Frugal Living Challenge 2011 - part 1

enjoyfinancialchallenges

23rdspiral don't worry about facebook, we don't judge people on this thread and anyway you don't have to justify your actions to any
body else, you did what felt true and right for you and you are the one who has to live with you, so well done for doing what your heart told you to do.

Barros wrote about saving money each month, my aim is to get through debt free and its hard at times so I cant see me managing to save but good luck to all who are going to try it anyway. I'm going to have to take some money out of an ISA next month to pay off a balance transfer from last year, the interest free period is coming to an end and I would have to pay more in interest than the ISA is earning. I was putting money away to pay for it but when DD got herself into financial difficulties is had to be used. Hey Ho, I'm lucky I still have the money to call upon in times of emergencies like that.

I made another batch of marmalade today, it seems to come out about 6 1lbs at a time which doesn't seem much, so far I've only done 6 lots and have 25 1lb jars and 12 1/2 lb jars which is 37 lbs so thats about right and I have the pan scrapings on my toast which still tastes yummy. I decided to cook early today as I seem to spend a lot of time chopping peel. That gave me the evening free and I have been able to catch up with you all on here and work out where I've spent my money this month and by golly it certainly has gone, its a good job I'm clearing my larder and freezer out because I wouldn't have been able to buy much food anyway. I got up very late this morning so don't feel as if Ive achieved much really apart from what Ive mentioned already but it has been a pretty wet and miserable day so I haven't felt like doing much anyway.

Thanks to all those who have commented or supported me. Oh, and yes about the net curtains over the fruit bushes I saw somebody has already said that's what they do and used plastic bottles with them. I use aluminum drink cans instead as I don't buy anything in plastic bottles anyway. I suppose anything that stops the cane going through the netting would be OK. When I was a child everyone used old net curtains because netting for gardens wasn't made then and I think they just used flower pots on top.

Hugs to everyone and thinking about others and sending loving thoughts to all going through difficult times and I know that's a lot of you. We still don't seem to have heard about the new baby who was due about 11th Feb. I think Mum/Mum to be is called saskia anybody heard anything yet?

Bed now I think otherwise I shall oversleep again tomorrow/today Oh! you know what I mean. XX

apple_mint

NualaBuala wrote: »

Apple_mint, Good luck with dying your clothes. On the subject of dying, or not dying; I think it’s wonderful that you are embracing your silvers. I came across a group of ladies with beautiful silvers in their hair on the Long Hair Community website and I’ve been thinking of doing it ever since.

NualaBuala I've been silver for almost a year now. Well actually its white OH loves it and several people have told me how distinctive it looks and how much it suits me. It's saved me a fortune on hair dye too :T I have a short trendy style which is cut every few weeks. I went cold turkey and had the colour cut out over 3 haircuts, so I went from a red head to white (though still have some dark hair in there) in a about 4-5 months.

elly68

i'm just not brave enough to go white which is what i think i am under all this dye my roots are exposed again and i sometimes think i should due to chemicals ect however at what age do you give it up i'm only 43 lol

apple_mint

elly68 wrote: »

i'm just not brave enough to go white which is what i think i am under all this dye my roots are exposed again and i sometimes think i should due to chemicals ect however at what age do you give it up i'm only 43 lol

I'm a little older than 43 but to be honest I wish I'd been braver earlier. I'm lucky in that I've always looked younger than my age - a pain in my 20's and 30's but great now. I took a look around the web and saw people in their 20's and 30's who were choosing to stop dyeing and they looked great. So I thought 'why not' and just did it.
Great for my hair (it's lovely and soft and so easy to manage) and it revitalised my look as I can now wear lovely silver jewellery and a completely different set of colours. It gives people a shock though if they haven't seen you for some time :rotfl:

CRANKY40

23rd spiral Sorry to hear about your aunt. As for the crash....the news item below happened just up the road from us. How do all those know it alls on facebook know that there wasn't a person trapped under the car and wall. That's for the police and fire brigade to check? Luckily this time there wasn't, but it does happen. Hugs, and if the offenders get too nasty there's always "delete and block".

http://www.wirralglobe.co.uk/news/869291.family_says_goodbye_to_eluned/

cw18

elly68 wrote: »

i'm just not brave enough to go white which is what i think i am under all this dye my roots are exposed again and i sometimes think i should due to chemicals ect however at what age do you give it up i'm only 43 lol

I started to clearly gain Mother Nature's Highlights in my mid 30's - which is 10 years ago !!!

