2023 Frugal Living Challenge

newlywed

florianatwobob said:

Underwear and socks often hang up in the kitchen on the knicker chandelier. 

Thank you for the brilliant new name for my sock and undies hanging airer thing.  Made me laugh.

nannygladys

Gliittering_M - Im only a novice at this dehydrating, I've only had mine about six weeks! But you're right I haven't the room for a bigger freezer in the house where I live (it's a small house) and it always seems full anyway, and I have an allotment, so I thought dehydrating would be good alternative. I'm aiming on adding things like celery etc to soups and casseroles, the tomatoes I dehydrated I have put in a jar with some olive oil and will leave them about a month and then try them, if they are ok I will do more when on offer and add herbs, garlic etc to it for extra flavourings! It's all an experiment really😀 I would like to start water canning or vacuuming food as well, so I'm on the look out for a large deep saucepan or an old pressure cooker body I can use, I will scour the charity shops for one though, my dehydrator was new, it's not that big but I think it will be ok for me. Ps I also grow quite a few herbs in my garden so I'm thinking of drying them for family and friends as I can't eat them all🙂
Nannyg 

nannygladys

Ps you'll have to let me know how you get on😀

spudsmum

Floss said:

@spudsmum have you thought about pausing your debt repayments just for 1 month to recover the emergency fund, you have had 2 expensive unplanned car repairs after all?

Thanks. I’ll think about it. I’m just worried about losing momentum. 

I find having the debt total ticking down constantly is quite addictive and it keeps me motivated. 

spudsmum

MissRikkiC said:

I too find the balance difficult @spudsmum in having money set aside and using it to repay debts. Trying to budget set for the rest of this year where disposable income will fluctuate greatly and naturally the obvious thing to do would be to build those pots later in the year when there is more money left over however I want to prevent feeling then, like we do now and find it’s quite hard to work out. 

@mumtoomany do you have personal experience of this or know anyone that does? 

Frugal wins yesterday. 

No spend day. 

DW didn’t go on, I washed up on account of being behind with the washing and needed to use the WM multiple times. 

Dinner was cooked at the weekend when the oven was on so just needed to be reheated in the microwave. 

Timer set on the heating. 4am-8am and 4pm-8pm. Have to be slightly mindful as have 2 small children but we will trial this for now. 

Husband checked and fiddled with the boiler pressure and now seems to be more efficient

Yes it’s hard - it seems counter intuitive to leave the debt while i put money aside for my pots but then if i don’t replenish your pots and i have an emergency that needs paying for then chances are I’ll end up having to put stuff on my credit card - seems a no win situation. 

mumtoomany

Hi, @spudsmum and @MissRikkiC.

 I/we are lucky that we have not had debts for many years. Even the mortgage was paid off around 2003. As for advise. Our income is very sporadic and limited. We get working tax credit each week, and three, (until the other two are sorted) very small private pensions of OH's. These are our only regular income. This will all come to around £900 per month in total, once the other two get sorted. I ensure that everything we need to survive can be covered by this amount. On top of these we have other bits of income throughout the year. We get paid by DD1 if we have her children, this might be anything from £0 to £300 per month, although more usually the lower end as they are now all in school. We get some money through out the spring and summer from selling plants, produce and eggs, on the gate. Around £300-£400 per year. Also any money we make from selling lambs, a few hundred pounds in a good year. Added to this is any money from surveys, or selling things, OH buys cars, fixes them and sells them on.

So each month the regular money is used to pay for bills, food, transport, animals, etc. I also make sure that £100 per month goes into the savings account. The savings account has up to £3000 in it. Any emergencies come from there. Any extra money can be spent on other things, like fixing the barn roof, Christmas, wants rather than needs.

My advice to you @spudsmum, would be as follows.
1. Get hubby on board with all the spending, make sure he knows how to find the best deal for everything, or asks you.
2. Set up a savings account just for emergencies, something difficult to access, maybe premium bonds, (you might even win) where you have to wait a day or two for the money.
3. Once you have this emergency fund start putting any extra into another savings account, and use to pay off extra lump sums to the cards. If you have to use any of the emergency fund, refill that before you then pay any more extra.
4. Try to cut your costs for everything to the bone, until the debts are gone. Every penny matters and adds up. My gate sales mentioned above are an example. Most days when i empty the honesty box there will be only £1 or so. DD3 says, "it's only pennies, that's nothing" But each day I tip it into a drawer. When i counted it at Christmas, i had £379. My sister used to collect up pennies she found on the road, in the washing machine from jeans pockets, and any loose change she had left over. These all went into a jar. Whenever it was full she took it to the bank and paid it off the mortgage. She too has been mortgage free for many years.

I hope some of this is useful to you and maybe others. Hugs, mumtoomany.xxx

Glittering_M

nannygladys said:

Gliittering_M - Im only a novice at this dehydrating, I've only had mine about six weeks! But you're right I haven't the room for a bigger freezer in the house where I live (it's a small house) and it always seems full anyway, and I have an allotment, so I thought dehydrating would be good alternative. I'm aiming on adding things like celery etc to soups and casseroles, the tomatoes I dehydrated I have put in a jar with some olive oil and will leave them about a month and then try them, if they are ok I will do more when on offer and add herbs, garlic etc to it for extra flavourings! It's all an experiment really😀 I would like to start water canning or vacuuming food as well, so I'm on the look out for a large deep saucepan or an old pressure cooker body I can use, I will scour the charity shops for one though, my dehydrator was new, it's not that big but I think it will be ok for me. Ps I also grow quite a few herbs in my garden so I'm thinking of drying them for family and friends as I can't eat them all🙂
Nannyg 

Thank you, I look forward to hearing how it goes.

For the herbs, am I correct that if you dehydrate them, that will result in a similar end product to the herbs you'd buy in the supermarket? 

-taff

You can dehydrate herbs just by hanging them up somewhere for a few weeks for woody ones or spread out flate on newspaper or similar for softer ones. it will be exactly the end product because that's what they are. Give them a bash in a pestle and mortar or whizz swiftly in any kitchen whizzy thing and you'll get finer results. If you mix together rosemary, thyme, garlic granules, salt and parsley and whizz to quite fine you have a very tasty meat sprinkle before frying or grilling.

I found celery better in the freezer because it intensifies the flavour [chope the leaves in as well, loads of flavour in them] and you need less, dried can stay a bit harder. Courgettes come out well though for adding to soups.

MissRikkiC

@mumtoomany thanks for explaining.  I’d tagged you specifically with another Qn; not this but It looks like I didn’t actually type it!! Do you have any experience of one planet being in wales and their scheme? I saw it on extreme savers the other day and was very curious about it! 

nannygladys

-taff - I'm still at the experimenting stage so I'm trying out most things!! But as the freezer always seems to be full from the produce off the lottie (there's only me but both dds help me out by eating some as well). have you found a really good fruit/veg that works really well in the hydrator?