2008 - Live on £4000 for a full year.

fizzel81

Afternoon all

quick update from me in between trying to sort and get ready to move
well i managed nsds from saunday up untill 2pm on thursday when i spent 8.52 in tesco and 5.00 on the bus to get there (needed to bank my HB cheque) please with the fact i dashed in tesco and brought ONLY what we really needed (16pints milk, potatoes, mushrooms, stork marge, and cereal) now before this challenge im sure i would have thrown much more into the trolly

once ive moved i will be around alot more to contribute to the challenge, i dont want to remove myself from it as i would lose all motivation but if its prefered as i have little imput please say xx

Frugaldom

Wow! Keren, what fantastic bargains! I'd need a bigger freezer! I'm becoming more and more dismayed at not living closer to a main supermarket!

Fiz - don't you dare disappear! :eek: We need all the frugal-power we can get here Even if you can only manage 2 minutes once a month to say you saved a penny on a pint of milk, it's better than leaving. Besides, frugalling is so contageous that you'll be unable to drag yourself away for any great length of time. Think of the 'fix' after being away for a few days! I need to pop on here every HOUR just to make sure I'm not imagining things. :rotfl:

Took a quick look in the Amazon sale and got 2 fantastic pressies for nieces! One was reduced from £32 to £8.99 the other reduced from £29.99 to £7.98 :T At a total of £16.97, it qualified for free P&P. That's 2 more pressies to strike off the 2008 Christmas list :j

mama67

Just updated my sig with this weeks spends.

Burlesque_Babe

Have to say Nyk I was tempted to buy more. If I'd have had the guts, I'd have taken a quick snap on my mobile to show the feast of food but I was worried I'd get asked why!! There was so much, they were just reducing it and then stacking the trays all on top of each other in front of the reductions fridge.

Burlesque_Babe

hi - yes, I did see the Wife Swap programme. Those Maltesers really did need a loving home

I'm not sure I'd ever have the guts to go bin raiding and not being the most sylph like of people, I would more than likely fall in if I lent over one, but I've got my own little freeganism thing going now with my ex (I explain a few posts back) where he has said I can have all the bread he doesn't use and was going to chuck. I went to get my dog this morning from my old house and noticed another whole bloomer loaf in the kitchen with 20 Feb date on it. He wasn't in but I bet I end up with it tomorrow for breadcrumbs or croutons

The loaf he gave me the other day - still going strong. I had 2 huge chunks with soup at lunch time. Is that 4 days now since he was going to throw it out??!!

I've also got my eye on a bag of potatoes in his kitchen. He has had 1 or 2 out of it and he uses them so rarely they will start to grow sprouty bits. I've seen him throw loads of potatoes out so I'm hoping they will come my way at some point - better off in my kitchen and used rather than filling up his bin

A couple of years ago, Tesco suddenly put all the pork joints on the butcher's counter to £1. I snaffled the whole lot and filled the freezer as well as my OH's freezer. I even gave my ex one to share with the dog!!

Pork was quite common for dinner for quite a while!

Burlesque_Babe

Well, at least it will keep my ex's bin a bit emptier!!!

I went along to Asda on Sunday where everything was going down to 10p and a chap said - 'well, it's all going to get thrown out' as he picked some stuff up so it seems the message is spreading.

I hate paying full price for anything now but I've been that way since I joined MSE back in 2005.

On a slightly different frugal note, after chasing pigsback for the last few weeks, I now have nearly all my owed points. Just one more lot to be credited and then I'll have 5000 points. That's £50 worth of Boots or John Lewis vouchers for presents or £50 in Pizza Hut vouchers. It's a toughie

I'm also being frugal for my little DFW party I'm going to tomorrow night. I don't think Bunny comes onto this thread, but just in case I won't say what I've got her, but let's just say - the power of the voucher and also, i'm taking a bottle of champagne that was given to my OH at Christmas and has been sitting in my fridge since waiting for a special occasion. I got half my train fare back in piggy points (£17.50 worth) and I've got yellow sticker pack up for the train.

A frugal DFW MSE party for me!!!

elantan

well thats me caught up with the thread finally ...i see the freegans came in for more stick nyk thanks for your post on it i agree whole heartedly i wasnt aware it got so personal and am glad it got pulled if thats the case. Have updated my spending to include drink etc now i just have to get to grips with the fact that as i was night shift i didnt eat all the fruit in the fridge so i have wasted some stuff that really sticks in my throat something i am gonna have to plan for the future i think ... just checked my pigs back account and they have given me the £20 from foxy bingo i was in the middle of disputing...i got an email the other day saying basically i had to prove i joined through them i had deleted that email so didnt think i would get anywhere ...anyway today i checked my account and the £20 was there plus i was only 10p away from another £10 but had 3 click throughs so £30 of boots vouchers winging it's way to me ....shame i bought all the cheap smellies the other week lol ...but mothers day is coming up so no doubt i will use them then

chewits

After watching the Wife Swap programme me and my bf were motivated to try the bin raiding, but we're not being very successful. All the stores around here have the bins behind security fencing, apart from Aldi who have it going straight into a compactor, which crushes it straight away. The only luck we've had is getting a few books from the bins behind a couple of charity shops (not the ones for donations, stuff the charities are throwing out - presumably if they can't sell it) which I'm hoping to flog on e-bay or amazon. Does anyone have any suggestions for the best sorts of places to try bin-raiding food-wise?

nevadagirl

I love reading this thread and while I'm not joining in with your £4k challenge, I'm really enjoying hearing and learning from all your innovative ways of achieving this. I wanted to share with you a website I look at most days called www.craftzine.com. I know quite a few of you enjoy crafts and home-making gifts, but this thread often has links to new ways of reusing and recycling things we might otherwise not see the true potential of. In the last week or so, it's highlighted links teaching how to darn socks and jumpers, how to make your own washing powder and how to reuse tin cans as storage. I'm a not hugely competent but very enthusiastic knitter :rotfl: and there have been a few ideas on the website lately for using up 'walnuts' of wool from finished projects. Great for me as I don't have the longest attention span sometimes and will otherwise leave things lying all over the house...

It's a really inspiring website and not just for crafters, it makes me look at loads of things in new ways. It also makes me quite jealous of how arty and creative people are, I'm just good at following instructions, so it works great for me. It also has great hints and tips on photography and selling your craftings online, some of these I've been able to apply to my eBay listings, and is updated frequently so there's almost always something new to read.

I just wanted to contribute something to say thanks for all the enjoyment I've had lurking on your thread - thank you everyone and I hope you all achieve your challenge goals.

Janey51

Talking of bin raiding
DH and I don't get a newspaper as its a waste for us but we do take our friends' papers as we need them for the fire.
However, I have been known to purloin a few from the newspaper re-cycling bins when we are short