Monday 28 February 2011

End of Month update

February has seen some large-ish spends, but we've also achieved something along our journey.

- The £80 overpayment took a month off the total term, and also has reduced the daily interest by 3p. Not a lot you may think, but when you add this up it really does count over the years, and the lower the balance, the less the interest will be.

- I've withdrawn £100 from paypal, sold one of DD's old toys in the local paper.

A good month.

Friday 25 February 2011

Buying in Bulk

There are a few things I have learnt that it's OK to buy in bulk, especially when they're on offer. Your main dilemma may be where to store them.
Each time I see the following on offer, I always pick one or two up.

  • Bin Bags
  • Washing up liquid
  • Washing powder
  • Fabric softener
  • Loo roll
  • Noodles
  • Toothpaste
  • Hand soap
  • Shower gel

Morrisons have had a long running offer of their own brand shower gel and liquid hand soap on offer for 4 for £3 for ages now. I have a nice little stash in the bathroooms and that way I am guaranteed a shower without realising someone else has used the last of the shower gel and I am left with nothing.

Monday 21 February 2011

Mortgage Free efforts over the weekend

The last few days has seen

- £80 overpaid to the mortgage. This has knocked a month off the final balance which is always a great encouragement to keep going.

- 3 ebay sales parcelled and ready to be posted today

- around 20 new photos taken for ebay listings

- 3 items listed on the local free ad boards. Two have resulted in enquiries.

- £6.27 arrived from Topcashback and a further £35.35 claimed.

Not a bad weekends work.

Friday 18 February 2011

How Much?

Today is payday, so a trip to the supermarket is in order. As I was wandering around, I realised that certain things I would have wanted to buy were on offer in the local Morrisons near me, so I refrained from buying them in Sainsburys and vowed to save the money by making an extra trip later.

My trolley which usually looks filled to bursting, was looking very lonely when I got to the checkout. Three large taken from home bags of shopping filled and a few items not bagged, but I still managed to spend £48.50 on 33 items!

I was almost horrified, as everything I bought was weighed up against the cheaper alternative, or an offer that was available if any. The ONLY treat item in the trolley was a bag of garlic prawns for £2.99. Everything else was staples for the freezer or cupboards and I got no where near a weeks shop for that money.

Wednesday 16 February 2011

Slow Cooker chicken curry

I am trying to use my slow cooker more on busy days, and when I saw the Morphy Richards £4 slow cooker challenge, I knew just the recipe to try.



We love curry in our house, and I have been playing around with curry in the slow cooker for a while. This version usually fills us all up and comes out tasting lovely.

- 4 chicken thigh fillets (£2)
- 1kg potatoes chopped really small ( 50p) based on 2.5kg at 99p in the basics range
- 1 tin chopped tomatoes (33p)
- 5 mushrooms (20p) based on 4p each
- 1tsp curry powder / 1tsp cumin / 1tsp coriander (from store cupboard)
- rice to serve (30p)  based on basics range at 60p for 1kg white rice

total cost = £3.33


One tip I can give you is to chop the potatoes up really small as they take a long time to cook. I usually find this curry is perfect on high for about 5 hours or low for 8 hours. You just have to cook the rice before you're ready to serve.

Before



After



Overall taste is lovely. I would probably add some green beans or other vegetable to taste for overall appearance.

Tuesday 15 February 2011

Home Grown

In an event to save some cash this year, I am going to start my planting in the garden using seeds left over from last year.


So we'll be starting off with some lettuce which always grow well, carrots, which I'll be planting in my new deep troughs my Dad made for me at the end of last summer, spring onions which I usually just grown in a large pot and I'm going to give beetroot a go this year as well in my troughs.

I have one strawberry plant left from last year that I'm hoping will revive itself again this year. It's currently in a hanging basket, but if I can offset the funds through ebay sales etc then I may treat myself to a strawberry planter as well.

Monday 14 February 2011

Clearing out

It's amazing what a bit of sun and a free listing weekend on Ebay can do for your motivation.

