Living for free 1/1/07

Fishcake_Random

thanks, unfortunatly i dont live near London but its was a very kind thought thank you.

regards
Fishcake.
x x x

phizzimum

glad to hear that you're ok fishcake and sticking with the challenge!

Bendybops19

Wow this is going to be very interesting I'm feeling a bit inspired now!

Angelselondon

I, for one, would be interested in all the details. Do you have a daily blog on this?

If not, you should, I find it amazing.

Leanne
x

Fishcake_Random wrote:

Hey guys.

Well my total spend so far this year has been £15.31p not bad eh?
All in all its going well. its amazing how quickly everyhing comes second nature. ummm... update stuff.

my food supplys are lower but we have enough for a while yet. plenty of veggies and i have a chicken as well.

my electric bill was the lowest yet because i the only thing turned on 24/7 is my freezer and that is always well stocked. were planning to cook as much as possible on bbqs and bonfires when the weather gets better.

i could bore you with every item i brought but mainly it has been basics.

flour, sugar, butter (brough 6 pats for £1) bicarb. some reduced biscuits.
2 bottles of coke when we got stuck. freezer bags and a shower curtain.and a bag of pegs cos someone nicked my peg bag.

my current craft project is making a new peg bag from some old curtains and then to make something with the left overs. it was a massive curtain.

hope your all well out there.
feel free to ask questions if you wanna know more.

love
fishcake.

edited; sorry i worried you guys.So much has been happening i havent had chance to post.

ViksB

fishcake you are beating me
I have had to fork out for some house insurance but other than that I have spent £67.96 excluding electricity council tax etc etc
I feel very disapointed with this compared to you!!

Viks

angelatgraceland

I can always accept a challenge but it simply is NOT living for free! To fill that freezer cost money, and unless you go on a daily bin dive at the back of the supermarkets you will continue spending money. However, I wish you luck-I am all for cutting down and not giving in to consumerism. Growing your own is far better than Pizza hut too-tho some will disagree. do give us more details though-we all want to learn how to do it!

smitty2702

Good luck to both of you doing this, I dont know if i could manage for a year but as we r pretty deeply in debt i now ask myself before I buy anything if i actually "need" it so im one step in the right direction.
when the weather improves you could always do a car boot sale to sell off some bits and use the money from that to buy anything you are running really short on.

moestar

Brilliant, Fishcake. That's a real challenge and it sounds like you're doing extremely well.

If you have some spare time and there is an organic/non-intensive farm near you, it may be worth asking if you can barter a bit of work on the farm for veg/meat etc. Great if you/partner has skill with carpentry, engines, welding etc but even some spare pairs of hands come in very useful. A lot of these farms (I live on one) are run on a shoestring and depend on barter to keep going.

Also worth tracking down local veg producers and seeing if they'll let you pick through their leftover veg - we do this to get past-it veg to feed to the pigs etc, but there's often veg in there that's perfectly good, it jsut takes a bit of sorting from the dodgy stuff, so it doesn't make business sense for the producer to do anything with it. Good source of free veg! And you can always take the past-it stuff for compost.

Wishing you lots of luck!

M

dianadors

I take my hat off to you.
I started reading this site about a year ago and as a direct result I set my family a personal challenge of having twice as much fun for half as much money - we were spending loads on our entertainment bill, 2 adults, 2kids (but old enough to be charged as adults at some venues ie theme parks etc). Thanks to this site, we manage to have at least 4 times the amount of fun as we used to for hardly any outlay. Last year, we managed the cinema with free tickets at least once per week - often twice. We used tesco vouchers for meals out. We also got a free meal for all of us at Waggamamas in Leeds (should have cost over £80) We bagged free tickets to Alton Towers for all 4 of us and Donnington Park Renault races. My sis and I got the free Spa day. We have had a whale of a time for hardly owt! It has made me look at other area's where we "waste " money. Food, electricity, holidays etc and I really enjoy the challenge of getting more for less. I have never felt that we are "cutting back" I always feel that we are getting much much more. At the end of last month we were still in credit for the first time in a very long time - and that included not putting Christmas on credit cards like I always have in the past. Weve still got some way to go, but all the family - including the kids- are up for the challenge now - which can only stand them in good stead for the future. My dd wont buy new clothes now unless they are on the sale rail, and loves it even more if they are hand me downs from a friend of a friend (she calls these "vintage"). One of our biggest savings is holidays - we love as many holidays and weekends away as possible. We discovered camping and now manage 3 fabulous holidays in beautiful locations plus almost every weekend from late spring to early autumn for less than £1000 per year. We previously spent at least £2500 on a fortnights holiday (not including spending money!) I feel that I am getting much more out of life and its costing me a lot less.

Fishcake_Random

hey everyone

i now have a live space account so i can log my stuff on there
heres the address. http://seraitom.spaces.live.com

love
fishcake