Frugal Living Challenge 2011 - part 1

oldestgnome

Lovely to catch up on peoples progress, successes, ideas and tips :T

I've had a most unfrugal 3 weeks on holiday (the holiday was frugal as I didn't pay to go but the same cannot be said for whilst i was there) and now I'm back intend to get back on track! :rotfl::o

Keep up the great work all

minnie2

Laushappy wrote: »

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 wrote: »

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

lilylass wrote: »

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.

thank you!!! feeling a bit better today!! found some pictures of him - its hard cant believe hes gone!

Laushappy

Salski I completely and utterly sympathise with you, women have alot to put up with on the hormone front :eek:
Hope your feeling better tommorow.

Well not a very frugal day overall with my 9 quid mr s spend and then 22 on hairdresser for hubbs and my sons, however i'm very chuffed as i wasnt expecting a very healthy pay packet this week with having two days off sick But i actually got £50 more than what i had budgeted to get :j very happy about this as need a new tyre for my car and i've been quoted £75 :eek:

Fishcakes were lovely (well all except my one year old thought so :rotfl:) and there's enough for dinner tommorow night too.

Possibly aiming for a NSD tommorow :cool: we shall see

minnie2

enjoyfinancialchallenges wrote: »

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 wrote: »

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 wrote: »

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

thank you!! this week has been manic and difficult - so this weekend im going to take stock again!

minnie2

lynzpower wrote: »

thinking of you minnie xxxxx

SF i havent seen other threads but I hope you are OK

Enjoyfinancial challenges, you have made my day with the frozen pastry ends, especially with butter and flour the prices they are a great tip so thank you for sharing! butter is about 1.20 a packet here inthe capital- value is 1.10! I had stew ( from the freezer) instead of making the pie last night as I didnt want to go out and spend that on butter. Have not seen any whoopsided cream either to make my own (dying to do this!) Now ill have to create some space in my freezer for the new tupperware

I have small tupperwares for shreds of cooked chicken, chopped onion, and grated cheese. one day ill make a quesadilla with this. We also froze some roti dough and spicy lentil filling. I am going to turn the bit of lentil filling into a spicy soup- when I have space to refreeeze the soup that I make!

Still have thousands of parsnips adn think im going to make a parsnip gratin type affiara for sunday dinner with them! I have no room to freeze any more!

NualaBuala wrote: »

Thank you, fab idea!

Minnie - hugs to you, you're in my thoughts xxx

Thanks to everyone who sent me good wishes, am sorry I forget who and I somehow lost my multiquote replies!

midwinter wrote: »

Hugs on their way to Minnie2

Thanks for the tip re frozen pastry offcuts/using it up Will have to try that.

Trying to plan next weeks meals and the rest of this weeks...... but people seem to be very fluid about whether they will or will not be here/with or without extra people in tow!

And a working weekend for me, so roast dinner tomorrow instead (some whoopsied beef from December) and I'll try and make it go for as many days/people as I can!

Food shopping tomorrow, hopefully lot of bargains that I can make use of

thank you!!! wow its amazing how much having you all here helps!!

gien

Goodness, a lot if post for me to catch up. Relatively low spend today- I had to get some rubbish stickers (we have to put a sticker on our bin bag to get it taken away) and a few bits of food.
Made a lovely chicken pie for dinner so feel very pleased (pies are not my thing usually!)

Laushappy

Minnie2 - Glad your feeling better today, i don't think you ever stop missing those you love that pass away, but in time it just gets easier to deal with. Its always especially hard when the loss is that of a child, my auntie and uncle lost two children to cystic fibrosis, i cant comprehend how hard it must be to cope with such a loss.
But you will cope, i can tell your a strong person and you will be just fine.
Sending you big hugs.

mooomin

*hugs* for Minni

Well I managed to find my way around Leeds enough to find Primark and Tesco which is all I really needed :rotfl: I only bought things I needed in Primark - a belt for work tomorrow for a princely £1 and the Holy Grail Of Undergarments....fleece lined tights!! I had a pair which were never off me during winter (handwashed at night when I got home from work and dried on the heater!) as I couldn't find a Primark selling them anywhere. I bought two new pairs tonight and for £3 each they really are a bargain Even if the rest of the winter isn't too bad, at least I know I have them for next year.

So, that's £7 from my clothing budget and £5.61 on music downloads from my entertainment budget today. Both of them should be within January limits, but I won't be able to post my totals until I get the laptop up and running again.

I'm waiting to confirm the receipt of some additional money from work too which will be counted as extra income in the spreadsheet as it's an additional payment to me. I have already "spent" £100 of it on my mortgage overpayment though.

Off to bed now with a decaff coffee. Hope you enjoy the rest of your evening folks!

minnie2

miss_empty_piggy wrote: »

Minnie2 - my heart really goes out to you at this devastating time. I lost my nephew when he was just a year old and it is just heartbreaking. One of things for me was people crossing the street because they "didn't know what to say". I understood but it didn't help, However, True friends will be there for you, and even in times like these when there isn't anything anyone can say, just knowing they are there can help. Thinking of you. Take care.

thank you!!!! im so sorry for your loss too!! we are all there for each other!!! it was heart breaking to see his mum so so distressed! ive been caring for him for the past 8yrs - you do everything for them

Blairweech

flying_fresian wrote: »

*.... and the Holy Grail Of Undergarments....fleece lined tights!!

I need these in my life. I have been wearing 2 pairs of woollen tights, my pyjama bottoms and trousers and am still freezing. The Cotswolds is soooooo cold (does not help that our heating is broken half the time either)

Am not doing too badly, think I am under budget but will have to wait until Tuesday to get a final total. Have cashed in lots of points from various surveys and have transferred the funds to my ISA - think I have managed about £100 this month :j (sidenote: got an email from Rpoints this morning saying they are in administration). I am aiming to cash in my Toluna points every month - 80000 points = £15 Amazon voucher. Requested a voucher on Tuesday and am already up to 30000 points again so don't think this will be too difficult I could then use this to fund a money-neutral christmas, shame they take about 2 months to pay out though :mad:

I get an additional bursary in Feb and had planned to stick this straight into my ISA, but don't think I will be able to now as am going on an AI course next week to the tune of £330. Oh well, it is a useful skill to have and no doubt will help me on the career ladder.

On another good note, I found out my electric/heating costs are included with my rent, so do not need to budget for them. Hooray! And OH has requested that I grow my hair :rotfl:so can save money on haircuts for a while.

Hope everyone is well :beer: