FRUGAL LIVING CHALLENGE part 3, July - Dec 2010

grandma247

Thriftylass congratulations and welcome back.

SF are you feeling any better?

slowlyfading

I've got a chest infection but it's slowly getting better, thanks for asking

knithappens

busy today planning christmas elf activities for the kids, from this thread here, https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/1944229 another way to liven up christmas as frugally as possible, I will be buying my elf, as I dont have time, as I go to bed pretty much after my eldest, otherwise i would knit one, but saying that it would probably cost me more in materials right now then to knit myself as my stash is depleated.

I have to phone tax credits today, s i made threshod at work, so my wage as gone up, I am part time so have my ahas not gone up a great deal, but i dont want to get caught out with tax credits over paying at all.

Thinking of buying my daughters birthday present today instead of in January, so january i can concentrate on money saving.

Anyway hope everyone has a great day xx

Kiwisaver_2

Hey all, hope you are all doing well. Good to see others already making plans and budgets for next year. I'm sure this is wrong, I seem to spend my life wishing away the weeks, so that I can see the results of my frugal ways.

I was just working on copying this years spreadsheet and making a shiny new one for next year when I noticed a 'glitch' way back in my April groceries. Must have been a bad day because I put the prices and quantities the wrong way around on a whole batch of stuff from a suermarket shop. Hence I seemingly bought 6.99 times a pack of mince at $13.28 or *splutters* a total $92.83 I really can't imagine what forty quids worth of mince would look like, a mince mountain perhaps. :eek: Anyway it's all good and now I am better off than I thought I was.

Still edging close to the end of the month at under $12k for the year, leaves me $3k for the last two months, which is just fabulous and better than I could ever have hoped for. I can't wait to do it all again next year and I'm going to try to stick with the same overall total as this year, and cut some back in some categories to allow for inevitable increases elsewhere.

The heating is now off and hopefully will remain so now until April next year. :T I've got veggie things sprouting and germinating all over the place and amazed at how quickly strawberry flowers have transformed into budding little strawberries. Have got a raspberry and a blackberry cane to plant out this coming weekend and a batch of taters chitting nicely on the windowsill.

NualaBuala

Aw, hope you're better soon SF, sending special healing hugs to you!

I love th Christmas Elf idea knithappens ... something tickled me on the fab original thread. It says

This is a list of activities "Otis our elf" will give to my children after school to get them in the christmas mood!

I actually chucked over that because my poor Mum used to try to calm my sister and me down, we certainly didn't need any help getting in the Christmas mood!

Erme, stay warm and cosy - and if that means the fan goes on sometimes, so be it! Your cake sounds very posh and delicious. Far too complicated for me but I am contemplating making banana and walnut loaf again since I got a big bunch of whoopsied organic bananas for 15c - yay! I already have the nuts so I think I'm good to go.

ChinaTea, I really hope you're ok. I would be very cross in your shoes. You know you don't drink and smoke and their attitude sucks. I have a very low opinion of most doctors these days. Thankfully some of them are good but too many are just lazy and not ready to think outside the box. If the medics of the past had the same attitude and hadn't explored the possibilities we wouldn't have got to where we are now. Rant over!

pink_numbers wrote: »

noooooo don't use the neem oil, they STINK!! :eek::eek::eek:

Instead, I use neem powder, which smells similar to henna, and not stinky at all. I buy mine from the indian supermarket.

:rotfl: Duly noted! I use henna and it took me a whle to get used to the smell of it, I quite like it now.

NualaBuala

Kiwi, those are the kinds of glitches I like! Well done on your budget! It's funny thinking of you coming into summer while we're pulling our fleece rugs over our knees.

landregistrylass

On way to Post office this morning to post DH's tax return (new job after 2 years of being at home) we saw a van parked up with FREE computer type usage for the children - all sounds, drawing and photo type stuff on Apple Macs. So...........DGS x 3 had a whale of a time. The 2 guys manning the stand were chuffed to bits as they told me they had been having difficulty engaging people (whereas we stuck our heads in and asked what they were doing - me? Shrinking Violet? LOL>>>>>>>>>>> as if.) Now off to park for climbing wall. Wish me luck.

slowlyfading

NualaBuala wrote: »

Aw, hope you're better soon SF, sending special healing hugs to you!

Thanks for the hugs

I"m feeling a bit down today - my diet isn't going well and I'm feeling particularly large today.

Sigh, oh well. Nothing spent so far!

NualaBuala

slowlyfading wrote: »

Thanks for the hugs

I"m feeling a bit down today - my diet isn't going well and I'm feeling particularly large today.

Sigh, oh well. Nothing spent so far!

I feel for you pet. I always think diets are like marathons ... it's the changes you make in the long run that add up. A blip here and there won't matter in the grand scheme of things. Maybe you are being too tough on yourself? I need to lose weight but I'm not really focussed on it yet - am dreading getting measured up for maid of honour dress so had better shrink a bit before then!
Well done on spending nothing so far today! :T

slowlyfading

I'm putting off looking at wedding dresses because I feel so huge so I need to do something so that I'll actually go looking for dresses! :rotfl: