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

landregistrylass

Morning all. Working from home today so diverting a little of my time to catch up with posts. Think I am going to give Appr0ved F00ds a go - you all seem to have great ideas of what to do with the stuff you get from there. That seems to be 1 of my problems - stuck in a rut food-wise, and keep buying the same things.

patentgirl

Afternoon everyone
Congratulations Fishcake
Just a quickie as at work and not meant to be on here as had over my lunch break already but am so pleased that managed to keep in our budget again this month so really glad I joined this challenge it has really changed our way of thinking and spending, seeds are all coming on great off to the allotment tomorrow so hope rain isnt too bad as predicted as we must go this weekend.
Off to ALdis after work to get fruit and veg offers.

pagangirl

Thanks for all the anaemia advice - gratefully received :beer:

At the moment, anything seems to set the IBS off !!! main problem is I can't eat anything with cows milk/dried fruit/nuts/seeds/oats/pulses, onions/peas/sweetcorn/cabbage/cauliflower/or other green leafy veg exc broccoli, can have soya milk, lettuce, tomatoes, celery, carrots, parsnips, potatoes and fresh fruit. And of course red meat - eeew - liver - eeew! (if needs must I'll have to)
Have to get bloods done again 3-4 weeks, so will ask doc re nutritionist. Thanks for the tip grandma247

Hugs for Aril - sounds like you need 'em ! Thanks for treacle tip, but errrm doesn't treacle make you run to loo???? Have enuff probs as it is :eek:

CW enjoy your meal - love Chinese - mmmmmm crispy duck in pancakes - you making me hungry :rotfl: If you don't fancy the chinese menu, you should be ok, as most of them usually do english food as well.

Suzy - betcha can't wait to see the scan pics

Rozee - thanks for the tip re o2 broadband - I have their payngo, so off to investigate - will be great if I can get broadband for £7.00 month :T

[from chinatea - I went with my neighbour to Wilko* yesterday and she spent £23 on cleaning stuff to last her 2 weeks OMG.] - sounds like a friend of mine - she thinks I'm mad with all this frugalling, but she is working part time, struggling to meet all loan repayments, says she is skint, and thm goes out & spends £5+ on air fresheners - why not just open the windows???

Hi Kezlou - nice to meet ya :wave: hope hubby is now on board with frugalling? You'll get plenty of help on here. They are a great bunch of people.

Has anyone seen the weather forecast for next week ?:eek: Forecasting frost at night and poss snow - you need to wrap your baby plantlets up snug n warm folks ! Just when I got used to having no heat on as well

Yaaaay - clocks go forwards tomorrow night - don't mind losing an hours sleep for lighter nights.

Have a great wekend all

cw18

pagangirl wrote: »

CW enjoy your meal - love Chinese - mmmmmm crispy duck in pancakes - you making me hungry :rotfl: If you don't fancy the chinese menu, you should be ok, as most of them usually do english food as well.

In the end I went for Chicken in Lemon Sauce with plain boiled rice. The sauce reminded me a bit too much of lemon curd (not a fan of that), but it was still pleasant and I could eat it again if there was nothing else I dared try. Also shared Sesame Seed Toast as a starter, and that was very nice.

But the company was brilliant - and I had a fantastic night out.... DS met me at the door when I finally got home, with a "What time do you call this?" :rotfl:

Going up again next Tuesday, but when he asked what sort of eatery I fancied I said I don't want to go out to eat. This was met with the suggestion that we order in pizza, but I shot that one down too...... so I left him to dig out his cookery books Only 'problem' (for him, not me) is that he's now an 'almost vegetarian, but eats fish', so it'll be a veggie or a fish based meal. I made it clear that's not a problem for me, as I plan to cook more like that after DS moves out - but whether he actually does cook or not remains to be seen. However, I have already managed to teach him how to make a mug of tea the way I like it, so I was quite impressed with that




My box of various flour types from App F00ds arrived today - about 10 mins before I left for work - so I need to find somewhere to store all that now.....

NualaBuala

Hello frugal friends, :wave:

Great to see people joining in again. IMHO it doesn't matter if we're not perfect with our frugalling, I'm sure we're all learning and improving all the time.

Cheryl, good to hear you're doing something nice for yourself - did you enjoy the Chinese? Edit: my post overlapped with yours! Lemon chicken - yum, I like that! Glad you had a good night!

Hope you're feeling better Erme. I like the sound of your day in the country - even better with a free bus pass! Hope you feel able to eat - take care and ignore the catalogue companies if it's too much hassle for you, (((((hugs))))).

