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

[Deleted User]

Hi All

I have managed to be very good on the spending front so far this year, spent about £16 on food (exact figures upstairs) and a couple of DDs (cant remember off top of my head). On the bad news front - we've all been poorly over Christmas and DH has been signed off from work til Tues with swine flu. (Hes self employed so no pennies rolling in), he hasnt worked since 21st Dec :eek: Cant wait for him to go back.

Snow here too so no going out, still more money to be saved that way!

Keep safe and warm everyone xx

MushyPeas

knithappens wrote: »

well decided to batch cook all our goodies while the pork is in the oven to save electricity as the cooker uses so much, so ar i have done, cornflakel flapjaks, chocolate and vanilla fairy buns, rock cakes next , then i may try twinks hob nobs, will be freezing these, will help bulk out the freezers so the run more efficiently (will have to freeze quick so kids dont demolish them all)

Hey knithappens, ooh the famous tweak hob nobs, I must find the recipe. I have a recipe for cooking biscuits to try later, haven't made baked items before so wish me luck!

Btw, how can you tell whether something can be frozen or not? This recipe includes flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, spices, butter, caster sugar & golden syrup but it says not to freeze . I don't want to cook and eat them all because then I'll get even bigger!

debtmess

afternoon again x

im even more behind with the thread.

nsd day here ds2 is unwell so no school for them today, instead im having another clearout to keep me busy

was feeling annoyed wioth myself for spending my weekly amount and then realised we are now a week into this so felt a little better

im not in the know with the companys that you can sell a phone to but what would be the best place for a nokia 5800 ? i was going to send to muzuma before xmas but the price has now dropped by £15, now im tied to my contract for the next 22 months i may as well get rid of my old phone and put the amount made towards school uniform for ds3 if he does start this september

hope no one is suffering too much with all this snow, we have a fair amount now but not as much as some places

on a plus for all this, since re starting the challenge and buying alot less in asda ive lost 7lbs just from limiting snacking and useing what we have here instead of takeaways and trips to asda for things we really didnt need, have lots of thorntons left from xmas but after a week of being good have not felt like i have needed chocolate id rather eat fruit and rice cakes and rather than squeezing into my jeans i am fitting in them alot better

MushyPeas

XSpender wrote: »

What it didn't contain was all the carrier bags I had stuffed in the gaps to keep it full and more efficient which DH had chucked out so I will need to venture out and fill it back up. I do have some bits to swap from one freezer to the other after cooking yesterday too.

Hi XSpender, does this make a difference to a freezer? Mine is quite empty as I go through phases of using things up, but don't want to fill it up with loaves of bread. Is there anything else you can fill it up with?

Cheers, Pea

glendam

Hi Natilie thanks for your reply I will try to join in but I do read every day.

I have not set a budget as such,I live with my OH and 3 adult children. Last year I read every day too but only kept spending diary until May going for the full year this time and then maybe we can learn were I am going wrong. My OH retires in 2011 and I need to be ready hopefully this lot will have moved out too but fear I am too nice to them.

What you thought was my budget £500 ( I spend in a month on food atm) was infact the sealed pot I fill every day with anything in my purse under 50p was over £400 last year so going for £500 this year. Also managed to save £3.500 in the bank my not withdrawing money every week if I didnt need it.

Glenda

Thriftkitten

Hi I would very much like to join in with this challenge as have been following the posts for a few days and feeling very inspired, I havent a clue how to do the spreadsheet thing and got myself a little worked up as to where to start, am a single parent to 2 girls plus a foster boy, 2 pugs and 2 cats, just gone back to work for minimum wage(Bahhhhh!!)
We have had lots of snow here today in St Ives Cornwall, got the day off (unpaid boo!!) and decided to raid the fridge, peeled some salad potatoes on their way to potato heaven, cooked mashed and frozen,made batch of cookies for packed lunch goodies, to avoid crisps and other money draining goodies and now have a joint of pork roasting so will try to think up some ideas as to how to stretch it, about to do a food shop online and need to think up a weekly meal planner before doing the shop, will still go to MR T's for the bargains an hour before closing for top ups.
Am trying honest!! just a bit confused on the spreadsheet and where else to start other than batch cooking/freezing and using up leftovers/out of date stuff in fridge., Oh a link to home made bread in the bread maker would be great if poss xx

grandma247

An elderly friend was told to put carrier bags in her freezer by someone at help the aged.
I freeze milk and I am so glad I bought 20 2ltr bottles before the hols. I only bought that many as the local asian supermarket was selling them for 79p for their equivelent of new year. I haven't needed to shop for any food yet.

What do others use as space fillers in the freezer. I already know what nyk, sm and shaz do they put batch cooking in

debtmess

if i have space which doesnt happen oftern i put bread in there, if its summer ice cream or jubblys for the boys

i dont batch cook mainly as i only have a small 2 drawer freezer and i have no microwave for reheating, have got 3 portions of the cottage pie i made the other day as we ate it 2 days running so i thought the boys would get annoyed with it for 3 days

mooomin

Well, spurred on by the lovely frugalites here, I remembered that I had received some bumf through the post around Christmastime about my home insurance renewal with Halifax. It was going to increase to £212.04 for the year, or £19ish per month, which is £3 per month more than I'm paying at the moment.

I went online in my lunchbreak and found Sainsbury's home insurance (underwritten by the same people) could insure me for £164.15 for the year, paying 1 payment of £21.95 followed by 10 payments of £14.22. I get the same buildings cover, decent contents cover and may even get £100 cashback from Quidco, which would go straight off my debts.

Thank you Frugal Folk, I would never have bothered about £3 per month before :j

rachelet

Another spend day for me today, but it was only because we had nearly run out of milk and bread. We could have got along without getting any but I thought seeing as I struggled in to get the kids to school this morning, I would go to the local supermarket as well. I live down a single track lane in the country which is completely covered in snow so it was a struggle to get in. But it would have taken about an hour and a half to walk in, so far too long. The journey in was without incident, but when I went to drive away from the school, I couldn't get back on the road. In the end I had to reverse a little way down the hill in order to take a bigger run up to get back up the hill. Thought I was going to have to stay at the school all day today!! Think this afternoon I won't even try to go up the hil and just park at the bottom. Its not even that steep, but the school is halfway up so a struggle for my lovely minibus which doesn't like hills at the best of times!

For lunch though has been a good day as I made an oven baked risotto last night using up bits and pieces around the house and had more than enough left over for lunch today for me and the baby. But I also found a packet of veg ratatouille in the fridge that I bought when my veggie friend came over to stay last year as an emergency meal for her, so I used some of that to add to the left over risotto and it was lovely. The baby enjoyed it as well, apart from the aubergine.

Hopefully the next few days will be nsd's as we don't need any food now for a while. Will try and do an inventory of cupboards and freezer today when baby has a nap so I know what I need when I do a big shop early next week.