Frugal Living Challenge 2011 - part 1

seriouslyfrugal

Hi Everyone


Another NSD here :j


A friend told me that Mr T had an***x 18 pack for £ 7.00 ( sorry I have forgot who it was that asked )


Have a good frugal weekend everyone By the looks of the weather forecast definatly a weekend to stay in !!

cw18

23rdspiral wrote: »

Hi CW, since you're thinking about the SpreadsheetOW i thought i'd ask... i spent 70quid on groceries in Jan, i'd given myself a 25pw / 100p/m budget.... but the Jan total square is in Red. i'm confused. my car insurance is also in red, which is fine (well its not, but it was more than budgeted), as is my Others, as i didnt fill a budget in for that yet! (am monitoring for first time ever though). Sorry.
Any Ideas?

sounds like the conditional formatting has got messed up !!

how computer literate are you? I can either send you some instructions on using the formatting for you to have a bash at fixing it, or you could send me your s/sheet and I can do it for you

Aril

Evening fellow frugallers:j
Spent £48 yesterday on the weekly shop but the upside was that that included a halfprice joint of beef and some more store cupboard topups. I finally got around to investigating my local Waitrose after work on Wednesday as I had a money off voucher for a certain chocolate that comes in a purple wrapper which OH is more that a little partial to [for Valentines];) I discovered that they've already done their bakery reductions by 5 whereas I never see them in Sainsburys so topped up the freezer.

I really enjoyed the India Knight Thrift book [borrowed from the library and pertinent notes taken down in my frugal notebook of course:D] I would say it is more a Kirsty Allsop type approach rather than Amy D of The Tightwad Gazette fame..not really hardcore frugality. It's good to read a range though as I find new ways of doing things all over the place and sometimes in the most unlikely of places. Never a week goes past when I don't have a new scheme to try:rotfl::rotfl:Whilst browsing google last week I found the following link..this is the couple behind the Pennypincher book...a much more frugal tome
http://pennypincherpaper.co.uk/
Aril

NualaBuala

midwinter wrote: »

Will keep my eyes open for the thrift book

BTW, How is your diet going? I'm also aiming to lose weight (yet again!) this year, and thinking of the cost of the snacks, is helping me to resist them

Even saw a huge family size cream sponge at a very reduced price last night in mr M's..... think it was £4.99 down to just 49p..... picked up, then thought, yes, but then you have to eat all this..... and put it back ......and 49p is 49p that you don't HAVE to spend ! so that's both a and a !

Wow you are so good! :A Seriously impressed by that! I realised for me it's worth paying higher prices at the organic co-op cos I don't get sidetracked by whoopsies and 3for2s not to mention the junk food (I am trying to lose weight and get healthy) - I can't get there every week though so try to avert my eyes as I go around the supermarket!

ceridwen wrote: »

Hi..serial lurker here...to no-one's great surprise (certainly not Nuala Buala's anyway...:)) - I've got a copy. Ummm...its not my most-used thrift book - but it is a nice one...so worth it I think.

:rotfl:
Yes, I think you must have more books than many small libraries! Especially on that sort of thing!

Mooloo - you are doing better than I am if your Flickr has cobwebs, I don't even have one yet! You've inspired me to have a go at making a bag if I come across suitable material (ie free). It's not an urgent thing so have the idea filed away for future.

I haven't updated my spreadsheet after today's shopping but I think it is going to show that I am spending more on food than I planned. I could certainly cut back but to be honest I don't want to - want to stick to organic and fair trade as much as I can and buy healthy stuff too (well most of the time). I think I can rejig things so I siphon funds from one category into Groceries so my overall budget won't change. One good thing, I saved on busfares by walking to and from the far away shops (more choice than the local ones). I haven't been able to do that in ages because of ME. I don't even mind if I'm wrecked tomorrow or in a few days, it was worth it! :j

