Diary of a home owner wannabe (my 6 year journey)

pennyforthepot

EXTREME FRUGALITY WEEK - DAY 4

Housework all done and car has been cleaned - I still need to vacuum the inside which I will do today

Washing - 1 - 3/4 days
Ironing - 1 - 3/4 days
Dishwasher - 0 1/4 days
shower - turned off to wash
Gas - 3 units £3.72 (11 in total for the week so far)
Electricity - 15 units £1.80 (67 units in total so far)
Driving - 12 miles (picked up dd from her dads)
Food - £5.35 spent on a chicken for sunday lunch and packet of biscuits to keep the kids off my back!

No opportunity to do any surveys today:

VO - £0 (£6 total)
OnePoll £0 (£6.70 total)
SurveyHead £0 (£6.54 total)
Screenwise £0.00 (£2.25 total)
Adpoints 0 (502 total) - already collected my max points this week
Tesco points 4 (1051 total)

Daily food budget - £7.83

Opened a new Santander 123 account - already have a joint one and have decided for the moment to put my ISA earnings into the new one so at least I'm earning 3% on it.

Weekly spend this week was a lot better than last week £164 mainly on DH's birthday and food. Much better than the £600 last week :eek:

Treated myself to a bottle of wine last night - £5 plus 50p for soda water in the hope that it will stretch it out a little :rotfl:

Surveys and car vacuuming for me today

PFTP x

pennyforthepot

Limited access to a laptop has prevented me from posting for the last day or two so I will post days 5 and 6 extreme frugality below:

EXTREME FRUGALITY WEEK - DAY 5

Washing - 1 - 4/5 days
Ironing - 1 - 4/5 days
Dishwasher - 1 2/5 days
shower - turned off to wash
Gas - 2 units £2.48 (13 in total for the week so far)
Electricity - 15 units £1.80 (82 units in total so far)
Driving - 0 miles
Food - £26 - Picked up some meat and bits for the month

Not many surveys available today:

VO - £0.25 (£6 total)
OnePoll £0 (£6.70 total)
SurveyHead £1.05 (£7.59 total)
Screenwise £0.00 (£2.25 total)
Adpoints 0 (502 total) - already collected my max points this week
Tesco points 0 (1051 total)

Daily food budget - £7.39

EXTREME FRUGALITY WEEK - DAY 6

Washing - 0 - 4/6 days
Ironing - 1 - 5/6 days
Dishwasher - 0 2/6 days
shower - turned off to wash - no conditioner
Gas - 2 units £2.48 (15 in total for the week so far)
Electricity - 18 units £2.16 (100 units in total so far)
Driving - 0 miles
Food - £4.04 - veg for dinner

No surveys today:

VO - £0.00 (£6 total)
OnePoll £0 (£6.70 total)
SurveyHead £0.00 (£7.59 total)
Screenwise £0.00 (£2.25 total)
Adpoints 0 (502 total) - already collected my max points this week
Tesco points 0 (1051 total)

Daily food budget - £7.59

Beautiful day yesterday - shame it's not so hot today

PFTPx

edinburgher

PFTP, extreme frugality does not allow for the use of either gas or electricity.

You should make a big nest for all the family, you can live in one corner of one room and you can sublet the others to a kebab shop (or similar) :rotfl:

Also, what is this food of which you speak?

Pearla*Merle

:rotfl: edinburgher.

pennyforthepot wrote: »

When my mum bought her last house over 20 years ago now it came with a brand new dishwasher - after 20 years it still hasn't been turned on and that is despite many years of 8 people living in the house and 16 for Sunday lunch :eek:

I am in awe! That has to be some kind of record. :think:

pennyforthepot

edinburgher wrote: »

PFTP, extreme frugality does not allow for the use of either gas or electricity.

You should make a big nest for all the family, you can live in one corner of one room and you can sublet the others to a kebab shop (or similar) :rotfl:

Also, what is this food of which you speak?

:rotfl: I was thinking of removing all sofas and replacing them with bikes that when pedaled will generate electricity - so the kids can only watch tv by pedaling very fast. Corner of the room Edinburgher - we have a shed - then I can sublet the whole house out :rotfl:

And food - I was just pulling up some grass out of one the beds and discovered it was spring onions, also passed a dead badger at the side of the road - so no need for Tescos anymore!!

