Live on £4000 for a year - Part 2

Frugaldom

I am certainly going to have a 'night off' tomorrow for Day 100 because I have the grumps after having just had to fork out the balance of the winter electricity bill! :mad: 88 days since the last bill in January and this one has amounted to a whopping £539.14 :eek: That means that I have now demolished £1705.15 of my £4000 budget and £1013.30 of that has been for utilities alone! I only have £1400 to last the full year on utilities and there is NO WAY I am taking on another job just to pay to heat a drafty old house for someone else. So I guess that makes it much easier to decide what to do about the prospect of the landlord selling up - start househunting and hopefully find somewhere so we can move out at the end of this lease (1st July). This, of course, means that I have to factor in yet another house move!

On a more positive note, the 'frozen dessert thing' is delicious, despite being very white (I only used egg whites and no yoke! ) It is really minty and refreshing. I can now confirm that freshly picked, homegrown mint is perfect for crushing up and using to flavour homemade ice cream and if you grate a cube of chocolate through it, then you have the perfect dessert - homemade choc chip ice cream. I don't have an ice cream maker, so I had to keep taking the tub out the freezer to stir the contents, so this isn't a job that can be done in a hurry. This is a job for doing when working from home and using a kitchen timer by your desk to remind you to stir the wanna-be ice cream. It gives you the chance to sample it every 45 mins or so.

Who needs Ben & Jerry now?!

bails

Mmm, that sounds lush Nyk, you couldn't put a 'how it's done' on here when you've got 2 mins could you please? Sorry to hear about the leccy bills, you definitely deserve a night off tomorrow!
Thanks for the sponge idea Sophiesmum, cracking idea! I knew there must be something we could do, OH was all for just accepting that our clothes were always hairy:doh:I've cleaned the only filter I could find and have run an empty wash through so will test it tomorrow. Thanks again all.

I've decided to go ahead and get my RLD present for OH now, rather than trying to earn the rest of the points. Using the vouchers means I can't get cashback (which would've been 12%) but I think I may have found a discount code for 10% - let's hope I can use it I'm so excited at the thought of giving it to him :j:jhow will I wait til the end of June? :rotfl:

redglass_2

I don't know if I'm going to do much more with clicks. I only started a few months ago, I often forget to do them and to be honest it seems like a lot of work when you add it up in the long term. The site I find easiest to get around is Topc*shback and I'll probably continue to go there because of the offers on insurance etc. I've also joined PB but i find the pink website design a bit much, it actually makes me feel ill. Despite what advertisers seem to believe, there are women who don't like pink.....What do other frugalists think, is it really worthwhile going on with it, especially for a late starter like me now the goalposts are changing?

bails

Hmm, I'm the same Redglass - because I'm not so well I have to prioritise things and I figure I'm better spending my energy on an hour's teaching than an hour's clicking; that's not to say that it's not worth it for others, especially if you can multi-task it with other jobs/working from home.

System

grrrrr i am so annoyed, i had enough for a £10 voucher but didnt send for one cos i couldnt decide which one!

redglass, i like PB, i find it a lot easier than clicks where you have to go through to other sites etc...
and if you hate the design you could save up for a m&s voucher and then buy pork and pretend that you are eating the stupid pb pig....

BlueFleur

I was back at uni yesterday and I spent money :mad: luckily I think I only have 4 more days if lectures spread over the next two weeks, so that should help me resist. Managed a NSD in compensation today too. I know I'm better than before, but it was still silly. Had a bit of a duvet day today as my mum is bad and I've got flu- think this family competes for who can be sickest :rolleyes:

redglass_2

Jumble-Bee wrote: »

and if you hate the design you could save up for a m&s voucher and then buy pork and pretend that you are eating the stupid pb pig....

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

andromache_2

bails wrote: »

AARRGHHH! This is what I've been doing too! Grr! I hadn't noticed so thanks for pointing it out, even though it makes me My boyfriend will never get his rally driving at this rate, and it's meant to be a graduation present!

Okay, just to cheer peeps up, here's 10PPs you may not have yet
http://www.pigsback.com/pages/4/199/...2c1581%2cVOVPO
Answer the quiz, it's the first answer and you'll instantly get 10 PPs. Hope that takes the edge off slightly...

hehe, thanks bails, that did help I guess at the end of the day it is all free money in any case... That sounds like a really great present! I find my OH SO hard to buy for, lol. Are you going to give it to him soon or surprise him with it when he actually graduates?

Marru

AAAAARRRRGH!!!

I just went to get my supper, looked in the fridge and noticed that MY BUTTER HAD DISAPPEARED!!!

I have ordered locks for both fridge and freezer and can only hope that they arrive soon. My only worry is that DD will soon figure out how to open them. She cracked the opening of the child gate long time ago. I guess next step is to get someone to come and install padlocks.

Sorry to hear about points. I am still desperately collecting points for that bread maker - have missed two from freecycle recently - but have run out of steam.

Hope you are all having a great evening,

Marru

Frugaldom

Cheers for the PB 10 points pointer, Bails, that's me at 922. I also tried Toluna but their points are absolutely ridiculous, so I'll be cancelling that account. iPoints changed a while back so I cashed in quick with a free magazine subscription and 'Hungry Hippos' game that will be kept as a chrissie gift. Freefivers is an absolute loss for me, mutual points are slow so I cashed in as soon as I hit 3000, but I'm determined to keep them all going long enough to get something back from each of them before shutting down the accounts. Topcashback I don't mind so much as it lets you claim back small amounts for now, so I'd think it best to get the cash out as soon as is humanly possible, just to be on the safe side. Another one I use is Google ads on websites but their payments are in dollars, so they have taken a major hit recently, too. Then there was my eBay affiliate links - I did pretty well out of them, to the tne of a few hundred pounds a year, until now! They have pulled out the affiliate scheme completely and are setting up their own version.

OK, rant over about the joys (or not) of clicks and surveys. We should be grateful for anything that's free, I guess.

Wonder if my seeds will turn up tomorrow? If it turns out to be a day like today then that would let me indulge in some fresh air. LL's dad coming to visit tomorrow to assess the blocked drains. Don't know what good standing looking at it is going to do, it needs fixed and there's no access because they built a shed over the top of it!! Today I thought the washing machine was going to blow up when smoke started pouring from it and I have no access to the mains switch! It was just churning away literally burning the rubber because the water had no outlet into blocked drain. :mad: And just to put you all properly into the picture, remember the saga of the exploding cooker? It has still never been fixed and I am still cooking on the twin hot plate purchased from eBay a couple of months ago. I really need a better place to live. Despite the beautiful sunny day, today, I could still SEE MY BREATH in the hallway!!:eek: