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

NualaBuala

Hi everyone :wave:

Erme, big huge non-shingly hugs to you! Here I am!!! Yay for you doing ECDL and the voluntary job! :j:j:j Try not to worry about your typing, skills etc - you have tonnes to offer regardless of any certificates from tests and they are very lucky to have you on board. Best of luck with it all!!! And hope you get some sleep!

I am quite wiped out although I do think I'm getting better. Have a sore throat and get wrecked doing the slightest thing so haven't been posting but have been trying to keep up. But the blisters have gone down a lot - am at an itchy stage now - am lucky that I haven't had the nasty pain most people seem to get.

Have PMd you MIA, my heart goes out to you.

Feel free to rant pagangirl, what a rough time you're having. Big hugs to you.

I quite like the new look but it changed while I was going from one page to another while catching up and confused me a bit. Am easily confused though!

I've been doing quite little because of being sick. At times I feel terrific but have overdone it a few times and end up feeling wrecked (like today). Spent a fortune on a very non-frugal food shop on Saturday - lots of lovely organic veg, bread and cheese. Crazy prices though. And finally sowed a few seeds - nothing much by the standards of all the green-fingered folk here. Parsley,sping onions,radishes and salad leaves. I wonder will anything grow? The compost seemed very poor quality. It was H0meba$e peat-free multi purpose - was damp and seemed more like wood chip in texture. Got it a good while back before reading about better kinds here. Anyway, I figured I have nothing to lose by having a go.

Hope everyone is frugalling along nicely. Hugs all around to anyone who's partial to a big of hugging.

Edit: A big huge thank you to everyone for all your good wishes! :T:T:T:T Cheered me up lots!

Erme

Nuala Just think of me as ya online sister *hugs*....

So tired this am. NOT slept well & busy am....will veg pm ..

New printer I got on Friday (epson all in 1 DX4050 I think - cost me about £12) is a gem. Far better than my old all in 1 (an HP about 6 years ago that cost about £100). DV I sell the noisey epson today....

Discovered whilst hunting for free milka - it's on their website that clerk of works has a surgery today so will go there after test if not too tired or else it can wait till next month :T...

Praying you get well soon Nuala...

Hugs..

E

lyndasharp

Erme, good luck with your ECDL!

Good to hear from you Nuala, don't overdo it today and I'm pleased you are feeling a little better. hope your veg all grows. We started off some more salad at the weekend, along with some onions, more carrots etc. Our spring onions have been fantastic, we're still eating last years crop!

Nightmare tenant seems to have left quietly, yay! Just waiting until he gives the keys back (or the court eviction order runs out next Tues), then the lettings agency are going to clean it free as an apology. Hopefully we can then find a nice tenant.... We'll go there at some point before it's relet and reroute the bathroom overflow pipe, person in the flat below was complaining that if the bath gets full it throws water out over his back door! My hubby blocked it up with blu-tac when he was living there, but I don't think that's such a good plan for a tenant, just in case they forget the bath is running....

Frugaldom

Good morning, hope everyone is well/improving/succeeding.

Weather here's been good, so it's been a good time to sort out garden stuff. Loads planted, weeded, thinned and sown, just needs some summer sunshine now to ensure it all grows. Chicks and ducklings all doing well, hens laying and quail almost big enough to start laying.

Erme, we have our own language of 'fruge' here. Somewhere back in the old posts there are lists of words and phrases relative to our frugality. We are frugalers, frugaliers and frugalites, the kingdom of frugality in Scotland is Frugaldom and in Wales it's Frugonia. Not sure if anyone has named the English or Irish equivalents. :rotfl:

Not spending much at the moment, although I do need some compost to top up the potatoes. Maybe they'll have their 3 bags for £10 offer on again soon or perhaps I'll just have a bit of a blow out at the garden centre with some of my eBid & eBay proceeds.

Hope the sun is shining wherever you are.

ChinaTea

Hi all, not being able to do much this morning as builders still taking over bungalow a bit at a time. New walls are in and boarded have door frames now even if no doors. Looks very much like they won't be starting on bathroom proper until after the bank holiday as Mr Building Inspector has said all the bathroom floor has to come up and the joists reinforced before they can start with the shower etc. So am stuck in 1 room surrounded by almost all my worldly goods. Must admit though I have done some sewing and other things that have been hanging about waiting to be done, cut up and hemmed a pile of old towels for cleaning cloths and small hand towels for near the kitchen sink have finished the cardi that's been waiting to be made up for months and almost knitted the back of a jumper.

