FRUGAL LIVING CHALLENGE 2010, part 2, April - June.

redglass_2

whitewing wrote: »

I'd get the best that I could afford, whether that is upgrading via a computer shop or buying new).

Thanks, Whitewing. It probably does make sense, but the laptop would only be a back-up machine for when I go to Mum's (I work on documents but don't necessarily need internet while there) so it's tempting to make do.

Erme, thanks for your advice too, I'll look into it.

xnatalie81x

Ok, time for a proper update. Am sat in my lovely brand new spangly 3 bedroom house - which has a huge garden and garage at the bottome for OH'S CARP LOL

I have found the starting of a lovely rhubarb at the bottom of the garden and can only piece things together to work out that the landpeople have bought the house recently, done tons of work to make the house lovely and that the previous owners had a veg plot like quite a few of the neighbours i can see from the boys' bedroom windows

Today and yesterday were spent planting lettuce, carrots, re-planting garlic from the old house, calabrese and sewing more seedlings so i now have sweetcorn, baby whole corn, lots of tomatoes, peppers, broad beans, peas, kohl rabi, courgettes, broccoli, cabbage, cauiflower - some will end up at lottie and some to live in garden. I am now trying to decide whether to keep lottie as i have a LOT of patio space for pots and some space at the end of the garden for raised bed and cold frame....... and could use the £45 per year for lottie to build nice raisd beds (hubby wants a NICE garden and will not allow me to do what i did at old house lol)

Am sooooooooo grateful for conservatory as i have lots of seedling space - the carrots are the bbc dig in ones and i will put proper ones in later.

Still a little unpacking to do, but officially been here for 3 days now - very settled and very happy! I don't feel that i have children under my fett 24/7 - even with them off on Friday - o another thing i have A PROPER FIRE in the front room - my dad has said an oily rag burnt to see if chimney open, and to check if we are in a 'smoke free zone' (which will !!!! me off lol) - gas and electric could work out a a lot more so need to get careful! We have PREPAY meters! I have already started the move form eon to BG as cheaper and once swopped then we can get direct debit meters - i am really not sure what to do here????? Does it work out much much more expensive??? Luckily previous landpeople put £50 on the elcetric for us so still £20 ish left from 22nd March when we took house on - all we have had to put on is about £30 gas that seems to be going very very quick - was doing £60 electric and £35 gas mth.

I have been keeping an eye on and congrats to babies and pregnancies progressing - i am 7 weeks tomorrow and coming around to the idea........

rozeepozee

COOLTRIKERCHICK wrote: »

Hi, hope you dont mind if i drop in now and again, i have been lurking and reading some posts etc...

i must admit i used to be pretty savvy when money was really tight, well i had to, but now that we are in better financial position, i have seemed to have slipped got into a comfort zone.

I want to save as much money as i can get my little paws on, so this means getting back on track, and watching the pennies.

we are a household of 4, 2 adults and 2 very greedy teenage boys. we have one very large dog, cat, and umpteen chickens and ducks,

there is no way we could run our house on just 4k so over this weekend i will work out our spending etc,

so do some of you include everything including mrtage/rent etc, or after the main things have been paid etc

Hi CTC, good to see you over here. As others have said, we all have different goals and manage our budgets differently. There's no way I could live on £4K a year unless I moved home (my council tax is nearly £2k!) and fundamentally changed my lifestyle but that doesn't stop me from wanting to be non-wasteful and financially savvy. To this end, I have taken all my fixed expenses out of the equation as I have no control over these (e.g. council tax, water rates/buildings insurance/maintenance - I'm in a flat, so there's a fixed service charge - endowment and savings policies). That leaves my "optional spends" in which I include anything I can reduce or stop (e.g. gas/electricity, childcare, groceries, petrol, etc). I've found that just the recording of everything I spend in Cheryl's fantastic spreadsheet to be really empowering.

In addition, this thread is a super source of support and frugalising ideas and encourages me to change my behaviour for the better (thinking before I spend, swapping utilities, moving savings to best buys, reducing waste, finding bargains at the supermarkets, getting gardening tips to grow our own).

As you know we dream about buying a small holding and if we make that decision, i want to know what our "subsistence budget " would need to be so that we can make any move without getting into any financial difficulties.

In the meantime, even though we're debt and mortgage free, I just want to be sure that we're not frittering our money away. I'd rather keep it for the family than give it away to the banks or supermarkets by not spending or saving as efficiently as I can.

