2012 Frugal Living Challenge (Part 1)

cw18

Welcome to the world of no TV licence purpleorchid

I find it quite liberating (14 months since I cancelled mine), and enjoy being able to watch what I want when I want to courtesy of DVDs :T

I've built up a pretty good collection of box sets funded (to a major part) by the £145/yr I would otherwise have been paying to watch the same-old when the powers-that-be fancied airing it

My new chap isn't at all phased by the fact I don't have one, and happily brings over DVDs to watch here (he's a biiiiiiig fan of D!sn3y and similar which I also love, so we're working our way through his collection 1 or 2 DVDs a weekend) while his eqpt at home is set to record anything he doesn't want to miss. He then catches up with that during the week, before repeating the performance the following weekend :rotfl:

Savvy_sewing

I am struggling still. Definately spend more the days I say I intend to save!
Twins twisted my arm today for £100!! for two laptops that the housing jpeople had been holding for them. The deadline for them to have saved for them was today. And of course they hadnt saved. But how they are expected to save anything out of the Jobseekers when each of them have a home to run is beyond me. But it means that I havent got any savings in my ISA anymore.
So the prospect of a good back up fund has gone by the wayside.
Then I paid for a hotel that I shall be stopping in in Bristol for the OS meet!. That was over £200!! so thats not very MSE at all really.
On the plus side the Council have agreed that they owe me over £380 on Petrol and have sent me out a couple of cheques except they failed to put my surname on one of the cheques so I doubt I will be able to pay it into my bank.
My Dad very kindly bought me a new printer today. So I will be able to print off my letters/receipts etc and of course any coupons that I want to use when necessary.
I hope that I will have the willpower to get myself back on track soon. I dont want to undoo the good work that i managed to do over the last few years.

rising_from_the_ashes

Just a quick visit ...... payday :j so budget sorting day:D.

Money transferred from "main" account to the "bills" one so no need to worry about anything for the month:D and all "pots" have been paid too - there's even a little (not a lot!) left over! :j

Anyway, while in a budgeting mood, thought I'd post SOW update before March's figures go in tomorrow:



Car obviously well overspent - but tax, breakdown cover, service & tyres now done:) and hopefully it should only need "bits" until next Jan.

Groceries still a bit overspent (happened during Jan) but stocks good (all household cleaning & washing stuff for a min of 6 months and no meat required for at least a month!)

Mobile will have to look at this again as I've just ordered a new phone (on contract):o - it is £21/month but with the cashback redemption, it brings it down to £8.50 ... not quite sure how to reflect that tho - will have a think!

paidinchickens

PurpleWell done on the TV licence :j we got rid of ours a few months ago and well and truly do not miss it.


Things we have cut back on this year.

My smoking cost around £10 a week and sometimes a little more so I have guesstimated I have saved around

£650 a year on fags

We used to have two bottles of wine between us a week which cost us a tenner so if you counted any parties of visitors add a little extra on top so probably another

£650 a year on wine

We now brew our own from foraged fruit for pennies but have not drunk since Christmas as I am on too many painkillers to mix with da booze.

Take aways we used to have one a week. As there are five of us it cost us £780 a year but have cut down to one a month a saving of

£600 on take aways

Last minute eating out of Sunday dinner at the local pub which used to happen once a month and now longer do at all. We don't really like the food in is lazy going so now have frozen home made meals in the freezer a saving of

£600

Total £2500

cw18

PIC - great savings there Well done :T

dizzy_lizzie

rubytuesday wrote: »

Just to let you all know we took Marmalade on her final journey this evening - it was time.
RIP Little Minky.

Oh Ruby. Haven't logged on for a couple of days and just seen. So sorry. Huge hugs for you.
Bless Marmalade x x

cw18

Spreadsheet all updated for February, and looks like this...



I've introduced a new category since the end of last month for garden expenses. I decided I need (as a major priority) to get my f&v production going this year (still not really got a real grasp of it all, but my chap grows some of his own and has offered to help me ), but in order to see what this saves me against my grocery bills I need to keep track of the costs of growing it.