I've been reading this Simple Living website. It has interesting forums with some frugal/non-consumerism/eco tips - very American although some are useful. One person was trying to reduce their possessions to 100 things - I quite like that idea although I would pick a higher number.

I always find the last weekend of the month a little tricky. I'm reluctant to spend anything as I can't wait to do my monthly total but it looks like this weekend could be a bit spendy. I do have a nice frugal night out planned though - dinner in a friend's house. But need to stock up in the organic food co-op so that will cost a bit.

Have attempted to trim my own hair. For once I'm glad that I don't have super-straight sleek hair as my messy-looking wavy mop hides any crooked bits! :rotfl:

I have half a packet of out of date bread mix. I tried using it before but it was useless, the yeast must be dead as it didn't rise. Can anyone think of any uses for it? Even making something that I could feed the birds with?

Hope you're all well and have a lovely evening!

xnatalie81x

I am in my new house frugal wise i am on the internet on my mummies dongle which she topped up with £15 as a house warming pressie (much better than alcohol lol) also the landlord has put £50 on the ELECTRIC METER!!!!!!! for us as there have been workmen here. (who hardly use any lol) - hasten to add that i have contacted BG who are changing meters to them in 3 weeks and then will be having direct debit ones fitted after that.

Overspends on petrol due to moving between houses but saving on car insurance which is now cheaper lol.

Lots still to do but am keeping an eye on the thread

rozeepozee

Hi kezlou and welcome. I'm looking forward to a new slate come april as I've lost a bit of my frugal motivation of late.

Too sore to write more. Mt poor body's really struggling with the weight of these babies now. Scan on Monday, so hoping all's well,

Happy frugal weekend everyone. Car boot season seems to be hotting up here. Hoping I can pick up a very cheap moses basket this weekend. have been resisting ones at £5 to £10 plus on ebay so far.

R x

Frugaldom

Erme, hope things improve for you soon and that you haven't been pressurised into joining one of those MLM schemes that risks you losing money.

Received my App F00d order today, so the cupboards are now overfilled! I kid you not, it's ridiculous. If anyone had to look in, they'd think I had an extreme compulsive disorder where food is concerned! With what's here now, I am going to cut the grocery spending allowance to £10 per week maximum until I catch up with the budget.

lynzpower

I have half a packet of out of date bread mix. I tried using it before but it was useless, the yeast must be dead as it didn't rise. Can anyone think of any uses for it? Even making something that I could feed the birds with?

Nuala if you cant come up with anything better, then my recommendation is to use it to flour surfaces in eg bread/pastry/ pizza making and save any amount of your "good" flour for baking with.

lynzpower

Well hello all :wave:

I feel like im back with it all now, mood a bit brighter. I think we jsut have a lot to contend with at the moment.

NUALA thanks for asking about my hand, honestly, its not good at all. I wish it would get better but its been almost a year now and as I reinjured it last week, its unlikely to turn-around quickly. Met my physio today, she is leaving next week - so Ill see someone else next time, have to say I was really confused she saidthe pain isnt indicating further damage happening, so dont worry about that, but dont DO ANYTHING that causes any pain ( ie pretty much everything) V *Confused* She has given me some exercises but my hand is really swollen and bruised and she said it looked normal? V weird.

I have come to the decision that I will start the Msc I almost committed to earlier in the year. it is PT and distance learning so I dont intend to go back full time much as Id love to.But we need to make lots of lifestyle changes before then, I cant do a Msc and expect to pass it when Im working more than full time. We have a lot to think about really and I wish the answers would just turn up.

Otherwise, I made ( well the K chef did) a lemon drizzle cake, lemons 8 for a £1 on the local market. Picked up lots of Mr M offer beef, so its steak and chips with garlic butter mushrooms and salad- all on the Mr M offer, steaks were only 1.30 each- I never buy them full price but they are OHs fave ALso loads of the stewing beef and the cheap F&V ( 30ps) utterly butterly good for cakes for 50p.

Gardening efforts are looking really good, with a bit of luck we should have plenty of salad leaves in 10 days so we can stop buying that for a while. With the change in temperature I feel like eating salads its so much warmer.

As an aside im really pleased we resisted putting the gas on as we are not even using the heaters any more its positively balmy this week in the metropolis! We easily saved 300 by avoiding having heating. The big freeze is like a dim memory now

Otherwise really pleased actually. We are well under for food budget for the 1/4 BUT overspending on everything else and HOME - as this involves gardening.

ISAs are filled now for this year as long as OH has done the transfer he was told to and getting savings together to kick off the new tax year in April .

I expect to be a lot tighter next quarter. Must be done.

Love to all and hugs to anyone in need xx