FRUGAL LIVING CHALLENGE part 3, July - Dec 2010

JayneC

Just popping back on to say welcome to hollysmum - stick around and you'll be more frugal than you ever thought possoible before long ;D

Kerry_Woman

Nuala and Jayne - EcoTeams is run by Global Action Plan and can be accessed through the internet. You can get other people to join your team or just do it yourself. Everything needed is meant to on their website and you have to be registered. I have not started as yet, so must get it sorted soon.

Frugaldom

Hellooooo... welcome to newbies, welcome back to those who have been AWOL and Erme, an ebook reader? :eek: Sorry, I can't agree with the others, there's no way you'll scrape together savings and clear your debts if you keep letting the impulse buying get out of control. This is a frugal challenge, afterall. No offense meant, but it's not setting a very good example of how to clear debt and live within our means, is it?

Not a lot happening here, not spending much, just making the most of any dry weather to do garden jobs and forcing myself to do house stuff during wet weather. Don't you just hate the mundane cleaning jobs that you finish then need to start all over again? Bleuch! Still, they cost nothing, which leaves more for the garden.

The Frugaldom feathered friends are beginning to lay eggs again after many weeks of broodiness and moulting. Thank goodness for that! I haven't bought any eggs for over a year nor have I bought any bread but I did take advantage of the App Foods bread mix offer and now have enough to see the year out at a cost of around 23p per loaf.

Coal bunker filled to brim, 2 log stores filled, salt bucket filled and winter veggies planted, so things not looking too badly here. I just need to start Christmas shopping before I run out of time for that. :eek: (Thanks for the reminder.)

Porridge weather is back again but the stove is keeping us nice and warm. Just means we need to keep salvaging pallets and chopping wood.

katsu

pink_numbers wrote: »

Water - £15 (180)
RAC - £10 (120)

Hi Pink,

We bought a house with a water meter in it - it wasn't flagged as a big deal by anyone so I wouldn't worry too much.

Re RAC - look at Martin's site article on this. We use Autoaid which costs £37pa for you and your spouse and is the equivalent of top level AA/RAC. The way it works is that if you have a breakdown they help you find a local firm to come out, you pay the breakdown company direct (you can use a CC or savings, so you need access to one of these at least, but your posts suggested to me that you have savings) and then you send a claim form and the paid bill to Autoaid and they reimburse you. If you have a reasonably reliable car and the ability to pay and wait to be reimbursed, then this is the best deal and a huge saving of ~£80 on your current deal

Hope this helps.

Fishcake_Random

Morning all,
Today is going to be a quiet one, we went to OH's little sisters birthday meal yesterday and I have a bug
I can't say 100% it was their food but I spent the night being sick and burning up. Today I have one of those horrible headaches you get when your running on empty. Boo.
I am still knitting away where I can and am now working on my third pair of socks whoop whoop, I'm wearing a pair today in the shop and they are soooo comfy.
Have a good day everyone. Welcome to Hollysmum
x x x x

knithappens

Well Mincemeat tastes gorgeous, and their is a little bit left which I am having with baked pples today for desert. it is all now stored in my used mayo and Jam jars, redy to be used when i need it, goign to sort out some bits for ebay this morning and list them for tonight/tomorrow. Need some extra pennies to get rid of my cc debt, am sick of it now.

I need to sort out break down cover I used autoaid a few years back, but dont have much savigns at the mo, so goign to see if there are any good cahs back deals or how muh it is in Tesco deals for RAC
I am staying in today and sorting through the house, hoping to have a no spend day, and little lady has had a cold and is whiney so dont want to take her out for it to get worse, I cannot afford to take time off work, only mon - wed next week then I am off for half term, cant wait, means more time with the kiddos.

Hope everyone has a great day x

cw18

I've got another budget shuffle going on here..... and as I result I'lll have some major work on my hands to get next years budgets to balance with my income


Really been struggling with my grocery budget this year - especially since I started calorie counting and found out I wasn't actually eating as much as I should be

I've spent this morning going through my food diary from my first week on maintainance (7 days starting Monday 27th Sept), and pulled together a s/sheet page with details of how much of what I'd actually eaten. I then plugged in the price of each item at full replacement value (just 1 small item I can't find a price for anywhere, so I've ignored that), and set the s/sheet to calculate my total useage - which came to a staggering £30.42 against my budget of £11.90 :eek: (and that's based on part packs/jars, not full sized replacments)

I then went through the list again putting in the prices I'd actually paid (a lot of it had been bought as Whoopsies, and some on really good half price offers), and it still came to £12.55

So - even if I rely on consistently getting the offers/Whoopsies - it seems my budget needs increasing by a minimum of 10p/day. But as I need to start eating according to a healthy diet rather than being quite as Whoopsie driven, I reckon I really need to increase it to at least £2.50/day (£17.50/week) rather than the £1.70 I'm currently using !!!!!!

There's 11 weeks left of this year, which is 77 days - and at an increase of 80p/day that would add £61.60 to my annual grocery budget. Once I add that to my current budget and do roundings it gives me a new annual budget of £1114.

By pure fluke, if I increase the daily allowance for the entire year by 10p (from £1.70 per person per day to £1.80), this gives me exactly the same rounded figure as I was feeding two until early last month (less a couple of weeks DS went away with my parents).

So for ease of my s/sheet calculations I'm updating the latter way




And I need to enforce a few resolutions....

1. Whoopsies (and special offers) are only a good deal if I'm going to use them very quickly and won't leave other stuff sitting around the house while I use them

2. Before year end I must do a full/complete stock-take of every single grocery item in the house - part used packs/jars included - so I can meal plan around that as much as is feasible for as long as possible into 2011

3. I need to start trying new (and cheap) recipes - I have access to the tools to check the nutritional balance of them all, so can easily see how they fit into my eating regime before I make them. And I will make time to do this - even if it's only a couple of hours one day a week I can soon build up a new recipe collection

Kerry_Woman

Sending hugs to those who are in need of them at the moment.

hollysmum22

awww poor Fishcake_Random hope you feel better soon hunny x

cw18

Had my first race today - a 5-mile one

On 15th Aug I did the route in 55 mins, so had been hoping to get it down to 50 mins. Then I picked up a leg injury on 2nd Sept which is still causing me problems, and I wasn't even sure until Monday I was going to be able to do it !!! So my only target today was to get round under my own steam - while keeping my fingers crossed for a sub-1hr time.....

I managed the entire course of the race at a running pace - and I kept it steady too as my final time was within a minute of what my pace at the 2 mile point indicated I could be heading for

My official time is 56:05, so I'm well chuffed

There was a physio there from a sports injury clinic, and his services were free both before and after the race so I though I may see if he was available afterwards. I felt my leg starting to ache at around the 2 mile point, and as soon as I crossed the finish line and dropped to a walk I was hobbling..... so much so a couple of people from my running club were concerned. I headed back to the school where we'd registered, and headed straight for the physio - had to wait while he finished up on the chap already on the bed, but it wasn't a long wait.

I told him about the injury, and that my GPs are adamant it's muscular even though 2 weeks on prescription only anti-inflams didn't help He pointed to one area of my leg and asked if I got pain there which I confirmed, and then told me what I'd thought to be the case - it's not muscular, and I do have a shin split :mad: He worked on the leg to relieve the swelling he could feel building up, and then showed me some ankle exercises I can do to strengthen the muscles that are causing the problems (before telling me to come home, elevate the leg as much as I can before I'm back in work on Tuesday, and to put heat - water bottle - on it which I've been finding helps anyway)