2012 Frugal Living Challenge (Part 1)

Frugaldom

New thread is open but please continue to use this one until the end of 2012 - we have over a week to go before starting again.

quintwins

Morning all have joined the new thread, i have sicky kids off school with the cold so means a quite day at home with lots of cuddles and sadly lots of heat on so not very frugal, have lifted my £1.12 chicken out of tea, will do it with some reduced turnip, some roasties from the sack or spuds, some yorkshires and some gravy...yum real comfort food and very cheap at about £2, tomorrows dinner will be casarole with the lo chicken, and a bag of 10p reduced casarole mix.

Gonna turn the heat off now, watch a dvd in bed with the kids then light the fire

rising_from_the_ashes

Hope the kids are on the mend soon Quintwins

Well - I've decided that I'm going to go through all the links on the Handy Links post again ... I have been through them before but it's been a while:o

I'd forgotten how great some of them are eg the jars with recipes in for presents and I'll def be doing more of these next year!:)

[Deleted User]

CW, great to read your update and so glad things are going well for you and your new man. Thanks for taking the time to update the spreadsheet.

natnat13

Hi all
I haven't been on here for absolutely ages. Been a hell of a year, marriage broke down, moved from own house into rented with my two children, bit of a roller coaster, so even though money and budgeting has become a much bigger issue I fell off the "recording it all and coming on to the forum" wagon and most of the time haven't a clue whats going in and out.
So I have just signed up to the 2013 challenge and am determined to save, save, save. I am lucky I have no debt and my ex is buynig me out of my old house but there won't be enough money to buy another so I intend to stash it and save, save, save to buy again.
My aims are to write everything down, buy only what I need, do some surveys etc to get vouchers to pay for gifts, not waste things, say no to people, generally the same as everyone else. I also have a big orchard / garden at my new house that I want to grow my own veg and have a couple of chickens so I need to get started with that. Thats me really, oh and I have two jobs which is good and thank god for tax credits!!
I'm going to do a budget etc and start planning, 2013 will be a good year for me!
Nat x

[Deleted User]

Welcome back natnat. best of luck with your savings this year.

SandraScarlett

Just put my head round the door to wish all my Frugal Friends a Merry, but Modest Christmas, and a Fun but Frugal New Year. :beer:

xx

LolaLemon

I roasted my 'free' pheasant tonight, forgot I was cooking and nearly set the fire alarm off to wake the whole street, but I caught it on time.
We went to kelburn castle at the weekend for the craft fayre, entrances was free, normally £8.50 an adult. Has a secret forest, graffiti covered castle (coming off soon, was only allowed on as it all needed rendered. Loads if stuff for kids to go explore. Santa was £3, the only thing they charged for. Son got to spray some acorns gold, sprinkle with glitter and take them home. They where selling pheasant at £4.50 for 1 or 2 for £8. My bf, cheerily asked for the last 3 for £8 and they gave him them!!! He was like the cheshire cat all day haha.

So that's what is going in the lunch boxes tomorrow


Glad things are working out with u and ur chap, Cheryl. Can I recommend you keep a food/feelings diary. It !!!!!! a pattern better and will possibly help u with the Dr. Me and my son are severely intolerant to cows dairy, yet as its not a proper allergic reaction, the drs can't/won't do anything. The diary helps I put in what I eat each day, and how I feel throughout the day ... I.e. wobbly tummy in morning, feeling run down, just need to sleep all the time, gunky eyes, itchy skin, to I'm struggling to breathe. When I check back, a day or 2 I can see I have eaten something that has very small amounts of cow products in it.

All the best for 2013.

quintwins

Morning all, think i'm getting ds's cold my throats sore and my eyes are really itchy, i got called into work last night so we never got our chicken dinner, i left hubby to sort it and he cut into the leg decided it was pink and made the kids sandwichs, it was cooked fine it was just darker meat but i really didn't wanna deal with it when i came back, soo plan for today is a nice strong sweet coffee to get me going, then strip the carcass, half in the slowcooker with some casarole veg for tonighs dinner and the rest in the freezer, then a quick tidy up, a nice hot bath (free hot water from the heating and no water rates ) then get some washing and ironing done, nip to asda to see if they have any reduced milk or fruit cause i'm running low, collect the bigger 2 from school and i'm thinking a dvd in bed is called for it i'm not feeling any better (thats code for we all have a wee nap nothing better than snuggling in bed with our kids on a cold day when you and them aren't in great form it keeps everyone happy)

I got my pay it was £154 to £70 more than last month and i was expecting

Hubby however has money in his pocket so is spending it like it's going out of fashion he bought 2 heat lamps which it turned out he didn't need at £16 then he went for bread and wrapping paper and got a multipack of crisps, then he spent £3 on milkshakes, i think it's the festive season frying his brain.

cw18

LolaLemon wrote: »

Glad things are working out with u and ur chap, Cheryl. Can I recommend you keep a food/feelings diary. It shows a pattern better and will possibly help u with the Dr.

When I do my calorie counting I keep a complete food diary on a website, and there's also a journal panel for each day that I use for monitoring saturated fat intake (for my cholesterol). I was thinking of extending that to include comments as to when I feel mildly/badly wheezy