Live on £4000 for a year - Part 2

redglass_2

I love the photo, Shaz. Dress from T J Hughes! My mum would go mad if she could see that - we have this ongoing disagreement because she always claims everything is cheaper at TJ's. Seems she has won that one....

Marru, Bails, I really appreciate the offer of the bath :A but it might be too big for me anyway (for my bathroom I mean) and might only fit Bails's. When i can find the tape measure I will find out how big the current bath is, but it's definitely smaller than average. I used to be on Bath (no pun intended) Freecycle but came off it as it was driving me mad, so much lovely stuff but it was too far for me to go most of the time. (It was very funny, actually: Bath group has items like 'Miele Dishwasher' and my local group has things like 'spare door knob'. That kind of sums up the diferences between the two communities!) Re rosemary, it's very good on roast chicken and on roast potatoes, and you can make a hair tonic by steeping it in hot water. I believe you can also burn it as an incense but I haven't got that far yet...frugal air freshener, anyone? Oh, and please hug Dogface for me.

slowlyfading

helloooooo :hello: I'm back!
Had a fantastic time in London, but look at my sig :eek: going to have to do some serious budgetting and working out so that I can get back on track eventually! Have I missed anything exciting?

Mollymop5

Shaz that's a beautiful dress Nyk I'm so envious of your greenhouse.i'm still collecting plastic bottles I have an outside cupboard built into the house and it's filling up slowly but surely."years it will probably take though :rotfl: :rotfl:

whitewing

Shaz, you look absolutely lovely in your dress. It has confirmed for me that I definitely want red. I'm thinking white flowers to hold (maybe like the Royal wedding at the weekend; but not Royal prices). And possibly red flowers in my hair. Sounds dodgy, but I'll only do it if I look okay.

We're just going to do a buffet ourselves too.

Must go now. Not feeling too good today (time of the month, which is unfortunate as we're still trying for a baby, and fortunate as it means I won't be too pregnant at the wedding). Anyway I need to get some work done before I go out.

(Nb I always highlight my text and then press cntrl and c to copy it to the clipboard before I post the reply. If I have been timed out, I just log back in and press cntrl and v to paste it back. Works a treat. )

wornoutmumoftwo

Just flicking through yesterday's sun and there is a voucher for Five pounds off your shopping at MOrrisons (with a thirty pound spend).

Anyway, Mr M is nowhere near me so if anyone wants it PM me your address and I'll post it today (valid until 25th May - Sunday).

whowants2brich

bails wrote: »

Ooh, I missed the wedding dresses on Apprentice, care to post a link of what you're thinking of Whitewing?

Have a look at BBC iplayer and catch up on last week's Apprentice - however, you have to be quick as it's only on til tomorrow...

It's good, we're planning our wedding for next year and my fiancee spent all programme taking down notes and seeing which styles (and prices) look good...!

whowants2brich

The other thing I want to say is that, my partner and I went supermarket shopping yesterday for our usual weekly spend, and had a budget of £30 (not as easy considering she wanted to get a golf mag for her dad's birthday which cost £4 and a tub of olives for £3) but hey... We used one of those hand scanner machines that some supermarkets provide, and so it tells us how much we've spent (you just have to manually track any offers because they only come out on the till at the end...

The hand scanner said we'd spent £38, but when we went to pay, it came up as £29.60! We were cheering when we got the final total, amazed that it was under budget, and the cashier gave us weird looks. We told him about the challenge, he had never heard of MSE but liked the idea...

Soon, the whole world will know about this challenge...

PS It's not all good news, we spent more than we would've liked on the Wirral, when we spent the weekend shopping for ideas etc for the wedding... Never mind!

whowants2brich

And finally, here's a few ideas as to how we keep our electricity usage down to an average of 5 units a day:

1) no tv, no tv license, no electricity used by the tv (or several ) Double saving!

2) remote controls that control the laptop power, wireless broadband router etc, as well as mobile phone chargers. One press of the button when we leave the flat and everything but the fridge freezer is turned off!

3) We charge our mobile phones either at work, in the car or via my laptop's USB chargers. That way, we don't use any extra electricity - if it's charging while I'm working, the power will be used by my laptop anyway... Considering each charger's around 180w, that's 1 units per night saving!

4) Every single light in the flat is energy saving - including the bathroom which my fiancee said wouldn't be bright enough, so I just got a 20w energy saver instead of the 11w ones we have everywhere else. Even the bedside lamps are energy saving !

5) We dry all our laundry in the flat, with the balcony door open a bit. Saves a fortune in drying clothes.

The only thing I have to do now to get things even lower is to try to confince my fiancee that washing everything at 60C isn't necessary, but she always believes that 30C or 40C temperature for the washing machine won't clean her clothes properly...

whitewing

We wash everything at 30 degrees, with perfect results.

redglass_2

I find Mr L's cheap powder doesn't always dissolve fully if I use 30 degrees and/or the short wash programme, and leaves white marks on my clothes, so I keep it for longer, hotter washes. Must dash, off to work...