2014 Frugal Living Challenge

lhead123

Frugalsod wrote: »

Sounds like sausage and mash would be possible without much effort.

That's what I told him! In the end he went with burgers between slices of toast and I have eaten the yummy stew for dinner.

On a good note T delivery gave us extra sausages as a replacement and we got 38 odd rolls of toilet paper on offer and stored in the cupboard so thats us sorted for a few months!

abby1234519

We've just done our first shop. out of the £100 we've spent £40 which is more than intended however that possibly is because I bought two tubs of ben and jerrys which weren't on our list. However I had £7 in my purse from February so I've justified it by spending that money.

Also bought 3 big bottles of asda squash, Lidl had sold out of their own when I went so I've spent £1 more than I would have had at Lidl.
Got Joshi some Barney Bears, he doesn't eat them a lot but handy for when out and about. I do bake my own flapjack but hate it going to waste if it isn't all eaten.

This will sound silly but one of my major frustrations with being frugal is my other halfs fussiness with cereal. He will just about eat weetabix if I force him to but otherwise he has to eat expensive chocolate cereal. AND he has a massive bowl. I however buy a 10kg of porridge oats from Amazon and thats all I have. Takes me months to get through it all! And for about a tenth of the cost.

Tonights meal is Tacos with leftover tacos from a dinner we did for friends about a month ago, the cooked pork mince from fridge and we bought a lettuce at asda and onions from fridge. grated cheese from freezer.
Tomorrows dinner will be something else mincey!

sparrer

Two more nsd/npd's
Bought a treadmill on the Bay of E 6 weeks ago, have now broken even on gym fees
A cheque for £30 arrived for doing surveys
The village library is closed for 6 weeks for renovations (good that they're doing it up instead of closing it down) so rather than go to the cs to buy books a neighbour and I have done a swap
Hoping March will be more frugal than Feb, but I have the service/MoT on Monday so hope that'll be the worst that can happen!

Buffythedebtslayer

I am cooking this with the chicken,


http://allrecipes.co.uk/recipe/3541/chicken-and-broccoli-pasta-bake.aspx?o_is=LV


Well sort of, added spinach and made the cheese sauce how I make it, without the water.


Also I am cooking for 30 mins just because the chicken was cooked and in the fridge so I want to make sure it is thoroughly heated.


I must admit all the faffing with the cheese sauce probably meant I used loads more gas than normal!


x

SarahB1989_2

Spotted some weights the flatmate must have bought whilst I was away, going to use those tomorrow to delay going to the gym (have got a payasugym voucher to use though so will be going at some point this month).

Cooked dinner and a batch of cookies in the oven at the same time, then left the oven door open after to warm up the kitchen (had I thought about this in advance I'd have done both earlier as this coincided with the brief time our heating is on anyway!). Worked out the cost of the cookies at £1.22 for each batch, made 21 cookies (sadly 3 wouldn't fit on the cooling rack and had to be 'sacrificed' for testing ), so quite pleased with that.

Shortie

Okay, very un-frugal day but it was one that we would have faced at some point, and in an odd way has forced myself and Mr Shortie to get more focussed...

So what happened? We went to the £1 cinema taking snacks and juice from home, ate our lunch in the car, went into the soft play (free from an annual membership) and that was that. Very frugal and very happy with that.

Until.

Mr Shortie wanted to nip to a local kitchen place to have a little nose ready for when we have the building work done. There was no pressure from the place at all and we asked if we could sit down and work through a few things with them. We walked out with the kitchen sorted, designed and priced up. The kitchen is all on offer, and they'll hold it for as long as we need. They make the units themselves so if we need to change any of the units between now and the kitchen being fitted then that's fine and they'll honour today's sale price in the future. They'll hold it till we need it AND because they know that we haven't even started the building work, the deposit I put down today is fully refundable. The kitchen was good value (we haven't gone for budget and wouldn't have done in the future either)

Slightly scary action in some ways, but the design remains flexible and I'm not tied in if things go very wrong before we get anywhere near having space for a kitchen.

And oddly, having the kitchen in place, I'm super inspired now towards the end goal of saving for the building work and the kitchen.. Kind of odd really, but I suspect that part of me was finding it hard going as I had nothing to hold onto/visualise, and now we do..

The new motto, repeated a few times since the kitchen deposit went down, was "Every penny's a prisoner". I can't think who's signature on here I've seen it on - hope they don't mind me nabbing it

So, Mr Shortie and I have tonight discussed again about Paris for our friend's birthday (we were going to book the flights tonight) and have decided to save money and not go. We will go for the meal in London though but will still have saved a good chunk of money


Oh and we got the final quote through today for moving the boiler into our kitchen (which will become the utility room eventually) and changing it from a storage tank to a combi boiler) A little higher than we thought but the person is very local and recommended. We would also trust them with the work and in the house alone if we needed to be out so we'll speak to him and see how soon he can start

The money is a bit of a scary one as we're looking at spending a LOT of money and getting back into debt, but if things happen the way we are planning for, we'll gain a lovely sized kitchen (I really miss out family cooking sessions, our kitchen is so tiny it's cramped with two people in it) a utility room (current kitchen) a downstairs ensuite bedroom and hopefully a spare room in the roof space of the downstairs extension. Fingers cross!