I've also increased my overall budget from £9.5k to £10k. I couldn't see where I could cut back in order to allocate an allowance for the garden, and I've also struggled badly with groceries and 'anything else' this month (see later) so wanted to increase those too.

At the end of January I was overspent on 7 categories - this month it's 8 :eek:
Council Tax - over last month, back within this as no payment in Feb or March
Mobile Phone - still expecting that I'll be in the black before year end.
Endowment - this will be in the red until year end.
Breakdown Cover - annual bill that comes due in January, so stays in the red all year
Road Tax - same as breakdown cover
Personal Trainer - overspent as of this month, due to the fact I pay every 10 weeks. Will be in credit again from tomorrow until July...
Running Expenses - still over as this month saw me pay club membership, plus I got in some specialist nutrition to try out for long runs. May come back within budget in March (don't currently see a reason why it won't).
Groceries - even with what appears to be a high daily allowance I've struggled badly this month £11 was spent on a takeaway for me and my chap which didn't help things (he normally pays, but as he also pays for the petrol to get to mine it doesn't seem fair to always expect him to). still leaves me with a £11+ overspend though, so (as I'm trying to move towards leaner cuts of meat, and at least some organic f&v) I'm increasing my daily allowance even more from tomorrow !!
Anything Else - still over, and my overspend this month is even more than last :eek: this month has seen 2 prescription charges (almost £15) which hasn't helped, but the bulk of it (£83.40) has been on 10 titles from the 'for Dvmmies' range all of which are to do with nutrition. I've half read one of them (borrowed it from the library before ordering, and returned the library one as soon as mine arrived so there was no risk of me mixing them up and making personal notes in the margins of theirs!!) and have almost finished another. 7 of them arrived today, so I'm just waiting on delivery of one more (which is 5 days overdue already, so I'll have to be chase it up tomorrow). They're great books, and (with the exception of 1) all seem to strongly inter-link with all the others, which is what I wanted The exception is 'the Mediterranean diet' which doesn't fit with 'the Vegetarian cookbook' due to so much being fish based, nor with 'the Lowfat cookbook' due to the use of olive oil in so much (but at least it's good fats). It does fit with 'Eating Clean', 'Superfoods', 'Controlling Cholesterol', 'the Cholesterol Cookbook' and 'Nutrition' (all of which also fit with 'Vegetarian' and 'Lowfat'), but don't know (until reading them) how it fits with 'the GI Diet' or 'the GI cookbook' (which both appear to fit with all the others). I still have a huuuuuge wish list of other related titles on Amaz0n, so can see a fair bit more of this budget being spent on at least some of those later this year - with everyone being told what I'm still missing and asked to work it out amongst themselves come the run up to Christmas


Underspent on the other 14 categories by varying degrees, but by enough that the bottom line (the all important figure) is still showing a credit balance. This is up from £39.06 at the end of last month to £100.08, which is an increase of £70.19 - but given the increase of overall budget means I've had an extra £83.33 to 'play with' it's not actually as good as it looks

SandraScarlett

AN ODE FOR RUBY

So another dear friend to her rest has been laid
We all feel for you Ruby - Rest In Peace, Marmalade

As the memories of "Minky" flood the space in your heart
You'll remember the times you were never apart

Though you know she won't be at your side, come tomorrow
I believe God makes tears to wash away sorrow

So though she's not with you, her memory won't fade
God Bless You dear Ruby - Rest in Peace, Marmalade

xx

rubytuesday

Aah thank you Sandra that was so lovely!

That will help wash away some sorrow. xxx

paidinchickens

Erme wrote: »

Apparently according to an old instruction book I got off the restore site it can even do butter :T....(like from cream)...I had no idea how to make it when it was whoopsied the other week :eek: Now I know...let it go (like stand) for 3-4 days then whiz taking off the buttermilk ....simple...

I made biscuits in it the other night but the creaming (maybe it was the small quantities?) would have been better done in the magimix (my magimix is mega tiny LOL)...

Want everything for it now LOL...Missed out on the £3 cover as like I was asleep...

E

No need to let it stand, just chuck the cream in the mixer until it separates, wash til water runs clear..........tadah you have butter made in the kenwood.