2014 Frugal Living Challenge

yukkibear

Shortie - Life can flip on it's head at any given moment. Take this time to plan for the worst, and have a back up in place just in case. Hopefully it wont happen for you but being prepared will help you a long way if it does.

COOLTRIKERCHICK

Frugalsod.... I did love the kenwood, but looking at the prices I just could not afford one.. I was lucky as the one I had/got was given to me years ago by my mother, when I told her yesterday it was broken, she couldn't remember having it..lol.. so it showed she only bought it on a whim...


In the end I bought this one
http://www.tesco.com/direct/tefal-kitchen-machine/471-5248.prd?pageLevel=&skuId=471-5248


I did see some other ones that were cheaper etc, but I felt this one would be a good and robust one.. and hopefully will last me a long time.


As I have said before being frugal isn't allways about the cheapest... plus with electrical stuff after having my kitchen nearly go up in smoke due to a fridge we had from freecycle a few years ago.. I would never have anything secondhand electrical again ( unless I know where it came from) It looked as though instead of taking it to the tip, they put it on freecycle and advertised it as good working order...

miss_empty_piggy

I LOVE reading this forum....you're all so inspirational. I have just done the 2 freezers inventory and I found unidentified meat in there and 8 pizzas. They must have been on special offer.

Thinking of you shortie, hope that things go the way that you want them to. For me, the "not knowing" is so hard and I agree that being prepared is the best thing, good luck.

Kazla, I'm intending on cutting my cards up - seen on net some cool tags made into the initial of the person you're sending to stuck onto a plain piece of paper which look really nice. I think I'm going to do this with mine next year.

I'm currently in the process of boiling lentils to make lentil and bacon soup in order to use the stocks up. Last time I did this it was more like wallpaper paste and everyone refused to eat it. Here's hoping that the second attempt will be much better.

yukkibear

COOLTRIKERCHICK wrote: »

Frugalsod.... I did love the kenwood, but looking at the prices I just could not afford one.. I was lucky as the one I had/got was given to me years ago by my mother, when I told her yesterday it was broken, she couldn't remember having it..lol.. so it showed she only bought it on a whim...


In the end I bought this one
http://www.tesco.com/direct/tefal-kitchen-machine/471-5248.prd?pageLevel=&skuId=471-5248


I did see some other ones that were cheaper etc, but I felt this one would be a good and robust one.. and hopefully will last me a long time.


As I have said before being frugal isn't allways about the cheapest... plus with electrical stuff after having my kitchen nearly go up in smoke due to a fridge we had from freecycle a few years ago.. I would never have anything secondhand electrical again ( unless I know where it came from) It looked as though instead of taking it to the tip, they put it on freecycle and advertised it as good working order...

I got the compact version of this for Christmas. Haven't used it yet as we have cakes etc coming out of our ears, but going to make some pizza dough or bread in the next day or so

alja

Just caught up, it's great to see so many determined people - it's very motivating!

My plans for 2014 are to try and keep away from the shops as much as I can. And when I do go, make sure I pick up a few things that I NEED for across the year - this will help save extra trips. (Extra trips usually = extra bits I buy for no reason!)

I checked my present stash the other evening and I'm very pleased to say that I think I have pretty much enough to cover most birthdays for 2014. I usually do my friends a goodie bag of little bits e.g. nail polish, pretty pack of tissues, toiletries, sweets, notebooks. They seem to go down well and I stock pile bits I find in the sales for them, so they usually don't add up to much at all.
I have plenty of birthday cards as I picked up a couple of packs from T*sco the other year - 10 cards for £1. Pretty designs and only 10p each!

My aim for the year is to save £15,000 - I'm not sure that's actually possible, but it would help me hit a big savings target if I can get there. So I'm more determined than ever to get on top of doing surveys, using vouchers, loyalty points and so on... Bring on 2014!

WantToBeSE

Morning All.

Shortie- sorry to hear about your work worries. Hopefully the worst won't happen, but it sounds like this thread is just what you need to plan for any 'just in case' scenario.

PicklePickle- welcome to the forums

So, with my inventory done (i did my cupboards as well as freezer) i have written a meal plan for the week based on what i have.

I should be able to get 2 weeks of meals out of what i have in the house, all i will have to buy is fresh stuff like F&V.

