2008 - Live on £4000 for a full year.

DdraigGoch

Ok, I'll try and take Nyk OCD Lessons! I'll get a complete SOA and post it somewhere appropriate, then work from there. If I don't do "the whole thing" then I end up doing nothing at all:rotfl:

DG

funkyfunkymonkey

Here is the thread where there is an ongoing debate on what to use in your dishwasher http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1614&highlight=dishwasher+tablet

Not sure I would go as far as using clothing washing powder, but I do use cheap dishwasher powder and would not use tablets as they are so pricey.

FFM

System

hellooooooooooooooooooo strange strangers!

I havent been on in a while, but I have been reading up on all your antics :T

I have been my usual mix of when im good im very very good and when I am bad I am horrid..... (like the little girl who had a little curl)

Very Very good highlights -

free ticket trip to edinburgh castle

found 50p outside aldis today

a couple of 'present trunk' presents

got many many many (toothbrush??) plastic pots reduced to 5p each for my massive windowsill garden I have planned (I was shocked at the price of plastic flowerpots and refuced to buy them!!! the ones I saw were something crazy like £3 for 5:eek:, I was expecting them to be 50p for 80 or something)

horrid things

too many trips to jumbles, charity shops, and a small spree in primark....
but i got so many lovely things.... a big old soldiers trunk and a sailor girl dress and really old noahs ark and a vintage posion bottle etc etc etc etc - all totally essential purchases, im sure you will agree

ooh and I also got a frugal 'family heirloom' from my mum - an old style sewing machine (it works, but i have it just for display) which has been handed down my frugal bloodline...originally it came out of a bin from some distant binman relative!:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

(edit) oh and it has spent its life doing very frugal things like turning sheets and collars for many a great-relative apparently

BlueFleur

Today was a NSD in terms of cash, but I did have (hopefully) my last WW payment and an OD fine come out. Tesco have a 20% sale on clothes atm, so I went and got three pairs of trousers for £17. I'll need to spend money on clothes suitable for office work and I thought that was a bargain. Mum got caught up in the Tesco spending as well though, and decided to buy mine for me in addition to hers So I'm only down £19.95! Got to love mums

slowlyfading

Updated my total and it seems quite high! had a good last few days, but went to the cinema tonight and ended spending a fortune.

sophiesmum_2

Spent £7.65 today on a little top up shop including 6 bags of doves farm flour on offer at 60p some fresh veggies and two punnets of strawberries reduced from £1.95 each to 20p. The strawberries went into the dehydrator and are now going to be used to add to cereals etc. So far I have been happy with the results of stuff I have dried, and now have another way of making use of gluts of fruits,and veggies without filling up the freezer.:D OH keeps laughing at all my frugaltoys but doesn't stop him eating the results:rolleyes:

Frugaldom

DdraigGoch wrote: »

Nyk, I'm very interested in your OCD crunching, but what is involved? What sort of figures are you working from - not your personal figures, the interest v deposit sort of figures? I'm just fascinated to think that if I could downsize and invest then we could have a full time job investing the proceeds! LOL

I have been thinking some more about the above and am convinced that in order to succeed, the only way is to become obsessive about figures relating to pounds, pennies and, even, fractions. I hate fractions of numbers and prefer to round down when it's an amount going out and round up on amounts coming in, so I top up my savings by the exact number of pounds and pence needed to take it up to the nearest £5. For spending, I like my £10 shopping trips as I know it's all I have and need to get it right, with any pennies left going into my sealed pot. But the main thing is, working out exactly how much, to the nearest pound, it costs to get from 1st January to 31st December and then deciding on your personal comfort zone with regards to how you earn it and spend it. Frugal living doesn't mean skint, it simply means knowing 'how much' at any given time and budgeting/earning accordingly. That, in itself, can be a fulltime job, depending on how much you want to rely on your own ability to earn the necessary cash without relying on an employer.

