2012 Frugal Living Challenge (Part 1)

Frugaldom

Good morning to all and thank you, JayneC

I've read all the posts, appropriate responses to all, but I need to send special wishes to Lola_L I won't write here what I think of the situation but you are right to be suspicious. I'd simply have it out with him and get one major headache, that you don't need, resolved. I really hope you can sort out the heating problem, too. Could you ask about for some electric heaters? 2C indoors does not sound healthy - and I thought I was bad with my 9C kitchen in it's partially renovated state. :eek:

This month I am doing an extra special grocery challenge, as I am reassessing things. I need to make sure that it is still possible to budget on £1 per person per day, but I won't bore you with all the details here.

Hope everyone is managing to keep warm and that nobody else has any car disasters. (We have one in the household too - DS's is completely dead and his work is 40 mile round trip from here and there aren't any buses.)

Paid my BT line rental for a year (£120), so that took the January spends up to £450 in total. £90.54 of that was on groceries and the bulk of £200 of it was electricity, coal and logs, so heating still costing much more than eating.

rubytuesday

meg72 wrote: »

Followed the link but price showing as £22.45 amI doing something wrong.

I was quite impressed with Nicky loo rolls.

The offer has expired now unfortunately.

I missed it too.

Quite few NSDs for me of late cobbling things together for dinner.

Made a bean chilli last night but unfortunately it wasn't all that - I used a three bean salad to save buying anything else (certainly didn't want to go out in the cold again after my walking group outing) and that really spoilt the taste.

Guess what I've got for lunch!

quintwins

have been buying a few gifts, bought ds a debtime charlie bear for £5.75 and i bought another 12 dvd's for £14 including a few disney and pixar so i'm pretty happy

does anyone know how much it costs to phone an 0844 number? i couldn't get the dvd offer to work and didn't wanna wait and risk them going out of stock, but i was on the phone for over 10mins trying to get the deal

off whoospie shopping later, not much room anywhere so will try to only get fruit and bread to see us threw til next week, i need some nappies aswell so will nip to sainburys for a pack.

had a lovely creamy curry for tea last night, i'd def make it again tasted nothing like chinese so i'm still craving some but it was still yummy

Sessie

Quintwins - try the website saynoto0870.com. This often has freephone numbers for those that are given out to the public as 0845, 0844 numbers etc...

May well get you a free phone call!

x

rubytuesday

Maybe 10p a minute or something - usually tells you somewhere on the site or whatever.

quintwins

i found it it says

National Rate Call). No more than 5p per minute from UK landlines.

even if it cost me 50p i'm still happy

findingmyfeet

Frugaldom wrote: »

Good morning to all and thank you, JayneC


This month I am doing an extra special grocery challenge, as I am reassessing things. I need to make sure that it is still possible to budget on £1 per person per day, but I won't bore you with all the details here.

Hope everyone is managing to keep warm


I like hearing/seeeing the details, its very interesting to see how you manage it all and keep the bills so low. When you have been doing it a long time and are well experienced at it i find it a big help and gives other people ideas we may never have thought of. If i could get groceries for DH and myself for £14 i would be in financial heaven:rotfl:very good weeks i manage £25 to £30. We are semi rural and dont have all the whoopsies etc and lots of big supermarkets to fall back on. We do have a lovely aldi 7 miles away which i love. i am fortunate that DH isnt fussy and as long as he has a big plateful of food every evening he is one very happy man.

LOLA-hope you can sort out your situation quickly think the time has come for serious questions to be asked and answered. uour health needs alot more heat , try to get warmer!! hugs:o

purpleorchid

did a small shop this morning as i was in town anyway.

tesco

2 x sharwoods stir fry sauces, 2 for £2 but had a voucher for £1.50
aunt bessies custard, 53p, had voucher for 50p
bisto cheese sauce in tub, £1.07, had voucher for £1.50
blue dragon hot shots,50p, had free voucher
4 pinter of milk, £1

iceland

2 x huggies pure wipes, @ £1 each. had 2 x £1 vouchers

total=£1.10

not bad for the 1st day of the month, so far i have worked out that i will only need bread, cat biscuits and milk this month, i really need to try and get some money together and sort myself out this month, didnt realise how mentally stressing it is to try and keep it all going.

hope everyone is ok

Luv P
xx

rubytuesday

Chilli tasted quite nice today - always better next day and I mixed in some pepper bousin.

Will have a little spend today as I'm going to Play Back theatre - the audience relay a personal story and the actors play it back.

Hopefully girlie will come to so a fiver each.

rising_from_the_ashes

OK so first month over and things came out quite positive - overall 8.22% of budget spent against an allocation of 8.33%.


Q 1 Having had a think about the way I've got things broken down - I've got a lot of things in "anything else" (which is now a huge budget), and currently covers everything from stationery to dentists, glasses, haircuts etc.

I'm thinking I'd like to take things like these out and put them into the "reg" payments section with their own budget and reduce the "anything else" one accordingly - would you just go ahead & do that even though we've started the year?


Q 2 I've now had confirmation that my CT / Water has been frozen for 2012/13 :j but I'd originally added a bit extra to the budget to cater for an increase.

Would you change this to the new figure (and say add the extra to the "anything else" budget which will need help if it's being reduced as Q1) or would you just leave it and have it showing a big underspend over the year?

Hope that makes some sort of sense!:o