2014 Frugal Living Challenge

Coulddobetter

Poorly today so NSD. Used up food from freezer and cupboards. Ran out of fresh milk but found some UHT.
Bank have changed online info and our mortgage is now showing :j
it is great I have paid off another £11.41 to round off the mortgage, makes me feel so much better. OH finally thinks paying off the mortgage is a good idea:beer:
I have opened a savings account with my eBay sales to try and stay focused on making extra money. Listed 4 items yesterday but no takers yet .....
CDBx

Florenceem

No spending here today. Tomorrow I plan to sew a couple of dog beds with removable covers. All the materials to make them will come from my stash so - no cost - just my time - and I LOVE sewing.

chirpycheap

Had the family around (ten of them) for a meal and instead of doing my usual over the top shop I did it on a budget. I cooked everything from scratch so it took a lot longer to prepare but I saved such a lot of money it was worth it. Normally I would buy ‘bung it in the oven stuff’ – Pizzas, Party food platters and frozen gateaux etc.
However I searched through my recipe books and found recipes that either used stuff that I already had or that used cheap ingredients. I made a Sweet Potato and Spinach bake that used up a pot of long life cream and some frozen spinach. I made a Lentil Loaf and a home-made pizza. I also did some Roast vegetables and Baked Potatoes and baked my own bread. For dessert I made a Rice pudding, a fruit crumble using some frozen fruit, a Chocolate Pudding from the Aldi reduced shelf and I made up some cupcakes from a box on offer at the supermarket (69p) and had those instead of a birthday cake.
I didn’t buy all those little extras that really add up the cost of entertaining. The fancy pots of salad, the huge range of drinks plus a little of what everyone fancies. I was a bit worried as I have a reputation for laying on a good spread but actually everyone raved about the food and because I didn’t over cater I wasn’t left with loads of leftovers. I spent less than £20, at least half of what I would normally spend on a family do and we even had some Lentil Loaf left over for tomorrow’s lunch!

Frugalsod

A NSD for me today but yesterday I bought some things off Approvedfoods and tomorrow I have to get milk so this week will have been a bit of a failure but I did get some real bargains and my slow cooker has provided me with 15 meals for the next month or so, so my spend going forward should also be much lower. Overall I think I am making good progress.

Buffythedebtslayer

hello,


Non frugal ness - had to buy my lunch. 3.83.


Frugalness - sainsbury's came to 27 pounds. I am having Corned beef spinach sweetcorn and tomato salad for lunch tomorrow and Wed, fish paste sandwiches the rest of the week. Can't wait....


Dinner was from the freezer and will be for the rest of the week.


I dyed (hopefully) my bean bag cover pink. hopefully.


I am going to paint my room this coming weekend and am hopefully going to dye the curtains dark purple (may end up dying the cover again so it matches- the pink is experiment with food colouring) and paint the walls white plus the furniture. Finally I shall have a nice room all for under £30 - well that is the budget I have set.


xx

mum2one

[Deleted User] wrote:

What a lovely, uplifting post. Well done on your frugal journey so far.

I am looking forward to the end of the month and finalisng my emergency fund. It is through living frugally and simply that I have even decided to set asdie money in an emergency fund.

I feel my whole mindset has changed over the past couple of years of working towards a frugal lifestyle. Where before if I wanted to do something to the house I would just take out a loan or put in on a CC. I do want to redo my bathroom and kitchen over the next few years but plan to save towards this instead.

In Feb one of my planned purchases will be 2 of those cup/flask things so that OH and I can take these when we go on long walks to drink in the car after. This will work better for us than using the big flasks we have as we will just take enough for a cup each and he can take coffee in his and I will have tea in mine. Anyone know where to get them for a good bargain price?

We've had a selection of them in the house and the best ones were from Adsa - think I wouldn't have paid more than £2 each for them.

The trouble I have found is when you have had a drink and gone to push the opening back it doesn't close properly, and can be prone to leaks,

Weve brought £1land, Home Bargains, The Range, independant shops, - but asda have won hands down.

There great in the summer as well, I sweat a lot (theres a posh medical name) and lose so much fluid that I need to carry fluid all the time, and the Adsa ones are brilliant for cold drinks as well as hot. day out need 2 litres of fluid.