Welcome! There are a lot of like minded people here. It's a nice place to hang out

Merle

Hi everyone
I wish I had taxed my car when I got the reminder. It was £190 after the budget it was £205.:( Oh I can feel some NSD's coming on! I am having my family over for Easter Sunday. I have 4 DD's and 3 DS's and 2 lovely Grandsons. I have a chicken £2.99 and some chicken thighs that were bought with a whoopsie sticker for £1.00, Good job I have a sack of potatoes and some veggies from A*** for 49p. I am making a lemon meringue with some lemons I got for 10p. Happy Easter everyone Take heart you can have a wonderful life and tread the frugal path.
Merle

Blairweech

Hi everyone,

Natalie - I had key electric in tavy, and tbh I actually found it better. I was with EDF, and my units were the same price as standard electric, although I did have the additional standing payment (I think it was about £1.90 a week...). Anyway, I liked it because I could budget properly for it, instead of getting an enormous bill every quarter and having no monies to pay for it. The only time it was a problem was when I got stuck in the snow and landlady had to go out and get it topped up.

Today I have been tinkering with the car, had to reattach the sump as it was leaking oil. On closer inspection, it would appear to have been attached with bathroom sealant, which would explain why it was leaking.
Also had a chat with our local MP (Lib Dem), he was doing the canvassing rounds today. I was actually underneath the car when he appeared, so we chatted about public transport, cost of fuel etc. Also got the environental stick out and started poking him with that .

Got brothers girlfriend and my grandma coming over for lunch tomorrow, Mum has made a mushroom cake nom nom nom. Will meander towards the carboot if the weather stays fine, fingers crossed!

Frugaldom

Good morning, hope everyone is having a good weekend so far. There's some sunshine out there today, for a change, but it's still very cold, damp and blustery.

Nat, we have key meter electricity here, too, I'm not sure how our rates compare to others but the standing charge for us is £1.61 and I know a few others paying £1.50 SC but their unit rates are slightly higher than mine. You can buy a USB attachment that lets you top up online from home, just look up your supplier's website to see if they offer that option. Scottish Power certainly do, although I haven't bought one.

I have a huge chicken in the slow cooker and a loaf in the breadmaker, so that's that taken care of. Nothing special happening here this weekend and I cancelled my trip to DD's, as she has friends coming to visit. Hopefully the sun will stay shining and I can get out into the garden, even if it's freezing.

xnatalie81x

frugaldom - i have just changed over to BG who do the usb thing to top up from home. I did a compare thing and BG are the cheapest for prepay in the area. They weren't the cheapest supplier (we only moved a fe miles) but their customer service and online services are far far superior and worth the tiny extra per year

I shall wait and see when i get the BG card and key and work out costs in more detail. I don't want to pay a standing charge lol! Shall get on the BG website

cw18

Weather here is totally "Yuck", so a day of decluttering for me..... got to make the most of having the whole of upstairs to mess up in an attempt to get (at least partially) sorted, but need to regain some resemblance of living space before DS gets home while I'm at work on Tuesday. I'm in work 7-5 tomorrrow, which gives little chance to get anything done then other than making sure I've cleared back out of his room

So bulk of work needs doing today as I lost most of yesterday (was in work for for just over 6 hours, but that's extra money from there plus sorted my average working hours for Tax Credit purposes back up to 30/week until at least the end of April - whereas it was looking like I'd fallen below the 'magic number' last week before the extra shift )

phoebe03cat

Just popping in to say hi everyone, hope you are having a Happy Easter. Thanks for adding me to the list Frugaldom. Am carrying on my new frugalisiing ways over the holiday. DH is laying a new floor in the office which we had put aside from his redundancy money. Even he is saying he can make bits and pieces from what he's got in the shed rather than buying new. Our tweaked spreadsheet seems to be working well, and much to the amazement of all I've started jam making with whoopsied fruit. Have also started substituting some whey from the yoghurt for the milk in the 'better spread' and its lovely and smooth and light. Going for a walk today so should be pretty frugal as both dd1 and dd2 need to get some air to get over rotten colds. DH is insistant the weather is going to clear up a bit here;actually I think he needs a break from all the creativity lol.

mama67

Frugaldom wrote: »

Good morning, hope everyone is having a good weekend so far. There's some sunshine out there today, for a change, but it's still very cold, damp and blustery.

Nat, we have key meter electricity here, too, I'm not sure how our rates compare to others but the standing charge for us is £1.61 and I know a few others paying £1.50 SC but their unit rates are slightly higher than mine. You can buy a USB attachment that lets you top up online from home, just look up your supplier's website to see if they offer that option. Scottish Power certainly do, although I haven't bought one.

I have a huge chicken in the slow cooker and a loaf in the breadmaker, so that's that taken care of. Nothing special happening here this weekend and I cancelled my trip to DD's, as she has friends coming to visit. Hopefully the sun will stay shining and I can get out into the garden, even if it's freezing.

Just a heads up re bread making, I bought some of theat reduced all purpose flour from AF, thinking it would be ok to mix in when making cakes etc in small quantities; tried a loaf last night (my recipe uses 20oz of flour) I used 8oz reduced and 12oz white bred flour, put all in bread machine overnight as usual so dough was ready this morning, it has made a lovely loaf and there is some extra goodness in there as the reduced flour is a mix of white and wholemeal.