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

grannynise

Puddleglum wrote: »

SF, this is just a thought as I don't know if schools will do this in our current age of austerity. When I finished my teacher training back in 1990 we were advised to contact the schools we would be joining in the Sept and see if we could start in the last few weeks of the summer term, for continuity, bedding down etc. If the school was amenable to this then it meant that we would be paid over the summer holiday.

This is certainly still the case in most schools in my local authority --- so it should be worth checking SF.

lynzpower wrote: »

Hi all :wave:

Ive made birdscarers with the thousands of red-elastic bands that scatter the streets from royal mail

How? I pick up loads of elastic bands but can't think of any use for most of them.

lynzpower

I just looped them together as you would when you make "elastics" to jump/ skip with as a child

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_DEBX_NtKiQE/S4ldzfQ6I4I/AAAAAAAAAGM/LgP77dnKOok/s1600-h/IMG_0338.jpg

A_fiend_for_life

Very interesting conversation. Some thoughts.

(As discussed) Something I would be in favour of taxing, would be processed foods and particularly if they were above recommendations for salt, sugar or fat or contained transfatty acids.

I would certainly include fizzy drinks and any cereal that had added sugar and salt to them. Bottled water is fair game minimum £1 per litre?

Government should consider desirable outcomes they want to achieve in relation to health, waste, resources and reusing recycled materials.

I think any government needs to be more hardnosed about it since if retailers do want to improve they won't be against more legislation.

lynzpower

Bottled water is fair game minimum £1 per litre?

Government should consider desirable outcomes they want to achieve in relation to health, waste, resources and reusing recycled materials.

I think any government needs to be more hardnosed about it since if retailers do want to improve they won't be against more legislation.

Completely agree. I make a conscious effort to always choose to buy UK water if Im out and about without my own. Its horrendous that some shops that dont sell UK water I mean ????!!

Must be cheaper to buy it in from overseas :wall:

The amount of plastic, well I could go on.

There is a movement here in London, I hope it takes off http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/oct/04/london-drinking-fountains-water-industry Must say havent seen any evidence of it but could be looking in the wrong places.

London may soon follow in the footsteps of Bundanoon, the Australian town that last week banned bottled water and set up drinking fountains for thirsty locals.

The capital's first water stations will be set up this month in a move that could have serious repercussions for the £1.5bn-a-year bottled water industry, with companies finding it increasingly difficult to justify their carbon footprint as the quality of tap water improves.

Thames Water, Britain's largest privatised water company, with 13.6 million customers, has had talks with the Greater London Authority and Transport for London to install water machines in the capital. In the first trial, Hydrachills will be installed at Hammersmith bus station and at the Tower Bridge museum. The machines can fill bottles of up to 500ml with chilled water for a 20p charge. All proceeds will be donated to Waste Watch, a charity working to change the way people use natural resources.

Frugaldom

End of another frugal weekend.

I can't keep up with Weezl's thread but I did make some of the apple spread tonight, just a half quantity to try it. I used 3 small eating apples with 25g buttery stuff, 35g sugar and a teaspoon of garam masala. It's worked out at about 30p for the small jar. Tastes OK, will have some on toast in the morning but next time I make it, I'd use a little less sugar and a little less spice.

Ceridwen, I know you're an avid Weezl fan, is it still ok to complete the poll about the recipes or am I far too far behind everyone else now?

Last of my homemade yoghurt is now straining through a coffee filter to make some more soft cheese. The whey has all been kept for baking. I'm not sure how this turns out if I use it added to the water in breadmaking but will let you all know tomorrow.

Thanks for the input on the poverty-stricken conundrum. When referring to 'they' or 'them', I mean the grey men of Government. I think 'rich' and 'poor', more often than not, are comparitive financial terms. I'd like to think that frugal living has the ability to enrich lives, even when that frugality has been self-imposed for reasons other than financial. But I still don't know who 'the poor' would be if I'd millions to give away to them. (Although I wouldn't give it away in cash even if I could.)

