2012 Frugal Living Challenge (Part 1)

Kerry_Woman

Cherryjack - Congratulations on the birth your baby girl.

purpleorchid

hi guys

hope everyone is well.

congrats CJ and Ruby i hope you are feeling well soon hun.xx

did some good frugal shopping today was well chuffed.

had planned on spending £20, but after looking at what was needed for the next month i had to shuffle another £15 from else where :eek:

my bargains today at tesco

comfort pure 75ml x 4 should have been £4, had 4 x 75p off vouchers
cost me £1
2 loaves of 50/50 kingsmill, usually £2.40, on offer for 2 for £2. i had 2 x 30p off coupons, cost me £1.40.
reduced price peppers should have been £1.69, i paid 85p
puff pastry frozen should have been £1.79. i paid 40p.
pack of bodyform should have been £1, i had 75p off vouchers so cost me 25p.
tesco battered cod, usually £2.99, down to £2 so thats only 50p each.
single fresh cream reduced from 89p down to 35p.

so what should have cost me £14.76 only cost me £6.25:)

and even better, my dad came over to bring my birthday cards so i went to tesco with him, which saved on taxi fair, and as my dad didnt use his save £5 when you spend over £40 he gave it to me. so in total i saved £15.11. quite happy with that.:D

on a downside though tesco cat biscuits have gone up by 10p so that will be another 50p a month on the cats.:eek:

i did treat myself though as it is my birthday on saturday i bought a chocolate fudge cake to go with my reduced price cream, mmmmmm
oh and 2 small bottles of fanta and a chicken and bacon sandwich lol. not something i would generally do, but for once im using my birthday money for some things for me. hair cut, indian and the rest on few more bits in tesco when i need them through the month.

Luv P
xx

BDINI- try using bicarb in the bath and have a soak. worked wonders to help the itching when i had chicken pox

dizzy_lizzie

Ruby I'm sorry to hear you're under the weather again. I bet you got the flu because you'd been so poorly before for a long time.
Big hugz to you and hope you feel better soon x

enjoyfinancialchallenges pleased that your xray was ok. I bet that was a huge worry lifted x

Purple you're getting some really good offers with your vouchers at the mo. Well done. Hope you're feeling ok today

Warm hugs everyone
x

More4Less

linz4383 wrote: »

bit annoyed tho as i have asked them to reduce the monthly payments a little, even if its just to £20, and they havent done it and got the impression they didnt want to either!!! so theyll b gettin another call, or email for a call back! save on my phone bill!:rotfl:

When I phoned and asked to reduce my monthly payment I got ...."no dear, that's not the way it works"! And indeed she was right, the bill has just gone up and up. I am on a serious water saving mission now. Stopped having daily baths (which I loved), only flush when absolutely necessary.... I have asked for the things to put in the cistern but still waiting for them to arrive. Paying £35 pm at the mo, and its only a small house, but it is detached, so that puts the price up.

paidinchickens

Sorry I have not been around.

I slipped two discs and have been laid up in bed for nearly two weeks. I had to have the ambulance round at stoopid O'clock in the morning as I was so stuck I could not move an inch in any direction.

I looked like one of those dead bugs on the side of a bug spray can :rotfl:

This is my second trip downstairs :j:j but can only manage a half hour before I hobble back to bed

Painkillers are making me sick and I have sooooooooo much I want to be getting on with. I can't even get comfy enough to read a book so carp films zone in bed for me

It has made me appreciate the small things in life though as when I graduated to being able to get to the loo on my own I felt a whole new lease of life :rotfl:

Probs don't make sense as on these tablets that mush ya mind but do nothing for the pain ??? hey ho it will make an interested read when I am better :rotfl::rotfl:

I will pop and read back missed posts when a little more able

PIC x

Cherryjack

Oh PIC get well soon.. i really hope it lifts fast...i totally sympathise i was laid up for 2 weeks last year .. sending hugs xx

cw18

More4Less wrote: »

I have asked for the things to put in the cistern but still waiting for them to arrive.

Before I got the special 'blocks' (for free) I used 300g coffee jars with plastic lids..... filled them with water and then put them in the bottom of the cisterns. Seemed to do the trick

The trouble with my bill is that actual water use only seems to be a small part, there are lots of additional charges which I can do nothing about.