Hope everyone else is doing ok - hugs to anyone feeling bad. xxxx

natnat13

Thanks for the book advice guys, I might search it out in the library then buy it if I think it's worth it, or you never know it might even be at the book swap tomorrow!
Anyone who plays lotto, it's a rollover tomorrow. Has anyone got anything nice planned for the weekend? I've got the book swap, then going to friends for dinner, they are doing a racklett (sp?), never had one before should be good. I'm going to make a microwave syrup pudding out of store cupboard ingredients and take a can of custard! Then just pottering Sunday, may take the DS's swimming or may hibernate if the weather is bad! Catch u all tomorrow x

rising_from_the_ashes

23rdspiral wrote: »

Hi everyone, well the meeting with HR was sort of what i expected... i've been given 2 weeks to present ideas of how to save my job! um...
then i'll get my official Big R Letter still, on the plus side, thats 2 weeks more pay.:T)

Awww, Spiral, sorry to hear that. Is there anyway you can bring revenue into the dept in your role?

seriouslyfrugal wrote: »

Have a good frugal weekend everyone By the looks of the weather forecast definatly a weekend to stay in !!

Yey, need to get some essays written & sort out my spreadsheet! Would be good to not go out & be tempted by anything!

Downside is that it's awful walking the dog when it's so windy you can hardly stand up and the rain hurts when it lashes against you! He looked really funny when we were out earlier as his ears were blowing all over the place!

twiglet98

I am determined that tonight will be the night I crack the Spreadsheet of Wonder! Several dismally failed attempts during January, but all my receipts are in date order beside me, and this WILL get done.

I'm using MS Office 2003, and have pasted and copied the columns for Feb to Dec as recommended in the instructions.

I've renamed the rows to suit my monthly/annual expenses, and entered the 2011 budget using last year's figures, though some will change (Council Tax, Water etc, will be more than last year's when the new bills come in March).

My supermarket shopping includes toiletries and cleaning, and cat and dog food, and I wanted a separate total for the outdoor animals (hens, ducks and fat old pony) so I changed the "T&C" pages to "H&H", and renamed the Toiletries/Cleaning row "Hens and horse". Can I just say my DD earns more than I do and (usually) pays me back for the pony's feed, but I buy it at the same time as I buy the poultry feed.

I don't know what to do about diesel - I do the week's shopping at the weekend (supermarket, farm shop, maybe the market if I have time to look for a parking space in the middle of town). I get diesel on the same outing as we're 8 miles from the nearest town, and 20-odd miles from one with Poundstretcher, Home Bargains and Wilkinsons. The diesel is a bit cheaper there, so if I'm venturing that far I'll put £70 in, to last 2 weeks. To enter it in the regulars should I just keep a record of the total monthly spend, and forget the dates? I'm not sure how the 'Jan others' page and the Anything Else row are meant to work!

Excelphobia big time, I do my own spreadsheet every year to record the dates of the monthly direct debits, but that's only on one page, and doesn't have to do the maths!

twiglet98

Oh and another thing, not sure when I might want to do this but at the bottom of the page it says, "You may not post attachments" - why not, and how would I put a photo on if I can't post attachments?

minnie2

23rdspiral - sorry tis not looking good job wise!! its such a worry!! hope you find something soon - or they allow you to keep your job!!

have been jigging about with our finances and think if i have worked it out properly that we are now £161 better off a month - though we will probably see more of it next month! so hopefully we can use that money to put towards paying things off!!

Plus - although nothing like losing a job i know but still something i have to adjust and work around - but they are cutting my wages by £40 as from march - i have been getting payment protection but thats now about to stop!

Had quite a few things come out already so think we are already hitting the £1000 mark for Direct Debits and its only the 4th!!

and only another 19days till pay day argh!!

got £3000 i want to wipe out asap - not sure how were are going to do it - so will have a think on it this weekend!! and also how we are going to manage with one car - no point on spending money on other one to get it started again when we were going to get rid of it in 3/4weeks time!!

twiglet98

Sorry, should have thought this through and put it all on one post!

I'm only going to do this from the receipts so I won't have the original prices of whoopsied items, but I wonder if I can adapt the whoopie sp/real etc columns to reflect the use of coupons that reduced the amount I actually spent? Eg first shop in Jan was a huge one, half of it whoopsied meat, and I had a £6 coupon - how can I record that?

Thanks