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

flippin36

Miss_Bubbles wrote: »

Complete newbie!
This is my first post so forgive me any mistakes and annoying questions!

Snowed in and daughters school is closed so i've spent a grand total of £0.00 today bar heating etc
Homemade cottage pie for tea. I make a huge pie (enough for 4 at least) and freeze any leftovers,great for a quick meal later in the week!

:hello: Hello and welcome. Well done on your NSD. Its just the weather for cottage pie, I always do a little extra to freeze too. Very economical and easy when I'm a tired in the evening.

grandma247

hello Mooloo nice to hear from you again. you did well with the mince. I think we need a name for the elastic mince like "rubber"chicken?

flippin36

batcatz wrote: »

Hi, please add me. BATCATZ.


An OWL electric meter is really good for seeing what uses up your electric. Made me turn off the AV receiver except for films!
p.s. I've had the heating on all day. :-(

I so want one of them but I can only find them at £24.99. Does anyone know of a cheaper one?

ifonlyitwaseasier

hello all,

snowy here but not impassable if you stick your welly's on!

went to get milk and bread in lidl's and spent £12.63, got 3x4pints of ss, 3xloaf, ham, yog's, bread flour and powdered milk, so if we get stuck (as it's still snowing) we can make our own,

made banana muffins today and they are lovely!! tis the basic recipe on the GC thread in OS

Shaz - i have used Noreen's website but she has to move it about as WW have made threats about breach of "intelectual property" or sthg like that

i haven't made it to the other pc yet (it's behind the floordrobe!) so i promise i will sort myself out and get the recipes i promised sorted to email out

tc all

ioiwe

LilacPixie

Spend day here. £54.47 on diesel. £7 on soft play and £3.20 on juice/crisps as i was not prepared.

Rozzee - I have the crockpot SC sound like a model below the one in argos IE same but no timer. I like it, great for bulk cooking. 4 of us here. I like it because you can put a whole chicken in it with 100ml water. cook low 8 hours then meat literally falls off bones i then use for a curry, chicken pie and chicken fried rice. i use the liquid left as a concentrated stock.

rozeepozee

Frugal tea tonight after Debenhams restaurant lunch excess. Still eating up the contents of the freezer (haven't done a proper shop since before Xmas - Costco must be missing us!) Found and unlabelled bag of mush - god knows how lond it's been there! Defrosted it and it turns out to be a large portion of HM leek and potato soup, enough for 2. Very nice it is too with a thick slice of HM bread and butter!

LilacPixie wrote: »

Spend day here. £54.47 on diesel. £7 on soft play and £3.20 on juice/crisps as i was not prepared.

Rozzee - I have the crockpot SC sound like a model below the one in argos IE same but no timer. I like it, great for bulk cooking. 4 of us here. I like it because you can put a whole chicken in it with 100ml water. cook low 8 hours then meat literally falls off bones i then use for a curry, chicken pie and chicken fried rice. i use the liquid left as a concentrated stock.

Have posted a Want ad on Freecycle for the slow cooker and otherwise will wait until the car boot season starts and pick one up there. There are literally dozens of car boots near us come April so I can hang on and I'm sure I'll find one there. You always see loads of kitchen appliances - got my mum a great breadmaker last season for a fiver!

knithappens

candygirl wrote: »

[/B]
lol it cracks me up when they do that rocking back and forth thing, before they crawl.Boo was trying to lean on the sofa and clap at same time before:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:she's just 9 months:D

the thing is she is a head shuffler, sometime i think she is going to break her neck, my other two never did this, she uses her head while on her back. arches her back and propels herself places, the sooner she learns to crawl the better, then i think my hair will stop turning grey lol.

Boo - so cute, now i have images of the cute little girl in monsters inc

Frugaldom

lollol wrote: »

please add me to the list. Thanks

Duly noted, welcome on board

batcatz wrote: »

Hi, please add me. BATCATZ.

Duly noted, welcome on board

Miss_Bubbles wrote: »

Complete newbie!

Welcome on board, newbie

Zafiro1984 - should I add your name as part of this challenge? I wasn't aware that you had joined us, sorry. It was the post about the foal & hens that caught my eye (I'm a horse mad frugalite with a mini poultry farm). Please let me know if I should add your name and also post a picture of your foal, pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease. Is it a TB? Very early for foaling anything else but still desperate to see piccie.

Unable to keep up on here but all posts read and appropriate responses thought of at the time.

Temperature's still below zero and we've had a bit more snow, so I still haven't ventured anywhere near town (or shops). DS is still managing to get along our track to the main road for going to work but everything else is refusing to drive in, so no deliveries, post, logs, coal or, most importantly, livestock feeding! Was chatting to landlord about it and they're going to have to attempt to get the hay/straw delivery along the road tomorrow come hell or high water - it's on an articulated (hopefully single and not double) lorry but there are 3 tractors here, so I'm guessing all will be on standby with trailers, snowplough and bale spikes (dunno technical name) in case they need to offload and haul the bales in from the main road. I think I'd rather that than see a wagon that size slide sideways off the single track! :eek: Trouble is, it's a quite a steep dip when turning off the main road and into our narrow single track lane. Fingers crossed all goes well because it's events like this that can affect the price of meat, eggs & dairy produce. Livestock need feeding or they won't produce anything.

Well done to everyone celebrating no spends. I'd join in but my spends are so few that it's easier to count them than the no spend days. :rotfl:Still haven't been in a shop since a week before Christmas, so all I've spent is £90 on electricity top ups. As neither the log deliveries nor the coal lorry can get here, I'm relying on electric oil-filled heaters on thermostats rather than have the fire lit all day, so it's looking like heating will be accounting for 65% of my average weekly budget during this cold snap. Thank goodness 2 of us work from home and DS has a tiny sledge-like car for getting out and in the road. :rotfl:Best investment still has to be the bulk milk powder, as milk's really the only thing we can hardly function without here.

batcatz

flippin36 wrote: »

I so want one of them but I can only find them at £24.99. Does anyone know of a cheaper one?

Mine was £32.98 inc. delivery for the wireless version. Owl CM119
I noticed I could have got a free one if I changed tariff with my elec/gas supplier. My Nan had a different free one from her supplier so it might be worth investigating that.

I didn't mind paying out for it at the time because I knew it would save me money quickly. I turn off the AV receiver unless watching a film, and I also turn off 2 lights I always had on before, plus make sure I switch of the tele etc at the wall. At first, you watch the meter like a hawk and go around switching off everything, then once you get used to it you get to know what it should be running at. Not sure exactly what I've saved, but my kwh usage has gone down to an average of 7 and it was 12 this time last year.

top_drawer_2

Hi,

My first NSD!!!! I honestly dont think this has happened in years!

Can anyone tell me whether it will make a difference whether the foil screen thingys behind the radiator is actually attached to the wall? I attached them with blu-tac and checked them this morning and they have unattached, im guessing sellotape will be just as ineffective.... any ideas? Otherwise I may have to invest in some of that (expensive) No More Nail stuff and see how that does .....

Jen