2012 Frugal Living Challenge (Part 1)

rubytuesday

Happy Belated Birthday mumwithamission!

Dizzy lovely photo though maybe a tad 'Don't Look Now!':rotfl:

Fantastic news Slowly.

NSD for me.

:j We have snow - I love it!

Visited my elderly neighbour today and she informed me someone had tried to break into her house around 3am one night this week so I informed the police.

Not sure what they can do but felt it was the best thing to do and they will send someone out to see her.

JayneC

Ruby - that must've been so scary, hope she's ok.

SF - glad your dress fitting went well you'll have a lovely day

DGS birthday today, got his presents (a Ben 10 lamp and blanket cos he has a ridiculous amount of toys!!)with survey vouchers so that was very frugal. We went out for tea but ex OH paid so that really helped.

Did an Aldi shop on Thurs with the £5 off voucher and have a £4 off voucher for Sainsbugs tomorrow so am getting well stocked up. Will probably get away with £20 shops at Sainsbugs for the next couple of weeks (With the £4off voucher of course ). I normally spend up to £10 per person per week so not too far off the £1 per day mark and I only shop at supermarkets if I get the vouchers. Normally I use the local grocers and butchers. Actually that amount includes dog/cat food, cat litter and household/laundry stuff so probably is less than £1 per person per week. I do have to confess that DD2 normally buys her own lunch and snacks too. I think the biggest savings is on junk food. I rarely (if ever) buy biscuits/crisps/cakes, but I do bake my own. We have fruit/yoghurts/crumpets/toast for snacks sometimes a bowl of cereal if particularly hungry but DD2 is the biggest snacker and she buys her own munch. Also DS is at his dad's for tea twice a week which helps. We eat things like spag bol, I'm good with 'rubber chicken', corned beef hash is a good cheapie and I get lamb from a CSA scheme so we have that for a treat. DS loves pasta and cheese so that's a good standby or jacket spuds with cheese or tuna. HTH some people.

Have worked out that I need to raise at least an extra £300 per month, on top of normal repayments, to get my debts paid off within 2 years, so am currently plotting ways to do that. I've registered with EBid but not used it yet, not worked out whether it may be just as well to await free listing on ebay especially for lower priced items. Have photographed a few items so may write up the descriptions in Word so can just cut 'n' paste when I'm ready to list. Am trying to do a few surveys per week but often get screened out cos I never buy anything and it's often about consumer choices!!!Still doing mystery shops but they don't pay particularly well and there's not many about cos I live in a very small town without many chain pubs/shops. Will do it tho am determined!!!

Anyway I've rabbited on enough. Hope everyone is doing ok am now off to take the dog for a walk in the snow. Catch up soon. x

miss_empty_piggy

Loads of snow here. I see you are in Scarborough Jayne C and was wondering what it was like there? I work in Scarborough and hate driving over Staxton hill in the snow. Hope your dog walk was nice.:)

rising_from_the_ashes

mumwithamission wrote: »

Had a birthday in my absence and went bowling with the family using a Groupon voucher (cost £12 I think when it should have been nearly £60! (would anyone pay that much???)) Then had lovely meal in P!zz* Expr*55 c/o Clubcard vouchers which paid for the food and used an email for a free bottle of wine they'd sent me as a birthday gift! Lucky me. Today I spent my birthday pennies on some lovely 1/2 price winter boots from Jones's. Feeling very blessed .

A bit belated but .....

Sounds like a fantastic frugal day!:D

slowlyfading wrote: »

My dress is so so so pretty :j :j and it fits perfectly, so the weight loss has been worth it

Awwwwww, that's wonderful SF



Well, was supposed to be meeting a couple of MSEers for coffee today but we called it off last night due to the weather. Having looked outside, I'm quite relieved - not a single snow flake in sight :T but it rained & has frozen and the street (not gritted:mad:) really does look like a sheet of ice:eek:.

Hopefully it'll be better tomorrow or it may have to be the bus to work (takes an hour + by the time I walk to the bus stop a mile away - compared to 15 mins in the car.....)

Will be staying tucked up inside I think and work on the SOW a bit more!:o

Stay safe everyone and have a lovely Sunday.

mooomin

Shame we had to call it off Rising, but I know what you mean about the frozen streets - ours looks like Narnia and we're in town! I think it's a day for snuggling inside with frugal passtimes - I'm going to do some crafting and watch some telly, nice and relaxing

rising_from_the_ashes

flying_fresian wrote: »

I think it's a day for snuggling inside with frugal passtimes - I'm going to do some crafting and watch some telly, nice and relaxing

Totally agree!

