Frugal Living Challenge 2011 - part 1

cw18

23rdspiral wrote: »

I often get my clothes, toiletries ect on special offer too... whilst not technically Whoopsies, is there any way i can allow for this in the other pages of the spread sheet? eg, my only spend yesterday was 2.48 on a necklace orginally 8.00 in Accessorise... i wouldnt have paid full price but am dead chuffed with it... any ideas??? (can i just copy the boxes accross, would that work?)

I normally just type a comment on the row in question - so after entering the figures in the relevant columns I go to the next one and type something like 'was £8'. Whilst this doesn't then get totalled up for me somewhere, it does remind me that it was a sale item when I look back over my spends later in the year

cw18

SandraScarlett wrote: »

I've spent several hours trying to fathom this out, and I admit defeat! Could you kindly explain this please:

Cheryl
Sealed Pot #439; Frugal Living 2010 (£6729/£8k); GC (£1253 £1151); NSDs (173/132)
GC Budget / Spent / Whoopsie spend / Whoopsie 'real' value
'09 : £1327 / £1327.79 / £429.65 / £1573.09 (129 NSDs)
to 30th Nov '10 : £1139 £1037 / £1181.70 / £470.90 / £2434.74
Dec : £114 / £87.70 / £39.20 / £140.27 to 15th (4/10 NSDs)


What's a Sealed Pot? What's GC? And, the most fascinating, what's a Whoopsie and a Whoopsie real value? I'm assuming an NSD is a No Spend Day?

If so, I last went shopping on the Tuesday before Christmas, so, until today, I had 14 NSDs in a row!!! :T:T

xx

GC is Grocery Challenge
Whoopsie? is a reduced to clear item (food items bought on last day after price reductions)
Whoopsie real value? is what I'd have paid for those items at full ticket price

NSD is indeed No Spend Day (and there's a challenge thread for this one as well)

Sealed Pot is another MSE Challenge, where people save coins for a year. I round my shops up to the next 10p, and save te shrapnel. I also put aside any staff discount I received (I work in a supermarket), so my grocery budget doesn't get reduced by this but I have money to treat myself with at year end. I also put in the equivalent of any vouchers I use, and any dividends I get from the C00p.

cw18

flying_fresian wrote: »

Cheryl, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong about any of this!!

Spot on

SandraScarlett

Thank you for all the explanations. It's nice to know I've been Whoopsie-ing for decades - and never knew it! Your spreadsheets would make the Chancellor of the Exchequer jealous!

xx

lynzpower

cw18 wrote: »

I normally just type a comment on the row in question - so after entering the figures in the relevant columns I go to the next one and type something like 'was £8'. Whilst this doesn't then get totalled up for me somewhere, it does remind me that it was a sale item when I look back over my spends later in the year

I think I might leave this bit as I only ever buy clothes that are reduced or with a voucher

cw18

If folks would find it useful, I could include the 'Whoopsie' columns onto the other pages..... might take me a day or two, and would mean you copying figures from your current spreadsheet into the new version though

I can certainly include it from next year - but that's a looooong way off yet :rotfl:

itsallinthemind

cw18 wrote: »

If folks would find it useful, I could include the 'Whoopsie' columns onto the other pages..... might take me a day or two, and would mean you copying figures from your current spreadsheet into the new version though

I can certainly include it from next year - but that's a looooong way off yet :rotfl:

I personally would be most greatful. No hurry from me though

Trying to sort my 'To Do' list out for the day, it is going to be busy :mad:

lynzpower

Maybe I will count he whoopsies then I can bask in the bargain-ness of my life whilst being totally poor!

I have a budget for 150 for clothes this year. I know I will definitely need:
Some flat shoes for my job/placement - like ballerinas
2x cardigans for work ( i think I can get away without tops)
black trousers (one pair of)
flip flops in the summer- unless they are cheaper now? maybe!

