Frugal Living Challenge 2011 - part 1

minnie2

cw18 wrote: »

I got my latest water bill on Saturday (I'm on a meter).

I called them with readings back in November and December expecting my monthly payment to come down (was paying £14.20), but they put it up to £16.67 !!! But with this latest bill came a notification they're dropping it to £10.41 :T

However, I was horrified to discover how much of my bill is standing charges - so I don't think I'm actually going to be able to bring it down any further

The estimated bill for the next 12 months is £149.59, and of that the standing charges come to £109 :mad:

Over the 98 days the bill covers they say I used 4 cubic metres (their reading wasn't right the last bill they used their own reading, so I need to check my meter tomorrow and see how close to right it looks given they supposedly read it on 9th). That equates to 4,000 litres, so just under 41 litres a day, or 286 litres a week. Of those 286 litres my washing machine could be using around 180 (according to the manual), which means around 100 litres for absolutely everything else. The dog and I drink about 3 litres a day 'as it comes' (2 litres for him, 1 for me), and I use about another 1.5-2 litres to make mugs of tea - so that's about 30-35 litres a week. So I'm only using 65-70 litres a week for washing, cleaning, cooking and toilet flushing, which sounds pretty minimal to me

I also need to allow for the fact my younger DS was home for 7 days over Christmas, so would have used more that week......

i want a meter - but i thought if you had a meter you didnt pay standing charges?

cw18

minnie2 wrote: »

i want a meter - but i thought if you had a meter you didnt pay standing charges?

I pay £30/year for them to send water to my house (regardless of amount I chose to use)
Then £15 for them to take away waste water (regardless of how much I send back to them)
And £64 year (:eek:) for them to remove my surface water and drain the highways

On top of that I pay £1.374 for each cubic metre I take from their supply pipes - and they assume I return the same amount, charging me £1.084 per cubic metre for doing so

This effectively means £109/year in standing charges, and £2.458 for each cubic metre my meter shows I've used.

23rdspiral

l.m.hart wrote: »

hi inspirespirit

welcome, im sure someone will be along shortly and add you to the list.Lots of people on here (and its a brilliant thread) have varied budgets,mine is for 3 adults and its £300 a month for everything including a dog.It takes me a lot of planning and i for once in my life cook properly but i think i should manage to say within budget.:D

300??!!?? for everything? even mortgage/rent? wow!!! :T Even if that doesnt include mortgage/rent i'm VERY IMPRESSED. i spend more than that on just the 2 of us, not including mortgage... eek! :eek:
well i guess that's why i'm taking this challenge - to learn and adjust downwards. sheesh. and i was going to treat myself to a subway at lunch. guess i wont now!

23rdspiral

flying_fresian wrote: »

My friend emailed me the instructions which featured steps such as "stirry stirry" and "if you want no more soy, it's nom-time"!! She should write a cookbook

ooh, sounds super lush! dont suppose you could email/pm/post the recpie here please? i like things that end with the phrase nom nom nom.

silvasava wrote: »

Taking my friend out tomorrow as her daughter has taken her car to Uni so we're going into town - I am going to do my very best not to spend but she wants to go to a fabric shop...... and I know I'm sure to weaken

now you know that's my major weakness - good luck!!

tumptyteapot - i know how you feel about the 'old you' / 'new you' - congrats on leaving the cake!! :T

(the old me still appears from time to time. eg, never go to a supermarket or home bargains whilst even slightly hungover!! i spent soo much last wknd in HBs but i've a cupbaord full of bombay mix, mug shots, stuffing and ginger cake! not quite spaving but at least it's edible! :rotfl:) AND it explains why i've spent soo much this month already!

[Deleted User]

Lesley Faye thanks for the recipes I have C&P them to my online Misers Cookbook
<<<hugs to those of you who are going through tough times>>
I have managed to stay away from any food shops and am playing freezer roulette for my food this week.I have a tendancy to wrap things in the freezer in foil then forget whats in there I know I should label but no ones perfect.it makes for some 'interesting dinners ' though.
I am just about to go and pick up my DD (its her day off this week)as we are off to Faversham where I will order my new car I have to order it three months in advance for them to get it in for June.
Then we will pop to my sis-in-laws for a cuppa as she lives about a mile away from the dealers where I go.
But hopefully I will try not to spend any cash today as I only have two weeks this saturday until I go away on my spring holiday so I am hanging on to my pennies like mad this month Hope everyone has a really good frugal day
Cheers JackieO xx

mooomin

23rdspiral wrote: »

ooh, sounds super lush! dont suppose you could email/pm/post the recpie here please? i like things that end with the phrase nom nom nom.

