Dusty's Frugal Fortnights

dustydigger

Sealed Pot challenge ended,with brilliant results!
:j:j:j:j:j:j:j:j:j:j:j
Had a brilliant year. I have counted everything. Have spent a lot of it,(£630) as I saved for insurance,passport fund,anti-virus protection,birthdays,helping in family emergencies etc,but was chuffed that the money was there ready to pay!
Chuffed in particular about the coins saved. amazing since I do most of my shopping by card.Fantastic result:D:D

Top Cashback - £15
surveys - £77
shop xmas savings cards - £134
bank accounts - £1345
Sealed Pots coins -£421
TOTAL - £1992

:j:j:j:j:j:j:j:j:j:j:j:j

Chrystal

Thanks Dusty. I'll have a look at those... I shop instore at Tesc0 but haven't used online with them so that may be worth trying. Love Iceland but I'm trying to run my freezers down at the moment - not with a great deal of success I may add.

beanielou

Great results Dusty :j :j :j :j

dustydigger

Sorry I've not been around,but have been super busy. DD1s flat is coming along well now,.Sitting room and bedroom are painted and papered.The washable paper in the kitchen was a nightmare to get off. It took 3 of us 5 hours to get it off,scraping inch by inch.My poor neck and shoulders! And standing 4 and 5 hours at a stretch in a cold house is no picnic for my knees.:(
Carpets and lino due today.Still the kitchen to paper and staircase to paint,double height wall in the hallway,so a lot of painting there!. There is a bit of a problem with the stairs,they are stone stairs so the carpet people are moaning about how hard it is to lay the carpet.
The stairs are extremely narrow,with two handrails. Looks like they will need to be removed to get furniture up the stairs. In fact it is a major worry that the furniture wont fit.,the chairs are very wide,the arms alone are about a foot wide!
Every day there are problems. I had to go somewhere yesterday,and DD had to take unpaid leave (she's used up all her holidays for this year) to wait in for the Sky people who were supposed to install her equipment. Never came,and said there was no appointment made,and it would be 18 days before they could come. She was so furious she cancelled her subscription there and then,which may be cutting off her nose to spite her face,but these companies dont seem to care about their customers,while taking huge sums of money from them.:mad:
Of course the windows are all entirely different in shape,so none of her beautiful blinds or curtains will fit.I expect her old landlady will be putting up the rent for the next tenant because my daughter put in new carpets,beautiful wall paper,and really expensive blinds,its all far above what the place looked like it when she moved in.She says that this time,in a council property she is here to stay,so anything she does is for her own benefit,not a grasping landlady!:)
One oddity is the plug for the electric fire,its almost in the middle of the fireplace wall!Her own mantfire surround is much wider,she will have to just remove the switch and not use the fire at all,but the hassle of changing the position of the socket entirely was too much. She never uses the fire anyway,just the radiators.I'm the same,I think I used the electric fire about half a dozen times the first week we got it,and never since! Radiators are fine,electric fires hugely expensive.
So there is progress but still a lot to do.Reducing the stuff from a 3 bedroom family house to a one bedroom flat is no joke!So much stuff has gone to the council tip,and there is still so much packing to do.But by this weekend she will be settled in,only a few minutes walk from her daughter and the grandkids. I am going to miss them all:(
I have nightmares of what I would do if the council forced us out into a rabbit hutch(Mr Dusty's name for a one bedroom flat!:D),37 years of Mr Packrat's accumulations,what would we do with it all?And all that stuff in the attic belonging to the kids!And all the grandkids toys?Nightmare!!!!:rotfl::rotfl:
Mind you,though I have little in the way of clothing ,(I have one chest of drawers and one short rail in the wardrobe for everything I possess),I do have 3 bookcases and 4 boxes of books which would swallow up about 30% of the total storage space in those flats so that would be a problem too.:D
Definitely I must once more start decluttering and rearranging stuff. I started yesterday,doing one drawer in the kitchen. And to my surprise,underneath the square container where I put bagged pennies ready for the credit union I FINALLY found my old credit union paying in book,obviously tucked away there in May when preparing for the US visitors.Upside down it is exactly the same size as the coin tray,and the same colour as the drawer,so I never noticed!:rotfl: Its an odds and ends draw in the corner and obviously I rarely touch it!:o:o
Today I will tidy up the cupboard below that drawer,full of painting equipment,hastily shoved in there higgledy piggledy after the decorating fiasco in May,out of sight out of mind.
Oops,this post is on its way to War and Peace proportions,so I had better cease now.Off to make roasties(surprise!),cabbage,carrots and roasted chicken wings. trying a new marinade on the wings,mostly garlic and chili,so not sure what Mr D will think about them.
Btw,have completed 3 books so far this month,I have been spending every spare moment reading instead of coming online. Still 18 books to read to finish this year's challenges,so I am severely rationing TV and online time till I make some progress!

