2012 Frugal Living Challenge (Part 1)

seriouslyfrugal

natnat13 wrote: »

Just reading one of my favourite blogs and thought this would inspire anyone new to frugalling -

http://frugalincornwall.blogspot.com/2012/01/cash-diets.html

Thanks for this very interesting :T

Frugaldom

Popping in to welcome our newest challenger, Mumtothree3. Thanks for joining us and well done on making the decision to follow a frugal lifestyle. :T

Best wishes to all who are feeling down, under the weather or who have poorly relatives. I hope things improve for all concerned quickly and that everyone's feeling better soon.

Congratulations to everyone who has achived goals ad/or made savings, found super bargains or cleared some debt.

Grocery shopping seems to be about the only thing I can keep on top of at the moment, as the cost of heating the house while it's being renovated is quite scary.

Best moneysaving bargain of the year, so far, is my new dehumidifier - RRP around £250 - got it for £25 plus 25 points through our local LETS group and it's never been used. Whirring away in the background now, drying out the washing and the house at the same time. It's even managed to raise the kitchen temperature from 10C to 13C, so that's an improvement. :j

Dinners are being cooked in the 3-tier electric steamer at the moment, managing to do meat, potatoes and veg, one in each tier - if it's beans or similar, they go in a shallow glass bowl covered with tin foil. Works out much cheaper than using the oven and rings on the cooker, fewer dishes to wash saves hot water and cooking fresh, unseasoned veg should make it a healthier option.

Bread is being baked in the breadmaker every few days using the bulk bought, cheap bread mix from App Food or BBFL and the slow cooker is on at least once a week for a huge batch of soup or broth. Morning porridge is being microwaved and today I baked a batch of biscuits and some fruit bread. Mothly ROSSPA order now placed for start of February and my final grocery budgt for January amounted to £89.14, but that did include New Year's Day dinner.

Someone mentioned the pric of laundry detergent and stocking up prior to potential redundancy, sorry, I have forgotten who. If you look in the handy links in first post, you'll see link to the homemade laundry gloop. This costs a fraction of the price of shop bought and saves a small fortune over the year, so my emergency supplies list would always include washing soda and cheap soap. HTH

Winter certainly isn't the time for dieting, is it? I keep forgetting! :doh:

dizzy_lizzie

Maypole what a shock you must have had when you saw the car! Just beggars belief that people can do this sort of thing and drive off without a thought for what they leave behind!

Septemberblues hope all goes well for your mum.

Flying-fresian like with rising I really hope all ends well and the job situation stays as it is. It must be awful to have that constant worry on your mind. It's a frightening thought that jobs can be taken away so easily.

Sandra hope you've got over the incident. Nowt as queer as folk, as they say.

Natnat I also read 'frugal queens bl*g' she is very inspiring. I love her matter of factness and honesty.

So looking at my weekly budget for this month I have gone way over but I know for a fact it would have been skyhigh had I not been accounting for it so I'm not being too hard on myself.
Yesterday I treated myself to some new material and buttons for some craft projects so looking forward to doing something creative. Not sure what yet though...
Hugs to all
x

mumwithamission

Had a few big unplanned spends this week, with long term frugalness in mind - lots of cards (bulk order from Phoenix) and presents for birthdays and next Christmas :eek: from sales. Also ordered few much needed items of work clothing for DH at great prices. So being careful as careful as I can, and earning cashback with Quidco (which will go in my Sealed Pot!)

Winchelsea

First of all, thanks to everyone for all the kind thoughts.

Frugaldom - re laundry gloop, I'm finding it really hard to find washing soda lately. I begin to suspect there are a lot of OSers out there making their own washing powder or gloop!

While I wait for it to show up on the shelves, what I'm using in my washing machine is some cheap shampoo that I bought but didn't like the smell of. I tried it just as an experiment, and quite honestly it seems as good as anything else, even though I only use a small squirt. And because it's so diluted, the smell isn't an issue.

But, bring back soda I say!

SandraScarlett

rubytuesday wrote: »

Rising I don't think you need the ' but I'm getting a bit confused myself now.:rotfl:

:rotfl::rotfl: I think "the mother of one of my friends" get you out of the apostrophe problem quite well! I suppose if you are talking about one of your friends, you are implying you have more than one friend, so no apostrophe. If you're talking about something belonging to your friend, in this case her Mum, then it would be "my friend's Mum" and not "Mums" cos your friend only has one mother!

The apostrophe would have to be inserted after "friend" and before "s" because it's in place of the word "her". But because you said one of my friends ..... well it goes after the s, cos it's in place of "their".

??????????? I've now read all the above through and it doesn't make any sense to me whatsoever, and I'm more confused than you!!!! :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

xx

Kerfuffle

SandraScarlett wrote: »

:rotfl::rotfl: I think "the mother of one of my friends" get you out of the apostrophe problem quite well! I suppose if you are talking about one of your friends, you are implying you have more than one friend, so no apostrophe. If you're talking about something belonging to your friend, in this case her Mum, then it would be "my friend's Mum" and not "Mums" cos your friend only has one mother!

The apostrophe would have to be inserted after "friend" and before "s" because it's in place of the word "her". But because you said one of my friends ..... well it goes after the s, cos it's in place of "their".

??????????? I've now read all the above through and it doesn't make any sense to me whatsoever, and I'm more confused than you!!!! :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

xx

:rotfl::rotfl:

I'm not sure but I think it should be "my friend's Mum's recently had an op", because it's instead of " my friend's Mum has recently had an op"

But I'm not too sure :rotfl:

rising_from_the_ashes

rubytuesday wrote: »

Rising I don't think you need the ' but I'm getting a bit confused myself now.:rotfl:

SandraScarlett wrote: »

:rotfl::rotfl: I think "the mother of one of my friends" get you out of the apostrophe problem quite well! I suppose if you are talking about one of your friends, you are implying you have more than one friend, so no apostrophe. If you're talking about something belonging to your friend, in this case her Mum, then it would be "my friend's Mum" and not "Mums" cos your friend only has one mother!

The apostrophe would have to be inserted after "friend" and before "s" because it's in place of the word "her". But because you said one of my friends ..... well it goes after the s, cos it's in place of "their".

??????????? I've now read all the above through and it doesn't make any sense to me whatsoever, and I'm more confused than you!!!! :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

xx

Kerfuffle wrote: »

:rotfl::rotfl:

I'm not sure but I think it should be "my friend's Mum's recently had an op", because it's instead of " my friend's Mum has recently had an op"

But I'm not too sure :rotfl:

Well, I'm glad you're all as confused as me!:rotfl:

My grammar isn't too bad but this kind of thing always stumps me.

I was ok with the "one of my friend's" bit as her mum does indeed belong to her;) but the "mums" had me totally stumped.

I shall try to remember Sandra's wise words for the future "the mother of one of my friends" would solve everything!

septemberblues

Morning all, thanks for the great frugal ideas of things to take/give to my mum in hospital, I think I will make a little "hamper" with some of the ideas and give it to her after the op. I specially liked the idea of hand cream, I have loads I have been given for xmas.....................I can put some to good use I've also got loads of shower gels, some of which are quite small as they were in a gift box etc,:D I feel really pleased I can give her a nice pressy that probably won't cost anything, I even have the left over xmas cake in a tin to give to her, so I will package it really prettily and take some slices in.

I have thought and thought what I could give her and come up with virtually nothing, so seriously guys, thanks for your help.

quintwins

sorry to here about ur mum, i can't really sugest anything

not much happening here shopping coming later, have seriously reduced the use of my dryer, but the amount of heating we use as went way up with the wee cold spell

lots of bills this month, i think having quarterly. anual bills coming out at the same time is a bad idea i find it depressing but i know it will balance out