Live on £4000 for a year - Part 2

mini_huny_money

well done looby on your premium bond and changing your internet provider......nice for you r kittens too

am gonnae have to confess to everyone ,,,,,am not really an animal lover....

hang on a min till I put on my bulletproof vest,

its not that I dont like em, I vowed nearly 15 years ago now that unless I gave birth......nothing else with a heart beat was coming into the house......after a succesion of mice, budgies and guinea pigs that all filled the big green tomb....AKA as the wheelie bin)

oops forgot the goldfish that were flushed down the toilet!!!!

exception is the dog that was a Mothers Day present in 1993 and who is now .....just....a heartbeat away from doggie Heaven, now all I wanted that Mothers Day was choccies and flowers and I got a puppy

15 years later DD (who clung to the pet shop door crying that her life was over if she didnt get a puppy) has moved to her own house and now has a delightful wee kitten,

EX OH who was the main instigator of ....we need a puppy for the kids..... and now has moved on and has a delightful wee step grandchild with his new OH

DS works way too many hours to even feed the dog ...so he says

and who is left to love and make sure her last years are as comfortable as I possibly can make them....yep ....me,

......ps I do love her reelly,,,,

whitewing

Morning All! Just time for a quick post before I go to work. Nice to catch up on the gossip...

OH had his interview and is really happy with it. He wants the job, which is great. So we just have to wait until next week to see if he gets it. It's mainly evenings but that means he'll have plenty of time to be with me in the daytime.

MIL's CRB form has finally come through (hooray) so she can start her job next week (even bigger hooray!).

Got to go. Take care, each of you.

nevadagirl

Hello everyone,

Just dropping in to wish everyone a happy weekend. I'll be making the most of the free entry weekend to the Historic Scotland properties and visiting here and here. I think I've been just about every other area in Scotland (with work, most of the time) except for this area so I'm really excited.

Got to go and rescue the slightly deranged cat from the bottom of the (for once, empty) laundry basket! Have a frugaltastic weekend, everyone!

FunBrum

Janey51 wrote: »

sophiesmum great tip about the sponge for hairs. DH and me are always removing cat hairs from ourselves before we face the public:rolleyes:
nyk commiserations over your utilities. Thats why I couldn't include our oil bill in the challenge as we are paying £200 a month. I hope we have a hot spring and summer so that we can switch the Rayburn off for a while. I do utilise it as much as I can but I think that using the immersion once a day and boiling kettles is going to be cheaper. I will have to monitor our electric usage though. Any thoughts?

Good news this week. Found out that Homecarers are to get a payrise..my pay will go up from £6.61 to £9/hr + mileage from 30p/mile to 40p/mile + we are to get paid our full hourly rate for travel time and not half as we do now. It will start in October, backdated until April 1:T
I was lying in bed last night happily counting ££££s before drifting off

Have to decide what to do with the windfall when it arrives What a lovely position to be in :j

Blimmy Janey.....£9:eek: our council has only offered us £7.22 and that is one of the reasons we are striking mid May. We are so undervalued for what we do. Even the binmen are on a higher wage than us. Maybe people view caring for the elderly not as important as the bin collection! Rant over, back to reading your posts:D

sophiesmum_2

Morning fellow frugalites:D
Miserable, grey and raining here this morning:rolleyes: and I really wanted to get some gardening sorted, oh well it may dry up later. Planning a trip to garden centre to get a couple more gooseberry bushes and then tonight will pick DD up from stables and bag some free manure for veggie patch. Next weekend will be recycling some paving flags and OH is moving my greenhouse to a more sheltered spot as it has been battered this winter with the high winds:mad:
Indoor plans - lots of cleaning, and making a loaf in breadmaker. then need to update my spreadsheets and sort some paperwork before payday on Tuesday.
looby loo-well done on the premium bond win, have had mine 41 years and still never won anything:rolleyes:
fun brum- I agree totally about carers being undervalued, bet if there were more male carers pay would increase, don't know why traditional women's roles are always undervalued:mad:
whitewing - fingers crossed for hubby's job, hope MIL's job will take her out the house more and give you back a little "space" in your relationship.
mini_huny_money- I always got lumbered with the pets too. Years ago our cat died and we went to rescue for another, on way there I said to kids I'm not getting a ginger one, not a tom, it must be neutered, and no stupid names, on way home we were proud owners of an unneutered ginger tom called jimmy:rotfl: :rotfl: . He was such a character I couldn't resist:o
We can't have pets here (or garden would be full of chooks) so DD has ponies and when she goes WILL be taking them with her:D

Have a good day everyone, just off now to do bacon and eggs for brunch.

redglass_2

Loved your picture of the oldies, SophiesMum - looks like a great time was had by all. I'm so jealous of all you people with animals (even the Very Old Dog just a snore from doggy heaven!). Dogs are my favourites but I'm away from home for long stretches in the week, so have to wait for retirement before I can keep them again. I'll probably end up one of those old ladies living in squalor with twenty identical-looking dogs (mad, but happy!) Don't think I'll be retiring on my savings just yet, though. The budget took a pounding yesterday when I discovered a designer jewellery store on Squidco. And the store had a sale. Oh, my. Oh, my...! :eek::eek::eek:

Frugaldom

Good afternoon all

Marru - I signed the petition, thanks for the link.

Mini - can't see foxy as the site is down for maintenance, typical!

Sophiesmum, thanks for photo link, your 'oldies' look like they're having a great time. You really do make their day, I'll bet. Well done.

Looby - congratulations on the Premium Bonds win, maybe I'll hold on to a few for a while longer, just in case I won £50 in January, just need a win for this tax year now so I can include it in my interest beater challenge

Redglass, DESIGNER JEWELLERY?? Now we know you're not in this for the skintiness, you're in it to afford to feed your expensive habits! :rotfl:

It's been pouring here this morning, but I'm hopeful it'll clear up enough to let me get some washing hung out for a bit. Still haven't planted my carrot & lettuce seeds, as I can't decide where to plant them yet. I'm thinking trays for now, just so they do get planted. Will go for a rummage in the shed and see what I can find. I decided that once I eventually have my own house of frugal financial self-sufficiency, I'll have my lettuces and herbs etc planted in sheep troughs, as they look really great to use as (large) planters or raised seed beds. :rotfl: A few of them lined up in rows inside a poly-tunnel, now that would be an interesting project! That and my mini willow plantation, the bottle greenhouse, the mini poultry unit and the mini-hatchery, that would keep me busy. And, of course, I'll have a farmhouse kitchen, a craft room and a separate office plus the assorted outbuildings that'll come with the fixy-up.............

OK, must snap back to reality! Perhaps some lunch would help - 20p per pack morning rolls with scrambled eggs made with 25p per litre sterilised milk. Anyone any ideas what I could do with the other 3 litres I have left? It's whole milk, I wonder if the cream would separate?

redglass_2

nykmedia wrote: »

Redglass, DESIGNER JEWELLERY?? Now we know you're not in this for the skintiness, you're in it to afford to feed your expensive habits!

Not the kind of bling that costs thousands, or even hundreds - as it was all on offer my 'binge' cost about the same as a pub meal for two, and the stuff lasts a lifetime. Can't remember the last time I indulged, but now I've discovered the site, that might change...things are about to get a lot tougher round here... maybe I should've made that Billy Can....:D

Frugaldom

redglass wrote: »

... Can't remember the last time I indulged, but now I've discovered the site, that might change...things are about to get a lot tougher round here... maybe I should've made that Billy Can....:D

It's never too late for a billy can - next time you open a tin... :rotfl:

I've now planted some carrots and some mixed lettuces, 2 trays of each, and as the seeds are dated to Dec 2009, I have loads left Just need to find some strawberry seeds to start off some baskets and get the rhubarb root from mum's. I've decided that it can get planted in a tub of some sort, too. Must work out where to get free (or extremely cheap) planters now. (My mother things I'm an extremist when it comes to frugalling, hmm... I seem to remember homegrown anything that would grow, berry picking, chickens in the garden, bottle rearing lambs, homemade clothes and caravanning holidays. Wonder how I managed to become so money conscious, mother???? )

Edited in - 'DESIGNER' = a posh word for saying there is only one of a kind because it's handmade I think I'll rethink my homebased enterprise and concentrate on 'designer' items. :T

Janey51

Afternoon all.
Just a flying visit between shifts. Its a miserable and damp up here today so DH has been sitting by the fire and not out in the garden like he hoped.
My Mum asked me to order her some plug plants so I ordered them via Quidco and made a little profit...sshhhh! She orders a lot of stuff from a catalogue company who give cashback so thats a few pounds here and there :j
Having cheese on toast with the remains of the cheese on the dry bread lurking in the bread bin and very nice it is too (and frugal).

Funbrum its so unfair the way different Councils decide what to pay their workers. Perhaps its because we live in Scotland
Looby mine was online bingo. Never played before and have no intention of playing again unless I get some free money!
nyk we have a humungous rhubarb patch which must be 150 yrs old. Every year we supply the entire neighbourhood with rhubarb and its scandalous the price the shops charge.

Hello to everyone else who has posted on the Challenge :A

DH has been cooking again which is lovely but there is a problem. :rolleyes: The words "small" and "normal" are not in his vocabulary :rotfl: Its all "supersize" and "fill the plate to overflowing". So, as I can't eat much and neither can Mum, my freezer is jam packed with frozen meals. I'm not complaining but how do I stop him cooking?
He made a Lancashire Hotpot which is to die for but he made it in a pressure cooker pan and I have filled 15 dishes with it :rolleyes: And each dish is really enough to feed a family :rotfl:
This creates 2 problems:
Lots of food
Lack of dishes.
Slight food boredom.
I bought some plastic freezer/microwave dishes from the £ shop but this only made him cook more :eek: