2015 Frugal Living Challenge

COOLTRIKERCHICK

frugaldom, that's what we will be doing, tried juggling too much, so the renovation is taking far too long due to finances and finding the right sympathetic tradesmen...which still give conflicting advice and thoughts..


basically I want it as old and rustic looking as possible... but not falling down lol... we have MAJOR work coming up this summer, as one end wall has pulled away, so don't know if it is old movement, or still on going.. but its not at falling down stage.


I think our place will never be completely finished, but as long as we got heat, water and lights... it will be rustically fab...and with the front door open ( I want stable doors ) so the chickens can just wonder in to the kitchen lol..

maria3104

Love the renovations so far. A wonderful project. Good luck.

Here I am celebrating with soup for lunch my 20th nsd of jan.Sighing as I type.

Toying with planning a fantasy holiday and then not booking it, effectively saving thousands, could then reward myself with a chocci drop!

Keep being frugal everyone.

[Deleted User]

dizzytina wrote: »

[Deleted User] wrote:

Having a good frugal weekend. I made some HM Baileys last night and OH was delighted with it. This was a practice as I want to do HM gifts this year as much as possible.

Oooooo HM Baileys sounds yummy how do you make that if you don't mind me asking?

I used a recipe from BBC food. Here is the link
http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/homemade_irish_cream_18863
Enjoy.

dizzytina

[Deleted User] wrote:

dizzytina wrote: »

I used a recipe from BBC food. Here is the link
http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/homemade_irish_cream_18863
Enjoy.

Thanks Allie i shall try making some of that at weekend it looks yummy.

Payday on Thursday for menut have set myself a very stringent budget this month. Food budget is the toughest at just £50 for 2 adults 1 child for the month. Lots in the cupboard to use up so just need to resist buying a load of things we dont need just for the sake of it!

Listed 10 items on ebay which end at weekend so hoping to fund any meals out or family trips with this as i havent included a social budget for this month!!

Came across a great tip for stopping bath pipes from blocking. Me and my daughter both have long hair and end up with lots of hair clogging up the bath pipes (we do use the sink drainers in the plughole but doesnt seem to fully stop the hairs). When we have a shower the water wasnt draining fast enough because of the hairs building up so i squeezed a small blob of hair removing cream down the plug hole. Worked like a dream and now the water drains straight out

COOLTRIKERCHICK

good idea about the hair removing cream re- plughole. will try that.


Well delivery came to work.. think this will be great for us at the moment, and, will also help keep me on a VERY strict budget..


for regular online food shoppers, if I make an order,can that order be stored so I can just repeat the order the following week??

cw18

but on the other hand, since I defuzzed my underarms last week and washed the cream down the basin (I don't normally) it's been draining really slowly. It's the only thing that's been done differently in that basin, so it has to be the cream that's blocking it.

I have a wire I can push down the plughole which has a small velcro type pad on the end of it. This can be used to pull hair and such back up to unblock without having to remove u-bends (can't get to the one on my shower which is the one which blocks most often due to me shedding loads of long hair every time I brush or wash mine).

cw18

COOLTRIKERCHICK wrote: »

for regular online food shoppers, if I make an order,can that order be stored so I can just repeat the order the following week??

I don't do on-line orders, but I do use the Mr T site to build up shopping lists for following while I'm in the store. I know they have a favourites list (a tab which shows things you've bought before) you can use to select items from (I regularly delete things off it that I've only bought because they were on Whoopsie), and a 'my orders' link at the top of the screen which suggests it shows orders placed in the last 6 weeks. I assume you can do something with those, but I can't see as I've never ordered

miss_try_to_save

hi all not been very frugal as I had a surprise hospital stay wont bore you with details but I am now home and recovering unfortunately oh is in charge of food etc at the moment till im on my feet again I am trying to send ds and dd2 to get bits down shops so I can try and reduce his spending a bit dd2 helping me go through freezers and cupboards and store cupboard tomorrow as all I can do at moment is list it and count stuff but hoping I can put a meal plan in place for next week

lynnejk

Hiya everyone


Had a nice bit of good news today - tax refund which we share so that's £109.90 each :j


Hope you all have a wonderful Wednesday


Lx

rising_from_the_ashes

lynnejk wrote: »

I don't put holidays in the budget. As I put further down all our other monies apart from our budgets goes into an interest-paying account. When we decide on holiday dates then the money is taken from there (usually about £1000).

Re your second point - thanks you are correct. I have been back and corrected my budget as 'food' should have read household ie food, laundry, cleaning and general toiletries.

There are just two of us but we always have a glass of wine each with our dinner, and an extra glass at the weekends, and this covers our Xmas and New year drinks as well.
Lx

I did notice your comment further down but I'm afraid I didn't understand why you would have things outside your budget

I thought the budget was to include everything so apologies as'ive obviously misunderstood the challenge as I thought it was to try to live as frugally as possible and to reduce 'unnecessary' spends to the absolute minimum.


Anyway, wishing you all well on your journey for the year ahead.