2014 Frugal Living Challenge

lovefullshelves

Well, we have been so busy I haven't had time to spend too much money, even going to the big city to see DD i managed to only spend £15 on clothes for the summer
Got a batch of elderflower cordial steeping, I'll get that canned tomorrow. Yum.
Upcycled an old shirt into 2 headscarves for work. I knew I kept them for something! (Very good life!) I may have to go through my stash of i really like the fabric but a bit thin now shirts! I was thinking 70's tiered skirt maybe? Or patchwork dress?
Used one of my batch of savoury mince to make a pie for tea, used the fat from the beef I clarified to make the pastry..beefy! Definitely worth the effort to clarify fat
Lots of planting, we had a busload of visitors to see dads tractors. He would have loved it. We've decided to keep them out for a while and anyone in the area is welcome to come see them.(great if you like tractors!)
x

lynnejk

[QUOTE=going_nowhere_fast;65558740]Wow you are all so friendly!! Well I'm going to start.
All the pennies that you dont spend i.e. that one magazine, that one bar of chocolate - do you think it really helps to reduce the debts over a period of time? QUOTE]

When you are going to buy something like that use the calculator on your phone to multiply it by 365 - that's for the year - you'll soon see how much you can save

Teacher2b wrote: »

Thanks for the welcomes! I'm good at cooking from scratch through I'm happy to turn cheap ingredients into yummy meals it's just getting the quantity right that's an issue. You lot seem to be full of amazing advice :j

Have you thought about making some meals and freezing them in single portions. Then you can defrost as you need - one or two

Hope you all have a wonderful Wednesday
Lx

DawnW

Well, we didn't get the heavy rain that we were forecast yesterday, just a dull day and one brief - and light - shower, so I will have to do some watering in the garden today.

Other than that, I am going to sort the printer out, and start on the HMRC self assessment thingies two jobs I have been putting off. The (wireless) printer hasn't worked since BT talked OH into changing the broadband a while back :mad: which I was cross about because it is MY account and I had already refused this.

I always start off the tax self assessments and put in the basic info, and things that are easily got from P60s and banks and then the accountant does the self employment bits that baffle me

If I do these two tedious things I will be quite pleased with myself. That leaves the ironing .... :rotfl:

Supposed to be going out with friends tonight, but to a low cost event for which I already have a ticket. And no drinking as I will be driving, so not much spending will be done

Macaroni and cauliflower cheese for dinner tonight, as I bought a huge cauli at the market yesterday

alja

lovefullshelves wrote: »

Upcycled an old shirt into 2 headscarves for work. I knew I kept them for something! (Very good life!) I may have to go through my stash of i really like the fabric but a bit thin now shirts! I was thinking 70's tiered skirt maybe? Or patchwork dress?

Oh, you've got me thinking now! I really like the look of these headscarves I keep seeing in the shops, but not sure if I will really suit one/will wear it enough. Maybe I could make one?! Shall see if I can find some instructions online...


Another NSD here for me, that makes 3 in a row managed to win/buy a dress off eb*y for just over £2 delivered the other day, so I hope it arrives okay and is in the good condition it's supposed to be! Just about to bid on another item I've been needing, hopefully I get it and for a good price too!
*edit* Yes, got the other item and I was the only bidder too, very happy. Just hope they come through okay...

Frugalsod

Well I spent £34 buying bread and cake mixes from Approved so will be able to avoid a shop for months for those items.

icontinuetodream

doing pretty well at the moment....have planted out all my veg and seeds that I am doing this year - had to buy some compost but also used a lot of the leaf mould that I bagged up a couple of years ago! I have two oak trees in my garden, so this is an ongoing source of free soil improver/compost

I also made a huge pot of Bolognese from 400g of mince and some tvp this week....it fed all five of us with a portion left over and I have put the same amount again in the freezer for another day!! I used to use about 600g of mince just provide one meal for five so this is a major breakthrough!:j

Have managed to pay off the credit card today along with putting an overpayment onto the mortgage due to getting extra in my salary for additional hours so really feel that I have got myself into a good position for the rest of the year

Happy frugalling everyone!

Picklepot

I took my kitten to a new veterinary practice last week.
Moved house years ago but still been taking the animals to our old vet which i now realise is probably a 14 mile round trip. Why ? :eek:loyalty i think. Although i did keep saying it was handy for me to pop into on way from work which looking back is ridiculous because the pets aren't with me at work!!

This new vet didn't try and sell me a thing! In fact the advice that she has given has probably saved me money. She said the feeding regieme i was given by the breeder for my kitten is unnecessary and excessive.
Yet to tot up how much i will save plus the petrol and time.:j

This frugal living is getting me rethinking the small stuff as well as the big stuff i keep chipping away and am starting the'snowballing method' to slash my bills so every bit counts!

Shortie

Picklepot wrote: »

Moved house years ago but still been taking the animals to our old vet which i now realise is probably a 14 mile round trip. Why ? :eek:loyalty i think.

I think (certainly for us at least) it's a trust thing too. We seem to have a decent vets near where we live now but after I didn't trust a diagnosis they made on out old cat last year (turns out they were right) I was preparing to take him back to our previous vets for a second opinion. The reason we hadn't already used our old vet was because we'd moved and were now 45 miles away from him :eek:

But, I was going to do that drive one weekend to get him to our old vet as I trust him implictly with our pets, and I had to wait to the weekend as the cat took a very bad turn during the week and I couldn't get the time off work. Turns out the nearby vet was right about what was going on (cancer) but it was just much further advanced than any of us knew and he never made it to the weekend - not that our old vet could have done anything about it in hindsight either, but I still would have driven there in hope

It's different with pets - they can't tell us what's wrong and they are still essentially wild animals - in the wild an animal will 'hide' pain through survival instincts meaning we tend to find out something's wrong only when it's really wrong. So as a result, you need a vet you can trust - hence many of us will still travel miles out of the way to go back to someone we know and trust

Glad it sounds like you've found another good vet though

Picklepot

Shortie wrote: »

Glad it sounds like you've found another good vet though

Sorry to hear that about your cat shortie and the worry you had.

Your right about the trust. I still have the other animals with the old vet in case i have made a bad decision and judged them unfairly

.However in the last year its the constant pushing of products by the partner that made going there uncomfortable so i was asking to see the locums. Thats when i thought why don't i just try somewhere new.

Therefore when i took my kitten to the new practice it was a relief not to have any products suggested and an opportunity to save money!!

Shortie

Yea - I wouldn't like a vet that kept pushing products - are they in it for the animal or just the money? Thankfully neither the old or new vet push anything onto us. In fact, our old vet wouldn't charge me when I took one of my rescue chooks in at the same time as our kitten for this kitten jabs - he saw it that we were doing good on the rescue chook so didn't charge for the antibiotic jab he gave her.

So i gave the cost back to him as a donation to his wildlife rescue charity that he runs from the vet surgery instead