Mine are mostly standing charges

My last bill (which covered 75 days) shows
water in : standing charge of £6.56 and volume charge (for 4 cubic metres) of £5.83
water out : standing charge of £3.28, surface/highway drainage of £13.52 (!), and volume charge of £4.50

so cost of water was £10.33 and standing charges (over which I have no control, and would be the same however much water I used) of £23.36 :eek:

my annual standing charges are £114, which accounts for £9.50/month of my £13.04 payments :mad:

I wouldn't be surprised to have my payments increased shortly though, as my credit balance over that bill reduced by £2.19 to just £2.50 I think that's the lowest credit balance I've ever had with a utility company.......

SandraScarlett

Massive congratulations CherryJack on the birth of your baby girl. :T:T:T Make sure you get some rest, whenever you can! EFC, my Mum used to call a boy and a girl a pigeon pair too! Glad your Xray was OK, youy had a rotten time of that and you must be so glad now.

Ruby, you're having a rough ol' time at the moment, and hope you make a speedy recovery.

Happy Birthday Purple! :bdaycake: Hope you have a fabulous day!

We had a good day out today at the Dog Centre in Cambridgeshire. Very easy to get to, and lots of other animals there too, goats, cats, horses, rabbits etc, a huge play area for younger children, and it was spotless.

We had a lovely meal in the restaurant, all home cooked, steak and kidney pie to die for, so I asked to see the cook, and said my usual "it's women like you that put the Great into Great Britain" and she was in tears!

It costs nothing to praise and makes someone's day. Then when we came out, DH fell over, :eek:which was very disconcerting, he just loses his balance, and it was a job lifting him up, but DGD and I managed it.

When we got home, he had a sleep and seems fine now, and DGD and I baked our bread! It was lovely! So we had mushroom omelettes with bread and butter for tea, as we'd had a meal at lunchtime.

We're off to the vet again tomorrow with our little boy, so the credit card has had a hammering the last couple of weeks, but there you go - that's life.

Have a super weekend everyone, and I hope all the nasty gerrms disappear this weekend, and everyone is fit and well next week - when we'll then be on the final week of February! :j

xx

Ches

I pay £33 per month and there are 2 of us. We are not supplied with water by Anglian Water but by a much smaller company but we have to pay AW to take the sewerage and they charge a lot for that service. We only have the one bill but its at least £10 more every month than it was in our former house where sewerage and water charges were both by AW. I do feel conned by this present arrangement as I feel AW are getting their own back because our water is supplied by an independant company. I haven't been told of this years increases as yet but I am expecting the charges to be higher this year.

On a more positive note I have just received a letter to tell me of this years increase in the pension. As they say - every little helps.

Budget is going well except for a major spend up this week. Bought the GC school shoes and other bits they needed/wanted and several new items of clothes for myself that I certainly didn't need. Oh well, back on the bandwagon now.

enjoyfinancialchallenges

More4Less wrote: »

When I phoned and asked to reduce my monthly payment I got ...."no dear, that's not the way it works"! And indeed she was right, the bill has just gone up and up. I am on a serious water saving mission now. Stopped having daily baths (which I loved), only flush when absolutely necessary.... I have asked for the things to put in the cistern but still waiting for them to arrive. Paying £35 pm at the mo, and its only a small house, but it is detached, so that puts the price up.

You can put anything into your cistern, such as a plastic bottle full of water....to stop it from floating. As long as it fills the space that the water would normally use it will work. One thing though be careful that you have a good flush now and again....no, your cistern I mean! Mine gets a bit sluggish at times mainly because I don't flush very often...only when essential if you know what I mean plus at night before I go to bed and again around midday. My drainage system is a bit ancient though, every now and again usually when the drains gurgle I have to go and lift the inspection cover outside and help it move along with the garden fork! Yes living in the country certainly brings its special pleasures.

SS re, the things our Mums' used to say, I have wondered for a while that your background is similar to mine, or I should say our parents background. Were they Londoners by any chance? mine were from Walthamstow so were Cockneys although my Dad used to say that the day Mum was born Bow Bells were not ringing. For those who don't know you are only a real Cockney if you were born within the sound of Bow bells. Must go and do a bit more Orange slicing now duty calls. X