Live on £4000 for a year - Part 2

looby-loo_2

Black flower buckets

I use these and put the holes in the sides about 1" from the bottom so there is a small reservoiur in the bottom which really helps the tomatoes.

Frugaldom

Evening all, I watched Mr Thingummy-Jiggery dig up Burdock roots and was wondering where he had managed to do that. It's meant to be illegal to dig up the roots of plants of any description, so I'm guessing he was within his own lands. It's an interesting programme, but I don't find it all that frugal when it comes to ingredients for his recipes. I am, however, preparing a corner of the garden to start off some artichokes after last week's episode.

Janey - the website is becoming a bit of an obsession now! I've replicated loads of pages so I can change them all to have one each for all the veggies & fruit etc. I am really lucky having such a great garden at the back of the house and I'll be pretty cut up if we need to move once I've got everything planted and established. Last house we were in had a postage stamp back yard, hence the reason a few of my pots are fairly well grown; I wasn't leaving them behind when I moved here. A nice big win on Premium Bonds would tempt me to make an offer on the place when the landlord decides to sell.

FREE BINGO night is fast approaching and THANK YOU MARRU for pointing out that there will now also be FREE MONDAYS!! :eek: :eek: :eek:

I'm still rejigging my signature to try to fit everything in, so far, so good, I just need to NOT join any more challenges.

Has everyone realised that we have only 26 days left until we are half way through 2008?!

Marru

Hi all,

Here is the promised catch up post as promised. Sorry but goes as far as week back.

Whitewing: The dress sounds heavenly :j I love hearing about your wedding arrangements - making me all squiffy. And don't worry about eating out and cream teas just enjoy this time together - priceless! I hope you have managed to sort things out with your Dad. He obviously loves you very much.

Mollymop: Well done on your weight loss :T

Nyk: Any news on the id fraud thingy. What a thing to happen!!! I was so sorry to hear it but glad that you had great time on your cruise.

I can't delay going shopping any longer. We are running out of all kind of essentials like toilet paper. Also my brother and his family are coming here on Friday and I have promised to cook them lunch. It will be owen baked fish with potatoes, veg, salad and fresh HM bread and for pudding shop bought apple crumble with custard. So tonight I will finally have to sort out my meal plan and shopping list, something I have been promising to do for weeks now. Also I need to decide if I use my Mr T cash voucher tomorrow in the shop or save it for later and get more out of it. Perhaps I save it later to be figured out. Well done Nyk with your stock piling. Sophiesmum I know you have been busy with family stuff but how your stockpiling challenge is going?

Redglass: Way impressed with your frugal trip. I would love to have a trip to Ireland with DD. Have been there twice and I think it is fabulous place. Might do Nyk and see if I can find a reasonably priced ferry to take us (plus dog) there during DD's summer holidays. (I think that answered my question about the Mr T voucher )

Hello cha97michelle and welcome our new fruker :hello: I don't know where you live and how hard it is to find nursery places but when I tried to find place for my DD when she was 18 months I found that everybody else had booked places when their kids were newborn. Ideally you would need a good pre school and good nursery close to each other and so that the nursery will pick up your child from the pre school. You will get 12.5 h per week free pre school and then only pay for the nursery, this is from the first term after the 3rd birthday. Sorry if you already knew all this.

Nevadagirl: Welcome from me too to the challenge!

Lynda: I hope your house hunting is going well!

Fizzel: So happy for you. My mystery man hasn't written to me for a week now so I might have to give up on that or are my expectations just too high? (Actally I need to thank Lynda for the tip about the dating site if anything comes from it.)

dfw84: well done for getting your spending under previous year. I think that is what this is all about for all of us who have gone over budget at this stage to remember that despite not quite making it we have saved loads and then can use the money for something more fun like what Janey does with her holiday fund.

Janey: Amazed about your Christmas preparations. How about Christmas tree fairy decorations? Surely there is somewhere instructions how to make these? Last year everybody got books from me (surprisingly as I have house full) and this year is not going to be exception. DD got puzzles ordered from eBay and this year I shall try to find something nice from eBid and failing that Argos. My Mum can't read English so need to get something for her. I have couple of boxes of cat ornaments so need to rescue something from there before giving the boxes to Jumble Sale. Failing that I have £10 Boots voucher to fall back on. So I think I might be covered pretty well too.

Talking about Jumble Sale. I could have used a pet Jumblebee today. DD's Pre School is arranging a Jumble Sale and I offered to make a plea in Freecycle and collect the stuff. Within couple of hours after my message I got four emails for offeres. I picked up two lots today. One lady promised to deliver to School and then it leaves my one pick up on Monday. How nice are these people!!! What we can't sell in Jumble I have promised to sell in eBid in charity auctions. Nyk - will you hold my hand please?

Mumzy: I hope your tomatoes are successfull. In my previous job the receptionist was growing tomatoes in the small court yard in big plant pots and they did great.

Slowlyfading: I hope your exam today went well. Go on - treat yourself!

Jumble-Bee: Oh WOW about Harvey Nicholson!!

Lovely sunshine here as well. Put my piggy boys out for bite of fresh grass. I am glad to say that the bullying has now stopped and peace has landed in my office once again. I think I caused it when I washed the other piggy's bum and the other one didn't like it. Who knows? Hoping for a nice day tomorrow as well as then girls could take their turn in the outside run.

Shaz: Sorry to hear about peas but it sounds like that everything else is flourishing. Your row of potatoes look impressive. :T

Mollymop: Well done on your Quidco jackpot! I don't have an advice for you what to do except put it in the savings account and then forget about it.

My cleaner started today. I went like a whirlwind to get everything tidied so that she was able to do her cleaning. Then I tackled my washing up as wanted her to do stuff that I am less likely to do. My office still needs cleaning as it was pointless to do it when I need to clean my animals tomorrow but as this is the tiniest room in the house I think I can manage. My house looks now LOVELY and I feel so much better for it. She will do another longer slot next week to get everything up to date and from then on it is hopefully just maintaining it.

I got today instructions on how to get best out of daily clicks and will start tomorrow setting it all up. I have also subscribed to the make tenner a day in June thread as I am determined to earn lots and lots of money to put to my ISA (that is how I found out about the Monday bingo). This is the start of my pension fund. Haven't done my calculations yet how much it will be in 26 years time if I can fill the ISA every year. Will try to get that done tomorrow as well.

One other moneysaving thing I did this week was to cap my electricity and gas up till end of 2009. I didn't go for the cheapest provide as I wanted less hassle and head ache so stayed with my current one that I know I can talk to and don't have to sit on the phone waiting hours. Despite that it was a small saving, got £30.- cash back and my costs are now capped. So very pleased.

I think this is enough from me now. I guess replying to this thread is the same as my cleaning. I let it go for so long that there is then lots of catching up to do. Will try better in the future.

Good luck for everybody in the bingo rooms!

Marru

mumzyof2

Good Morning all, I am not on for long my friend is coming to watch my DD while me and DS pop to libary in town and whilst there i will go bank and pay rent. The got young mums later Oh i love thursdays!!

Have fun everyone x

shaz_mum_of__2

mumzyof2 wrote: »

so once u see the poatoe coming through..i fill with more compost completly so i dont see the poatoe plant anymore??? do i add anymore potatoes or just the two i put in at the start?

Do i grow them outside from the start?

At this time of year outside is fine

Wait till the leaves are about 6 inches high then I almost completely cover them so just the tips of the leaves are showing you dont put anymore potatoes in as i understand it the potaoes form in spurs off the stalk which is underground so by covering the leaves you are submerging more stem hence more potatoes

i think they are ready when the flowers fall off but you can leave them in the ground until you need them or till the weather gets colder in autumn

i did some this way last year and each pot gave about 5lb of small(new) potatoes i dont think you can grow big potatoes this way as there isnt the room(i could be wrong)

Dont forget to water regularly


Good luck its easy honest

Shaz

whitewing

The good news is that sorting out yesterday's financial stuff only took me the day. (I used to drag it out over at least three and have a row with H2B as part of the process!)

I must say that I am impressed with this faster payment service that the banks are doing now. Sad as I am, I had to try it out on transferring money between my business acct (HSBC) and personal (Lloyds).

And in the time it took to log off HSBC and log into Lloyds internet banking, it was there. So that's a £300 mortgage overpymnt on its way through cyberspace.. (don't imagine my mortgage co subscribes to faster payment).

Will be worth househunters finding out about this for transferring funds to solicitors, as will potentially save £30 a shot on CHAPS payments. I'm not sure how much banks will advise this service is available... does anyone know?

shaz_mum_of__2

Have been snapping away

the 3 ripe strawberrys i am eating today




A tray of mixed lettuce we have picked enough for 2 meals already it seems to grow back overnight




the cherry tomatoes the other plant died it had pustules on the stems couldn,t find it in my gardening book though anyone any ideas on what may have caused it?



The grassy courgette bed a mixture of courgettes butternut and mini squash and pump
kins might have overcrowded them but allowed for bird/slug damage



the runner beans are starting to run am hoping to fill the freezer with these for winter the ladder construction is wher the peas should be they are made from cot bottoms we salvaged from a skip outside a graco factory we got about 30 and a desk and stool




an ahem empty plot wher last years potatoes were...............i guess i missed a few ,there were winter onions growing here last week i will be planting turnip swede and beetroot seedlings her in a few weeks might even get a few potatoes even though the plants havent matured yet




the alicante toms belonging to my son from his grow your own ketchup packther are 6 more plants in the cold frame and nowhere to go yet probably end up in tubs too the netted cage next to it was made from an old plastic greenhouse frame we scavenged and some netting from poundland there is lettuce crrots spinach radish and spring onions in there



Anway hope you enjoyed looking around i really must get off


Shaz

lilac_lady

Great pictures shaz - makes me want to plant more. The lettuces I put into pots are being nibbled by baby sparrows. I don't know whether they like the taste or are just experimenting. Must cover them (but I like watching the sparrows!)

Frugaldom

I just lost a long post and don't have time to retype, so here's a brief recap!

Morning all - Gala Bingo seems to be broken today.

Shaz - brilliant pics, you need to set up a free mini-website so you have a permanent (ish) record of your progress throughout the year. Your plants are well advanced compared to mine and I'm hoping it's just the location difference

Marru - Yes, can help you with the YDS charity event that I completely forgot about in May, I'm ashamed to say - too much happening at the moment. No word on the fraud case and no word on another serious matter. Will PM you.

Will catch up with everyone asap, must dash, got work needing done before DGD arrives. I have her all aternoon, so it'll probably be garden whether the rain comes or not.

bails

Hellooooooooooooooo everyone, I'm back! :hello:

Hope everyone is well and happy and enjoying life - I've only caught up on this page so far, may read a few back but doubt I'll be able to catch up on everything!

We had an AMAZING time in Holland - Pink Pop was awesome, Rage Against the Machine were fantastic!! My health is holding up pretty well despite it all, just a bad sore throat, and the celebrations are continuing as we're off to Wales for the weekend where there's a surprise from OH waiting for me :j It'll be 11 days of fun by then, it's been great so far and I'm dead happy!

Needless to say the finances took a battering in Holland but we did pretty well considering. Got some stuff to tell you later but off for a rest xx