I'll go and dig the email out of my handbag just now and repost word for word...couldn't leave it in the kitchen as it had a couple of less-than-complimentary things in it about my flatmate

alec_eiffel

Hi all,

Hope everyone's ok today. Just nipping in to say I'll be following you all in your journey and cheering you on, but I am out. after 8 years of penny pinching, scrimping and sacrifice it's starting to feel like deprivation and it's just not productive. I've noticed we're being penny wise and pound foolish. so we're easing up, stepping away from the budget and just getting on with life for a bit.

Best of luck to you all.

mooomin

Ok, all I did was say "I have leftover pork, what should I do?" and this was the recipe I received:

• First cook rice - once it's about 90% cooked throw in some peas then drain and blast it with cold water to insta-cool it down tthen let it dry out (stops it sticking as badly when you stir fry it)
• While rice is cooking chop pork and any veg you have lying about that needs eaten and might be tasty - peppers, mushrooms etc are nice
• Fry lots of garlic on a low heat (so it doesn't burn), then fling in pork and miscellaneous veg - you can turn up the heat once these are in
• Stirry stirry
• If you have any Chinese flavour spices you could add these too - 5 spice powder if you have it, or a bit of cumin or coriander or paprika even will give it a nice taste
• Stirry stirry
• Soy sauce definitely needed in my opinion but if you're not fussy then I'd maybe put in a little stock (maybe 50ml) to give it some moisture and help things cook/reheat
• Stirry stirry until the liquid has hubble bubbled away
• Chuck all that into a bowl and give the pan a quick wipe and turn up the heat to the max with a sploosh of oil - chilli oil wold be fab
• Whisk up a couple of eggs (with another slosh of soy sauce if using) then once the pan is hot pour it in - imagine you're making a thin omelette, then destroying it with your spoon. You want a kind of thin scrambled egg idea.
• Chuck the rice in on top, turning it through the egg. Don't stirry so much as fold, so you don't end up with really stodgy rice - keep going until it's nice and friend and is all hot again.
• Chuck pork/veg back in and mix together
• Another splash of soy is good, but if not then time to nom!

I can also say that this was really tasty

never_too_old

23rdspiral wrote: »

300??!!?? for everything? even mortgage/rent? wow!!! :T Even if that doesnt include mortgage/rent i'm VERY IMPRESSED. i spend more than that on just the 2 of us, not including mortgage... eek! :eek:
well i guess that's why i'm taking this challenge - to learn and adjust downwards. sheesh. and i was going to treat myself to a subway at lunch. guess i wont now!

gosh no thats just groceries( did i read it wrong i thought thats what was asked)
if i put down what is spent every month on everything you would turn grey, when i put it all on my sow i turned grey then a puce colour it was that frightening.:eek:

cw18

l.m.hart wrote: »

gosh no thats just groceries( did i read it wrong i thought thats what was asked)

I work on £3/day for my groceries (but aim to come in well under this as I shop very heavily in the Whoopsie sections, and have done a couple of large stock-ups with App F00ds and BBFL. This is to feed just me, as I live alone).
Cleaning and toiletries has an allowance of £10/month (but I shouldn't need to spend all that this year, due to what I have in the house from previous years)
Dog food has to be calculated at £45/month (special diet used at the rate of one sack/month, £45 being the standard price of a 12kg sack - but I stock up when it's on B2G1F or B1G1HP, and stocked up in September with enough to get me through to this June when it was on B1G1HP!)

if i put down what is spent every month on everything you would turn grey, when i put it all on my sow i turned grey then a puce colour it was that frightening.:eek:

I think I turned into a chameleon when I first put all my figures into a spreadsheet as well :rotfl: