2014 Frugal Living Challenge

TM6

I keep on seeing 'C.R.A.P.R.O.L.L.Z' in people's signatures - what does it mean please?

afoolwithmoney

Well my cupboards & freezer are almost bare. Been very inventive with meals & OH has been eating things he has never touched before lol Candle light works!! The problem is that a lot more pastry, crumble & bread have been consumed (not good for my diet). Not saved as much this month as OH hasn't had as much work but we will end Feb in credit
I get paid mostly in cash & Ive found that it helps me to put every penny in the bank & treat it like a prisoner. I love seeing the balance rise & really really think before I spend any lol Never bothered me before!! Another one is as Im on minimum wage I work out how many hours I have to work to pay for something again it really makes me stop & think. Interested what works for others?

Frugalsod

Another NSD, but will need some milk within a couple of days. I have plenty of cash to do that so will not need to touch accounts.

tatabubbly

Won't be having a NSD today but will be having as LSD as I can! Forgot that I agreed to girls night out.. I do have 2 for 1 dinner vouchers though that I can use that will take to total down. I need a few bits in the house as well.. I might cancel girls night though.. It's kinda an unneeded expense.. Bah humbug.. I know its gonna be a spendy weekend.. Just hoping my OH makes it home

abby1234519

NSD for me today, I may have to pay for petrol but I don't count that as its for work. I also only put in enough petrol for 3 days at a time means I can manage it.

My conundrum today is...Dad is coming to ours for tea on his way home from Cumbria to Nottingham. I've defrosted 8 lamb chops (little ones from Co-Op). They are tiny but 2 per person should be okay? Only issue is there would be 2 left over so do I cook them and reheat tomorrow for OH's dinner or do I give him and dad 3 each. I'm doing well with diet, day 3 of shake diet. Haven't bought lunch obviously because of it so its saved money!! The only thing I did buy was coke zero because I needed the bubbles to fill my tummy.

Tonight I will be eating lambchops as the protein and fat are okay to eat, I could not but then I'd have more cooked lambchops in the fridge. I mean if they were okay to have in fridge for a couple of days I'd do that but I have a feeling OH and Dad will be disappointed. I'm not sure what to serve with them though. I don't have any potatoes so I'm left with things like pasta and cous cous. I don't want to buy potatoes!!

his_missus

abby, I'd cook them all and if they want 3 each, they can and if there's some left over, you could always slice and stirfry with veg for DH's tea tomorrow. What about serving the chops on a bed of couscous and veg?

We're having fishcakes for tea tonight - smoked mackerel ones and tuna and sweetcorn ones, to use up some spuds and the mackerel. So far I've made them into patties but I can't be bothered with the mess I create when coating them with breadcrumbs. Think I'll just fry them as they are.

abby1234519

I also defrosted pork mince which I plan to cook tomorrow. My friend bought me a book from marks and sparks called 100 ways to use mince. She thought I would laugh but I love it! There are some muffin things which are small with mince in and they look yum. I could have made a suet muffin with mince but haven't decided.

I love Suet.

Goldiegirl

TM6 wrote: »

I keep on seeing 'C.R.A.P.R.O.L.L.Z' in people's signatures - what does it mean please?

I think it's something to do with the When the SHTF thread on the Old Style board


Hello everyone, quite a nice sunny day here


I've done a bit of baking today. I've revisited a cake that I used to do in the 80's when I last did home baking, a coffee sponge cake. In a while I'll sandwich the two halves together with coffee buttercream icing (well, it'll be made with Stork). Also, did some individual baked sponge puddings, topped with golden syrup. Got the recipe from MSE, I think it was the shopping thread on the OS board. There's so many recipes on there, it's an invaluable resource. I did individual puddings, in the hope that it'll exercise portion control. We'll have one each for desert this evening, and the other two are being frozen for another time.


We'll be having sausage casserole for the main course, out of the freezer.


Unfortunately not a NSD as we had to get petrol. But if I bag tomorrow and Friday, it'll mean half of February were NSD's so I can live with that


Mr GG ventured out into the garden today to do a bit of tidying. It's still very soggy underfoot - it's going to take a long time to dry out.

cw18

Having spent £350.50 in total this month up until I went to bed last night, I've managed to spend over £200 today !!!

Unnecessary spends were £4.17 on 3 second hand CDs before I even went out to the shops (one's a double, one's a triple) and £6.94 on 2 magazines (I don't get every issue of them as I'm not regularly around stores that stock them). Then £7.16 on books (though £1.47 worth of them are going into my presents pile) after being tempted by a '50% off lowest displayed price due to closing for refit' sale in an already cheap bookshop

Spent £5 on a replacement USB3 cable, as when I connect either external drive to it they regularly make nasty noises and/or inform me I need to format the drive (on-line spend).

A load of rechargeable AA and AAA batteries as most of mine are coming to the end of their life (they're very low power compared to those on the market now, some are the Ni-Cd type that OH says haven't been sold for years, and none last long in anything apart from my remote controls), a large charger for home (the same as OH has - his charged my batteries in a fraction of the time my very old ones do when he brought it over at the weekend), a compact travel charger for taking on my walk (the AA batteries I bought are for then as well, as both my GPS and camera will run on them), and some plastic cases that will each hold 4 AA or AAA batteries (neater than the plastic bag they go into now, and the best way I can see of packing them for Spain) - total came in at around £77 all on-line

Then a staggering £120 on a backpack, which was what I actually went into the city centre to look for. I knew this wasn't going to be a cheap purchase, but I have to have something the right size and fit if I'm going to be carrying it for an average of 15 miles a day every day for 8 weeks (will be doing more some days and taking a few days off to do some sight-seeing). Hopefully the only remaining large expenses left for this trip are my passport (haven't had a valid one since Aug 2002) and the travel out/home (quick look on-line a couple of nights ago suggests I could easily be looking at £600 for that unless I go for the slow options, in which case £400 might be possible). I called into a branch of one of my banks today to pick up a leaflet on travel insurance as they've given me free cover for putting a certain amount of money through my account, so I need to check if the cover's sufficient for what I need before I decide if that's something else I need to spend on.

Finished up with bus fare home (£3.80), having walked the 10.5 miles into the city

A couple more things I want to check out on-line having seen what's available in the outdoor stores in the city, but they can wait until at least next month for ordering.

cw18

And another Ouch! to my February spends - but all in the name of saving money

While cooking tea I remembered I had today earmarked for calling my phone and broadband provider, so I've now done that. I've dropped my package which saves me £5 a month (loses me free phone calls, but in the last 12 months I've made a total of under £7 of free calls), and also paid my line rental up front for 12 months (saving me a further £4.90 a month).

So I've now spent a total of just under £350 in one day (plus the D/Debit of just under £19) :eek: