2008 - Live on £4000 for a full year.

juliejay

Thank you, I'm going to start that this very afternoon and feed the other stuff to the ducks. Could you give me an idea of times, for example about how long in an averagely warm house would it take to double in size? And then how long ish to rise in the tin. Very excited about this now. We are having a baking day here. Me and DS have just made Mandarin Marmalade Muffins - a variation on the strawberry muffins in the Bero book but using the slightly odd mandarin marmalade that came in the Tesco hamper. They've turned out fab. Seven gone already and not cold yet.

MRSMCAWBER

Hi there juliejay

I would say about an hour in the kitchen would do it for "doubling in size".. If you swish the carrier around so it fills with air and then shove it over the bowl/tin like a tent it really warms up in there!! in the tin about 1/2 an hour.. I let mine get about 1 1/2" -2" above the top of the tin -any higher and it can "mushroom" not that we care in this house lol. Oh and i rub a little oil around the tin too -just incase....

Burlesque_Babe

hhmmm........I've just realised.

I'm doing a turkey crown tonight (ended up with 2 at Christmas - this is the one that was reduced I chucked inteh freezer!!) and I've no butter or bacon to put on the breast meat to stop it drying out.

I have vegetable oil........and I have ghee....I don't want to ruin what is a lovely piece of meat for the sake of spending 90p or so. But on the other hand, if I go in today, I might as well get what is on my list.

I think i'll pop over to OS and ask for their pearls of wisdom on using ghee.

bails

I'm so jealous of everyone who lives in Scotland!! I was going to move there about 3 years ago and then met my OH - he's from Brighton! :eek: I didn't think I wasn't ever going to get him further north than here (his mum would like us to buy adjacent plots of land in Brighton :eek::eek::eek:) but we might be moving Manchester way this year... If we do, I'll be able to get up to the Beautiful Land for a weekend, so definitely count me in for a glass of water Nyk!

I've got a file on the go of all the lovely recipes being shared so I can also help if you can't find one. Thank you, they'll really help with my menu planning next month. I haven't got round to trying to make some bread this weekend as other things have got in the way, but it's still on my list.

What's SOA by the way?

OH bought a car yesterday for £250!!! Sounds dodgy but was from a friend so I'm praying that it lasts a little while (I will need to get a car in June probably to replace mine that died last week but in the meantime we can share this one - and I didn't have to pay for it ).

I'm still desperate to add up my spends for the week and am pretty confident I have nothing to buy today so, I'm going to do it now anyway! :j I'm so excited, how sad! :rotfl:I was careful with money before as we don't have much but I'm taking it to a whole new level thanks to you guys! :T One day I'll be as great as Yoda Nyk :rotfl:Do you still have horses BTW? I'm assuming not, how would you ever afford them on 4K?! I would absolutely love a horse one day; part of my long-term plan.

Saturdays don't hold any pull for me - I have never liked shopping (only food and present shopping) and spent all day Saturday either at school :eek: or playing hockey. I'm grateful for that, as that would make this challenge so much harder, so well done all those people who are resisting!

This challenge fits in so well with simplifying our lives - it's a lifestyle choice we've always been partial to and the thread on here is really helping; with the MS on here too, it's all falling into place slowly. Thankyou for everything, I am so looking forward to spending the year being inspired by you guys! :grinheart

Burlesque_Babe

OS gang says yes to ghee on my turkey!! Excellent news.

bails - SOA is a Statement of Affairs, it is all your income and your outoings - have a look at the sticky at the top of the DFW board for all the details.

My last car cost me £275. 1993 VW Vento - a Golf with a boot. Fantastic car I bought as a stop gap after my trusty Carlton died at its MOT. I sold it for £300 just 4 months after buying it!!! I had over 20 enquiries when I sold it, which was amazing. Sturdy little beast it was. I got it because I was saving to switch to an automatic from a manual due to an injury. I'd have kept the Carlton if I could until I swtiched but it just wasn't worth paying for the work at the MOT

debrag

was bad today bought bread, ice cream, big bottle of cherry coke and some oven chips.

I was wondering what the best way to do my food shopping would be:

a. do a weekly shop at supermarket
b. transfer my food budget (£50) to my pre-paid card and shop online using free delivery codes? This way I can get things like big packs of drinks & patatoes etc which I can't carry and plan a shop better.

bails

Thanks for that Keren. Yeah, I want to keep my 205 too, been a brilliant car but £600 for a new head gasket is just not worth it! Hoping to sell it for a little extra cash... (I might check out the make £10 a day challenge too...)
Okay, here's my totals for Week 2: £203.43 which includes over £100 in DDs and a big phone/broadband 1st bill (for set-up etc). So we now have a weekly spend of £72.61 for the year. It is very interesting to work that out, as it does put your spends into perspective. I think that's all the bills out of the way now (will double check) and we have loads of food/ pet food etc so looking for a reduced spend next week. We're up to Manchester later in the month to scout around possible areas to live so our budget may take a hit then (although we'll be staying with mates and, hopefully, being fed by them!). If anyone knows places to head for/ avoid around the area we'd be grateful for any advice - we want to live in the country but possibly on a train link to the city, little village type place... or if you've got a cottage with an outhouse for a workshop to sell around there... :rotfl:
This challenge is also having a great effect on the other spends I've chosen not to include this year (hey, next year I might include them as well!) - we haven't been even close to getting a takeaway yet, for example (and a big part of that is down to menu planning and batch cooking :T). Oh, it feels so gooooood! :jBring it on Week 3!

Burlesque_Babe

That was the problem with my Carlton bails. It cost £400 and only had 1 tyre changed every MOT for 3 years. Then on the 4th year, it failed on tonnes of stuff and would have cost about £600 to put right - it wasn't worth it, it was starting to rot underneath. I got £30 for scrap I was so sad that night to see such a huge beast of a car going off on a truck.

I found a bag with a few oven chips in earlier and I was going to have a sneaky snack, but I've been very good and put them back - they'll do for a lunch in the week with some beans or eggs - I've had a cup a soup instead - I've a load of them cluttering up the cupboard!

Ephemera

juliejay wrote: »

We've just finished the last of Sweetpeas sweet potato and tomato soup and it was sooooo yummy. Even the kids loved it, partly because it looked like heinz tomato but tasted much better.Made the bread to go with it but it was awful. Turned out like a oversized overcrunchy crumpet. The yeast was fine (June 08) so dont know what went wrong except that I've never had much luck with bread. Cant bear to throw it out and this morning we've had it toasted but it needs loads of butter and jam to improve it so its not really MSE at all. Worse still theres no end to it! -it seems to be getting bigger the more we eat. It will certainly do for the rest of the week.Do you have any hints or tips or recipes for bread? Theres still loads of flour and yeast which would be a shame to waste and if I had bread to hand to go with my yummy soup (mushroom next) I could avoid the shops for longer. Juliex

Hi Julie,

Are you using dried yeast in a little tin? If it's been open for more than a month it starts to lose viability...that could be why it didn't work.
Try your local supermarket or baker for fresh yeast - I'm experimenting with sourdough cooking and am having interesting results..... :eek:

Best of luck!

Eph.

Mollymop5

Now I'm using spendingdiary.com I'm finding it so easy to keep track of my spends that I will be able to update weeekly.Yeay! just off to update sig.