Live on £4000 for a year - Part 2

sophiesmum_2

Good morning prudent , nice to hear from you again:D

Good morning to everyone else:D

Frugal plans for today:

• Clean house with stardrops and microfibre cloths
• Batch cook some quorn chilli and bolognese sauce for freezer
• Bake some fairy cakes for DD to stop her moaning about being no snacks in.
• Potter in garden
• Try and not spend any money
• Recycle some stuff to charity shop
• Make some marmalade for stores from mamade pulp I already have in.Should make 7 jars of lemon and 7 jars of orange.I will be giving a few away and then the rest should keep us going till end of year:D
• Menu plan for next week or so.
• Butternut squash seeds are now dried out so need to put in envelope and label, then remember to save sweet pepper seeds when I make the bolognese sauce:rolleyes:
• Visit frugalmum and see what plants/veggie seedlings i may be able to liberate from her garden:D

Enjoy the day everyone, hope the rain stays off.

Anyone seen anything of Mumzy lately????

ani*fan

Hi Everyone :hello:

Is it too late to join you all for the second half of the year? This challenge sounds like just what I need to get me motivated again.

I've been a big fan of this site for years and did quite well to almost clear my debt last year. However, my circumstances changed a bit and now I'm back to try and sort it all out again. (Must update my signature...I wish my debt was that small!)

Due to being stressed out and run down by work, I've decided to reduce my hours to 3 days a week. This coincides with a promotion and pay rise so the impact shouldn't be too bad but my real ambition is to use my new time rich life to explore money saving ideas. Like growing more of my own food and becoming a one-car, cycle- more family.

Anyway, good luck to everyone and see you all around.

whitewing

Welcome ani*fan. Nyk will give you a challenge number at some point. What amount are you going for - £2K? or a different amount.

sophiesmum_2

Hi ani*fan:D
welcome aboard you will find lots of great tips and like minded people on the thread.

sophiesmum_2

:j :j Just been talking to decking contractor about veggies, and showing him my little plot, was talking about allotments and putting my name down for one. Anyway turns out he has a huge private owned allotment which he is struggling to keep up with due to work committments and has offered me a half share to use :j :j :j I am really excited.. how sad is that:rotfl: :rotfl: Going to have a look at it in next few days, bit late to get much going this summer but can make some raised beds etc and start plotting, maybe get some winter stuff in.:j :j

Funny how life keeps throwing up opportunities when you least expect them:D

redglass_2

Sorry to hear about the job, Whitewing.

Sophiesmum, I am in AWE of you, you are so active! I'm in awe of quite a lot of other frugalists too (Nyk is a little marvel ). Where do you get all that energy...!?

Have had my first strawberries and the spuds are coming on well - they are very late but with a bit more sunshine :rolleyes: they should be fine. The beans and kale died and i don't know why - think they were eaten up before they could get going.

I have now marked 120 exam papers. The last batch took ages because all the candidates wrote AT LENGTH but this next lot are quicker. There are another 280 to go and this site is the perfect displacement activity.

Frugaldom

Good morning to all and a special welcome/hello to ani*fan - possibly another [STRIKE]mean[/STRIKE] frugal Scot? Welcome to the thread, I hope you have a great time taking part in the second half of this challenge, which begins in 10 DAYS! :eek: Let me know your 'domestic situation' and spending target so I can get you added to post 1.

Prudent - you shouldn't (oh, I'm a frugal poet! :rotfl: ) Let's start again, shall we? Pru, you shouldn't really count in your car costs as they aren't relevant to the actual cost of living. Basically, if you can live without it, then it isn't a necessity - other than Internet access, which is a basic necessity for taking part in this challenge. £4,000 (+ any basic child benefit you receive) should be the figure used to run the household after rent/mortgage/council tax/water rates have been paid.

Sophiesmum that is fantastic news about the allotment! I do agree, it's amazing where opportunity pops up when we least expect it, especially from the most unlikely of places. Well done you! :beer:

FRUGALTASTIC NEWS! - All you Co-op 'divvie' users will be with me on this one - I just received my summer statement from Co-op membership and have received £4 in money off vouchers for fresh meat, fruit & veg plus the cashback paid striaght into bank account... £37.64! :T I've updated 'cashback' in my signature.) That's like a full month's groceries for me now that I'm doing the stockpile shopping method! :rotfl: Next payment due in December, but I normally use that for buying festive chocolates and/or booze.

Right now it is raining here, but the skies aren't that heavy looking, so it may brighten up later on this afternoon. Still trying to find frugal accommodation for cousin & her partner next weekend - I am astounded at the price of bog standard B&B! :eek: If only we had another room in this house but our sofa already booked out, as is that of DD. Extremely frugal Plan B about to be initiated, if I can catch neighbour between work and hols... wish me luck :rotfl:

slowlyfading

:hello: everyone,
today will be my 5th NSD this week :j so I'm pretty pleased with that. Its such horrible weather here today so I'm not going outside anywhere, its just too wet and horrible! So, it means no spending today I've got pasta in a homemade tomato sauce for tea, with carrots and peas, so I'm sorted for that too I love days like this when I can see a positive spin on things!
sf x

MrDT

Hi all,

It's miserable here too. I was supposed to be palming off the rubbish from my attic on some unsuspecting carbooters today, but, well, there was no point going... Maybe next week. I've been up since 5:30am though, not natural. Think I might go for a nap in a bit lol!

Marru sorry to say I've no older brothers, I'm one of a kind How d'you know I'm not on the market for a sugarmommy though?

Sophiesmum mumzy is still keeping the 4k faith, just not online much as she has a monthly cap on internat usage. I expect she'll be back soon though as the new month begins today as far as the internet company is concerned

whowantstoberich you're not on your own mate, but we're as rare as hens teeth here! I'm under thirty too, bit of a 'young fogey' I think haha! Good to have you around

I've had a couple of naughty days this week, pub lunch thursday, pub liquid lunch yesterday, but I've not been too bad Done my weekly shop today too, didn't buy any frozen stuff so expect to defrost the freezer this week FINALLY - it has taken the best part of two months to empty the damn thing :rotfl: Only spent £12.29 for the week so well pleased with that Gonna update sig in a minute, looking forward to the official 'weigh in' at the end of the month, will bore you all with a breakdown of what has been spent in which categories etc over the last three months

Right, going for a little sleep. Maybe afterwards I'll get up, have a shower, make myself beautiful, and go out to get drunk... Or maybe (more likely) I'll decide that I enjoy my sleep more than drinking and just go back to bed

There's little that I enjoy more than sleeping, and it's an incredibly cheap hobby haha I must be frugal by nature

sophiesmum_2

Nyk.. good result with your co-op divvi:D We only have a tiny little co-op nearby. Years ago there was a big one in town and I had a divi card then, but it closed down and changed to a sports store:rolleyes: .

Making fairy cakes in a minute but was just reminded - when I was stockpiling the other week asda were doing strange things with the cake decoration bits. The supercook ranges are being changed to Dr Oetker brand packaging and all the supercook branded stuff was on sale very cheap. I got silver balls, jelly diamonds, sugar flowers, jelly fruits, hundreds and thousands, choc sprinkles, and they were only about 20-25 pence a tub. I bought loads - they still had some this week, not sure if it is a national thing but anyone into baking would save a bundle.