No spend days (bar £4 for table top sale, but we made the money back and little bit of profit)
Also sod some items on facebook sellers - 3 cameras, picture frame - £28 less to find for holiday...

Tomorrow-
Hoodie nightdress to go back to Asda £5
Set back to boots as aftershave was missing £4.60
(that then be transfered to pocket money for DD - just need to add 40p) - normally gets end of month this way its money neurtral.

Taking her clarnet into a 2nd hand music shop - sells on your behalf - so fingers crossed.

---
Quiet day tomorrow - then plan clean airing cupboard out x

Shortie

Oh my goodness nat21luv :eek:


So today was a super-spendy payday, whilst trying to rubberise the remainubg pennies..

I paid off my tax bill (just got to keep an eye on the payment reaching the tax man), paid off the last of my eldest's school residential in June as school dinners until the half term (roll on warmer weather and the return of pack ups!)

A lovely freegler has offered us something that went over her polytunnel before so that we will have a free roof on our polytunnel frame which will be attached to a shed in our garden and will be where the chooks live. We might have enough chicken wire for the bottom half of the frame now too making it a much cheaper task. It also means we can affort to get a chap in to fix the fence posts that broke in the high winds in November as I worry next door's dog will get in our garden again

I've also emailed our local council about work we need to do to our annex pklua eztra we want to do while there so that we know what we will be facing when we've finally saved

Productive day but I've only just been paud and my money is vanishing fast!!

p00

KazLA wrote: »

After the encouragement here, I have been exploring Swagbucks again. Thought the main page was just offers for buying stuff, but after someone mentioned ''surveys/videos on home page" I hv looked further and found a survey for 70 SB. Just completed it. As it says points will be added in 3-5 days, does that mean it doesn't add to my daily total/goal? Or will it suddenly appear there in a few days and give me a head start one day?

Understanding it a little more I think. Put video page on, and although 3 SB isn't much for 10 videos, I found I could do it while making/eating lunch easier than necar ads, as you didn't have to keep clicking the screen while watching.

I also found the health and fitness section, and ran a few yoga videos, so did 10 mins of exercise at the same time!

Surveys I have done go on straight away if they have tracked normally. Swagbucks is a lot of work for small returns most of the time. Try cashbackers.com too as it takes less than 10 minutes to earn at least 50p, is relIable and you can cash out from 1.00. If you get stuck pm me.

Xxp00

Goldiegirl

Good morning!

I'll be going out in a while, as I need to get a couple of essential items from Boots.

I'll also have a mooch around the shops just to see what's around, but I am quite controlled, so I won't make any impulse buys!

I mentioned in a previous post, that my husband fitted a new siphon in the cistern.... Well, the handle isn't working now, so I need to get a new loo handle. I'll get it on eBay, using money in PayPal. PayPal is there for small household purchases and treats, but I'd much rather have a treat than a loo handle!:rotfl: plus, there's a little leak so he's got to sort that out too. It's all a bit of a pain!

Then I'm going to carry on with eBay things. I'm currently selling off all our old LP's. There's quite a bit of work involved, as each record has to be inspected for marks and scratches, photoed and a description written up. I want to get a library of photos and descriptions set up. When the nice weather gets here I want to spend time working in the garden, so I won't have as much time for eBay, so at least I'll have lots of things prepared for listing.

I'm doing a chicken and chorizo stew for dinner. I found the recipe on the grocery thread. I'll do enough for 4 portions, and freeze half for another time.

[Deleted User]

mum2one wrote: »

We've had a selection of them in the house and the best ones were from Adsa - think I wouldn't have paid more than £2 each for them.

The trouble I have found is when you have had a drink and gone to push the opening back it doesn't close properly, and can be prone to leaks,

Weve brought £1land, Home Bargains, The Range, independant shops, - but asda have won hands down.

There great in the summer as well, I sweat a lot (theres a posh medical name) and lose so much fluid that I need to carry fluid all the time, and the Adsa ones are brilliant for cold drinks as well as hot. day out need 2 litres of fluid.

Thanks for the tip. I will have a look the next time I am in Asda.

I need to clear out my linnen cupboard too. I may have a bash at that tonight. I am slowly but surely decluttering - my wardrobe was done a few weeks ago so it is time to tackle something else.