2008 - Live on £4000 for a full year.

Rafiki_2

Right, I'm just about to set off to work...

No more £2.39 Mochas - Thermos of coffee is made! (might help the weight loss too )

All the best everyone - and Mummy, so glad your hoover is fixed!!

sweetpea03

well done everyone for getting through day 1 so well, I've just been reading through all your posts, theres loads of them! :T
Just to update on my first day, I added on the cost of my 10 bags of breadflour to my total but apart from that it was a no spend day - had a free lift to relatives & were fed while we were there It should be a pretty easy week as I don't have to transfer any bill money till next week (5 week month) so only have electric & gas to buy (card & key meter came with rented house unfortunately)

Re hoovers, I'm glad you got yours fixed Mumzy! well done If anyone has a dyson & the hose breaks they are very easy to fix with superglue, we did this & ours is working very well still. But I only use it once a week as I got hold of an old fashioned carpet sweeper to save electricity & it does the job pretty well in between vacuuming

Re posts timing out, Nyk if you preview your posts every couple of minutes you will be able to write a longer one without losing it, but if anyone knows a better way please canyou let us know, I have this problem too (very slow typer!)

Re fuel costs, good luck with the chimney sweep nyk, we also have the dreaded storage heaters but can only afford to keep the hall one on. This has the duel purpose of drying the washing in the winter which is on an airer above on the landing (its quite large & holds 2 loads of washing) & keeping the bedrooms warmish. We only have a gas fire in the downstairs but being a smallish house it does the job pretty well. I do have a tumble dryer but haven't used it all winter as I keep a production line of clothes ready for the airer. Roll on the better weather! Our electric costs are around £18 a week for electric & £2 for gas but I have seen others costs & don't know how it is so low as we are really careful with our useage?

Right plan for today I have dough making in the breadmaker, going to make some sesame seed rolls & soup for lunch & we are having sausage casserole for dinner (all ingredients here already) Going to take down the xmas decorations today & make gift tags from the cards & tackle the dust! Must get turkey leftovers that were frozen from xmas out tonight to make turkey stew in the slow cooker tomorrow as ds3 is starting a series of hospital tests in the afternoon (tomorrow he is having his heart checked) so it will be nice to have something warm & already cooked to come home to Hoping for a no spend day again today. oops this post has got a bit long so I'll finish now (sorry!)
Good luck for today everyone

whitewing

Hmmm. I am going to have an itty bitty day. We are going to have cheese and potato and cauliflower pie for lunch. I may make a cake and/or cobbler from black saturn's thread. I shall do some more de-cluttering too. And another layer of papier mache. Just about to go and enter some more comps.

I always highlight my text and then press ctrl + c to copy it before I submit it. That way if you get timed out you can just log in and paste it (cntrl+v) without losing it completely.

miss_empty_piggy

Well first day over and spent nothing. Took decorations and cleaned (doesn't it take forever?) Felt quite depressed yesterday after everything came down, but am determined to have a good year. Despite last year being pretty miserable, a couple of nice things did happen so am trying to see life positively and I am definitely going to make this one count!. Here's to spending less and living more!!!:rotfl:

Sweetpea03 I hope that your DS is ok. Fingers (and everything else) crossed for you.x:A

miss_empty_piggy

whitewing wrote: »

I may make a cake and/or cobbler from black saturn's thread. quote]

Am really intrigued whitewing...what is black saturn's thread????

sweetpea03

thank you for your good wishes miss empty piggy :A He having lots of tests as his doctor thinks he may have marfan syndrome. He already has ASD & one of our other sons has charcot marie tooth which was only diagnosed last year. Really appreciate your crossed fingers! xx

Whitewing I would be interested in Black Saturns thread too, I have heard it mentioned a few times on mse, thanks

debrag

so I spent £10 on Oyster on 95p on a drink today. No other money on me so no more spending

whitewing

Morning again.

Have just phoned the mortgage co and got their details for overpaying AND set up my first overpymnt. (Wimped out a bit and set it up for end Jan so I can think about it for a bit longer!)

Will be phoning ED energy in a minute to see when/if I have cheap night rate (can't see it on their website).

Will also be taking a meter reading for gas and elec this morning and setting up a spreadsheet.

I can't do links but if you look at pg 11 of this thread and scroll down to keren29's post at 5.47pm on 20th Dec you will see a link to all the meal planning threads, including Black Saturn's. I will warn you it is a lot of reading. I spent two hours on it the other day and only saw a tiny portion.

whiskylizzie_2

Hi all,
Many thanks for all the information - I feel quite guilty about my consumption when reading some of the post.
I was beginning to think that I had nothing to offer to this thread.
However, have just been making soup to help through the week & thought I would add information on my pans which have lasted rather a long time.
As a mainly serious cook I have had my stainless steel prestige pans 34 years & they're still near perfect, also le creusot casserole nearly as long. Although used less often, my slow cooker was my mother's & must be older still.
Just to say that these things seem expensive when you buy them but quality is worth it in the end.
However, I have got through many cheaper 'non-stick' frying pans - does anyone know of really good one?

sweetpea03

This is the longest lasting frying pan I've had so far whiskylizzie

http://www.debenhams.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product_10001_10001_19754_460401_-1

The non stick coating hasn't worn away at all in 3 years. I haven't bought any that are more expensive though.