I managed to list six items on Ebay over the weekend, which was impressive seeing as I worked ALL weekend. These were higher value items so hoping it was worth it. The lower value can be sought out and listed over this coming week.

In the garden we have lots of left over plastic play balls from when DD was younger so this morning, I have tackled the top of the mountain and cleaned, bagged and listed 200 balls on my local free paper site. Hopefully this will generate some much needed funds towards the final goal of our journey.

Saturday 12 February 2011

Shopping bargains

I read a lot about dropping a brand in the supermarkets, and have managed to achieve this with many of the products I buy. Sometimes I am too scared to try the really cheap versions of foods in case they are too horrible for words.

Last week I tried a cheap bag of pasta instead of the supermarket own brand. Reasoning that at 20p per bag for 500g instead of 68p per 500g bag, if it was horrible then I would revert back to the supermarket own brand.

Sneakily I decanted the pasta from the bag into our clear pasta jar. I did this to avoid noises of "I'm not eating cheap pasta" etc from the teenager in the house.

As I went shopping yesterday again, I asked said teenager what she thought of the pasta I bought last week, and she said it was fine. Two more bags dropped into my trolley this week after that comment.


Just goes to show that packaging sometimes really is just that!

Other bargains this week have included a 9 pack of toilet roll for £2.29 in Morrisons. Shame I only bought one bag as they had run out when I went back for more.
Noodles were still on offer at 63p per pack instead of £1.25 so I bought three packs. We eat a lot of noodles in our stir frys and they keep well in the cupboard.

Friday 11 February 2011

Minced Beef Pasta Bake


Mince was in the fridge and needed using up, and the broccoli was fresh from my fruit and veg box this morning. I didn't fancy making anything special with much effort, so pasta bake cobbled together seemed like a great idea.

500g minced beef = £1.70 (50p off in local Morrisons)
1 onion = 13p
1 tin chopped tomatoes = 33p
1/2 bag pasta spirals = 15p (used basics range)
100g grated cheese = 50p (cheddar on offer for 500g block)
large head of broccoli = 98p


I basically browned the mince and onion together, stirred in the chopped tomatoes before mixing in a large oven proof dish with the dried uncooked pasta, sprinkled the cheese over the top and left in the oven for 30 minutes. The broccoli was done to perfection in approx 10 mins.

This provided us with three very large portions, but would easily go to four or five people. You could add plenty more veg to the mince such as mushrooms, sweetcorn, carrots etc should you want to.

A very filling meal for 95p per portion based on four people eating.

Thursday 10 February 2011

Bargain Birthday cards



I needed to get a couple of birthday cards for my daughter's friends when I spotted some value packs of cards in Sainsbury's yesterday. £1.79 for a pack of 12 cards in two designs. Pink for girls and blue for boys. For the price I had to try some so bought a pack of each. These will last us the year for any children's parties DD is invited to.

I was slightly dubious about the quality they would be for the price, but actually they are really good. You really can't go wrong at 15p per card.

The size of each card is smaller than a standard oblong sized card, but they are a decent sized square. Certainly not too small to give for a children's party.

Rounding Down

I firmly believe that not all money saving methods will work for everyone. One that I have found to be very productive for me is rounding down my online bank account every day to the nearest pound. I can't afford to round down to the nearest £10, but I have found that I'm not missing the odd pence in the pound. This is something I now do religiously as I check my bank account every day. I  know where every penny is or has gone to, and at the same time I get the satisfaction of seeing my virtual savings increase.

Realistically you will gain up to £30 per month by doing this. Where would that money have gone otherwise? I can't answer that so for it it's better sitting elsewhere, and then it can be paid off the mortgage when it reaches a decent level.

Wednesday 9 February 2011

My Frugal Journey

There are plenty of blogs around that provide you with hints and tips on living a frugal life, making extra money to top up your income, and also to save money enabling you to pay off debts or save money etc.
My frugal journey is my journey toward my end goal of being mortgage free. It’s going to be a long road, but one that I hope will be rewarding and provide satisfaction in the long run.