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

cw18

rozeepozee wrote: »

Noticed our new Aldi is selling water butts for £24. Do people think this is a good deal or can they be had cheaper?

Depends on the size.

I got mine from a company who are working in association with our water company. The 100 litre one is £27.95, but on a Buy One Get One Half Price - so two for £41.93, or just under £21 each.

I would have liked a single larger one (190 litres for £37.95 or 200 litres for £41.95), but didn't have the 'footprint' beside my downpipe for one this size. Hence two smaller ones making up the same capacity......

grannynise

top_drawer wrote: »

hi Everyone,

I have had to change to wholemeal/with seeds flour for my breadmaking too as apparently its really good for me with my dizzy do's - more sustaining but its quite expensive too. I have bought some seeds alone but since flours are processed differently I cant just add them to white flour ;((

I make bread with ordinary wholemeal or white flour and add any seeds or nuts that happen to be around ... would that work for you? It does mean you can vary the proportions and every loaf comes out slightly different. But maybe I've missed the point.

pagangirl

Hi folks

Utterly Buttrley 500g is only 60p at Summerfields till 23rd March if anyone uses it.

Frugalising has been out the window here - Do you ever feel as though you should've gone back to bed and started the day again? last 2 days have been like that for me

Tuesday had appointment at Dr's in morning & C A B afternoon, IBS decided to kick off early am, 11 toilet stops and 2 Immodium later managed to get moving

Today - went to NHS drop in centre for blood tests as never made it there yesterday, walked to retail park - tripped/fell over by bus stop - blood everywhere, managed to get to B00ts pharmacy, where nice lady mopped me up,:o back to drop in centre for dressing on 1 hand, cleaning up skinned knees and gravel burn on other hand. Need to keep dressing dry for 48 hrs which means I can't wash me hand eeew - hygienic – not :eek:
Have to go back friday for dressing to be changed, and to check all gravel out of cut.

Arrrrgh :mad: - keep your fingers crossed peeps that tomorrow is going to better - anyone else who says things come in three's will not live to see the day out !!! :rotfl:


Phoebe03cat thanks for the keffir link – off to investigate

Annie 123 - thanks for the blog link - just read a great wartime book - Spuds, Spam amd Eating for Victory by Katherine Knight - got it in local library.

cw18

Got my Council Tax bill this morning - just checked the figures against my spreadsheet, and the increase isn't as much as I'd allowed for..... so that's £24 from that budget transferred into my contingency fund :T That's the good news.


Also got the annual update from the company pension scheme (which pays me a Widows pension, and - at least until the summer - pays DS2 a dependants pension). Annual increases (which come in on 6th April) are linked to the RPI for the 12 months up to the previous September, which this year was -1.4%. They've tried to soften the blow of no increase by assuring us that the pensions won't actually be reduced. :mad:

Picked up my special order of screws this afternoon, and have started to assemble my raised beds..... 5 done (including one double height one), so "just" another 8 (including 6 double height ones) to go !!! Wanted to 'pressure clean' my fences today (so I can add protective gunk to them before planting against them), but the neighbours had washing out..... so, if the weather's nice, I'll have to check if their garden is clear tomorrow morning so I can get that done ASAP.


Also put in a holiday request at work so that I have a long weekend (Fri thru Mon) off the middle of next month - but it's unfortunately not going to be a "fun" weekend I've got a hospital appt on the Friday morning to have a cyst removed from inside one of my lower eyelids :eek: The hospital have said I 'should refrain from' driving or operating machinery for 24 hours after the procedure, so I ought to be clear to go back to work on Monday (don't work Sat/Sun unless I get extra shifts) - but I decided I'd rather play it safe, and if I do have problems that then gives me Monday to communicate with HR regarding extended time off (haven't been there long enough to qualify for paid sick leave, but I was told it would probably be possible for them to 'swap shifts around' so I don't actually have to take holidays - however I prefer to book it as time off, especially as I don't have young children meaning I want time off in school holidays to save on child-care costs)

grandma247

cw18 wrote: »

