2008 - Live on £4000 for a full year.

Frugaldom

debrag wrote: »

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

What's 'Oyster'? Please don't tell me it's a shellfish, cos I already know that Was just wondering what cost £10 n being nosy, really :rotfl:

Miss_Pink_3

wornoutmumoftwo wrote: »

Yes, excellent book, made my steak pie recipe from it yesterday.

Going to have to pull my socks up and make something from it now. Bed time reading for me I think. They all look pretty straight forward I think (just some of the scottish sayings!!! My fella will help me out with that one). I hate to admit it, Im 28 years old and don't really cook much as my fella loves cooking. But the weeks leading up to xmas I have managed to catch the baking bug. I made mince pies for the first time ever. And the other day I made a Gordan Ramsey Sheperds pie. Yummy!!! There's no stopping me now. Im cooking every day whether the fella likes it or not.;)

barole

Happy new year everyone!

Have been offline since NYE and it has taken me about 2 hours to catch up with posts and I am supposed to be studying! Oh dear. Second no spend day today, the best way to be a money saver – don’t spend money! I have been inspired to monitor my electricity consumption, just off to read the meter so I can monitor/reduce consumption, how green! I can see this getting compulsive. I am also going to find out about mystery shopping etc to boost income.

It has been wonderful to read all your posts, so positive and inspiring.

Barole
xxx

catznine

Sweetpea the cake and rolls look yummy!

This morning I got oh to read both the meters and have made a note of what usage is going on (thanks nykmedia!) will do this every day for a while to see where I can cut back. Yesterday I was stuck in bed (poorly:o ) with a hot water bottle so not a lot of fuel used then! Did manage to enter a few competitions online to save postage) Our gas and elec bills are quite high compared with everyone elses so I know we must be able to cut back.

The slow cooker is on with all the veg that needs using up to make a nice cream of vegetable soup, the breadmaker will go on in a minute although we have some bagels that need using up. I bought a punnet of cranberries last week (reduced from £1.99 to 39p ) and have made another pot of cranberry sauce with sugar and some cheap spanish version of contreau that was lurking, hoping I can freeze this away for a treat later on. Have loads of leftovers in the freezers and cupboards seem to be full of pasta and rice!

The organic fruit and veg box, butter, eggs and yogurt delivery came today and the eggs have gone up to £1.80 for half a dozen! so will see if I can get them any cheaper elsewhere. So £13.84 has left the account today.

Catz x

wornoutmumoftwo

Going to have to pull my socks up and make something from it now. Bed time reading for me I think. They all look pretty straight forward I think (just some of the scottish sayings!!! My fella will help me out with that one). I hate to admit it, Im 28 years old and don't really cook much as my fella loves cooking. But the weeks leading up to xmas I have managed to catch the baking bug. I made mince pies for the first time ever. And the other day I made a Gordan Ramsey Sheperds pie. Yummy!!! There's no stopping me now. Im cooking every day whether the fella likes it or not.;)

You can't beat home made mince pies, and there are just so cheap to make.

I got the book because I live up in Scotland and was always trawling the internet for scottish receipes (hubby's from Scotland), plus I want to make more from scratch now the boys are almost in school. I've lawys been more into baking cakes and biscuit so I'm trying to branch out.

I'm doing my meal plan for the month and shopping tomorrow, and the boys are NOT going to influence my shopping list, they think it's christmas all year round so I got two tesco savings cards and told them if they want any more big toys they need to collect "penny stamps", fingers crossed it works as they always want a comic out of tesco's (not to read, just for the daft toy). They're 4 & 5.

Good luck with your cooking.

Frugaldom

Hope you're feeling better, Catz, a nice slice of Sweetpea's cake and a hot cuppa might help! I am so impressed by all you bread making, cake baking, leccie meter checking cyberdoshers (online cash saving, money making spendthrifts. It's my own word, been using it for years).

Keep up the good work - Jacks, I'm REALLY impressed by the dancercise routines for heat generation.

HINTS & TIPS: Learn Jacks dance routine to keep warm rather than turn up the heating. And save excess boiled water from the kettle in a big flask - if there's no power cut, it does for washing the dishes later

Burlesque_Babe

nyk - Oyster is the name given to a pre-paid kind of travel card in London - it can be used on buses.

Dinner is from the slow cooker tonight. 3 pork chops for £1.60 (yellow stickered) that I pulled out of the freezer with a load of casserole vegetables, potatoes and a packet of chicken chasseur mix from the cupboard.

NEgirl

no spend today and not going out so a nsd for me thankfully! Had to send dh out for some milk yesterday and added freezer bags to the list so i could freeze some of the excess food here - he came back really pleased as he made the executive decision that resealable/reuseable ones would work out cheaper in the long run :rotfl: Im thinking i might have a convert on my hands here - wahoo bring it on!

hopeless_spendthrift

Hi Nyk n thank u very much for adding me at such short notice . Rooting for you in your attempt to give up smoking :T. As a seemingly hopeless ex-smoker myself I know how brave you are and also that it CAN be done

Still attempting to trawl through my expenditure but am inclined towards setting a budget of £6000 for the year (£4000 + Child Benefit for 3 children), which would include all bills etc from your 'Things That Should be Counted' list plus pocket money and lunch money for the children and rent and water rates, etc; so that I know roughly what I have left for paying off my debts, which stand at approx. £2500 atm.
Intend to keep a jar, or separate account(s) for:
1. Essential clothing, footwear.
2. Gifts for others.
3. Essential household maintenance
4. Essential goods/furnishings.
5. Home Decoration/Interior.
Have marked these down on my budget planner as £5 each per week, or £20 each per month...


Have also started a £2 jar which I thought I would use to save up for outings and other extra expenses which invariably occur when the children are on their school holidays! :eek:

Also like the sound of a sealed pot challenge, which I may chuck all my loose change into to pay off one of my debts...

...am I on the right track or have I lost the plot completely?
Would be grateful of any advise any of you are kind enough to offer

The following may be useful to some of you:
Asda are offering FREE delivery on any online order over £50 placed b4 9th January. Coupon code:
M3-CH-NY-28 (to be added at checkout stage)

Also wanted to share with you guys that The Book People are an amazingly cheap resource for gifts for others. You can buy allsorts from them at incredibly low prices with free gifts and free delivery over a certain amount (£35-£50 I think....) and they sell some books in sets or groups of 1 dozen or more, so you could split them up as seperate gifts for a number of people
I bought my daughter a boxed set of (one of) her favourite authors (Michael Morpurgo) for only £12.99. It was retailed at £65.99! There were 10 or 12 books included.
Have a lot of birthdays in January(and beyond!), so ordered over £50 worth of books (free delivery too remember:cool: ) last month and got a beautiful free gift which I am using as one of the gifts! And for £50.98 I got 13 quality prezzies covered for the year, plus they have a rewards scheme whereby you get points back on purchases which u can save up for even more 'freebies'!

Thanks for everything guys.
With best wishes and kind regards,
Thrifty

sashacat

Please can I have a slice of that cake because I'm cold......or at least the recipe?