2008 - Live on £4000 for a full year.

dND

Hi everyone.

Like Mrs MCawber, I too have been lurking round this thread as well as the OS board and wanted to tell you all what a wonderful source of inspiration you all are.:beer:

I don't feel I can join in officially this year, I still need to find cheap shops etc but if it's running next year I will need to be on board.

So I wish you all the best of luck with your various goals and will continue lurking to keep me in training for next year.

Love to you all,
Deborah

sweetpea03

bails wrote: »

Which reminds me - my mum brought us round some reduced asparagus yesterday, bless her, and it needs using by today. Does anyone know a great (vegetarian) recipe I could use please, my books don't have anything good? OH loves asparagus so would like to keep it whole but if not an asparagus soup recipe would be great. Thanks.

I've had a look through last years country kitchen mags & found a few recipes which could be ok but I'm not sure if I'm allowed to post them (copyright) so if you fancy any of them let me know & I'll pm the recipe

there's rice, cucumber & asparagus salad (looks yummy in pic, you need rice, asparagus, cucumber, red onions, dijon mustard, sugar, white wine vinegar, olive oil, basil, iceberg lettuce)
asparagus omelette (the recipe has shrimps in but it would be ok to leave them out & the asparagus is left whole in the omelette,you need asparagus, 8 eggs, parsley, onion, plain flour, butter)
And asparagus & herb soup (asparagus, 1 leek, 2 shallots, olive oil, flour, veg stock, chives, double cream or creme fraiche)

I haven't tried any of them out before but they all look nice in the pics

whitewing - a virtual valentines party sounds like a great idea! :j

slowlyfading

:hello: everyone. have updated my sig and its looking scary already! I've been home this weekend and the train tickets are always expensive, even with a student rail card, so i'm going to try and have low spends all week this week i think, just to make it up! hope everyone's having a good day
sf x

Burlesque_Babe

I forgot my list for the supermarket - d'oh!!! By more luck than judgement though, I ended up buying everything that was on it.

I did spend a bit more (ahem) than I had planned. It totalled £48.13 :eek:
but (lots of back tracking justification here!!) I did buy a load of very cheap wrapping paper for next Christmas as well as a gift to put away (from the 75% off sale)

There was TONNES of reduced stuff around the store. i've never seen such a wide range of reduced items, all the shelves were heaving. Meat, fish, dairy, ready meals, bread, as well as a big section full of crisps, beer, tins, all yellowed stickered. If I hadn't have been doing this challenge, the total would have been a lot, lot more!!

I did wrestle with my conscience at one point. i've decided to try to incorporate more free range/organic where I can without blowing my budget too much, so I switched to organic milk and yoghurt today. However, the Value Eggs were all reduced to 4p a carton and I bought 2 lots. I nearly bought 3, but I wouldn't have used that many eggs up. There were about 100 cartons of them reduced.

However, I don't think I will need to go to the supermarket for the rest of the month (maybe some milk) so I don't think just under £50 is bad for a month's spend at Mr T's!!!

I've got £14.99 of this month's budget left (gulp), 1 birthday present to buy and then I need to send that and another one. I'm owed nearly 3000 points by pigsback so I'm hoping they will be put on my account in the next day or so as I need to get some vouchers to buy the present!!

debrag

halia wrote: »

We don't have a TV licence! we cut through our aerial cable and cancelled the license. We'd rather spend the money on unlimited rental of DVD's we KNOW we will watch than the C**p thats on TV.

You don't need a licence to watch DVD's or videos.

ah no aerial get you now

whitewing

I've overspent too this month if you look at my signature. However, a fair bit of this was on presents which should reduce my spend during the year. And, to be fair, £50 has gone into savings but I am counting that as coming out of my budget. It is there in the future for renewing car insurance.

Nothing is going to burst my bubble of happiness today. I don't know why I am so happy, I just am!

bails

Mr T does seem to do some great reductions, shame there's not one round here. Well done on remembering everything on your list Keren, and for resisting all those bargains! I too am trying to be ethical and save money (I need to check out the threads about that) so I have basically given up meat (OH is already a vegetarian). I'm not completely cutting it out (mostly as I still have some in the freezer) but I have no desire to buy any, which is also reducing my spends (not so as you'd notice from my sig ). And I forgot to say a massive well done for a fortnight of NSDs - now that is seriously impressive! :T
BTW, I've just been reading on the Freebies board, does anyone know if you can still get free fresh yeast by asking at the bakery in your supermarket? If you can, thought it might help with all the breadmaking antics on here!
Sweetpea, they all sound lovely but with the colder weather I think I might try the soup after all! Would you be able to send me all of the recipes (only if you've got them on your PC already, if not just the soup would be great, don't want you typing for England!) Thankyou x
And dND, you don't have to lurk, come and join in even if you're not doing the challenge!

Burlesque_Babe

Yes, if they have it, you can still get free yeast.

Also don't forget the free meat coatings in Tesco from the butcher's counter. I got a bag of bbq and a bag of garlice and herb - saved buying a couple of jars of seasoning!!

I also redeemed a voucher for 4 free bottles of Diet Coke - the new one with 'vitamins'. I got the voucher from the Freebies board if anyone wants some, it expires on on 31 Jan.

whitewing

Can you all stop posting please! LOL! I am now completely unable to log off the PC if there is a post on here that I haven't read! Aaaarrrrrgggghhhhh.

(Ps, sebastianj from the silver surfers board, I hope that you have found us and you will come in to say hello)

MRSMCAWBER

Whitewing

Glad its not just me.... i keep wandering off to do something and then dashing back in case anyone else has posted... between here, the OS weight loss thread and the grocery challenge thread I am amazed i get anything done :rotfl: Still it keeps me focussed and out of the shops