2014 Frugal Living Challenge

skintygerlinky

PS forgot to add - my signature is from a song called 'Nothin' Going On But The Rent' by Gwen Guthrie. Definitely my theme tune and was giggling as I heard it being played in the card shop today!!

focus888

Evening all!!

Today was a bit of a big spend day. Big family occasion but instead of going to restaurant and spending £100+ I spent £50 on ingredients and made the biggest feast ever everyone was satisfied. It was totally worth it. Thats my big spend out of the way now for Feb.

This week will try not to spend much money, except going swimming will cost a fiver on Monday hoping tomo will be NSD x

cw18

skintygerlinky wrote: »

£4 in card factory - bought vast majority of birthday cards for friends and family for this year, taking full advantage of the '5 for £1' offer!

Between a visit to Quality S@ve on 6th Jan and C@rd Factory on 7th Jan I have all but 2 card for this year and all but 4 for next year out of 18 needed for each year (excluding Christmas cards, but I've found loads of those in the house so only need a couple of specials when the time comes). And I've enough wrapping paper to last me for several years (probably decades!)

Antwerpen

Morning

Atm it's sunny, so we might pop to Sainsbury's so DD can spend her birthday giftcard. Going to pop into Lidl and then go to John Lewis for free coffee and cake, I'll just need to buy DD a drink. Then probably go to the park (might pop home first so I can fill up my flask). Hoping it will be a little spend day!

Buffythedebtslayer

Morning, have cleaned the fridge out, made a list and will be off to Sainsburys. Wanted to walk the dogs down to the forest but they are so badly behaved it is a bit of a stress. also not feeling great. am in a right mood!!


Hope you all have a lovely day xx

abby1234519

cw18 wrote: »

Between a visit to Quality S@ve on 6th Jan and C@rd Factory on 7th Jan I have all but 2 card for this year and all but 4 for next year out of 18 needed for each year (excluding Christmas cards, but I've found loads of those in the house so only need a couple of specials when the time comes). And I've enough wrapping paper to last me for several years (probably decades!)

The problem I have is that I live in Harrogate. The town where discount shops do not exist. I used to live in Leeds, Home Bargains was my most bestest favouritest place ever.

We now have a Poundworld which proved useful for baking parchment (however someone cleared the place out of it!!!!!!) and a few other bits although to be honest I don't frequent it that much. I haven't worked out what actually is good value that I need. I bought tupperware and now the lids don't fit.

All I want is a card factory, a home bargains and maybe a Farmfoods. To get to any of those I have to drive to Leeds. So its not worth it at the moment. Once I have depleted all of my food stocks I will make the trip and probably spend a few hundred quid!! I would go to Costco to top up on massive bags of sugar, chocolate chips etc and then Home Bargains for mountains of toothpaste, Card Factory for about 10 years worth of birthday cards...

Until then I have to use the main supermarkets. I actually visit them all, apart from Morrisons as I've decided Morrisons is expensive. I compared a few prices and I was not impressed. Sainsburys for lemon curd and I quite like their value range. Asda when I can't be bothered. Lidl for when I want to top up on salami and pepperoni. Oh and we have their double strength squash at 99pence which is cheaper than Asda's own.

I spend a lot of money at the Co Operative. Now on the face of it that sounds unfrugal but actually it isn't....my other half works at the Co-Op so firstly I get a 10 percent discount. On the saturday after he gets paid that goes up to 20%. So I only buy reduced meat when it gets to at least 50% off. And that means good nice meat for a lot less than even lidl. Generally it isn't worth it, pudding rice after 20% off is the same as Asda with no discount. However this weekend they are doing 4 pints of milk for £1 (same as asda and lidl) and with 10% discount it is cheaper.

Its a battle trying to save money!

bassitt74

Hi all, made a fresh loaf yesterday. They really are so easy to make. Anyway wanted some for breakfast toast this morning but only had butter to go on top which is fine but I fancied something else as well, which I didn't have.

I was about to buy some but as I was going through my cookbooks for this weeks meal planning I came across this receipe for homemade microwave lime curd. You can swap the juice for lemon or even orange, it all work the same way, and it's a doodle to make. It make a small jar which is fine for me. I tend to throw out a lot of half jars because they've gone bad before I can use them.

Anyway here's the recepie:

Juice of 2 large lemons or 4 small limes
2 eggs
110g caster sugar
60g butter

METHOD:
Mix the lemon (or lime) juice and eggs together and strain the liquid into a bowl. Stir in the sugar and then add the butter.

Cover the bowl with cling film and cook the mixture on high for 1 minute.

Remove the wrap and give the mixture a stir. Return the bowl, uncovered, to the microwave and cook on medium for 6 minutes, a minute at a time, until the curd thickens. Whisk well after every minute, to prevent curdling.

remove the bowl from the microwave and continue whisking until the mixture begins to cool down. The lemon curd will begin to thicken on cooling.

Pour into an air tight container.

1 lime =2 tbsp of juice
1 lemon = 2-3 tbsp of juice

abby1234519

I have two questions actually.

Can you freeze spaghetti hoops? We buy small tins for LO's Wednesday lunch (he is at home with Daddy every Wed) because we used to buy big tins and half would go to waste. Its cheaper to buy a big tin if you are going to freeze it. But I've never frozen spaghetti!

Secondly please suggest a recipe to use up leftover roast lamb that isn't shepherds pie or a curry. I need to find a way to use some of the lamb up on the 4th day and I've run out of inspiration

bassitt74

I find the tins themselves don't freeze so well, but I can freeze the contents ok if I decant them into freezer tubs/ bags. Remember to write the date.

Frugaldom

Good morning everyone, hope January went well for you all and apologies, once again, for not keeping up with the posts. You know where I am if anyone has any queries about this challenge.


My January household budget spends were nearly double my monthly average, so they amounted to £637.65 in total. This included a year's BT line rental up front, a freezer order and a starting balance of almost £200 in the electricity meter so I don't need to worry about topping it up for some time.


This month is my Frugal February challenge month to crush spending to the barest minimum, even although the annual house insurance premium needs paying in full. (This saves almost £30 over the year.) I'll be blogging and posting about this one elsewhere, sorry, can't bring it on here.


Will try to catch up at some stage but in the meantime, keep on frugaling.