PFTP x

pennyforthepot

Pearla*Merle wrote: »

:rotfl: edinburgher.


I am in awe! That has to be some kind of record. :think:

My mum was the master of frugality - my dad was so tight with her that she used to buy sausages and slice them in half length ways to make them look more. She also took in 4 students when her DH was made redundant - for a couple of years mum and her husband shared the bedroom with my two sisters. She did all this whilst holding down a full time job and a Saturday job selling kitchens in a DIY store. She has since bought 3 buy to let properties, two of which she has passed on to my two sisters with only a small mortgage on each.
MY MUM IS MY HERO :A

Can't think where I get my frugal ways and determination from

PFTP x

pennyforthepot

Final day of my extreme frugality week to report.

EXTREME FRUGALITY WEEK - DAY 7

Washing - 2 - 6/7 days
Ironing - 1 - 6/7 days
Dishwasher - 0 2/7 days
shower - turned off to wash - conditioner used - no more straw
Gas - 2 units £2.48 (17 in total for the week so far)
Electricity - 20 units £2.16 (120 units in total so far)
Driving - 0 miles
Food - £14.96 - reduced price chicken fillets for the freezer, reduced price Tesco dishwasher tablets and reduced price sweet corn.

surveys

VO - £1.75 (£8 total)
OnePoll £0 (£6.70 total)
SurveyHead £0.00 (£7.59 total)
Screenwise £0.00 (£2.25 total)
ipsos - 300 (300 total)
Adpoints10 (512 total) - no more ads for me to watch
Tesco points 10 (1061 total)

Daily food budget - £7.25

Well that was an interesting experiment. I think I saved around £10 in gas, maybe £1.50 in electricity, and possibly a couple of pounds on my water. I earned around £20 in surveys and nectar points and ended up with straw like hair :rotfl:

I don't think I could do that every week, the surveys drive me up the wall as much as anything. But by being a bit more vigilant I think that I can get back into the black with my gas bill which currently stands at £190 in the red. It amazes me just how much we use when I break it down on a daily basis. I am hoping to use the surveys to help me make Christmas cash neutral, along with a few other money earning antics. (my SIL has asked me if I want to do some decorating for her next month).

Picked up some bargains in Mr T this morning. Bought 3 years supply of dishwasher tablets for £30 (based on the assumption that I only ever use half a tablet and will still wash up when i can ).

Back to the lists tomorrow (you may have noticed I have not mentioned business accounts for some while now - it's called procrastination :eek:)

Looking for my next challenge

PFTP x

edinburgher

I was thinking of removing all sofas and replacing them with bikes that when pedaled will generate electricity - so the kids can only watch tv by pedaling very fast.

This book already did it

What did you do to cut your electricity? I've found it quite an easy area to reduce costs, albeit with no kids

pennyforthepot

edinburgher wrote: »

This book already did it

What did you do to cut your electricity? I've found it quite an easy area to reduce costs, albeit with no kids

I do love a good bit of dystopia :eek:

If I'm honest I didn't try too hard to reduce the electricity over the week mainly because our usage is below my DD and I don't have a great deal of control over it's usage! kids are the main culprits as they all have masses of technology which seems to be in use all of the time and they forget to turn off despite my nagging and DH is on his computer all day. The worst offender is DD who has a really cold room so she has an electric heater to boost the heat up. You can see the electricity units whizzing round when she has it on.

I think that reducing the amount I used the dishwasher, washing machine and iron had the biggest impact. I always switch the lights off when no-one is in the room too.

PFTP x

pennyforthepot

OMG -checked my energy account as I am due for my quarterly statement and I am £399 in debt for my gas usage :eek: I thought it was £190 :eek: - mission minimal gas usage for the next 7 months here we go. I suspect that my dd will go up by £50 to clear it - not what I want to hear. I have been monitoring my usage weekly since feb and knew that I was over my monthly dd but not by that much. I think I was already in debt from the previous quarter.By my calculation that means we have used £900 of gas over a 6 month period :eek:

Really tired today as DH has been waking up at 5am for weeks now. I can normally drift back off for an hour but for some reason I couldn't this morning. I've done all my house jobs for the day but should really be tackling the business accounts. Too tired for that so I am going to sit down for a couple of hours and do some reading. I might attempt some surveys but I've already been thrown out of one (think I'm too honest) I think OnePoll is in order for the day

PFTP x