2012 Frugal Living Challenge (Part 1)

SandraScarlett

Winchelsea wrote: »

SandraScarlett - my mum had the Patsy's book - I'd forgotten all about it! And she had the Stork cookery book as well - I had that until it fell to bits. I always used its lemon meringue pie recipe - the best ever, and I developed quite a reputation for it. Unfortunately as I no longer have it, I don't remember the proportions exactly. Have tried other recipes, but none so far are up to the mark!

Frugaldom wrote: »

SandraScarlett, that's a 'must find' book, wondering if my gran has a copy of it, as that's where I got my latest winemaking paperback.

For anyone on the search for this book, although it was in colour, only green and red were used (if I remember), but I know Patsy's Mum had a friend called Mrs Always, and she would come out with statements like "I Always beat my reconstituted egg for 10 minutes" and other pearls!

I remember the Stork book too - isn't it funny how clear these things are, yet this morning's news is quickly forgotten. I remember my Mum used Cookeen and Trex, and who can forget Omo, Lux, Dreft and Vim - in the tin!

xx

cw18

SandraScarlett wrote: »

I remember my Mum used Cookeen and Trex, and who can forget Omo, Lux, Dreft and Vim - in the tin!

vague recollections of Trex, Lux and Dreft, but definitely remember Vim in a tin

purpleorchid

afternoon

rising- i hope you are feeling a bit better today hun.xx

girls i think the only name i have heard of is trex and thats vaguely. i was born in 1974 so did i miss those?

had to pay a bill today although not bad was only £12.40 but the annoying thing was i had to use my credit card to pay it or i would have had a charge for late payment. i dont get money until week today and the payment has to been in on the 16th grrr. annoys me, i cant seem to catch up with money in the bank. i WILL get there though.

on a better note i had £4.50 in tesco vouchers and i think i did quite good.

8 pints milk - £2
1kg box cat biscuits - £1.09
pack 0f 8 irish recipe sausages - 89
and for a treat, a big bar of ryelands bubbly choc, was only 69p and tastes the same as aero

so only had to pay 17p

was also very good, went into new look as im struggling for clothes as im losing weight all the time, had a look around picked a few things up, went to till, then thought i can manage without these. so put them back and walked out lol. so glad because i would have put £50 on my new look card.

Luv P
xx

kerri_dfw

I'm still catching up with the thread, but thought I'd jot down that I've set my grocery budget at £1040 for the year for one/sometimes two people. That's about £20 a week and I'm currently running slightly overbudget but hoping to rein it back in. I don't have a collective amount to live on as my circumstances are changing on Monday (new job) but that should mean I won't have to pay travel or lunch expenses anymore
This frugal living is going to be hard on me as I'm not used to it, so I hope you'll be patient with me. I might lurk for awhile until I get really used to it

SandraScarlett

kerri_dfw wrote: »

I'm still catching up with the thread, but thought I'd jot down that I've set my grocery budget at £1040 for the year for one/sometimes two people. That's about £20 a week and I'm currently running slightly overbudget but hoping to rein it back in. I don't have a collective amount to live on as my circumstances are changing on Monday (new job) but that should mean I won't have to pay travel or lunch expenses anymore
This frugal living is going to be hard on me as I'm not used to it, so I hope you'll be patient with me. I might lurk for awhile until I get really used to it

Slightly over budget is brilliant! It's really hard learning how to budget, if you've never done it before, and there's few of us that manage to rigidly stick to every plan.

Good luck on your frugal journey, and massive amounts of good luck in your new job.:)

:beer:

xx

dizzy_lizzie

Yay Lola. Thanks for joining me on the challenge
Shall we start gently by making one new meal in the next fortnight? And put a piccie up.

JayneC Good luck on your new challenge

Reading about old recipe books reminded me of my mums little Bero recipe book. Had her own little notes in that she wrote by the side of the recipes. Unfortunately I've no idea what happened to it. Brought back sweet memories of mum baking in the kitchen. Bless her.
Off for a week for mid term. I'm soooo looking forward to having some me time.
Warm hugs everyone.
x

SAVVYJADE

Sorry if already mentioned and I missed the post, but eBay have a 'no insertion free weekend' this weekend, according to the email I received!

Hth x

JayneC

Thanks Dizzie hopefully it'll keep me motivated.

Savvy Jade I saw that too and gave a little 'whoop' is that a little sad. Will be photographing some stuff later.

Got a whoopsied FR chicken from Sainsbugs yesterday for under £5, so was very pleased with myself. Planning to make some chicken stock with some of the offcuts and then turn into soup later today.

Re old recipe books I have a Marguerite Patten book that my mum got for me when I got married (some 27 years ago) that I still use regularly. It's falling to bits but it has all the basic staples (making pancake batter/different types of pastry/sauces/etc) in it as well as more 'adventurous' recipes. I have quite a few other cookbooks but that's definitely may fave.

seriouslyfrugal

SAVVYJADE wrote: »

Sorry if already mentioned and I missed the post, but eBay have a 'no insertion free weekend' this weekend, according to the email I received!

Hth x

thanks for that must start to ebay stuff again


not much to report here lucky for us we appear to have escaped the worst of the weather - been walking this morning and it was cold :eek:
popped into the library afterwards

and i'm being treated to dinner at tg* s for my cousins 21st so thats a treat and tomorrow i'm going to see " the vow" at the cinema I get 2 for 1 as I have a cea card ( if anyone gets DLA this is a good deal )

have a good frugal weekend everyone stay safe & warm

dizzy_lizzie

SAVVYJADE wrote: »

Sorry if already mentioned and I missed the post, but eBay have a 'no insertion free weekend' this weekend, according to the email I received!
Hth x

Ooh thanks savvyjade. I was just going to have a look on ebay and see if it was. I'll get relisting :T

JayneC wrote: »

Thanks Dizzie hopefully it'll keep me motivated.
Savvy Jade I saw that too and gave a little 'whoop' is that a little sad. Will be photographing some stuff later.

You're welcome Jayne. Looks like we know what we'll be doing later

seriouslyfrugal wrote: »

i'm being treated to dinner at tg* s for my cousins 21st so thats a treat and tomorrow i'm going to see " the vow" at the cinema I get 2 for 1 as I have a cea card ( if anyone gets DLA this is a good deal )
have a good frugal weekend everyone stay safe & warm

Enjoy your evening seriouslyfrugal

Popped into work today to pick up this book from our Bookman that pops into work. For £5 it's fantastic. Going to knit the little teddy from it today. It looks just like the one from Mr Bean but the pattern looks so easy. The patterns and projects are really aimed at younger children but as I'm not really a knitter, I crochet more, I think they'll be just perfect for me
I sorted out my wool stash last night and I've got lots of scraps of wool I can use for the little projects in the book.
Was quite interesting sorting out my wool. For some reason I had lots of different shades of blue and quite a lot of yellow. Mmmmmm strange. So the frugal side of this post is, I've already got the wool in and the book was very cheap
Happy Friday everyone :beer:
x