:j Today, I broke through the first £100 mark on my 'quit smoking' savings, which is fantastic news! As you all know, this has it's very own savings account and is earmarked for the 'livestock and garden' aspect of my future frugal home. It may not sound much now but, even without increasing the daily amount in line with cigarette prices, if it takes 5 years to find and buy my frugal home of the future, that amounts to £2665 when factoring in the compounding interest at 5%. That's a lot of chickens and veggie seeds!:rotfl:

When checking on here for all the updates, I never miss the small print but we all have to agree, few here can begrudge a charity shop bargain or a family heirloom to bestow upon the next generation. I suggested to my lot that my memoirs would be priceless, but I think they got the wrong end of the stick. Still, all going well, I'll have my 'friendly society' tax free bond thingy with it's built in life insurance. We'll tackle the pension problem if I survive to cash in my bond! :rotfl:

Going to try not to spend anything else before the weekend, I need to get my 'spending average' down before the leccie bill cripples my budget next month. Major Catchup and Private Billy Can being called into action as soon as the Easter break is finished, methinks... my personal 'A' (for aaaaaaaaaaaaaaarg) Team.

mini_huny_money

hya. all hope everyone is fine tonight

....I know the DW is not very frugal and to me its a fantastic luxury, I kinda liken it to way back in the 70's when my mum replaced the trusty twin tub with a brand new shiny Zanussi washing machine and we all sat in the kitchen watching the washing go round!!!!! I cant believe the amount of time its saved me in the 2 weeks since I got it though and am definitely less stressed in that the kitchen always looks tidy now.

Went to my fav Mr T's in Silverburn tonight, fatal though as that shop always makes me spend, bargains in the reduced food section were kinda thin on the ground though but to make up for it, there was reductions on the clothes, got 2 summery skirts that were 8 pounds each reduced to 6 that will be perfect for work when the weather gets a wee bit warmer (sometime around the time that the polar ice caps melt completely!!!!)

am goin to try and update my sig daily to keep me a wee bit more on track

xx

Janey51

Morning everyone :wave:

I have just managed to catch up with the posts and there is a lot of good advice.
Nyk thanks for the info about Friendly Societies. I will be checking them out to see if I can salt away some of the "not needed" insurance money
I have worked a lot of extra hours in my new job and have agreed to work more over the next couple of weeks. I am loving it so much it's not like work at all
DH has been off work for 2 weeks now following his ankle injury but its a lot better. Unfortunately, he can't get sick pay so we are living very frugally at the moment. Although we have savings and I know he would happily dip into them, I don't want to unless absolutely unavoidable.
I am in a bit of a mess with working out the finances because I am waiting for my pension to come through and I don't know what a full month's pay will be for me in my new job yet. I have used a Salary Checker website but a lot of the "extras" (like taxed and untaxed mileage) I get in my new job are an unknown amount at the moment so a few re-jiggings will be on the cards.
DH asked me to get a leek for some soup he was making yesterday and I nearly choked when I got to the till and it was 60p :eek:
I don't often buy leeks (but used to belong to the local Leek Club ) so didn't realise they are so expensive. Or it could just have been local Co-op prices.

Have been doing a lot more baking recently. I'd forgotten how smug you feel asking visitors if they want a piece of cake :j

In view of the coldness forecast, we spent yesterday morning filling the log baskets. DH stood still splitting logs while I carried them in.
Also got an oil fill as the "nearly empty" light was flashing angrily. Luckily :rolleyes: I have changed to a monthly DD with the oil supplier so I won't have to fork out nearly £500 for the fill straight away. I waited until the tank was nearly empty before sending off the DD Mandate so we start at an advantage :rotfl:

Happy frugalling fellow frugalites. Make sure you have lots of porridge in to keep you warm over the Easter weekend

catshark88

Confession time....

Have been doing quite well on the frugal front until yesterday when self control went out of the window and I bought an absolutely unnecessary handbag. :eek:

I had resisted it for weeks but eventually gave in. It was £29 so not the end of the world but it's bright scarlet and will remind me to stop spending every time I see it. Hey, perhaps I can pretend that I bought it TO remind me not to spend....:rotfl:

Have a great day everyone.