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

cake21

Hello everyone, I'm another lurking and taking inspiration from the daily updates, thank you all :T Congratulations to those with new babies, jobs and other good news

Overall for the first three months I've spent £1,097 compared to a budget of £1,473 However, I'm not resting on my laurels! Electricity&gas for March haven't been taken, annual house insurance hasn't been accounted for, and I'm £1 over the food budget so need to keep an eye on that. I also have holiday spends in April coming up (free flights & accommodation, very frugal ), some building work, and a root canal to pay for. Thanks to cw18's fabulous spreadsheet, I can see where there is opportunity to recoup these from other budgets so I'm positive.

I've also ordered a camera online (will be paid for by insurance payout for previous stolen camera) but I'm dithering about which category to put it in :rotfl:

cw18

cake21 wrote: »

I've also ordered a camera online (will be paid for by insurance payout for previous stolen camera) but I'm dithering about which category to put it in :rotfl:

If it's fully covered by the insurance, then I wouldn't bother recording the spend - unless you're counting the insurance payout as income, which I personally wouldn't

BigMummaF

Morning folks. I've had a major computer down-time & do not have a hope of reading a week's worth of posts I'm afraid, so I'll try to catch the gist from here on in. Anything I should know though? Not that I'm being nosey or anything
It has meant I've not had access to my spreadsheets either, so I'll spend some time sorting those out to see how I've done & what still needs to be tweaked--hopefully!--before my next post.
No1 Offspring was very fortunate in the choices made re:days out & we hardly met any kind of people-congestion but I suppose the weather helped. We are fairly hardy for softie-southerners & don't conform to a lot of the traditional stereo-types; in fact I don't think I've ever been a conformist in anything, as my mother would sadly testify :rotfl:

COOLTRIKERCHICK

thanks for the lovely welcome...

rozeepozee i used to be really on the ball, with budgeting and getting the most out of what little money we had. cheryl's spreadsheets sounds brilliant, where will i be able to gt one please

I even used to cash in our alu drinks cans and steel food cans ok only pennies but those pennies were the diff in us buying electric or bread for the week.

well i have not wasted money on easter eggs this year:eek::T and instead... our eggs have started hatching out, so i will post a pic later of our first chick of the year.

i used to set ourselves a weekly budget of anything between £120-£150, and this would cover

food,
electric
car fuel
coal
animal feed
and any other spending, school, hair cuts, small diy things etc

so i think i will try and work out a new budget based on the above, and report back with the amount etc.


last year we did start burning alot of wood old pallets etc, and this saved us loads of money, but this winter we have been so busy with our business we just bought coal. so this summer we are going to slowly stock pile and cut up ready pallets etc for next winter.


i have started planting htings in the garden, but with all the rain/cold weather lately dont know if they will grow...lol...

also had my free 'Dig-In' seeds too, which will be planted over the next week or two.

cake21

cw18 wrote: »

If it's fully covered by the insurance, then I wouldn't bother recording the spend - unless you're counting the insurance payout as income, which I personally wouldn't

Thanks for the reply...not quite fully covered, £5 over and I couldn't resist a bigger memory card, card reader, camera case, all shopped around for but still final uncovered amount of £40. In "Other" for now where I think I'll leave it, don't want to start a gadgets category and tempt myself

COOLTRIKERCHICK wrote: »

cheryl's spreadsheets sounds brilliant, where will i be able to gt one please

Cheryl's FREE spreadsheet - how to download & use it free - from first post, also cw18's spreadsheet Q&A thread

COOLTRIKERCHICK

thank you cake21

as promised pics of my first chick of the season, sorry they arnt that good, but once a few more hatch out i will take some more pics, we have some ducks eggs in the incubator too, but htey will be another 10 days or so

Kiwisaver_2

Happy Easter! Thanks for the new thread Frugaldom, hope your chickadees are safe and well. Welcome to some new frugaleers and best wishes Natalie in your new house, it sounds lovely.

April is off to a good start for me with the shops being closed :T and I will spend tomorrow working on some new short term targets and aims for the next quarter. Going to look at my insurances as I didn't realise how much extra it was paying for the 'luxury' of monthly payments. Not sure I can stretch to annual premiums, though.

My big trip 'home' is now getting very close, just two months to go and I still have a good bit to pull together for the spending money. I also need to start thinking about getting some new winter clothes for work as I have junked most of what I did have. Another priority will be a long and serious think about things for my UK shopping list. :rotfl: All the things that I cannot get here, or are prohibitively expensive - I fear it will be a very long list and the most frivolous and outrageous thing I can think of at present is Paxo. :rotfl:

ceridwen

COOLTRIKERCHICK wrote: »

thank you cake21

as promised pics of my first chick of the season, sorry they arnt that good, but once a few more hatch out i will take some more pics, we have some ducks eggs in the incubator too, but htey will be another 10 days or so

AWWWW! Never mind babies - now chicks on the other hand....CUTE:D. I want one....errr....two.....

errr.....I havent got the space.....darn...

[Deleted User]

Had just over £11.00 left from March's food budget of £120.00.Very pleased and the surplus went into this August's holiday fund.So far I haven't spent any cash this month as I'm shopping from my freezer and kitchen cupboards.Hopefully I can manage until at least Tuesday before going to the shops.
I am away for a week from 17th till 24 of April so what I save between now and then will buy extras when I am on my mini-break

annie123

Hello frugaldom
Just taken 1/2 hour to skim read the new thread.

No internet access for a few days whilst DS tried to get 'cobbled together' new computer for me up and running and online, so now we have two between DH, DD and me as DD is away for 2 weeks at BF's, hubby and I have one each :j

Spread sheet is me to give up smoking, 2nd biggest bill after food, in fact it's more than gas,elec,phone put together every month.
Have cut down from 30 to 20 so far this year, and will now be trying to get down to 10. I have patches and an inhalator to try too.

On a frugal note, got 5 pots of whipping cream for 25p per pot on friday so now have 750g of butter in the freezer all for £1.25 compared to kerrygold @ £1.18 250g at MrS that I usually get, very pleased :T
Also have 1/2 ltr of whey to do something with.....

Well now its near the end of the day, the sun has decided to come out and the wind has died down too, typical.

Love the baby chick:D.....goes of sulking...very tiny garden, no room for chickens:(