bits in the garage to stop me from eating them and it worked this year:j]
More frugal fun this morning- all the decs packed away, cleaned up and tidied up and put the cards in the recycling [some have been kept back for hopefully some hm cards next year].
Thanks for the tip about the Kate Colquhoun book Ceridwen. Shall have to order that one in from the library. I've finished Tracey Smith's Book of Rubbish Ideas [again borrowed from the library]. I found that I already do a lot of the tips but learnt a few new ones [did you know you can put your cut nails on the compost heap:eek: I will probably do that one but have drawn the line on OH going out in the garden and tinkling on the compost heap. Think our neighbours might have something to say about such an attractive view as that:rotfl::rotfl:] If anyone's interested there's a linked website which also has lots more ideas. Thought the motivation behind it and approach should fit in with the mindset of this challenge as she also presents the money saving aspect aswell.
OH has just done a review of last year. He tells me that our electricity consumption is down from 2008 [it's dropped steadily since he was made redundant in 2005] The main difference is that I've been religiously turning off the digibox and internet boxes when not in use and our gas consumption is down by 0.3% Not a lot for that one but then we've already made many of the major changes. I must check out the preparing for winter thread to see what other little things I can do to tweak it yet further. Best of all we managed to save £6000 which is a large whack of our income and I've just realised that we will finish paying off our mortgage in 2011 and I shall still only be 45:j:j
Arilx

Jules

OMG! I've just completed my budget and I'm going all in @ £15,000. It's scary when you see it written down! Yikes!



I've estimated some of the categories but when you see it written down annually it makes for a "wake up and smell the coffee moment"! I can't believe we spend so much in a year.
Our household income is up and down as I get full time hours some months and only part time others (20 hr contract) but if we stick to these amounts even on my normal 20 hours we should have extra to pay towards the debts and thats the aim of the game for me!
"Anything else" is set quite high but this is for anything I have forgotten about.

Well that's me off and running!:eek: And today will be a NSD which is a bonus.

elaine373

Day 3 and so far i have spent £32 on groceries, out of my £65 pr week aim, I managed to get 2 large bottles of stardrops for £1, (local car boot sale) which has made my day as the price is slowly going up in the supermarkets.sad what makes one happy isnt it:rotfl:Goint to tweak my meal plan and will try and work on some frugal meal ideas.The other night i made a chickpea curry which worked out at less than a pound according to my calculation. I managed this by buying a 12 can pack of natco chickpeas for £2.49,from a large asian supermarket.one onion, some coriander,dash of oil, 2/3 chillies ,curry powder and a pinch of salt. well worth stocking up on these type of ingredients if you are a currry fan.

meandmaboy

Good Afternoon,
Still dithering here trying to work out budget, although I've got Cheryl's spreadsheet.:o:o:o:o
Trying to sort out food budget & notice a lot of you pad meals out with Lentils : here goes the daft questions :eek::eek::eek::eek::eek:
Is it always red lentils you use ?
Do you buy them in bulk as i find the soooooooooooo expensive in Mr S/ Mr T's:mad::mad::mad::mad:
If it is red lentils can you buy them in the Asian Supermarkets ????
Thats me folks
Thanx in advance.:T:T:T:T

E.

chika

meandmaboy wrote: »

Good Afternoon,
Still dithering here trying to work out budget, although I've got Cheryl's spreadsheet.:o:o:o:o
Trying to sort out food budget & notice a lot of you pad meals out with Lentils : here goes the daft questions :eek::eek::eek::eek::eek:
Is it always red lentils you use ?
Do you buy them in bulk as i find the soooooooooooo expensive in Mr S/ Mr T's:mad::mad::mad::mad:
If it is red lentils can you buy them in the Asian Supermarkets ????
Thats me folks
Thanx in advance.:T:T:T:T

E.

Red lentils cook the fastest so I guess that's why people use them. I have a few different types. I like the brown ones to add to mince - they don't make everything so mushy and I use the green ones in soups etc because they hold their shape better.

I buy mine from the local organic coperative or Asian supermarkets. Normally two kilos for about £1.99. I haven't bought them for a while though and I heard the prices were going up.

rozeepozee

Feeling a little bit disheartened already! Wasn't expecting this.

