2014 Frugal Living Challenge

Mrs_Cheshire

Hi all, picked up a couple of bits I'd forgotten in Ald* today. Was really busy so I was glad I didn't need more than a couple of items and also that I'd walked as I was meeting a friend for our pre christmas lunch as the car park was queuing into the main road.

We're having a couple(who's family live abroad) over on Christmas day for the meal, will be lovely to have some company as it's usually only the 4 of us ( DH, DS1 and 2 and myself).

cw18

car park at ours looked fairly busy early this afternoon, but no queues out onto the road. store wasn't anywhere near as busy I'd expected given the state of the car park though - and our store isn't in a location where people would use it to 'nip' somewhere else.

have to go back tomorrow for more veg and hopefully some bread to get us through to the weekend, but that should it until Saturday then

macwah97

Picklepot wrote: »

(( hugs)) I know how horrible this feels. My new manager who I have only met once rang me last week and was so unpleasant I was speechless, I'm still replaying the conversation in my head a week later at the injustice of it.


Remember at the end of the day you and your husband are the most important. I hope you are able to put it aside and not let it get to you.




shhh.. the reason I am on this thread is to learn to live on less so I don't have to stay in a job like this

Thank you Pickle Pot.

I had it out with my Line Manager today and basically she is a Line Manager who cannot manage. If there is an issue which she cannot get her head around she makes such a song and dance about it to her Line Manager that everyone gets called into the 'Office' and all are made scapegoats except her!!!! :mad::mad:AAAAAAGHGHGHGH Not wishing to blow my own trumpet but I do the majority of her work........ah well:wall:

Aside from this I have been looking at ways to reduce monthly Sky TV costs - Argos are doing NOW Tv boxes for £13 - has anyone used these before? We have the full Sky package but with a hefty discount - I am still not happy with the monthly cost.

Getting there slowly :T

cw18

macwah97 wrote: »

Aside from this I have been looking at ways to reduce monthly Sky TV costs - Argos are doing NOW Tv boxes for £13 - has anyone used these before? We have the full Sky package but with a hefty discount - I am still not happy with the monthly cost.

I've not used one of the boxes, but LG gave me a free 3 month trial of Now TV (films only) as I have one of their Smart TV sets and can access it via an App on there. After the first few weeks of 1 or 2 films most days I struggled to find anything I fancied trying, and was waiting on the weekly releases to see if anything new came up I could be bothered trying (normally watched 2 of the 5). I cancelled before the end of the trial as there was no way I could justify the monthly charge. Might have considered it had the one charge also included 'box sets', but you have to pay extra to get those as well !!!!

They also gave me a few passes for sports (each pass gives 24 hour access to the sports channels - normally another extra charge), but I didn't use any as I'm not interested in watching sports AND they class as live channels that require a TV licence (which I don't have).

cw18

Just been to double check the running costs

Film channels = £9.99 month

Entertainment = £6.99 month
gives access to

• Sky Living
• Sky Atlantic
• Sky Arts
• Sky 1
• MTV
• Gold
• Fox
• Disney
• Discovery
• Comedy Central
• Nick
• Nick Jr
• ITV Encore

plus box sets from ABC Studios

Sports = £6.99 a day, or £10.99 for 7 consecutive days


so if you watch a lot of sports the cost soon mounts up !!

lynnejk

Hiya everyone


On the TV front I've never thought these providers were worth the money - unless maybe you have a large family and lots of TVs.


We have a TV with freeview built in and seems loads of programmes if you want to watch a lot, plus you can watch all the catch-up programmes on the internet.


I know it means paying for a licence, but since I love listening to the radio and have it on all day when I'm in, it really seems very cheap for so much entertainment 24/7 if you want.
Lx


:xmassign:

cw18

I listen to the radio a lot - thankfully you no longer need a licence for that

Other than that I use a streaming service (was signed up to Wu@ki but they've made it pay to view only now so I've scrapped them, so just use DS1's Netfl!x account) or watch DVDs. I don't even use iPl@yer or anything similar as I've no idea what's on "normal" TV so don't have a clue if there's anything I might be interested in. The only shows that seem to get raved about (on the radio and/or F@cebook) are ones I'd never had watched anyway If I had an aerial that worked and which was hooked up to the TVs (meaning I'd pay the licence fee) then it would be Freeview only here too (my TV has it built in, as does my DVD recorder with hard disk - now only used as a DVD player)

The last few years I've looked on it as the £145 licence fee has funded the streaming service plus some DVDs (almost all bought second hand when they reach a price I'm happy to pay), but for next year I'm not allocating it to anything as finances are getting really tight now.

OH has the full Sk-y package, and when he mentioned casually what it costs him I almost died of shock :eek:

Mrs_Cheshire

We're a freeview house here, only the 1 tv as the kids are too young for their own tv in their room yet! Just recently got a recordable freeview box so we can record films over the christmas period and watch later.

COOLTRIKERCHICK

yesterday I managed to get some good reduced meat from the local small co-op 2 packs of lamb steaks 3 packs of steak mince, and a cooked chicken which hubby picked at last night for teas, and the rest will be striped and put in the freezer..


I don't normally buy supermarket meat now... due to it being halal, and a lot of the time tasteless, BUT.. with things getting tighter and tighter, and like some of you, I want to get my spending down to the bone, so we can close our business down and just work part time somewhere, or have a small business income from ebay and the smallholding..I really got to think of every penny saving... like it was £100 lol


will be calling back at the co-op this afternoon( know roughly what time they do their final reductions now) , on my way to farmfoods, to see if there is anything to put into the freezer..

his_missus

I never find YS bargains, I mustn't shop at the right times. In fact my local Mr A's often have multibuy items reduced yet it's cheaper to buy them on the multibuy offer!