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

rictus123

Hey how is everyone? Night out last night....didnt do that much damage! Budget is still at £799.94 so far this year, needs to be under £1k at the end of the month to be the average spends..shouldnt be more than £850 as all i have left to pay for is deisel. Bank account is sitting empty after capital one card and loan repayments have gone out. Payday on Friday though and as i said all i have to pay for is my fuel. Hopefully get my finger out and some overtime in next few weekends! Anyway mot is drawing closer and closer, just hope i get through it! If not i might have to balance transfer some money from the paid off cc to get a cheap van! Hoping i can get through the mot on a reasonable amount of money.

candygirl

Been good and had another NSD today:j:jWalked the hounds round the marina at the docks, it was nice even though drizzling;)
Have got tons of stuff to list on ebay but can't be asd today, but weill deffo do it this week.Got my water bill for 6 months yesterday and it was only £99, as i'm now on a meter.Previously it was £36 a month so ive made a good saving there of about £234 a year:j:j:j
BLAIRWEECH Sri Lanka sounds fab, it's somewhere I will go as I love India, and think it might be similar:D
Hope you're all having fabbily frugal days x:A
Im watching Prince of Tides on tv at the mo, is it wrong for me to kind of fancy Nick Nolte?:o:eek::eek::rotfl::rotfl:

gilligansyle

Thanks for the tips on the carrots, yes they are indoors because yard not ready yet, but they are in those coir (sp?) pots that you just transplant them in, so roots should be ok.

They were free, and have still got most of the packet left, so can do a mixture in a few weeks.

jtb2412

Hi everyone

Firstly apologies for never keeping up with you all - I seem to be more busy now that I'm off work than when I was there ! :eek:

My new hobbies are keeping me busy (charity shops/ebay/jumble sales ). I've a nice little income coming in at the moment which is going towards money neutral for presents and various other things. There are a few things I keep along the way, mainly a few bits and pieces of vintage stuff that I can't bear to part with .

I've been a busy girl today (you'd all be very proud lol) ...... I've batch cooked 10kg of chicken breast that we bought from Cash N Carry yesterday.

It was one of those things where you have to be there to appreciate the humerous side of it ....... bought 10kg box thinking "ah that's good, we can just portion it up when we get home" and also thinking they would be wrapped or somehow separated ......... WRONG ! They were one big blob of frozen chicken breast :rotfl:. So 24 hours of defrosting later and I duly started cooking :think:. We have chicken curry, chicken in kung po sauce, chicken fajita mix, chicken casserole, baked whole chicken breast for salads/wraps, panfried chicken chunks for wraps or whatever else, sweet and sour chicken and chicken pasta bakes.

Guess what we're eating for the next month ! :eek: :rotfl::doh: :rotfl:

I'm now relaxing with a nice glass of red, not how I imagined my valentines day would turn out .

Anyway, I'm going to sit and have a read through all your exciting news (well done on the job SF ! I did read that bit ) xxxx

Frugaldom

JTB, hope you don't mind my asking, but could you let me know the price for 10KG of chicken breast fillets? I've been trying to compare costs for DS as he's eating 6 meals a day during training. There aren't any cash & carry places near us but it's still handy to know if anyone's travelling here from a different area and asks if there's anything they could bring when visiting.

This has been a no spend weekend, hoping there's nothing to pay between now and Thursday, when I'll indulge myself with 3 of the bargan fruit trees if they're available. Friend also text to say the local store has the packs of 6 herb plug plants in stock @ £1.99 and they have curry plant. I grew this successfully when I lived in Aberdeenshire, so the 'EEK' budget might be maxed out by Friday. :rotfl:

Today's frugal meals:

Breakfast - porridge
Lunch - HM herb bread toasted with cheese
Dinner - Pheasant & veg pie with beans

Guess what's for dinner tomorrow night? You got it, the 4th pheasant pie! Now you know how far pie filling goes when bulked out with loads of mixed veg. :rotfl:

jtb2412

NYK the chicken was £23.99. In comparison, the very cheapest frozen chicken in Mr T would have equated to £37.50 for the 10kg :eek:. The chicken I got was plump, the breasts were huge and no added water either :j.

I'll definitely be buying in bulk like this in future ! Just wish I'd had a better look around for other meat (think we'll be taking a trip there again later in the week ).

slowlyfading

Evening everyone

Thanks for the congratulations, it still feels a bit odd to be honest! It was my first application, and therefore my first interview, and now my first job! Well, starting in Sept

But, the downside to that is that this week has been expensive so I'll have to pull that back in the up coming months!

Hope everyone is having a good evening

Frugaldom

Brilliant, thanks for the price, JTB. I've cooked a large chicken this afternoon and need to split it into portions for DS lunches to compare costs with his pre-packs he's been buying (£1.50 per 100g cooked :eek:) Will be back later to update this post with the results then it's back to the rag rugging.

Edited in - OK, a 2.3kg fresh chicken currently costing £5 from $a!nsburys produces almost 1kg of cooked meat (plus makes 3 litres soup stock). According to dietary information, one portion size of chicken is 3oz or 85g (or volume of a pack of cards), so our chicken SHOULD produce 11 servings plus extra for the soup. That's approximately 45p per cooked serving. DS eats 2 servings per day, so he's saving quite a bit compared to his prepacked cooked chicken. It works out about a third of the cost of pre-packs. I have a 2.7kg frozen chicken in the freezer that cost £4.79, so I'll compare that with the fresh one in case frozen means more water content.

homegrown_life

Good evening everyone. Like others I've been reading lots lately but failing to post

We're all doing well here. I think I may have cracked it on the breadmaking front I borrowed the River Cottage handbook to breadmaking from the library (I may have to buy this, I have the preserving one too and it's fab. Maybe for my birthday.) and followed it to the letter and it produces lovely bread. I think in all I'm a bit impatient when it comes to making bread and I need to work on that! I really wish I could justify a food slicer though, I hate slicing bread!! I'll have to keep an eye out when the boot sales start up or check freecycle.

Grocery budget is looking tight this 4 wk period. Not too bad if I go over I guess, but I'd like some under months first iykwim I've also spent about £50 stocking up on various things like beans and spices so hoping we'll be able to concoct some lovely frugal dishes in the future. I need to try and not spend too much in the first few weeks of my grocery challenge though. Too many whoopsies Freezer is feeling well stocked though.

lemontart

don't forget to boil up any chicken or meat bones for broth or a special treat for the dogs