DM brought me some of my aunt's books that she used to make the characters from Peter Potter - they were fantastic and I'd love to give them a bash. I've not had a chance to look through them so will set aside some time today:).

I also have loads of wool so need to decide on my next project so feel some hunting around for inspiration & easy patterns!:)

Will get a new date organised ....

Thrifty_Sister

Dizzy - beautiful picture but glad I am looking at it from my nice warm house!

Rubytuesday - love your sigsnatures. A lot of people I know would do well to be more like that.

Was going to attempt to get out yesterday to do a small top up shop but didn't bother due to weather so it turned into a nsd instead. Felt quite smug knowing this though. Might just be my new secret pleasure:D

Thrifty_Sister

JayneC wrote: »

Ruby - that must've been so scary, hope she's ok.

SF - glad your dress fitting went well you'll have a lovely day

DGS birthday today, got his presents (a Ben 10 lamp and blanket cos he has a ridiculous amount of toys!!)with survey vouchers so that was very frugal. We went out for tea but ex OH paid so that really helped.

Did an Aldi shop on Thurs with the £5 off voucher and have a £4 off voucher for Sainsbugs tomorrow so am getting well stocked up. Will probably get away with £20 shops at Sainsbugs for the next couple of weeks (With the £4off voucher of course ). I normally spend up to £10 per person per week so not too far off the £1 per day mark and I only shop at supermarkets if I get the vouchers. Normally I use the local grocers and butchers. Actually that amount includes dog/cat food, cat litter and household/laundry stuff so probably is less than £1 per person per week. I do have to confess that DD2 normally buys her own lunch and snacks too. I think the biggest savings is on junk food. I rarely (if ever) buy biscuits/crisps/cakes, but I do bake my own. We have fruit/yoghurts/crumpets/toast for snacks sometimes a bowl of cereal if particularly hungry but DD2 is the biggest snacker and she buys her own munch. Also DS is at his dad's for tea twice a week which helps. We eat things like spag bol, I'm good with 'rubber chicken', corned beef hash is a good cheapie and I get lamb from a CSA scheme so we have that for a treat. DS loves pasta and cheese so that's a good standby or jacket spuds with cheese or tuna. HTH some people.

Have worked out that I need to raise at least an extra £300 per month, on top of normal repayments, to get my debts paid off within 2 years, so am currently plotting ways to do that. I've registered with EBid but not used it yet, not worked out whether it may be just as well to await free listing on ebay especially for lower priced items. Have photographed a few items so may write up the descriptions in Word so can just cut 'n' paste when I'm ready to list. Am trying to do a few surveys per week but often get screened out cos I never buy anything and it's often about consumer choices!!!Still doing mystery shops but they don't pay particularly well and there's not many about cos I live in a very small town without many chain pubs/shops. Will do it tho am determined!!!

Anyway I've rabbited on enough. Hope everyone is doing ok am now off to take the dog for a walk in the snow. Catch up soon. x

Jayne - thank you for your tips on money saving. I will take advantage of them if you don 't mind, as I too need to make all the savins I can.:beer:

Thrifty_Sister

flying_fresian wrote: »

When you look at the formatting, you want the formula to specify that the colour only goes red if the amount is greater than the amount in cell XXX.

It's easy enough once you play with it, but I'm not good enough at Excel to explain it well

Frugal day here at Fresian Towers. Having done my first meal plan in months I set myself a budget of £15 for our weekly shop. Only one unplanned thing went in the trolley (cat treats) and I spent £18. The overspend was because of the £4 of chocolate for Mr Fresian, but he paid for it so I was within budget

I was meant to meet a friend for lunch, but she's not well so we're going to aim for tomorrow, unless she's still ill. As a result, I've spent most of the day in my craft room watching rubbish telly (thanks to my cheap LoveFilm deal bought in the Amazon deals week) and making pretty cards. I'm now totally chilled out and about to have the slow-cooked chilli I made this morning for dinner. Hurrah

Well done on your meal plan - another idea I'm gonna pinch, if you don;t mind. As I had a nsd yesterday I reminded myself how resourecful I can be when necessary. I had forgotten/lost sight of how good I can be when required and reading back over this thread has given me the kick start I needed.

Also, well done on your ww weight loss:T:T:T:T:T:T:T

brizzledfw

Hi all

thrifty sister ( love that username!) ..I am finding that meal planning is saving me money and time..money cos I make sure we don't have meat every day for example..am trying to eat more veggie and use the SC..but also time as we have so many LOs that we are actually making them into a main meal rather than just having for weekend lunches etc. saves me and OH time cooking and fussing about the next meal but also making my DDs realise you need to eat stuff you don't always like/ have to finish it all

Have fun..

Brizzle