beanielou

Good to hear from you :wave:

mark55man

yay welcome back - always sad to see the (not so) little ones move on

dustydigger

DDs house is taking shape.the main furniture is now in,tomorrow we pack up all the stuff that was just dumped out of the wardrobes and cupboards for the removal men to take them away.Then we empty the kitchen and take down the blinds etc and try to finish the clearing out and perhaps hand the keys in on Saturday.End of an era,but I'm sure the whole family will continue to all meet up on Saturdays at my place.
My daughter is giving me her dining table and chairs,so I have to rearrange the whole diner area tomorrow.No idea where the bookcase and toys will go,as my table was drop leaf and tucked away except for special occasions,this one takes up a lot more space :eek:
Not feeling too well.Its always a lottery what is wrong with me on any particular day Arthritis abated,and cystitis improving,but I now have mouth ulcers.:mad: Also I cut my finger while cutting up the beef for my casserole. Bled for ages,because of the blood thinners I take,and the wound was a nuisance,it kept reopening. It fine now,though.The feet are pretty tender because of all the extra activity this week.Sunday is going to definitely be a day of rest!
Had to upgrade my internet package today. I downgraded when the IP put my price up from £34 to £39 a month,getting the basic package,no TV,for £30. Unfortunately my Freesat TV recorder box is wi-fi enabled,and I mostly watch On Demand stuff. When I try to use the TVR and the computer at the same time and Mr D has his tablet on the go,things slow down to a slow crawl,its a nightmare. Checked out my internet speed and it was a derisory 3 MB:eek: We really are in a very poor area for coverage:(

Anyhoo,I negotiated with TalkTalk,and got the upgrade for £35,so its worked out quite well in the end,£4 a month less than they originally charged. But its still only around 9 Mb! But certainly a big improvement on the normal 2.8

dustydigger

Whew! we finally finished DDs move yesterday.End of an era,and a bit of a wrench. Odd to think my daughter has never lived alone in her whole life - and she's 48! She was absolutely shattered when I saw her off with the car filled to the brim with stuff at 4pm,but I was too tired to go with her and GD1 to unpack stuff,and she would have had to make another journey to bring me back home. I dozed off twice in the evening,and today my back and legs are killing me,and I am feeling a bit low,but you have to adjust.
She gave me her dining set,my son had to dismantle it to get it in the car,so the table top is propped against the old table,and the leather seats are stacked up - and there literally isnt an inch of space in my tiny diner nook!:) I have to move the chairs and do an obstacle race to get to my pan stand in the far corner!My table is drop leaf,tucks neatly against the wall,this is 3 ft wide,takes up a lot more space. It looks as if I may have to remove that metal shelving unit which has books,veggie rack,kids toys etc stacked on it. But where will it go? There isnt a single bare wall space anywhere in the house!:(Thinking cap on.

dustydigger

Received my Tesc* vouchers this morning £59 in total.Big help in buying everyone their usual Xmas bottle.:T
But apart from buying everyone their usual goody bag (a bottle,chocs and a book or mag) I have had to cut out any thing else except for the 4 littl'uns,because I cleared out most of my savings helping my daughter with all the expenses of her move,and the rest is put aside for the USA trip in May.But still I expect to spend at least £500 Its definitely back to really frugal living,as I feel a bit exposed without a safety cushion behind me. I have got happily used to financial health!:D

After Xmas hopefully DD1 can start paying back a little at a time,but for now I am just going to be watching cash drain away from my accounts!:rotfl:

dustydigger

I had less than a pound in the purse at my usual end of fortnight purse emptying yesterday!But I'm with Mr Micawber that even sixpence surplus means happiness!And here we go with another fortnight. And only another two before Xmas:eek::eek:
At least this is my easier fortnight,and I can put away some money to top up the next budget


Dusty's Frugal Fortnight : 12th Nov - 25th Nov
income : £291 from Mr Dusty,£71 my pension,total £362

outlay:
water rates- £36
life insurance - £20
birthday fund - £10
hair - £10
asd* food shop - £51
xmas savings cards - £25
personal allowance - £20
HBB (home budget box - cash) - £141


outlay - £313

---

total income - £362
total outlay - £313
surplus - £49


the surplus will just stay in the CA .