I might ( just might) be able to get away with this only this year. I have lots of summer clothes and im ok for winter, it is just work things. As the last job I had I did manual , scruffy jeans were ok Now im going to have to smarten up a bit! I do have enough for another voucher from C-pulse so maybe Ill order that. I wish they did matalan vouchers I know they do cheapie cardis! We do have a great market where there is a guy does loads of branded knitwear for £3 each, I will go and take another look this weekend to see if I can find one or two. Trousers I need to try on.

I have a M&S voucher as well ( £10) whihc might go towards a pair of trousers, I know its not so expensive in their for their basic trousers.

apple_mint

l.m.hart wrote: »

i took advice of someone on here and placed a wanted ad on freecycle as lots of people do have them lurking in there cupboards. i was lucky enough to get one yesterday in great condition with an instruction book(these can also be downloaded) ever so easy to use and so far no complaints,not sure how long it lasts or how it freezes.:D

We are on our second breadmaker, having worn out the first. OH is in charge of breadmaking, which is nice as he is contributing to our 'cooking from scratch' kitchen. We started using a breadmaker because we like to know what goes into our food and good quality bread is expensive. When we first got the machine we costed the bread at around 50p a loaf to make, but flour has gone up tremendously since. We really should cost it again. Back to the subject of freezing ...

The bread does go off quicker, but it freezes very well.

The things we do:

1. Bake the loaf and slice up (we bought a Kenwood slicer and get more slices to the loaf as I can't produce a straight slice to save my life!). I bag the slices up in pairs and pop into the freezer. I have bread ready for toast or sandwich making.
2. OH makes up batches of pizza dough. I batch makes two lots of dough for us (2 people sharing one pizza). Again, frozen in bags. Take one bag out in the morning, pop it into a bowl in the fridge and when we come home we have a nice cold dough to roll out and top. We've found the dough is much better to handle and roll out, and makes a better pizza base, when used after freezing.
3. OH makes brilliant white bread rolls which freeze well. He makes the dough in the breadmaker. Makes the dough into a series of rolls, leaves to prove for an hour and then bakes in the main oven. These are frozen in pairs and I take them out on a morning and pop one into each of our packed lunches when we take soup (which is batch made and frozen in individual portions).

It does take a little bit of organisation, but we soon got into a routine. OH has cupboard space for all the ingredients (we add things like poppy seeds, sesame seeds etc.) and I just let him know when I'm running out of things in the freezer. I know it is probably more economical to make the bread by hand, but we are happy to look at the breadmaker as a mini-oven and timesaver.

Note: we bought good quality ziplock bags from Cosco and in true frugal fashion, wash and dry the bags and reuse them over and over again

Erme

l.m.hart wrote: »

i took advice of someone on here and placed a wanted ad on freecycle as lots of people do have them lurking in there cupboards. i was lucky enough to get one yesterday in great condition with an instruction book(these can also be downloaded) ever so easy to use and so far no complaints,not sure how long it lasts or how it freezes.:D

If you don't put milk in it it should last 6-7 days...I personally prefer my food processor (magimix) cos it's smaller and I need the space a breadmaker would use for my espresso machine .... But it's about personal preference. I'm not one to say either way which is better - an FP or a Breadmaker..

lynzpower wrote: »

Re: mobile phone - have narrowed my choice down to 3 things. Could be as little as £5 a month, but do not know if that will be enough, so might just go with £10/motnh just to be on the safe side. It is still halving my current budget for the year though

: blairweech Oooh could you advise, Ive been looking to downshift but everything seems so expensive!

e2save is whom I went with when first starting FL last february - even if you don't go with them use them for bartering purposes (get a quote from them basically)...it all depends on what you need...

Well catching up on the o/n posts and I usually (when well) am like CW? who goes to bed around 9.30 to get up no later than 6 or 7 cos I'm more a morning person and love my am routine...

So will SYL....after breakkie, vits and devotions...first day on homemade shampoo today - should be interesting? Hoping to significantly reduce how much bought shampoo I use...(and now am running late due to being online :eek)

E