2008 - Live on £4000 for a full year.

redglass_2

Janey51 wrote: »

Hi redglass. As we are on the rate frozen until 2010 should the recent fuel rises make a difference? I hope not :eek:

Surely they're not allowed to...surely! :eek: I heat downstairs with a wood stove but the price of logs is going up, too, so I'm always on the lookout for people throwing away wood...broken chairs, old skirting boards, anything they are willing to give away.....I embarrass my friends.

sashacat

well done to everyone. iT

hopeless_spendthrift

Hope u soon feel much better Lollopy, in time for your first lesson 2mrw.

Thanks for the oven chips tips guys. I always fry hm ones - always use olive oil as it's healthy and I hardly ever do chips so can afford to do that.

Thanks for innovative freezing tips there Nyk :beer: . I too eagerly await your hm curry concoction! :drool:
My fave frugalicious ingredient atm is tinned Scottish mackerel in tomato sauce from Mr A's - only 3 tins for a pound! Only use 1 or 2 per meal. Great with pasta. It is one of my 'fast food' standbys for the kids. They love it cooked with pasta in a hm tomato sauce, but tried it 2day with a recipe from organic veg suppliers newsletter, with kale and cream! Yes! Overly extravagant at first sight maybe but I did walk to lidl to get the cream (80sumthing P), only used 2 tins of the mackerel (33-ish P), kale came in organic box and a packet of pasta didn't cost much. Fed 5 of us and enough left over 4 tomorrow too! Tasted really yummy with loads of black pepper. Us Fruges know how to live it up frugaliciously don't we?:D I will post the recipe if any of u wish
Also made flapjacks today, which is a kind of healthy sweet and not too expensive.

Want to update as it's the end of the week b4 i goto bed so will brb

Frugaldom

If using a whole chicken, you get the main meal/roast dinner followed by the second meal of stir fry, curry, chow mein, fajitas, casserole, pie or whatever and then, normally, the rest gets used for making stock. However, at that point there is still a fair bit of meat on the chicken, albeit small pieces, wing and leg meat. This chicken curry sauce is what can be done with those pieces and then there's still enough left on the bones to boil it off and add back into the soup.

NYK's Frugalicious Curry Sauce

Chicken (leftovers)

Diced onion
Diced peppers (I had about quarter of a red & same of a yellow)

Lentils
Stock
Tin of tomatoes
Salt
Pepper
Mixed Spice
Curry Powder
Turmeric
Ginger
Chile Powder
Tabasco
Handful of sultanas

The above list was what was available to me from the cupboard, although I left out the cinnamon and the paprika :rotfl: Sorry this isn't very technical, but I am far from being a culinary expert, I'm more of a 'throw it all in the pot and see what happens' type cook. Just add about a teaspoonful of each spicy thing and at least a tablespoon of curry powder (depending on how hot you like your curry).

My most used pots are my stock pot, my slow cooker and my steamer. I had the lentils simmering in the bottom of the steamer with the diced veggies on the top. The chicken was already cooked, as we're using leftovers for this, and I'm cooking the lentils in chicken stock, but you could do this as a veggie dish and completely miss out the chicken.

When the lentils had absorbed the liquid, I transferred them to the slow cooker, covered them with more stock, added in a tin of chopped tomatoes and all of the above ingredients, including the steamed veggies and chicken.

Set on low, go to bed and let it cook on cheap electricity :rotfl:

I left it on low overnight and then blender-blitzed the whole lot in the morning, chicken pieces and all. This, however, was more to do with the fact that the Argos man delivered my new £3.89 hand blender and I wanted to play with it, than for any other reason.

I reckon it probably cost under £1 to make the whole lot and it filled 4 tinfoil containers for the freezer and I kept a carton of it out for using. One carton did 3 of us here - as a quickie lunchtime treat, we had homemade 'chippie takeaway' of oven chips and chicken curry sauce!

When I think about everything that's in it, it has to be quite nutritious! And tasting a bit like Masala, it's made me want to try making Naan breads!

Loved the tale of the Ham stock cubes!! I've noticed them disappearing from the shelves elsewhere too! Must start stock piling!!

NB: To stockpile - to make stock from whatever bones, meat or veg is available, decant to empty milk cartons and pile it up in the freezer.

hopeless_spendthrift

:hello: Hello Everyone.

At first glance my spending seems satisfactorily frugal. A particularly frugalesque (has this word been coined yet?) weekend contributed to no less than THREE NSD's!!! And yet, on totting up, this week has been my most expensive yet In my defence, 3 big direct debits went out and i did a £50 shop which I am expecting to last at least a couple of weeks. Also payed for 2 weeks of organic fruit n veg bags in advance - so, in theory, next week should be virtually grocery spend free.
Does anyone want an itemised list? I am afraid of boring you. Will post this time as it's not very long but let me know for the future plz:
Tues 22 Jan - Organic F 'n' V bags..........................£23.00 (x2 weeks )
Gas Direct Debit..................................£19.00
Electricity DD.......................................£15.00
DAY'S TOTAL......................................£57.00
Wed 23 Jan - Greetings Card (for grandson!!!)...£ 0.49
Thurs 24 Jan - NSD!
Fri 25 Jan - cheque cashed by DAXON...............£17.40 (i live in dread of the freebie coat!)
Sat & Sun both NSDS!!!
Today (The killer! lol) - Mobile DD ...............................£ 43.56 :whistle: (prefrugal days!)
Postage Stamps......................£2.04
Lidl shop...................................£6.41 (walked there 2save fare)*
Big shop payment cleared..£52.01
DAY'S TOTAL :eek: £ 104.02
WEEK 4 TOTAL £178.91
Hope u all did a lot better than this Welcome to week 5 all! I am looking forward to it :happyhear :hello:
* seriously considering joining your get fit/lose weight february Nyk
P.S. I saved some money this week too! Now £50 in savings account, £50 in savings jar and £20 in £2 coin jar. :j
Have also applied for another 0% balance transfer rate CC (12 mnths - HSBC) to give me more time to pay off CC debt, plus applied for a cashback CC ( my fave site is quidco - seems to pay out more than the oily hand).
Goodnight my dear, fellow frugallers. Keep those purse strings nice and tight now!

whitewing

Good morning Frugal Friends,

Awoke early so thought I'd get up to sort out the car tax. The joys of being a responsible adult!

Must not spend anything else today.

Am going to try to get organised early on this morning so I can go out for a walk at lunchtime. Need to get some practise in before I can commit to Feb's Frugal Fitness Challenge.

Yes please to the recipe for mackeral pasta. Not something I would have thought of by myself. Mackeral on toast is about as exciting as I get.

catznine

:hello: Morning!

Been doing my sums and my totals for January are:-

Food - £140.79 (:j pleased with this but know I can do better)

Gas and Elec dd's - £87.00 :eek: (result of high bills last year) am working to reduce this

Mobile contract phone & ins - £45 this is going asap! back to payg for me, contract ends in April

Presents - £29.43

Vits and meds - £4

Pets - £44.22 (Cat and dog food and needed a new lead and harness for the puppy as the little terror has chewed through her last set!:rolleyes:)

Essential Household - £11.99 (scissors, puppyproof doormat and a cake tin)

Cleaning - £14.00 (£7 for soapnuts which are brill and should last ages and £7 windowcleaner going up to £8 next month though!)


Grand total for January £376.48 leaving £4623.52 for the next 11 months! eek! Well I can now see where I am going wrong so should balance out over the year! (says with fingers crossed;) ) Hoping I have done this correctly nyk!

Just thought that I too have been frugalistic as I did buy a pack of popsocks but sold them on (unopened and unworn!) at work and raised £1 for a collection going round and £2 for my purse!:money:

Miss_Pink_3

Another bad week last week. Really didn't stick to budget at all. It was another 'oooohhh' week. But OH has now realised and our challenge now is to see how long we can go without shopping. We have alot of food in the cupboards/fridge etc, so should last us a while. Spent £4.11 yesterday, so that was within budget. Will defo be a NSD today and tomo. So fingers crossed we can get back on track abit.

FBThree

nykmedia wrote: »

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'.

OOH now you've scared me! I thought that if you were trading - i.e. buying in to sell at a profit, then you'd have to report it, but this implies that if you sell your own possessions or things you'd been given that you might have to report it! Mind you, I guess there's no way I could sell £300 of my possessions...unless I wanted no furniture left! :rotfl:

Burlesque_Babe

Jacks_xxx wrote: »

If they play any gigs down your way I could come down on the train and we can jump up and down at the front! (Ok - maybe not with my boobs! :rolleyes: ) We could get gently sloshed at the back and chat up the soundman instead then?

Love Jacks xxx

I won't be doing that with MY boobs either :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:

I'm liking your thinking missus............;)

£10.00 for me today. Off to put what looks like half a cow in the slow cooker. I bought a piece of brisket reduced to £3 - it weighs nearly 4 pounds!!! i'll half it as it won't all fit in, cook it all today in gravy for tonight and with some of the leftovers I'll think about making some tortillas tomorrow and having spicy shredded beef with peppers and onions.