Frugal Living Challenge 2011 - part 1

cw18

flying_fresian wrote: »

Bah to that.

I have heard bad things about Pl@y on this site before in terms of security, so it could be them that were the problem. if you use iTunes, a friend from here recently had fraud from a hack on her account so it might be that too.

Hope it's all sorted for you soon.

Had to add a card to iTunes to get the Christmas freebies - could well have been that one I used..... must check, and thanks for the tip off Couldn't for the life of me think of anywhere relatively new I'd used it, but could be that !!

cw18

minnie2 wrote: »

so buried a gorgeous boy today

((hugs))
hope it went as well as it possibly could

SandraScarlett

Minnie - thinking of you.

xx

23rdspiral

minnie - hope all went as well as it could.

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well, i now know how come i've managed to spend so little on groceries this month... we've mostly been just been eating things we already had! so i had to go and stock up today... which means i've spent 23 this week already!! which is ok. it has to be ok. it's just that saving the previous weeks led me into a false sense of security, i think i need to go back to topping up the cupboards as i see stuff - it's easier on my budget that way.

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sandra - thanks for the birlliant encouraging posts. We are each here because we want to Challenge Ourselves in our own way. My main challenges were to notice where my money was going, (which appears to include facing up to the Little Treats that i'm now seeing aren't really so little), and begin to prepare for redundancy when i know i'll have to tighten the belt extreemely... by tightening it now little by little so it's less of a shock.

Laushappy

Minnie- Hope your ok, cant of been easy for you today. I think you more than deserved a little spend so dont feel guilty.

Green_Queen - Your post did make me laugh about hiding money in different places to suprise yourself, i might try it:rotfl::rotfl:

My husband doesnt really get involved with the finances, although i cant complain as he is very good around the house and with the children. To be honest i quite like managing the finances myself, too many cooks and all that
However he does know that we dont always have much spare cash once bills and food are paid for (well before the frugal forum came into our lifes that is ), i think he works hard in his job and its nice to be able to reward him for this (hence the secret stash ) we can then decide what to do with the money, save spend or a bit of both.
I'm aiming for a grand, so wish me luck :T
A LSD day for me today 1.99 on a parcel i should of posted yesturday!

Tommorow will be a medium spend day as have our hairdresser coming round to cut my two sons and husbands hair, so £20 for this, and may need a couple of bits from Mr L, trying to avoid Mr S were possible!

Wishing you all a great and of course frugal day tomorrow

seriouslyfrugal

minnie2 wrote: »

so buried a gorgeous boy today and had a bit of a spend! - but am not in right frame of mind to sort it out tonight!

had clothes from tescos, lunch and a drink at the wake - but did get given some money for giving some one a lift and had a nice surprise of 25% off clothes at Tescos when i got to the till - save £6.40

I'm thinking of you at this time :grouphug:

rising_from_the_ashes

cw18 wrote: »

What I didn't spend was £2k+ with Emir@tes !! As I walked through the door tonight I got a call from the fraud dept at B/card, and it appears someone's been trying to use my c/card... though heaven knows where they got my details from :mad: So my card has now been cancelled and I have to wait 5 days for a new one (with a new number, which means re-registering for an on-line account with them, and changing my card details with P@yP@l and a couple of sites who have it saved - such as Pl@y - who I've been using for years :mad: :mad: :mad: Just need to do some trawling through the last 12 months of statements to figure out who will actually need the new number now....)

At least B/C seem to be on the ball - they called me a few months ago after I purchased something online (hadn't been using the card for a while), the phone rang about 5 mins after I placed the order! It's a pain but better than having all the hassle of someone running up loads of money on your card (bad enough when I do it lol).



Minne - hugs, wish I could say something that would make it better.

enjoyfinancialchallenges

minnie2 wrote: »

so buried a gorgeous boy today and had a bit of a spend! - but am not in right frame of mind to sort it out tonight!

had clothes from tescos, lunch and a drink at the wake - but did get given some money for giving some one a lift and had a nice surprise of 25% off clothes at Tescos when i got to the till - save £6.40

Oh dear, minnie2 sounds like today is not a good one, thinking of you. Pleased you had a surprise at T**** and help with the petrol, take care of yourself. XX

Have wanted to tell you all this for ages but I keep on forgetting. I wrap all my odd bits of pastry up and freeze them no matter how small. Then when I want to put a pastry topping on something I take the pastry out of the freezer and grate it on a large size grater straight on top of the fruit or whatever. As long as its fairly even thats all thats needed. Cook as usual, it turns out crispy but not too much. Don't thaw, grate from frozen, if you leave it to defrost its impossible to grate it so take it out of the freezer and grate immediatly. You can use any sort of pastry, short crust, flakey, or rough puff and even mix whatever you have nobody notices.

Somebody earlier was saying they keep all bits of left over food, freeze it and share out later. When I had a husband and my four children at home I used to serve up an extra plate full of food, cover it and freeze then if somebody was in a rush and needed to eat straight away they microwaved a plate and off they went. Sometimes on a busy night or when I didn't feel like cooking I took the correct number of plates out of the freezer and we all had something different.

Aril

Hello frugallers:j
Hugs Minnie- I'm afraid there are times when words don't say enough really aren't there.

I've had an uber proud frugal Mummy moment today- my 12yo has been making pizza in food tech. No only was it deleesh and did us for supper but he also decided not to waste the leftover dough he'd made for the base but instead turned it into dough balls which OH added garlic butter to later. I nag him constantly about leaving lights on etc but obviously some of it's gone in:j:j
NSD here today.

I'd just like to add my congratulations to all the headway people have made irrespective of whether it's a baby step or a giant one. If you break even at the end of the month where normally you'd have gone overdrawn or are less in debt than you were a month ago or have made inroads into starting your first savings or built up your exising pot well done peeps:D

I think for me I'm going to follow the traditional route of making February a use up month on as many fronts as possible. I'm also going to try and save a bit of cash by giving up a favourite food for Lent [in my case that'll be savoury nibbles like crisps:o]
Aril

slowlyfading

Minnie - hope you're doing okay. thinking of you at this time (((HUGS))) xx