2008 - Live on £4000 for a full year.

Janey51

Just been for the 1/4 mile walk to take the wheelie bin for collection.....yep, its tough in the country
Noticed loads more pine cones have been blown down so going back out with my bag to gather them up to dry for the fire.
I feel in a baking mood today but my freezer is full so I could do with some visitors Another benefit of visitors is that their' body heat warms the place up.

I am trying to avoid thinking about all the direct debits which are due to go out of the bank at the beginning of the month. I had an easy start to this challenge as I joined after the big payout at the beginning of January so Feb will be a wake up call. I suppose I should be thankful its a short month and I have quite a few holidays to take so that will lessen the petrol bill.
We are on the protected electric tariff with BG until 2010 but our bill did go up because we had to use the drier a bit when the Rayburn was out of commission. DH phoned BG with latest meter reading last week to see if we could reduce the DD but not possible at the moment.
However, the BG advisor was very impressed that we are only £10 in debit at the end of the "worst quarter."
I was less impressed as we were £9 in credit on our last bill.:eek:

Must try harder.

sashacat

TTDB don't waste your money on this book as I got it for Christmas and read it in one evening and it is a waste of money. The only book worth having on this is John Seymour's and it's about £18. Go www.selfsufficiency.com (it may be .co.uk.or .net ,can't remember but it's s very good sight) I am almost self sufficient....well I am for food. I am selling my house and am going to buy a smallholding so I can have chickens and goats. I am veggie and grow all my own food and I have bees for honey.

This makes it easier for me to do this challenge because I still haven't been to the supermarket since Christmas and have no intention of going for ages.
Iam still £23.68 overspent though on January but that's because I paid for my buildings insurance all in one go a few weeks ago

redglass_2

Janey51 wrote: »

the BG advisor was very impressed that we are only £10 in debit at the end of the "worst quarter." I was less impressed as we were £9 in credit on our last bill.:eek: Must try harder.

Hi Janey51
I don't want to discourage you but I reckon some of that rise is down to BG and not your fault at all. :beer:

Mortgagefreeforme

Hi sashacat, it may be too late for you but the book people had the book by John Seymore on offer for about £4. If they still have it it may be of use to anyone you know.:D

bails

Hi everyone!
Thanks for the self sufficiency stuff, will be delving into that later. And the free bingo - I still hate it and still haven't won but might keep trying ; my £10 a day challenge hasn't really started this month...:rolleyes:
Lollopy Bear, sorry your house has been like that for so long - we're not delving too far in (can't afford to), although we would like to put double glazing in and complete the half-finished loft conversion we bought it with; :eek: at the money! My next step after the bedroom (which is going to become our office instead) is to prepare and plant my veg patch. :j It's my first one and I have no experience whatsoever so any suggestions for a first timer would be great, thanks guys
My update for last week: £44.61 spent, £448.22 total. My weekly total is back up 59p to £73.56 :T My savings pot is up to £894.14 too so happy with that

Good luck with Week 5!

Oh, and I keep forgetting to say, but I have been doing the Hunger Site for years - it's a great way of giving when you don't have much money and literally takes about 15 seconds to do all of them.

moanymoany

Paul_Varjak wrote: »

I guess that oven chips are partially pre-cooked (which probably justifies the extra cost).

Tesco value oven chips are very good and very cheap.

I also make them by cutting unpeeled potatoes into chippy shapes, bring to the boil and let them sit for 4 minutes then drain. Put back into the pan onto the heat. Measure in oil - depending on amount I use 1 tablespoon for two people's worth - Shake the pan with the lid on. Cook in a hot 200c oven till done.

I cut down my food bill over the last 18 months. To only spend £150 a month I found I had to cut out most meat eating. Value and cheap meat is not always nice. I make a month long menu plan around my 'frugal recipe' file and do my shopping from there.

1. Homity Pie

• Veggie Burgers and chips

• Bacon and Pasta Bake

• Dhal Curry and Jacket Potatoes

• Potato Onion and Bacon Hotpot

• Quinoa and Beans

• Vegetable Pancake and Fried Egg

• Woolton Pie

• Poor Man’s Cassoulet and Jacket Potato

• Shoulder of lamb

• Mock Goose

• Savoury Roly Poly

• Green Lentil Casserole

14. Bacon Onion and Potato Pie

You can see it is basically simple, but the dishes are all very tasty.

Frugaldom

Thank you everyone who takes the time to read and/or post on this thread. It has become a real 'regular haunt' for me and I'd miss it if it wasn't here!

I would love to be as near self-sufficient as possible, however, that won't happen until I own my own home as I've no guarantee of being in the same house long enough to establish proper food growing. No matter, that's what my challenge is about - frugal living with the hope of buying that fixy up cottage one day. :cool:

Spent some time this morning chatting to HM Revenue & Customs :eek: :eek: It's not as bad as it sounds - I was making enquiries about how different sources of income can affect a claim for Tax Credits. They need to know about employment, self-employment and 'other' income.

ALL INCOME, regardless of source, affects a claim.

For example, I am full time self-employed but am also employed part time, plus there's the question of 'other income'. This includes all interest on savings, dividends, cashback, vouchers, eBid/eBay sales etc, etc, etc. If you aren't accumulating the money as part of your normal work/employment then it is classed as 'other income'.

They don't count the first £300 per year of this, so deduct £300 from annual total to arrive at your annual income figure. Employment income is calculated as GROSS and, if you are self-employed and paying National Insurance contributions, then they are classed as part of your income too.

I'm NOT an expert on this, so if anyone has any queries, please contact HM Revenue & Customs. They are really helpful and not in the least bit scary

PS: The chicken curried lentils in the slow cooker have now been blitzed with my, err.. new hand blender to make 4 cartons of homemade curry sauce. Sorry about the handblender rash buy, but they were an Argos special at under £4 and I was ordering stuff for a friend (They've got no credit cards, they pay the delivery charge and I get the Tesco points ).

Burlesque_Babe

I make my own chips by par boiling potatoes cut into wedges and then putting them on a hot tray for about 20 minutes. Sometimes I use oil but I often use an oil pump spray.

The pump spray oils are dear (around £2), but I discovered a while back that the mix is 70% vegetable oil to 30% water so I use an old pump spray bottle and roughly mix the oil/water and use that when I'm trying to be good. The water is needed to stop the pump bit clogging with oil. Just need to remember to shake the bottle before using to mix the oil and water.

Gordon Ramsay made some when he did his cook a long on Channel 4 the other week. I'm pretty sure you can watch it online on the channel 4 website.

Frugaldom

Keren - do you know if you can freeze these once par boiled and oiled? This would solve my chip problem

Burlesque_Babe

I don't see why not Nyk, although if it were me, I'd probably freeze them par boiled with no oil and then add the oil when cooked in case the oil makes the edges of the potatoes go a bit odd when they are frozen (don't know if that would happen, mind you!!)