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

thriftylass

Off work today with a little chest infection, guess having no heating has taken its toll this year . Lost my voice after new year and just thought I was getting better. Anyway, just made a nice hot curry for tea tonight that should sort me out .

Pippilongstocking

grandma247 wrote: »

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

Big garage freezer

Reduced Milk and bread - don't think I've bought either at 'full price' since getting the big freezer - i'm a terrible hoarder

Stock in old milk cartons, squash bottles and value fizzy water bottles

A years supply of home grown tomatoes - didn't bother making many of them into sauce so now have a box full of frozen red canon balls for makign pasta dishes skins and all

Big upright freezer is packed witih meat, cheese, fish, and batch cooks and other dubious items (they've sniggered enough on my diary so not confessing here!)

Use a white board dry wipe pen on the upright freezer as its terrible trying to negotiate what's in there - write on freezer and wipe off when used

I may need another freezer :rotfl:my mum is keeping me one - I think I am a family of 300 not just 3!

ETA: hugs Thrifty lass

knithappens

just got my statement o NUT subscription payments or the last 6 years, i can claim 2/3 back rom the tax, so working it out I am owed £447, glad i looked into it now, will be posting the letter to the tax office later to make my claim, plus i will have my tax code adjusted to take this into account in future, i urge any teacher, or anyone part of a union to look into this as effectivly you will only pay 1/3 of your subs when your tax code is updated and if you have not claimed before can claim for the past 6 years

debtmess

thriftylass wrote: »

Off work today with a little chest infection, guess having no heating has taken its toll this year . Lost my voice after new and just thought I was getting better. Anyway, just made a nice hot curry for tea tonight that should sort me out .

keep warm x this was me december 2008 x i then inflamed all my chest acrtalidge from ignoring it, woke up one morning around 3am and honestly thought something was really wrong with me, i rung out of hours and from the pain they could tell i was in told me to get straight to a + e

ive gone without as much as possible this year but have caved in when i started feeling rough

XSpender

MushyPeas wrote: »

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

Hi Pea

I always believed that a fridge should have room in it for air to circulate and a freezer should be full up to work the most efficiently. I think I got the idea of stuffing it with carrier bags from someone on an OS thread. It is our new (to me) second freezer so I haven't had time to fill it up yet with BOGOFS and batch cooking which is my intention:D

HTH

XS

Fishcake_Random

Hey all,
Well as this is now day 3 stuck in the house due to the weather I've told OH I'm fed up and I neeeeeed to go out before I go crazy so I'm just wrapping up and them we are wandering over to local tesco and back for some entertainment. We have about £3 in change between us so that will cover us for any bargins, I'm sure there will be a few as not many people have been out.
Wish me luck lol, I've promised OH that I will not land on the bump lol.
X X X X

homegrown_life

I have a big chest freezer in my garage that I started using last year but could never even dent the space in there. So I turned it off for a bit. I'll have to see if I can start batch cooking and finding reduced milk and stuff to fill it. I filled old milk cartons and juice cartons with water to fill the space and it still looked empty!! Lol! Something to work on I guess.

Hoping for a NSD today as I stocked up on milk yesterday.

Hope everyone is staying safe and warm.

flippin36

grandma247 wrote: »

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

Definitely bread (on offer/yellow label/homemade). I freeze big bottles of milk too, so there is never that much space in my freezer with bread and milk alone. My mum would use newspaper if it was a little empty to stop it from frosting up, and keep it economical.

Aril

Hello fellow frugallers:j:j
It's very quiet here at work today as a lot of the students have had to cancel due to the weather. We're finishing early again so we can all walk home safely.

Am pleased to report that my first make do and mend venture of 2010 has gone fairly well. The small person's beanbag has now been filled with the innards of 4 old pillows and the covers have gone in the rag bag. The old filling is going to a freecycler. Although, a bit lumpy the small person reports that it is comfy and no cost incurred. Woo hoo!

We don't need anything and I am training myself to not walk in through the shopping centre in the mornings so I don't cave in to too many impulse buys. Should hopefully come in as another NSD.

The remainder of the left over turkey is reappearing as curry tonight although Psycho cat is utterly convinced that the turkey should go absolutely nowhere other than her bowl:eek::D

Have a good frugalling day!
Arilx

NualaBuala

shaz_mum_of__2 wrote: »

I use a yoghurt sauce topping for moussaka 1 large tub of smartprice natural yoghurt with 2 eggs beaten into it cover the mince mixture with and top with grated cheese the cook as normal iit has a solid texture rather than a saucy one but lush and good for Slim world too!!(using l/f cheese)

Kittikins wrote: »

Nuala - my mum used to make lasagne with a natural yoghurt only white sauce (very tangy but reasonably yum once you got used to it) and baked beans in the red sauce bit......I still used beans for many things

Thanks for the advice on using yoghurt Shaz and Kittikins. :T Like you said Shaz, it did have a more solid texture but I did like it. I'll be having it for dinner again tonight with some HM wedges so will get to "assess" it again! I defo need to lose some weight but I didn't use low fat cheese so not so good for that!