With time on my hands thoughts have wandered to my debts and where I go with all £30K+ of them. Do i redo my budget and up my monthly payments from the £1 token payments at present (12 of them) and do pro rata payments or save for settlement offers? I did pay one off at the beginning of the year and it felt really good even though it was only a small one. Still going to have a look at my budget though to see where I can cut even more. I am going to need carpets for 3 rooms and then decorating all but the bathroom which comes under the grant. At present I can just about afford a cheap carpet for the smallest room and have been given some cream emulsion that should go to 2 rooms. I have a pile of material, some ~15yrs old that I am going to be creative with this week as I have the sewing machine with me for cushions, throws etc. Am sure I can cut the everything else budget and am under budget on the garden which is surprising as I have loads planted and have used several bags of compost. Petrol is under as well especially this month as haven't been out apart for a couple of times so underspend can be added to carpet fund. Hmm lots to think about.

Haven't sleeping too well the last week been 3 and 4am when I've got up so really tired and have to be careful as this can easily flare up ME and other health issues. It's impossible to have a nap after dinner with the builders being noisy.

Have a good day everyone enjoy the weather while it lasts although much cooler here today.

top_drawer_2

hello everyone!

I feel like its ages since I had time to read through the posts properly what with working two jobs I just dont have time in the evenings to log in.

I was a busy bee this weekend and as well as doing the laundry gloop I also made some more soup, brocoli and ham this time. Going back to the laundry gloop - I put 8 drops of lemon essential oil in the mix but I am not smelling any scent at all from the washed items. I'm a little disappointed as I was really hoping for really smellie clothes as I have never been able to afford the smellie washing powders/liquid.... maybe I could add some softener? I have been using white vinagar in the washer when I wash the guinea pigs stuff and that really helps to get rid of the smell of urine. Really wish we had a chinese supermarket around here as I need to buy a huge amount of it to be able to use it as much as I would like too - 99p for 500 ml just isn't enough.

The other thing was my soup the broccoli was lovely (made that part first) and added the ham last and cooked it in the brocolli mix but the ham made it all really saltly again.......... thankfully this time there was only two portions so I can just throw the second one away but still I hate wasted food. I defrosted the ham on Friday in water and then kept swapping the water, by the time I made the soup on Sunday it was splitting ..... yet still it became saltly!! Really frustrated

Hugs all around especially MIA who sounds in desperate need of it.

Jen

slowlyfading

Hey guys, I'm sorry I'm so rubbish at updating on this thread!

I'm on my last week of placement and then it's all over. It's gone so quickly!

In budget news, I'm doing okay - could be better but not bad by this time in the year. I'm trying to save as much as possible to move out at the end of June so I'm trying to spend as little as possible!

Not much of an update, but better than nothing

Kerry_Woman

Seem to be keeping on track with some the spending. Still updating the spreadsheet. Am happy with somethings that I have achieved so far. Some other things need improving, but that will take time. Got rid of some things to the charity shop and to the recycling centre. Trying to look out for bargains alot more than I used to. Also trying to not buy things that I do not need, but I give in at times. This month I have achieved quite a few NSD's, which I am happy about.

Hugs to those who need one.

top_drawer_2

well I have finally started the dreaded task.........

here is my spreadsheet - sorry I seem to have done something wrong as it seems to allow me to save but when I go looking for it I cant find it. I have done it more than once and since I have the free version I am only allowed one a day. By linking colums I mean that I have the amount I pay (rent etc) and in another column how often it has to be paid and I would like the total to appear in another.

I dont have your email CW but will send you a pm now.

Thanks

Jen

cw18

Got some good news today :T

The new bakery manager started yesterday, and even though today was officially one of his two days off for the week he still came in for a couple of hours. He was asking the other lass who was in and myself if we were happy, and said he wants to keep everyone that way. Then he added he'd heard another lady wants to drop her Monday shift - and looked straight at me as he said 'and you want extra hours don't you?'. So (subject to rubber stamping by store management and head office HR) I'm going to be adding another 5 hours to my contract, taking me up to 29 hours/week - which is pretty close to the 30 I've calculated I really need as a minimum to stay afloat after September. We also got a new HR manager in our store yesterday and she said she can't see why it would be an issue, so I guess that's the first hurdle dealt with (it appeared to be our old HR manager who primarly blocked it when the request was first made a few weeks back).

Just been looking at the holiday rota for the rest of the year, and it looks like I can keep my average at or above 30/week by doing odd shifts covering for others - so once the dust settles from the Monday change I'm going to try pushing for an extra hour on a Tuesday. The bakery is currently without any cover between 4pm and 5pm, but if I can prove I can cope with a 7am-5pm on a regular basis (which is what my Monday will be) then I would have thought it easier to push to change my Tuesday to the same (instead of 7am-4pm). I know management are likely to claim they can't afford the extra salary for this, but the lady dropping Monday does 7 hours and I'm only picking up 5..... so they're effectively losing 2 hours of their salary bill now (though it will actually be more as she's on a higher rate than me, as she was TUPE'd from S/flds), and I'd only be getting the manager to ask them to start paying out part of that saving to get my hours to the magic 30