2018 Frugal Living Challenge

LittleGingerFox

My goodness, Spudsmum that is incredible! I've never heard of it before, and I honestly don't understand how it works fully but I'll start on it today!

Indigo Warrior - yes it was on a DR FB group. I've only just heard of him so I've got lots of learning to do.

Thanks lynnejk - I will look up that group now.

I hope you all have a wonderful day and Spudsmum, have a wonderful holiday! x

LittleGingerFox

indigowarrior wrote: »

Your not on a dave ramsey group are you? As that came up on there?

lynnejk wrote: »

It's fine. It's receipts that people have discarded so their loss is your gain.

Suggest you ask on the Make upto £10 a day thread as they will probably be able to tell you more about it. Good luck
Lx

Can you tell me how to find this page Lynne? I have searched the MSE site and the forums but I'm not seeing/ finding it
x

Frugaldom

Good morning and welcome to our new arrivals - I have now added your names into the challenger list on page 1.

Wombling... this has a different meaning for us diehard frugalers, as it simply means recycling stuff we find, as in the Wombles of Wimbledon, but a few years back some folks began collecting discarded till receipts and capitalising on the free points by returning them to checkouts and collecting other peoples' points. Personally, I find it a bit unethical but at the same time find it ingenious, as the supermarkets have priced accordingly and the customers in question have discarded these receipts - is littering, plain and simple. Bin raking, on the other hand, just like skip diving, is classed as illegal here in UK. Hope this helps... we try to keep things as ethical, sociable and enterprising as possible in our moneysaving, so we tend not to promote loopholes - there are dedicated threads for most of them on MSE, so just use the forum search to find them.

No 'penny in the street collecting' for us country folks... we have no pavements and next to no people in our streets. :rotfl: No supermarkets either, for that matter. :rotfl:

Winter fridge-foraged soup making is on the go, so I'd to use leek instead of onions, as it was all I had. Slow cooked lentil & carrot soup made about 12 portions for around £1.00 so that's refilled the bi freezer space I had just cleared. The hens are laying well just now, so eggs are on the menu every day. I have lost count of the number of lunchtime pancakes I've had recently so we treated ourselves to a Hall's £1 mixed grill pack at the weekend and had that with fried eggs and beans... living it up, or what?

I now keep a jug of pancake mix in the fridge and each time it gets emptied, I make more - just a simple bater of flour, eggs and milk (I often use powdered milk) and it's handy to make into yorkshire puddings if the oven is on for anything, watered down for speedy crepes, lunchtime pancakes (large pan size) or as batter, if you are into deep frying anything.

Windfall apples that I store outside over winter in plastic bags are slowly being used up - I had made several jars of blackcurrant & apple jelly, stewed some for freezing, made apple sauce and then made chutney, so I have enough of all of those things to last the year. Now I'm making more crumbles for soup and pudding meals, and am using the peels and cores for making apple cider vinegar. We love apples here, so I've spent quite a bit on planting a new orchard at Frugaldom in the hope of sharing more apples in future years.

Managed to bag myself some 99p bargains in the shape of an old fashioned, handmade sewing box and a show store. Both were listed on eBay as 99p no reserves, I found them using the MSE eBay search tool and neither attracted any second bids, so I collected these last week and have them ready for doing up to go into the new house. :T

Frugaldom

Here is the latest wombling thread I can find - WOMBLING 2018

Frugaldom

My laest 99p sample pack of soapnuts have arrived and includes the little bag for popping them into when putting them in the washing. It's now a tiny nylon-type mesh bag, rather than the draw string cotton bag, but of I'm only using half a dozen soapnuts at a time then this should last me a couple of months and avoids the risk of synthetic substances in the laundry when doing guest bedding. I'll let you all know how they perform over the coming holiday season. I'll still be making a batch of laundry gloop as soon as I have freed up some more containers - I may need to scrub out another emulsion bucket.

spudsmum

Frugaldom wrote: »

My laest 99p sample pack of soapnuts have arrived and includes the little bag for popping them into when putting them in the washing. It's now a tiny nylon-type mesh bag, rather than the draw string cotton bag, but of I'm only using half a dozen soapnuts at a time then this should last me a couple of months and avoids the risk of synthetic substances in the laundry when doing guest bedding. I'll let you all know how they perform over the coming holiday season. I'll still be making a batch of laundry gloop as soon as I have freed up some more containers - I may need to scrub out another emulsion bucket.

Frugaldom - please tell me more about these soap nuts and laundry gloop - with 3 smalls and a messy husband laundry stuff is one of my biggest expenses

lynnejk

LittleGingerFox wrote: »

Can you tell me how to find this page Lynne? I have searched the MSE site and the forums but I'm not seeing/ finding it
x

If you copy and paste link below into the 'Forum Search', upper green bar, you should find it okay

~Make upto £10 a day February 2018~

Frugaldom wrote: »

............
No 'penny in the street collecting' for us country folks... we have no pavements and next to no people in our streets. :rotfl: No supermarkets either, for that matter. :rotfl: .........

Where I live in scottyland you'd be lucky to find an unwanted button on the street, let alone anything that resembles coinage :rotfl:
Lx

cw18

And this week it was time to haggle over the cost of my phone line rental and broadband connection.

A couple of years ago I took up a good introductory offer, but couldn't justify the price it was due to go up to when that came to an end around this time last year. So I found a fantastic offer with someone else then phoned my provider and haggled - ending up with almost the same services (including free evening & weekend calls rather than anytime, but I rarely use my landline phone) for pennies a month more than if I switched.

About to come to an end again, so priced up elsewhere and gave them another call tonight. By dropping the evening & weekend calls (which would have been £4/month, but I've only used about 3 times all year) my bill would be going up by £9/month. But I've haggled to an increase of 1p/month, which makes it just 5p/month more for the same things as I'd have switched to elsewhere (bog standard unlimited broadband, and line rental with no calls).

The chap did start to tell me that they had some fantastic special deals that included their TV service - but stopped when I cut him short to inform him I don't have a TV licence and wasn't about to pay for one

Must put a reminder in my phone calendar to call and haggle again next year

DawnW

lynnejk wrote: »

If you copy and paste link below into the 'Forum Search', upper green bar, you should find it okay

~Make upto £10 a day February 2018~


Where I live in scottyland you'd be lucky to find an unwanted button on the street, let alone anything that resembles coinage :rotfl:
Lx

It is very unusual to find a coin on the street in my bit of SW England too - everyone round here must be MSE :rotfl:

Nonnadiluca

Oh booger! Boiler packed in ( why does it only happen in the winter!), sorted now but the bill will make a dent in the emergency fund; thank goodness we have one!! Otherwise all going to plan.