Since then I've had it coloured 3 times that I can recall, and my "roots" are currently 11 months worth of growth. When I pull my hair back into a pony tail (which is how I normally wear it due to work or going out walking the dog or running) the section with colour is currently from the elastic down, and the section that's scraped from my roots to my elastic is my natural colour.

I've been debating getting it coloured again, but actually can't be @rsed to (a) spend that much money or (b) spend that long sitting in a hairdressers - so I guess my 'highlights' are going to get considerably longer before I bother If I were going somewhere special or meeting up with a lot of people at the same time and for the first time (a possibility of this in August, if I can pluck up the courage/overcome my hatred of camping) then I'd have it done to give my confidence a boost.

ceridwen

23rdspiral wrote: »

( i'm just gonna put this out there to see if i can quell any fire before it happens, unlike of Facebk. i just want to state i dont care that it was an eastern european driver for any other reason that it might make it harder to persue them through the small claims court for getting the costs/insurance excess back as that is logicaly more of a problem if they are not UK nationals/permanent residents and especially as they could just leave and return to their home country.)

for not making that instantly clear on FB i got flamed big style. fair enough. but i then got flamed for calling the police, for interefereing and for being a responsable neighbour. i give up. i'm going to go away from the compuer and open some wine. luckily my real life neighbour is thankful i did call the police. have a good evening everyone.

Serial lurker here....

I personally took your comment about the driver being Eastern European purely and simply "at face value" (ie "Oh dear...that means there will be logistical problems that there wouldnt be if this was their home country"). So my reaction was just to understand exactly what you meant - "That means they might leg it back to another country" - rather than being about what race they are per se IYSWIM.

So I understood your meaning - and I'm sure most other people did too. There are ALWAYS people out for a fight and actively looking for someone to have that fight with - don't take those Facebook people personally. I call the people who actually like fights (be they physical or verbal in nature) "pricklies". You've obviously encountered a Prickly, who got joined pretty quickly by another Prickly. Things can escalate a bit when two Pricklies get together and they can end up drawing in any other Pricklies that are in the vicinity and those who aren't capable of "seeing through them". Don't worry about it - Pricklies get in everywhere:(:(:(. So - dont take it personally lass.

rising_from_the_ashes

Hello everyone, not been around the past few days as determined to get Uni essays finished:(.

Will be back to catch up on the posts shortly, but have a quick question for Cheryl re the SoW.

I must be extremely thick as I still don't get how the woopsie columns/totals work:

Eg if I but 2 items @ £5 each (= £10) which should have cost £10 each (= £20) and I put this in the columns, I get the following - what am I doing wrong?????

Cost each 5.00
Qty 2
Total 10.00
W? y
Value 10.00
Real Val 20.00
W Sp 10.00
W val 20.00

Should the woopsie value not be £10?




Thanks

mooomin

rising_from_the_ashes wrote: »

Eg if I but 2 items @ £5 each (= £10) which should have cost £10 each (= £20) and I put this in the columns, I get the following - what am I doing wrong?????

Cost each 5.00 What you paid per item
Qty 2 How many you bought
Total 10.00 Total cash handed over
W? y Yup
Value 10.00 This is the real value per item (i.e. before the yellow sticker/reduction is applied)
Real Val 20.00 Value multiplied by quantity
W Sp 10.00 This stands for whoopsie spend i.e. how much you paid
W val 20.00 This is the actual value if you had bought it at full price

Should the woopsie value not be £10?

Explanation above. Took me a while to get my head around too!!

Hope this makes sense...!

cw18

rising_from_the_ashes wrote: »

I must be extremely thick as I still don't get how the woopsie columns/totals work:

Eg if I but 2 items @ £5 each (= £10) which should have cost £10 each (= £20) and I put this in the columns, I get the following - what am I doing wrong?????

Cost each 5.00
Qty 2
Total 10.00
W? y
Value 10.00
Real Val 20.00
W Sp 10.00
W val 20.00

Should the woopsie value not be £10?

I actually sum up the Whoopsie spend and Whoopsie value on a 'per receipt' basis, so on mine I'd only see the 'total' matching 'W sp' and 'Real Val' matching 'W val' if I only had one entry on a receipt. But this means some manual work each time I enter purchases that include Whoopsie buys, and isn't something I can automate......

Your spreadsheet is showing the correct values for the totals at the top of the page to show the correct figures