FRUGAL LIVING CHALLENGE part 3, July - Dec 2010

grandma247

Our heating is on low all day, I put it on for the first time yesterday. The weather has been very wet here so I am not risking it getting too damp in the house. We had torrential rain for two days and nights, in fact I thought we were living next to a river one night it rained so hard.

NualaBuala

grandma247 wrote: »

Our heating is on low all day, I put it on for the first time yesterday. The weather has been very wet here so I am not risking it getting too damp in the house. We had torrential rain for two days and nights, in fact I thought we were living next to a river one night it rained so hard.

We had rain like that at night but luckily it was dry during the day and we didn't have floods. Hope you're all toasty and warm!

cw18

My heating went on last weekend

The house had been feeling chilly in the evenings and early morning for a couple of weeks, but nothing a quick 'wrap up' didn't solve for me.
But on the Saturday evening it was starting to feel a tad damp as well - and I spotted the dog shivering, so the heating went on (and slightly higher than I ran it on last winter, as the thermostat said it was still warmer than that) for a couple of hours. Sunday morning was OK, but by mid-afternoon it was a bit damp/chilly again - so another few hours of the heating being on.

That seemed to solve the problem for the week (until last night and this evening, when it's been on for a few hours again) - apart from the fact my washing isn't drying !!

Washed and hung up 2 sets of work uniform as soon as I got in on Tuesday, and used my last clean/dried/pressed set on Wednesday. On Thursday morning (lunch time really - about an hour before I was due in work and I still had to eat and get changed as well) I went to get the recently washed uniforms for ironing as I needed one that afternoon (the other being for Friday) but it was all still wet :eek: The blouses dried off enough with the heat of the iron, and although the aprons were still a touch damp along the bottoms after ironing they were fine for wearing. But the vest T-shirts I wear under my blouses were still sopping even after they were ironed - so I had a mad scramble to find a plain white T-shirt I could use instead (not supposed to wear anything that shows, but the only one I could find was a round necked one so was slightly visible). The trousers (sythentic non-iron ones) were also too damp to wear, but luckily I have 5 pairs of those so that wasn't a problem.

Washed all three sets on Friday evening, and - due to the heating having been on - they were all properly dry when I went to iron them an hour ago. So it looks like - for now at least - I'm going to have to put the heating on for a while when I hang out my uniforms. I can't even weigh up the cost of using the tumble dryer instead, as the blouses and aprons are marked as not suitable for putting through one.

NualaBuala

Ah well Cheryl, at least you're killing 2 birds with one stone - dry uniforms AND your dog will happy!

Erme

Cheryl want to do MYironing...? :rotfl:

Because I've been sick it hasn't been done for about 6 weeks (min)

E

Erme

NualaBuala wrote: »

Yay! Great to see old frugal friends popping back! :j Never mind if the budget has lapsed a bit, I'm sure you'll be in good company! Can you believe wee only have 4 days left till the last quarter of this year's frugal challenge ... great time to climb back on the wagon I reckon or use the last 3 months of the year to figure out a realistic budget for 2011.

One expense I'm not looking forward to is big gas bills as the heating is bound to go on soon. I'm making do with an open fire at the moment which isn't costing me anything so that's good. I do save something every month towards the big winter bills but it's hard to predict just how big they will be. Also, I'm not sure what my Christmas costs will be - last year I went to relatives which cut the cost down a lot but not sure what I'll do this year.

Off now to make leftovers potato cakes for dinner, very frugal and scrummy too.

Hugs,
N

How do you make potato cakes? Any links to any recipes Nuala and how is your fybro and stuff these days? Any decision on whether to continue with the private medical insurance or not?

Hugs

E

NualaBuala

Erme wrote: »

How do you make potato cakes? Any links to any recipes Nuala and how is your fybro and stuff these days? Any decision on whether to continue with the private medical insurance or not?

Hugs

E

Hey Erme, I don't follow a proper recipe. I just put leftover mashed spuds (or in this case leftover colcannon, ie mashed spuds with onion and kale mixed in) in a bowl. Then I add beaten egg and enough flour to make dough. You can add in seasoning and whatever you like - grated cheese, onion, bits of bacon, leftover veg etc. Make the dough into little burger-shaped cakes and fry them in butter. Then scoff them! Here's proper recipe which is more reliable than my method!
http://www.odlums.ie/index.php?page=potato-cakes

I had a bad week fibro-wise but am feeling better today - yay!! Thanks for asking. I ended up keeping the health insurance but switched to a different company and got a cheaper deal. I'm a member of an ME/fibro forum and they all said our health system is pants and if I could possibly afford it, to keep it so I did. Not sure if I will be able to afford it in the long run but at the moment, I'm saving money by not being able to do much so I figure I might as well use it for this.

Try not to worry about the cigs - I know your chest is bad but it's hard to stop at the best of times and if you've been tired and depressed it would be so much harder. Take good care of yourself.
Hugs,
N x

cw18

Erme wrote: »

Cheryl want to do MYironing...? :rotfl:

Because I've been sick it hasn't been done for about 6 weeks (min)

E

Ummmmm...... no thanks :rotfl:

I rarely iron anything apart from my uniform - and I only do that 'cos I have to (part of my contract!)

Kerry_Woman

Erme - A very belated birthday wishes.

Sending hugs to those in need of them.

Frugaldom

Hi guys, don't forget that this thread runs until December, rather than starting over on 1st October.

All's well here in Frugaldom but we keep getting winter blasts. We've had 2 mornings of heavy frost and temp below freezing, so I'm really glad I had George the pot belly stove fitted. He's been great, heating the place withing minutes of being lit AND I've been cooking dinner on him. I've brought my 'imeasure' account up to date so I can compare electricity use this winter against last.

I've spent £2,437.66 of my £4k budget, so it's averaging £63.20 a week. It's below the budget but that just reflects all the lovely LETS trading, foraging, preserving, bartering etc I've been doing throughout the year. We've just recycled more pallets into a second log store, so that's slowly being filled by chopped pallets, falled sticks and whatever logs we can trade in exchange for anything else.

Keep on frugalling. I'm still following, just never have time to respond to individuals or post much.