My Frugal doings today...

After doing my inventorys and realising just how much food I have I did a shopping list and off to Asda early - stuck to my list (apart from the reductions) and spent £28.57 which will last us until my next shopping on Monday. Thinking about going back to on-line shopping but did bag some reduced stuff today which is in the freezer and added to my inventory list to make meals out of. So although on-line is definitly better for not getting anything extra you dont get the reductions...... But I did buy a new handbag - a need as the strap broke on my last one and it is unmendable (I did try!) - reduced from £9 to £2 so kept me happy. I am going to drop my housekeeping buget to £200 - it was creeping up again but will see how this goes this month - would like to reduce it further if I can (2 adults and a teenager that eats more than an adult!!!) My household notebook is looking fab - added polypockets today to put recipes in to try - got Asdas free magazine and normally look at it, put it away, forget what I wanted out of it and end up just recycling it so straightaway today I put 2 recipes in my notebook and entered a competition that was free to do on-line. Other frugal doings 1 - Sewed a hole up in my bra (normally I would just chuck it!) - cost - free - saved - £16 on new bra 2 - Make a phone/mp3 player/tablet charging station - using an old basket and putting all the plugs into one of those extensions where you can turn each plug off seperatley (nicked off my eldest dd) - cost - free - saving - probably pennies but I hated the idea of all these chargers being on all the time as we could reach down behind furniture to switch off the plugs. 3 - DVD player and Wii put on seperate plugs so not left on standbye and got OH on board to turn all the plugs off a night including the printer and wi-fi - just little things but it all adds up. Looked on-line and the Co-op have meatballs half price at £1.25 and Nouvelle loo roll at £2.59 for 9 rolls so when OH goes up the street to pick other stuff up I will get him to pop in and we can stock up. Housekeeping - £28.57/£200

First really frugal day of 2013

I am on a mission! About to do a total inventory of what I have in my cuboards/freezers and see what meals I can come up with... Have made up a houshold notebook (re-cycled one of my dds arch lever files - was actually going to buy a new one for this project but stopped myself!) I have downloaded a wonderful month by month calender to keep the housework going weekly meal planner sheets and a weekly reminder to do list We are going back to me doing our on-line banking on a Sunday morning - I have a really excellent app on my phone to monitor daily spends and will tot it all up and put in on my mountainous spreadsheets on a Sunday. Sunday tea time will be family meeting time - plan weeks menus, see what everyone is up to etc and write it all down. And I am going back to on-line food shopping but will use mysupermarket to keep an eye out for good deals and plan my menus accordingly. Although I am on Weight Watchers (2 stone 11 lbs down so far!) I still eat the same meals as everyone else - just smaller portions! The only way to be frugal is to plan, plan, plan!

Getting rid of stuff

Now that the Crimbo deccies are down and out of the way its time to think about getting rid of the stuff I have but dont use..... So this year I am going to start doing car boots. I do love a car boot but only ever sold at one twice and never liked it (I am not a people person!) but needs must. Since losing weight I have a huge amount of clothes to get rid of - now I know ebay is the best bet but its a huge hassle posting things off etc. There are sites on Facebook to sell things but again, hassle of taking photos, explaining why I wont deliver a top for a few pounds to a place where it will cost a tenner in petrol etc so that leaves a car boot..... And anything not sellable will go to the charity shop - I have someone coming from Freecycle to pick up a small remote telly with built-in video which we have had for years JUST IN CASE.....of what????? its too small to watch and we dont have videos any more (do in the caravan but have a bigget telly to watch them on there) T'other half is taking his dd to Asda so hes picking up cooking oil and eggs so hopefully that will be all the spending we have today. My daughter wants a double bed in her room so will be keeping an eye on freecycle for that (and will then freecycle her single bed!) And to continue the frugal theme....downloaded 7 free books onto my Kindle (bought as a Christmas present when they first came out)

Happy and frugal New Year!

Happy New Year to everyone! I have just put my old calendar in the recycling bin and I bought one in the sales for £1 and cant find it! Dinner tonight is a leg of lamb reduced from £14 to £7 - in the slow cooker and is smelling gorgeous - may be a long time before we can afford lamb again so making the most of it. And I am wearing a new jumper bought with my Christmas money - reduced of course to £7.... So not a penny spent today!

Will be a very tight 2013

I am going to have to use all my frugal ways in 2013 - our income is going down a huge amount and its going to be a struggle. So I will be blogging more as every penny will have to be accounted for - there are going to be some very hard times ahead but I have managed on very little before and will do again.. So heres to a very challenging New Year - best wishes to everyone....

Ready mashed potato ripoff

I am on Weightwatchers (lost 2 stone and half a pound since July) so have been getting frugal with meals. One thing I have been avoiding is mashed potato - love the stuff dripping in butter (I know how I got this big! lol) and theres been grumblings from youngest dd and oh as they are sick of new pots and want mash. Had a look in Asda and a small pack of fresh mash was £1 and it would have barely fed those 2.....so I bought a bag of potatos for £1 from Asda and mashed them myself and froze them in 2 big portion sizes - so I got 5 out of the bought potato which even considering the gas it took to cook them is still a much better deal. However, I love swede and to make mine and my eldests mash I use two of the smaller ones at 85p each. I had a look at the ready prepared turnip and got 2 bags of it for £1 and there was enough for 3 of us and another 3 person portion is now in the freezer! So although it might seem cheaper always to prepare your own veg always keep an eye out for ready prepared stuff that works out cheaper.....

Freecycle comes up trumps with a dishwasher!

As my mum always says you wont get if you dont ask - as well as putting up a wanted post on Freecycle for a video player I put one up for a dishwasher as well.... Anyway, that was last week and I got offered loads of videos - got a combined video and dvd which was great and took another video player as a spare. Then - got an email from someone who had a friend who was moving to a house with a full size dishwasher and was giving away his slimline! Went up this morning to collect it, plumbed it in and it works beautifully - it should do as its a Bosch and must have been dear. Its got a digital thingy to show how many minutes are left and although its the same size as my last one i can see to get so much more in as the racks seem much better organised - I am a happy bunny to say the least!