Just saw the water comments - I guess it would depend on A) where you stood on the fluorine 'debate', who would be in ultimate charge of the water 'stations' and C) what happens to the small, independent bottled water supply companies. I'm borderline conspiracy theorist and you could be opening up a massive can of worms bringing a water debate into the frugal living equation.

G'night frugalites

ruby1968_2

hi
yes I too had a frugal weekend, used what wass in the freezer for dainners sat and sun, so pretty please with myself for that, am trying to get OH to join in aswell.(it's slowly working ) but it may take a while!! another frugal day today and plenty of rumaging and pottering around.

JayJay14

Fairly frugal weekend. Had to buy secaturs for the garden as OH has been cutting back bushes in the back garden (more room for food:D) still haven't planted the plum tree - waiting for the frost to stop for a while.

I have OH on the frugal way - but then he's the one out of work and has just had the £630 car insurance bill (accident prone s0d) But he needs his car as when he finally gets a job it could be anywhere in the area, one last year was a daily 150 mile round trip. He has been pu forward for a job in much he same area but we haven't heard anything yet - these things take time.

Off to work soon so must go.

ceridwen

Frugaldom wrote: »

Ceridwen, I know you're an avid Weezl fan, is it still ok to complete the poll about the recipes or am I far too far behind everyone else now?

Not too late at all to complete the poll - the more opinions on recipes the better. The thread has only been going about 4 weeks after all - its just that we have covered a lot of ground in that time....:rotfl:

So - do go and fill in the poll on your apple spread and any other recipes you care to try out.

love
Auntie Ceridwen

(does that title bestowed on me by Weezl/ISOM put me in "avid fan" territory? - but..yes....as you know..I do follow the "exploits" of our Weezl closely...:)).

Frugaldom

Good morning fru guys and gals

Daylight by 6.30am this morning, so I can now make the most of cheaprate electricity at this end of the day as well as timers set from other end. :j Hens & ducks were all out early then I got a washing done and hung out on the line, the breadmaker started and stripped the chicken that had been cooked overnight in slow cooker. DS now has all his lunches prepared and into freezer - he made his porridge whilst I prepared the chicken. I now have the remains of that in the slow cooker for soup, half of which will be LETS traded.

Breakfast was toast with the spicy apple spread. Mine was a bit cheaper to make than on Weezl's thread but I don't do a monthly shop and we don't live near A$da or Tesc0. I'm a bulk buying top up shopper who makes the most of any offers - apples and spread were both on offer - and I'd use less sugar & spice next time as spicy apple was a bit too spicy and sweet for me. It's also not as cheap as making it in season using foraged fruit or windfalls.

House cleaning day in between work and cooking today. Place looks like a bombsite again, I'm sure decluttering just adds to the clutter. :rotfl:

Kiwisaver_2

Interesting thoughts about VAT, population and sustainability with me being in a country with an extremely LOW population. I don't think we've quite reached the 4.5 million mark and NZ is slightly bigger than the UK with it's 60 something million people. We pay 12.5% VAT on absolutely everything from fresh carrots to the household rates :mad:and Government have just announced an increase to 15% from October this year. :eek: It's a difficult balancing act as we don't have a large enough population of tax paying people.

My frugal powers have been concentrating on reducing electricity usage and/or costs: as here again we just had notification of a hefty price hike, just in time for the arrival of winter. I have been onto our power company today to check out the options and different tariffs and think we'll head down the route of getting a dual night / day meter, (like Economy7). This comes at a cost for changing the meter and have electrician connect it up, so now have to get some quotes for that. I changed the last three of my old-style light bulbs over to low-energy types and currently playing around with times and intervals on the hot-water cylinder to see if we can reduce.

I feel for all you gals and it makes me sad when I hear of young people with controlling and manipulative OHs as my experience here was with a father of that kind (also a drinker), so I had a lot of time to decide I wasn't ever going there with a partner. We had no friends to our house, as it caused too much trouble with way too many questions and restrictions. I think it's a defence mechanism and easier to batten down the hatches and not allow people to become to close to you, as it is certainly something that stayed with me to a large extent.