Giving the house a post-C'mas clean over the next few days. Have taken the decorations and tree down yesterday so need to give the whole place a good hoover and dust.

Will start the ebaying next week and have a huge load of charity shop stuff, as well as half my kitchen being taken up with recycling that needs to be taken to the recycling point at tesco carpark.

tokicat

Morning all

Just spent the last two hours reading this thread. Great advice am keeping my Xmas cards would always recycle. I am also going to speak to friends about just buying for the kids only which will save us a lot on present budget next year

Have started switching off the heating as our bills from last year were ridiculous. We have it on timer in winter and have left it on when we go out - not anymore

Am trying to work out how to cook my pork which I think are pork loin steaks slimming world recipe as I am also trying to lose weight. Lost 1 stone to date another 3 to go

Is cash the best way to go for shopping? This is definately where I fall down on not planning and budgeting enough with food.

Spending rest of day filling in spreadsheets on our outgoings and have downloaded the monthly spending one from frugal forum

Feels like a bit of a mountain at the minute. My problem is being too soft and not saying no which is why we have the debt we have today

2014 I am going to be saying No a lot

pm2326

Morning

I'm taking advantage of the reasonably good weather today to get some more washing done and hung outside, I go back to work tomorrow so no chance of getting anymore done until next weekend.

I worked out I need to cater for 19 work lunches before I get paid again, so even though I made 10 the other day with my extra thick soup I need to find another 9.

I've found 3 curried veg soups already made in the freezer so now I have another concoction in the slow cooker to make up the numbers. In true frugal style I've used the last of the yellow split peas, some rice from god knows when, last of the frozen peppers, out of date garlic puree, out of date stock cubes, onions and tomato puree. Might add some left over pepperoni later if it needs a bit of a kick.

ecodude

Shortie wrote: »

I was made redundant from my old job 2 years ago, and it's kicked off the whole 'Damocles Sword' feeling that we all ended up with at the last place... So now I'm flapping about a redundancy that may never come knowing I'm the only one working (a family choice) and I have no savings. Mind you, we did manage to become debt free (minus £2k bank of Mum and Dad loan) last month so that's a huge repayment that I won't need to worry about.

But still - I'm worrying how I'll pay the basics if the worst does happen

Sorry for the waffle-a-thon, I needed to write this down somewhere and get it out of my head. I think what isn't helping is that I can't speak to my boss to see if there is more to come and I'm a total worrier when something is unknown

Hey Shortie sorry to hear whats happening with you, I've been through this twice in last five years and know how awful and debilitating it can be.....but on the positive side you are nearly debt free and you're on here so not alone and supported....try to get some sleep , always worse when you're tired. not sure how to send a hug thing....but sending one anyway......Eco

Shortie

Thanks all. Sorry for the 'mega flap' last night, like you CoolTrikerChick, that's exactly where I was last night - I was at the peak of the worry which had been fairly mild until then, so I gave up and came down. Writing that post was the first bit of me 'sorting my head' and after this I remembered there was a Redundancy Board here somewhere and I went and had a look, which was fab as it told me what I would be entitled to as a basic

So I sat and worked some sums out - what I could scrape together fro various accounts, what I think our basic outgoings would be (including mortgage) and how many months I this we could keep afloat for. I have all my workings out in Excel at work but I don't have Excel on my laptop yet so I don't have it all at home at the moment, which I will sort out today.

I worked out I can keep us afloat for roughly 5 months - that would be a maximum as I'm assuming I've missed an outgoing somewhere. If it does come my way, I'm hoping they will wait until after my 2 year date in Jan as the statutory redundancy pay kicks in then and I can probably eek it to 6 months then

Which helped loads.... as I know now I'd get a little bit of breathing space while I was job hunting. I'm feeling so much more in control now, phew

But you're very right - I'm preparing now in case it does come. I think that's why I made an inventory of every single thing we have in the freezer last night as opposed to the usual rough list. I've said to Mr Shortie that we need to make sure we don't waste any money now in case it does come. We don't waste very much anyway, but cutting down car journeys, etc (we can't walk to our local SM or town as we're very rural and it's not feasible to walk to them)

Thanks again all xxx

Right, flap over. Resolve back in place. Bring it on!!