Super frugality here we come!


So near plans:

- Tomorrow we have friends over for tea - Mr Shortie has taken out the meat tonight - both super-whoopsied (30p for a Mr T Finest turkey breast joint with stuffing mix, and 30p Mr T Finest small ham joint). We'll cook the meat in the morning, slice and if there's tonnes put some back in the fridge to try and stop the temptation of "oohh, I'm full but I'll just nab another slice as it's there...") - that one was Mr Shortie's suggestion - he's clearly become super focussed today with the kitchen being ordered too, woo hoo!!!
- Full freezer inventory to be done tomorrow. House freezer done today - have worked out 6 meals from there - and chest freezer tomorrow.
- £91 left in shopping budget for the month (until 20th March). Have a Mr T delivery (super cheap delivery saver from a friend) coming tomorrow - that's coming to £48 with tonnes of value stuff for the store cupboard plus milk and bread to last us a while. It also contains the food for DS1's birthday party at the end of next month.
- Going to aim at £150 for food shopping next month to save £100 towards my 2013-14 tax bill - the quicker I can get that saved up, the sooner I can save for the building work and kitchen
- Baking treats with the boys for their lunchboxes
- Make my work lunches as cheap as possible. I already take my lunch with me, but planning to try and drive daily cost down as much as possible (eg, Jack's super cheap instant porridge for breakfast, value soups or super frugal hm pastas or couscous for lunch...)

I'll save this post and remember something else I'm sure, lol

Waffle over! xx

lhead123

Well I didnt have a nsd yesterday, mainly because Mr T didnt have creamfields milk on the website so I couldnt order it with the delivery...no kdes why as its still in every shop and costs £1 for 4 pints instead of £1.30.....so I had to stop on my way home form work and buy some.

Also stuck £10 in the car as it was running low...waiting for the credit card to come through so I can use it for fuel spends and pay it off each month to up my credit rating before filling he car to the brim.

Today wont be a nsd either as im going with a friend to a local vintage fair. Hoping to find a cheap present for my sister as it was her birthday yesterday, as well as something for mothers day.

Hoping with dd at nursery tomorrow and lots of cleaning and sorting to be done, tomorrow can be a nsd

Happy sunday everyone x

patentgirl

Good frugal morning everyone
Just gone over jan/Feb's spending quite pleased managed to keep well within our targets and saved more than we thought so woohoo!!!

Shortie kitchen sounds fab it will be worth it when all in place in the not too distant future hopefully lol my kitchen is definitely the hub of my house when all family come home to visit . we have cancelled plans for a planned holiday too was going to have a weeks cruise next month but with my MOT this week going to have 2 nights in Cotswolds instead which will be great and we can get some walking in to which will be free. We are all getting too sensible now lol !!
Got to pop out for tea bags so not a NSD today.

DawnW

£43.62 spent in Lidls yesterday, which is more than I had intended

No NSD today either as OH had to go out to buy some chicken food. Hope they start laying again soon! They are being useful in other ways though as I gave them an old spinach plant and a handful of weeds from the veg plot earlier which was apparently very exciting :rotfl:

I am clearing the veg plot slowly, not (entirely) due to laziness but so that they can have something green even on the days when neither my neighbour nor I have any kitchen veg waste

Murky day here today, with threat of heavy rain later, which seems a pity as it was gorgeous yesterday. Still, I am sat by the woodburner with a mug of coffee so not all bad I have cooked some venison that OH got out of the freezer thinking it was something else, and that is currently cooling ready to go in the fridge for tomorrow.

Later I will cook a small joint of pork for today. Actually it was part of a big one that I bought in Lidl's yesterday, and was the reason I spent more than I had intended. OH cut it into a smallish joint, which is big enough for the two of us with leftovers for sandwiches etc, and a much larger one which I have frozen for when family visit.

As for the rest of the day, I am trying to sort out the dining room a bit as it has become a bit of a dumping ground for business stock, and I am fed up with it So, stuff to take upstairs to try to squeeze into the loft, and some can go in the garage.

I also want to try some microwave flapjacks as I found a recipe somewhere on here yesterday, fill in my CPP claim thingy and sort out my printer so that the wireless will work again - it died when the broadband was changed last month :mad:

SarahB1989_2

Quite pleased with my shopping trip today - got a Paul Hollywood cookery book in The Works for a fiver (and did Quidco cashback from receipt scanning so will get 50p back at some point) that will do as a birthday gift, free Blistex from Boots using a gift card they'd given me for a faulty product, student discount on sister's birthday card, and a free coffee using a stamped loyalty card that actually expired 6 months ago!