2012 Frugal Living Challenge (Part 1)

slowlyfading

LolaLemon wrote: »

Tonight I made, and I'm supper proud of it all :-) , home made honey and mustard pork rib steaks, salad with a lemon n garlic dressing. Boyfriend was even impressed, which is very hard to do when it involves food.

This sounds seriously yummy.... :drool:

slowlyfading

[Deleted User] wrote:

After much deliberation folks, I have decided not to renew my gym membership this year. I really need to get back into focussing on being more frugal if I am going to reach my savings target on SFs 'Save 12k in 2012' challenge. I have been very slack on the money front recently and especially last month. Strangely I felt in a bit of a guddle last month and also felt I deserved to spurge a bit after paying off the mortgage but I really need to get back on track now.

I always think that unless you are really dedicated to going to the gym and go at least 4 x a week, it's not worth paying the money to go! I made that mistake whilst at uni - paid for a monthly membership, went about 3 times never doing that again!

dizzy_lizzie

Well the rain stayed away for our beach trip Thrifty. The sun shone and the skies were blue! We were so lucky. Hope it stays fine for you too. Need to have a bath soon though. Finding sand everywhere!
Slowly from your smilies it looks like the book's really saucy, oh 'er missis!
Allie well done on resisting the gym membership.
Aw Lola. Give Malley cat a huggle from me when she's ready.
Hi Rising. No need to apologise. The thing about trying to be thrifty and frugal is that some days/months are never the same so it seems to be peaks and troughs.
Hope everyone is enjoying the dry weather, makes a lovely change
x

mcculloch29

I got sent a trial of a new butter substitute spread today that reminded me of something I used to do that I'd completely forgotten about. About 25 years ago I used to extend tubs of Stork by beating in water; it made the spread lighter and used to stretch it by quite a bit.
I've not felt the need to do that for a number of years, but the consistency and look of the new spread was exactly that of the one I used to produce for myself.

dizzy_lizzie

Thanks Thrifty I'm sure it was you that mentioned the Abakhan sale. I meant to go yesterday when it was 25% off but forgot. Went today and it was 20% off so still good I think. Bought some assorted material and rico cotton yarn and a few other bits. I've brought my sewing machine down and sewing basket to start but now I'm watching the Rosol / Nadal tennis match and the sewing has gone by the by. It takes a lot to get me motivated these days to do crafty stuff so I think the tennis is really a bit of an excuse to laze on the sofa and surf on here
I often think my posts don't contain much on the frugal front but posting on here does keep me on the straight and mostly narrow, so hope no one minds if I digress slightly.
Oh before I go I have got a really big frugal bit to add. If anyone wants to brush up on any languages or other subjects, DS told me about this great site called 'Memrise' and it's totally free!!!!! So far I've learnt 50 new words in French. Worth a look and it's fun and interesting how the lessons get you to remember things.
Have a lovely evening everyone
x

Erme

I just found a cardigan pattern (more than one) that might be useful to some folk

http://www.garnstudio.com/lang/us/pattern.php?id=2538&lang=us

Looks lovely don't you think? Love the neckline and it's fitted...

So that's what I'm doing. Sorry you're leaving Sandra but understand why. Family comes first

Hugs

E

mcculloch29

I'm doing well with product trials at the moment. I've just been offered a four week laundry product trial via a survey site (Valued Opinions). Like the spread trial, it's a product that is completely new to the market, which is a bit exciting. As is the shower gel I'm trialling.
We've escaped the truly dreadful weather that some have had but it's still not brilliant, our cloudbursts were fairly brief unlike some. How many of those affected won't have insurance, I wonder.
Also one house fire incident up here was caused by a solar panel being struck by lightning. I think these will be a rising cause of fires in the future, much as I favour them in principle.
It could have been much worse, those living in the house didn't know they'd been struck, didn't speak English and it was only the determined actions of neighbours that got them out.

Savvy_sewing

Well the funds are in my bank account already! Yipee. This is a great bonus after having just come back from holiday. It means that I dont have to transfer funds from the savings account to the main account to cover the start of the months DD's.
This will give me time to get back in the swing of things. Now with all the benefits sorted out. (Fingers tightly crossed here). I should be able to sort things back out.
I still put 10% of everything i get into the savings account, including the cashback stuff, and interest that I recieve as well.
I was wondering if I should try and put a bit more than 10% and see if that makes a difference? Even if I put 11% or something? As I write that I think that I will try that. I shouldnt notice much of a difference but 1% of 100% is £1 afterall. So it will still add up.
Mind you it will mean me getting the calculator out and working it out as I cant do 11% in my head without the grey cells gettign rather confused. So my child benefit of £20.30 will be £2.23 instead of £2.03 so an extra 20p.
I have made a new set of tote/shopping bags this week, with some calico I bought on Wednesday market, and some belts along with some African photograph printed fabric panels.
Really pleased with them, and its been suggested that I would be able to get £15.99 each for them. So I will finish them and get them out onto the websites at the beginning of the week.
I didnt spend anything of my own today, but I ended up putting one of the Twins debts on to my credit card. £45 court fine for non payment of TV license! So annoying.

Savvy_sewing

P.S. I earned £15 yesterday for altering two skirts and a dress! Bonus.

mcculloch29

Mooloo wrote: »

Mind you it will mean me getting the calculator out and working it out as I cant do 11% in my head without the grey cells gettign rather confused. So my child benefit of £20.30 will be £2.23 instead of £2.03 so an extra 20p.
I have made a new set of tote/shopping bags this week, with some calico I bought on Wednesday market, and some belts along with some African photograph printed fabric panels.
Really pleased with them, and its been suggested that I would be able to get £15.99 each for them. So I will finish them and get them out onto the websites at the beginning of the week.
.

I'm sure there are bagaholics out there who will love the totes, Mooloo.

Percentages are easy if you work them out by breaking them down rather than by the conventional maths methods -and using the grey cells is better than using a calculator.
10% is easy - divide the original amount by 10. 1% is easy - divide the 10% by 10. Halve this for 5%, double it for 20% and so on.
For any calculation, work out the 10 percents, 5 percents and the 1 per cents - or whatever you need - and add them all together.
Have a look at this. I use it quite a lot in my teaching. You need to open the resource file link, n2l1workerouter.pdf, which is an Adobe Acrobat (PDF) file:-

Percentage worker outer

The website it's on, Skillsworkshop, is brilliant - I use the resources A LOT. Some of them are even exercises I wrote!