2008 - Live on £4000 for a full year.

Carlsberg

Took out £60 on Monday. Spent £29.38 on shopping at Tesco, £10.00 at Netto on wash tabs, but this will last me an age as they had 68 washes worth of bold tabs (line and something for a tenner!) WINNER. DH bought me an xbox game from a friend for £10.00 (Naughty x) so total spend £49.38. Tuesday was a NSD and so is today as we have enough of everything.

At Tesco, vine tomatoes were reduced on mass to 20p a pack, so bought a quids worth and made fresh tomato soup last night. Tonight DH is having bubble and squeak made with leftovers from the other night, and ill have something quick. Thus we will have the soup which will have cost me about £2.00 to make in total. Not bad, and will tast loads better than canned crap.

Kittens are into the vets next Friday, but I had already accounted for this. Great tip coming for any pet owners (UK). For those of you with Cats, contact your local Cats protection and they can help you with cost towards neutering and spaying. My local lady has sent me a voucher to reduce the price by over half and its not a shoddy deal, it stipulates the Vets you must go to, which happens to be ours anyway (a good one)

Also, for most pet owners, half the cost of flea stuff and worning treatments by visiting vets UK (see address below). I priced up a years worth of worming (£4.80 a tablet from my vets totalling £38.40 for two cats for the year) and 12 pipets of Frontline (£29.95 for 6 from my vets so total £59.90) and bought all this off Vets UK for about £45.00 and didnt pay for postage.

The more frontline oyu buy, the cheaper it gets too. Worm tabs are about £130 each and FL is £14.95 for 6. Great money saving on a must have!

http://www.vetuk.co.uk/

Hope everyone is doing well. We have decided that we will take your advice NYK, but will use £2k we have in the bank to help with the new car. Then we wont be paying as much back, the rest, im goign to put on a 0% card and pay off at my own pace.

Have a good day everyone.

Carlsberg x

bails

keren29 wrote: »

Umming and aaahing about what to do for dinner tonight. It's mince - can't do lasagne as I have no milk to make the white sauce, can't do cottage pie as I have no milk or butter for the mash. Had bolognaise a couple of nights ago.....think I'll do chilli, plenty of tins of tomatoes and beans to put in it.

You could use olive oil in place of the butter in the mash, works well (haven't tried it with other oils) and you don't need milk then either.

I am really enjoying this challenge, reassessing the value of things and learning so much from all your wonderful posts! :j My first month is still going to be a killer but I'm already playing catch-up without realising so it will all sort itself out (with a lot of help from me of course ).
Yesterday we bought a bale of hay for £3, that'll last about 8 months, and some reduced cat food and a reduced present - from £8 to £1.94 It's Orange Wed so we're probably going to the cinema (didn't make it last week) but as that's entertainment, it'll be a NSD for the purposes of this challenge.
Just to remind peeps, there's something in the weekly email about Amazon - if you bought stuff there before Christmas and it's in the sale you can reclaim the difference! Bonus! Go here for more info.

Frugaldom

Quick note for Carlsberg re the 0% credit cards - if you are planning on putting the debt straight onto a credit card, make sure it's one with 0% interest on purchases. If you are transferring the debt, make sure it's a 0% balance transfer and don't use the card for anything else. Even better if you could get cashback, so don't forget to check out all the deals available and check out the MSE threads about 'stoozing' before doing anything. I think it's a sound plan so long as you never miss a payment, only pay minimum monthly payment but save the capital amount in a high interest account so it's there to pay off the balance if you are unable to transfer the reduced debt to a new card at the end of the term. I'm not an expert on this so can't offer any advice, but there's stacks of info on MSE about it. Good Luck!

notanothergreyhair

My non-spending has come to an end; I spent £1.64 today mostly on stuff I need. The bar of chocolate I decided I wanted...although technically I could class it is needed

Still, it had to end at some point.

Frugaldom

I'm trying to spot the £1 easter eggs from Woolworths but don't live near a store :rotfl: Thought I'd maybe buy at £1 and then make a papier mache basket for each rather than leave them in the original boxes. Will expand on the plan in the free hobbies thread I started just as soon as I finish catching up with the latest posts here

Just discovered something I really like being with Scottish Power. I changed from standard service to their online service, which now means I can see exactly how much power I am sing from bill to bill. It also lets you key in your own meeter readings anytime! I just did a full reading and keyed it in to see that the previous bill was underestimated by £442!!! :eek: This, however, is better than the £500+ that I was expecting, as you get an extra discount for signing up to their full online service (£10.50 discount) plus you can simply log on and pay installments towards your next bill! It means I have until April to pay off all the arrears and, in the meantime, the money I had set aside for this can gather a few pounds more interest in the bank

slowlyfading

my spends keep creeping up and i'm having a bad day. oh well, here's to tomorrow.

summertea

Hi,

Bit late as i've only recently discovered the joys of MSE but i'd like to join in (no 112) i think. Have been keeping a spending diary this year as an exercise so far so should be able to work back no problems.

Hows every one getting on?

:T

sweetpea03

princess_leia wrote: »

Thanks this inspired me to go and make some quiches :rotfl: do they freeze ok once cooked? Do you then cook from frozen or defrost first???
Also made some buns with DS1 which will do for tonights 'pudding'
Was also going to put the breadmaker on but DH has put in on top of freezer where I can't reach even with a chair :rolleyes:

Hope you enjoy your quiches princess leia! Yes they freeze really well once cooked & cooled which is what i'm doing with mine. I usually defrost mine overnight but thats because my lot will only eat them cold, I'm sure you can heat them from frozen though as thats what you can do with supermarket ones. Does anyone else know for certain?

My baking session is now over! I ended up making 2 quiches (well they would've been quiches if someone in the house hadn't eaten all the bacon, I had to improvise using chopped up sausages instead) 2 apple pies, i had some left over pastry so made 8 cheese & onion pasties, an iced apple cake & I tried my first cake (coffee & walnut) in the breadmaker but will need to lessen the cooking time when I do it again as it was a bit brown on the sides, will be perfectly edible though once i've sawed the burnt bits off

Not going to be spending anything today

Just seen your post slowlyfading, hugs to you & hope your day goes much better from now on xx

Frugaldom

summertea wrote: »

Hi,

Bit late as i've only recently discovered the joys of MSE but i'd like to join in (no 112) i think. Have been keeping a spending diary this year as an exercise so far so should be able to work back no problems.

Hows every one getting on?

:T

You are, indeed, number 112. Welcome to our world, where every penny counts online! :j Great to have one more on board and good luck for 2008 :T I'll get your number added as soon as I polish off the rest of my homemade pea and ham soup :rotfl:

MRSMCAWBER

Hello everyone

Im another one following this thread with growing interest

Thanks for the mention Nykmedia ...

Im not doing the challenge -although i have decided to become "tighter than a ducks doo daa":rotfl: .... i just can't bare to spend at the moment... and am looking at reaching the end of my 2nd week of Jan GC having only spent €10.86 in total

so i think i need to go right back to the begining of this thread and read again and see if i can get to grips with what is included in the £4000 and see if i can give it a go...
may take me some time to get my head round it...but i will be back