First I offered to take my mum home after her Xmas visit (I normally book her a cheap online train ticket between £4 and £5 one way). The Snake Pass was closed and so I had to take the long way round (involving many diversions due to the snow) ditto the journey home and used up my entire monthly petrol budget of £25 in one trip! To add insult to injury, my sceen wash ran out as I was going over the tops and i had to buy screen wash from a motorway service station at the inflated price of £5 (just noticed as I fill in Cheryl's speadsheet that I haven't allowed anything for car maintenance and forgot to add in my petrol budget :rotfl:) Ho hum, hopefully tomorrow will be a better day. I normally walk everywhere locally but, as I am now the size of a hephalump, I have to use the car more than usual so won't be able to make any savings there...

Any advice on this snipping tool? I've found it on my computer (I have Vista) and get as far as copying it but then it won't paste into my post here - confused as always when it comes to the computer.

Still, I have done my freezer inventory

Half a bag of hash browns
Full pack of value stir fry veggies
Homemade Ragu sauce/pizza topping
One unidentifiable bag of frozen mush ? leek and potato soup
Ham slices - I can use some of these for my son's lunch boxes
Chicken thighs - curries - yum!
410g o Aberdeen angus mince
Home made burgers
Veggie mince
Fish stock
Mushy peas
Bag of frozen peas
Bag of frozen sweetcorn
Butter 500g x 4
Bag of Frozen spinach
Silverside Beef joint
Leg of lamb
Tofu pieces

(rather a strange and conflicting freezer contents but, no, I am not a schizophrenic veggie - meateater!)

RP X

XSpender

Phew, finally caught up with the thread!

Going for a NSD today and spends against the rest of the budgets are going to plan, so far so good:D. Well under the food budget even including the couple of extras not on the list that DH slipped into the trolley. Stocked up on the Br@anston beans (4 4xpacks) at Mr M. We like our beans,which is a good job as we now have 24 tins as I forgot I already had 8 in! :eek:

I have also listed the contents of one of my freezers but it is too cold to go out to the garage to do the other. We have had snow on the ground for 2 1/2 weeks now and it keeps on snowing:rolleyes: Will tackle the cupboards instead.

The toughest thing so far has been working out how to account for the extra money DH came home with on NY day. He always goes out with the boys for a few drinks and a little flutter for a couple of hours and ended up coming home with more money than he went out with :rolleyes:

Bought a pram/travel system for the frugalmite due in May. After having shopped around for weeks we got the one we wanted at £150 off but as it was in the sale we have to pay for it all by the end of Jan not the end of April as planned. This expense is not included in my budget but will impact on our spending as it needs to be funded out of a bit of savings and our income this month and next. :eek:

House is all cleaned and ready for the return to work next week so will go and make a cuppa and catch up with the other threads.

XS

rozeepozee

Jules wrote: »

OMG! I've just completed my budget and I'm going all in @ £15,000. It's scary when you see it written down! Yikes!



I've estimated some of the categories but when you see it written down annually it makes for a "wake up and smell the coffee moment"! I can't believe we spend so much in a year.
Our household income is up and down as I get full time hours some months and only part time others (20 hr contract) but if we stick to these amounts even on my normal 20 hours we should have extra to pay towards the debts and thats the aim of the game for me!
"Anything else" is set quite high but this is for anything I have forgotten about.

Well that's me off and running!:eek: And today will be a NSD which is a bonus.

Jules - how did you do that please? Did you use the snipping tool or Kingking?

I am becoming obsessed now!

cw18

rozeepozee wrote: »

Any advice on this snipping tool? I've found it on my computer (I have Vista) and get as far as copying it but then it won't paste into my post here - confused as always when it comes to the computer.

I only had a quick look at it, but as far as I can see you still need to save what you 'snip' to your computer as a jpg image and upload to a picture hosting site first.

Basically the snipping tool just replaces King Kong Capture in the instructions I posted on putting part of a spreadsheet into a post

purple_angel_3

Good afternoon,

Had my first spend of the year today, £3.79 on food and £3.49 on batteries for my weighing scales. Need to lose a stone to feel comfortable in my clothes again. No chocolate and more exercise for me I think.

My car is making a funny noise when I break (wasn't there when I last drove it on Wednesday)so it's off to the garage tomorrow to have breaks looked at and it's MOT done. Will need to borrow a car for work so I will have to put some petrol in it, hopefully tommorrow won't be too expernsive. Will try and have NSD's the rest of the week.

purple-angel