I've got a hospital appt on the Friday morning to have a cyst removed from inside one of my lower eyelids :eek: The hospital have said I 'should refrain from' driving or operating machinery for 24 hours after the procedure, so I ought to be clear to go back to work on Monday (don't work Sat/Sun unless I get extra shifts) - but I decided I'd rather play it safe, and if I do have problems that then gives me Monday to communicate with HR regarding extended time off (haven't been there long enough to qualify for paid sick leave, but I was told it would probably be possible for them to 'swap shifts around' so I don't actually have to take holidays - however I prefer to book it as time off, especially as I don't have young children meaning I want time off in school holidays to save on child-care costs)

Cheryl I hope all goes well for you at the hospital. I had that done last March. It is very quick. They put drops in and put a pad on the eye afterwards so you would not be able to see to drive anyway.

cha97michelle

Thanks for tips Re: lettuce Jayne. Not all of them did this, so i am guessing maybe the shade, or the heat, or left too long. We did however eat what we could salvage from them so not all wasted.

I've sold some old gold i don't wear this week so just over £140 which went to overpaying the mortgage account. I want shot of this beast as soon as i can.

I've been trying to predict what my next months budget will be. I realised that April will see increases in my child benefit and possibly child tax credits too, but also increases in petrol prices, stamps will go up and goodness knows what else.

Child benefit will go up 30p a week for the 1st child and 20p per week for subsequent kids. I could hardly contain myself at that 50p per week increase. Not even one days worth of nappies in our house, although hopefully we will rectify that this summer. If i was trully frugal i would use reusables but there you go.

No idea about tax credits but you would hope as i will earn zilch this financial year they would go up at least a little.

Petrol - like cheryl i have only filled up once (last week) since before christmas, but i might tackle a few jobs i need to do before the fuel hikes on 1st April to cram some more of the cheaper fuel in, although i am not sure it is worth it for how little i have been using.

This nice weather has seen me out in the garden turning the soil in the raised beds and deweeding, and i even got the 1st lot of potatoes in. I found some garlic from last year in odd places so i moved it all into one square. Everything growing inside is doing well. Carrots have now germinated and i am just waiting on the peppers. I should be able to start harvesting some lettuce leaves and herbs next week i reckon to thin it out a bit. Yummy.

cw18

cha97michelle wrote: »

Petrol - like cheryl i have only filled up once (last week) since before christmas, but i might tackle a few jobs i need to do before the fuel hikes on 1st April to cram some more of the cheaper fuel in, although i am not sure it is worth it for how little i have been using.

I'm hoping to get a few trips made this week which I think come to around 30 miles - and I have a 60-ish mile round trip on Thursday of next week (going out for the evening with an ex-work colleague I've known for almost 25 years, but not seen for the last 11.5!), plus a 90+ mile round trip two days later (trip to the circus for GD2s birthday treat). So I plan to refill after those, as I suspect I won't have much more than half a tank left by then

cw18

grandma247 wrote: »

Cheryl I hope all goes well for you at the hospital. I had that done last March. It is very quick. They put drops in and put a pad on the eye afterwards so you would not be able to see to drive anyway.

Thanks for that I don't "know" anyone else who's had this, and it scares the heck out of me just thinking about them poking around in my eye while I'm still awake :eek: It's actually the first time I've been into hospital for anything other than having babies or visiting other people !! Just not looking forward to getting the bus home afterwards - but no other choice at the moment, as DS1 isn't home and neither DD nor DS2 drives......

ceridwen

Cheryl

Good luck with getting your eye sorted out.

knithappens

NSD for me yesterday, am off to pick up a food processor off freegle today, but other than that i am staying home and organising the house with bubba, and spending some quality play time with her before i pick up lil bit from school, and big bit comes home.

other than that not much going on here, am going to ring the mortgage company and see if when i come out of my fixed rate i can over pay my mortgage etc, it may be that i will have to shop around for one where i can do this, as even just over payign 100 a month I can cut my mortgage term by 10 years - yikes, i plan on over paying more than this once my credit card debt has gone, i want to be mortgage free by the time i am 40 tall order but doable if i am strict with myself.