Frugal Living Challenge 2011 - part 1

inspirespirit

Spent £30 today. £15 electric and £15 to top up my pay as you go mobile (that usually lasts me 5 weeks on my mobile).

Went to a friend's for coffee today and she told me to start shopping at Aldi instead of Tescos (apparently they go to Aldi for food and Tesco for petrol and have still managed to book a week away in a caravan at Easter out of their Tesco vouchers). So I'll be going there tomorrow to check out their prices. (am I allowed to use supermarket names?)

rising_from_the_ashes

dizzy_lizzie wrote: »

Hmm that's a tricky one. I think I'd put it towards my fees but then wish I'd done the other!! How long do you have till fees are due? Could you put it towards the OD and then ebay/amazon like mad to pay the uni fees?
Luv dizzy x
♥

That's me to a T!

Will have a hunt around for ebay stuff/car boot.

Lesley_Gaye wrote: »

I think I might pay any extra money I could lay my hands on, and all pennies I could squeeze from the budget, to pay down the overdraft (I'm assuming it is the costliest debt) and really concentrate on that one

then when it came time to pay the Uni fees, draw out again what I needed at that time. By paying any extra money off the OD, you are effectively getting a much higher return than if you saved it into an interest paying account. You could then also pay off the OD the extra bit of what it would have cost in interest. So, if you saved £10 in interest payments in a month, that's another £10 'earned'

Have you considered doing anything like Weezl's £100 a month plan? If you did that for, say, 3 months, that would be a total of £25 for each month for food, freeing up whatever you would have spent over and above that, to be siphoned off to pay off the OD

do you have a spare room you could let out for a while, that would generate quite large amounts of cash
or a driveway that could be rented
or a car that could have advertising on it
I read somewhere recently about a chap who had had all his personal details removed from advertisers - and then resold them back to various companies that he was interested in. I'll try and find the details

Edit - I found the site here https://secure.i-allow.com/members/home but can't find anywhere that earns you any money, other than inviting friends to join which is £1 for each one that signs up

I've obviously missed something very important - what/where's Weezl's £100/month plan? (I tried a search of the forum but couldn't find it)!

That sounds great - paying off OD & drawing out again if I really need to/can't raise funds by then may work (£300/module & can pay each one before I start it which means I don't need the full £1800 by September).

The OD is really the only debt I have left (started @ £17k+ so getting there) and I would dearly LOVE to be rid of it.

l.m.hart wrote: »

rising from the ashes
i am by no means an expert on financial matters( i wouldnt be paying debts off if i were)
but if everything else is up to date i would put any extra into the od,banks can take away od's, because our income dropped last year we had ours reduced than withdrawn, spent 6 months paying it off which was a nightmare, we now dont have an overdraft and its nice to be in credit even if it sometimes only pence.:D
i agree with above post, if you do have a spare room have you thought of overseas students this is only short term so less intrusive,

I only recently found out they could take them away - have had it for years (and years and years) and they've only ever increased the limit so never considered it an option - have been in a bit of a panic about it since then.

Also, I would love to see a credit balance for longer than the day my wages get paid in (and even then it doesn't last all day as I transfer money to my "pots" on pay day!


Overseas students sounds good (as don't think I could handle someone here for long periods) & will def look into this. One of my friends does it but as I'm quite far from the city I've never bothered.


Thanks all, think the "sensible" part of me is winning ... more determind to get rid of the OD - FOR GOOD!

rising_from_the_ashes

Inspirespirit re your electric, that really sucks.

I'd def write a letter of complaint - if their employee has made a mistake then they can't expect you to pay the full amount (and especially if they have/are going to add interest to the amount).

I had something similar a while ago but luckily it was just one billing period so it just meant a pretty hefty direct debit for 3 months to catch up which was bad enough - I don't trust the meter readers anymore (not in a horrible way but if you think of the number of meters they check then it's easy to make a mistake here or there) so I now always read the meter as soon as they've left, make a note of the readings and check them against the bill.

Good luck & hope you get some resolution.

dizzy_lizzie

rising_from_the_ashes wrote: »

That's me to a T!
I've obviously missed something very important - what/where's Weezl's £100/month plan? (I tried a search of the forum but couldn't find it)!

Here you are
http://www.cheap-family-recipes.org.uk/index.html?opt=pc

Luv Dizzy x

rising_from_the_ashes

dizzy_lizzie wrote: »

Here you are
http://www.cheap-family-recipes.org.uk/index.html?opt=pc

Luv Dizzy x

Ohhhhhhhh wow, :beer:that looks fantastic!

Added to Favourites and may be busy for several hours .........

mooomin

rising_from_the_ashes wrote: »

Ohhhhhhhh wow, :beer:that looks fantastic!

Added to Favourites and may be busy for several hours .........

The breakfast pancakes are nommy

cw18

inspirespirit wrote: »

(am I allowed to use supermarket names?)

We normally encode them, so that the threads don't come up in search engines.

I use Mr M, Mr T, Mr A, A!di and L!dl.
I could use Mr S and C00p.
No idea where my closest Mr W is.
Our local S/flds (or AutumnMeadows) became Mr M after they were taken over by C00p, as it was one of the sites the C00p then sold off.
There's also a Nett0 in the next town.

Lesley_Gaye

flying_fresian wrote: »

The breakfast pancakes are nommy

they sure are, had them this morning with a few grapes and a small banana all chopped up

I thought I was a pretty frugal cook before getting involved with this, but have saved LOADS

I don't follow the plans as such, but I do use lots and lots of the recipes, and have changed from weekly menu planning to monthly menu planning, plus I now cost up all my recipes and aim at 10p for breakfast, 30p for lunch and 50p for dinner. I don't really know why monthly planning makes a difference, but I know it does. Maybe I am more focussed on what I need, and don't get so many of those little extras that really add up

My SoW is set to £2 per day each for me and OH (for food only), and so far we're on budget, and it really isn't a hardship, we have lots of really yummy food

can you tell I'm a big fan?

midwinter

There has been various posts regarding water,metered or not, useage, cost etc etc.

I for one, actually never begrudge paying my water rates (have been metered in a previous house, unmetered in this one).

My average cost, for clean, drinkable, piped water, and removal of used same, costs me fractionally over £1 per day, (and that's for 3 of us)

There are many countries in the world that would be so very grateful, for clean water, or piped water, or both.

cw18

I don't mind paying for water, but it's one of the bills I have some control over (in terms of the part for how much I use) so I have to try and cut back to a 'not dirty, but not over-using' level in order to balance my books over the year.......