FRUGAL LIVING CHALLENGE part 3, July - Dec 2010

Kerry_Woman

Erme - What a great find with the hoover. Glad it works.

Kerry_Woman

Jayne - Have you checked the Great Declutter 2010 thread on OS? It will take time to sort out. I know what it is like when I don't get everything I wanted to do, but I try and be positive as to what I have done. You have done great progress with your garden.

Erme

Och thanks for that declutter thread Kerry.... Thanks so much :j...so need to declutter...

Hugs all

PS. Hope fishcake doesn't mind me saying this but I am in touch with her and she is ok

E

Frugaldom

Jayne - I always strain the berries once boiled down but mainly because I hate the thought of any beasties getting into my jelly :rotfl:I bought one of those jelly bags from the hardware store last year and it's been very well used, can highly recommend them. Only cost £ish and mine's been through the washig machine and soaked countless times. Also means I can tie it off then drop the whole bag of fruit pulp into a bucket, add in the boiling water and let it soak in that for some frugal 'champagne' fizz.

Erme, the electricity supply rules apply to all tenants and householders here in Scotland, too. I think it only exempts those who are on a fixed term repayment contract for collection of arrears but even then, if there's no actual fixed term contract then there's still the opportunity to switch. Don't forget to use the comparisons and other companies through a cashback site. Glad you met someone you felt comfortable chatting to on the bus, you would have been a Godsend for that other person.

Cheryl, did you resilve the problem after your power cut? Hope it wasn't anything too costly.

cw18

Frugaldom wrote: »

Cheryl, did you resilve the problem after your power cut? Hope it wasn't anything too costly.

Microwave part of the machine was totally goosed - and no way to prove it was the outage or a surge when they got the supply back that caused it

A number of friends on another forum reckon I'd had good service out it anyway as it was 8.5 years old, so probably wouldn't have got anything/much by the time 'wear and tear' was deducted from a claim, but given it cost me around £250 (as best I recall) in a sale I wasn't best impressed (my first - micro only - machine lasted me almost 15 years)

Got a new combi on Wednesday night - cost me £75 (half price in the Arg0s sale), but it's a lot smaller than my old one even though it's a 25 litre one that most friends seem to consider really big Should be big enough though, especially given DS moves out on Wednesday morning so I only need it for me really


Suppose I should be thankful it didn't take out either of our laptops, especially as I hadn't thought to turn mine off/disconnect it from the mains - and mine's not on a surge protected socket either at the moment...... something I intend to rectify today as A!di have a 3-way surge protected adapter - all with individual switches - in todays deals, so that should take my laptop and my router which also isn't protected at the moment


And, once DS has moved out, I really must get into the habit of turning appliances off at the mains when they're not actually in use - tried it with the old combi before, but caused him headaches as you had to go through a complex language and clock set-up before you could use it when you turned the power back on

JayneC

I've at last uploaded some photos onto photobucket so if you're interested here's some snaps of my back garden and also of the permaculture garden at the Off Grid Festival that I went to. They're my inspiration for my Other garden - not got any pics of that at mo, but will do soon (promise)

Here goes hope it works
http://s1185.photobucket.com/albums/z356/jayne_coyne/Garden/?albumview=slideshow

ERme well done on youe hoover find and I see Frugaldom has confirmed electricity supply rules

Thanks for the heads up about the jelly bags Frugaldom, I've been wondering if I should get one but thought it might be an unnecessary expense. £1 ish sounds reasonable though - I'll have to have a looksee if I can find one.

Kerrywoman - I have seen the Great Declutter thread and have subscribed but I'm terrible and lose motivation! Thinking about it I get sidetracked by thinking I'm 'too busy' but actually I'm busy tidying up stuff that I should just get rid of! I'm on it. Thanks for kicking me up the bum x

Erme

Should be the direct link and the piccie for my new toy...

Filter just drying nicely now ..but still not 100% clean...very tired...just away soon to pick up chinese bible for friend in hosp

E

enjoyfinancialchallenges

I'm really hopping mad, this afternoon I spent about 45mins posting my way of managing my budget and the savings accounts I have and I lost the whole bl***y lot when my laptop unexpectantly shut down. I dont know if I could have saved it or what but was so cross. Cant go through all that again so will do it when I've fully recovered from today and feel strong enough to attempt it once more. Grrr.

Frugaldom

EFC, I have terrible problems staying connected to the Internet, so I'm trying to get into the habit of typing everything into a document and saving it as I go along, just in case it all disappears. It's so infuriating when it all gets lost and I can never remember exactly what I'd typed first time round.

Glad to hear that fishcake is doing ok, Hope the fishfinger is thriving.

Hope all our other frugalers are doing OK - CW, I seem to have missed a part about where your DS is going. Did he decide to look for accommodation at college?

cw18

DS is moving in with my parents as they're much closer to the Uni (20-30 mins on one bus, instead of 2 hours by bus/train/foot)

By lunch-time tomorrow my household will consist of just me and the dog, and it hit me this morning that's I've never lived on my own before :eek: