Emptying the Sealed Pot

It's that time of the year ... when the Sealed Pot spews forth it's undigested coins and the occasional bit of paper.

Filmed for posterity.

And then carefully counted.  

We had a grand total of £325.96, as you can see from Alan's workings out here.

Most definitely not for us the paying of a machine in the supermarket to count our hard fought for pennies and deduct ten percent for the privilege, although at this time of year you see loads of people doing just that.   I have heard that some banks have cash counting machines ... but unfortunately ours is not one of them so we did it  the old fashioned way  :-(

After counting the money, double checking it all and then bagging into the banks acceptable amounts for paying into our account ...

... we decided to put the odds and sods back into the tin to see if we can add any extra to round things up before we visit the bank.  You never know a little bit more would be very handy in time for next years Challenge   :-)

Sue xx

The Sealed Pot 2017 ... and It's History

We've been taking part in a Sealed Pot Challenge since a blogger called Julie (SFT) started it back in 2011. 

The basic idea is that you have a pot of some description that you can't get into and put all your spare change or specific coins that you like to collect into it and empty it out at the end of the year, using the hoarded cash for a treat or something specific for yourselves.  Having it sealed or stuck up in some way really does deter the checking of amounts or pilfering of contents so your little cache builds up nicely and also gives you a lovely surprise each December.

The date for opening of everyone's pots was always Julie's birthday the 3th December, which rather nicely for us coincided almost with our wedding anniversary which is on the 4th, so it made sense even when Julie stopped blogging and running the challenge for us to continue with this as the opening date.

We have had many variations on the Sealed Pot, the first was this lovely number ...

.. which I bought for half price because of it's shocking Day-Glo colouring and painted up to match our farmhouse kitchen. 

In this one during 2011 we managed to save £258 in £2 coins and we used the money to buy Oxfam gift packs for family members for Christmas (goats, safe drinking water, hygiene kits and tools etc).

The next incarnation, for 2012 was this one ... because we obviously had to smash the first one to get at the coins.  This netted us £480 again all in £2 coins, which spawned a shopping challenge to see how long we could make it last as housekeeping money which we called 'The £2 Housekeeping Challenge' ...to make us focus and spend as little as possible only the actual £2 coins were used to buy shopping ... we made it last until the following July. 

We were obviously able to seal this one up again and during 2013 we used it again managing to save £371.27, this time in a mixture of small change and with fewer £2 coins.  This money spawned a whole new Challenge, indeed it spawned a whole new blog '365 Days - £365'.

Sadly though, as you can see in this picture, after emptying it and just before we moved to this house the Sealed Pot had a very unfortunate accident.  It fell off the windowsill and broke into many unrepairable pieces  :-(

A new pot had to be found!!

Enter into the picture the tin we are still using to this day. 

The first year it was in a pristine condition and when we opened it in December of 2014 to find a smaller than previous total of £61.21.  This spawned a 'mini-challenge' to see how long we could make this last as housekeeping money.

The next year, 2015, saw it a little bit battered (that double sided sticky tape is a b*gger to get off)

but over the course of the year we had managed to save a grand total of  £328.71 which spawned another stand alone blog for 2016   'A Year Without ...' when we used the Sealed Pot money along with Nectar points, coupons and vouchers to pay for our daily housekeeping

The same tin was used, in it's now even more battered state, all through 2016 to save up again, but in December of that year I decided to close both blogs down and give up blogging for good.  Although obviously as you are reading this it turned out to be a temporary thing ;-)

For a change we decided to spend the money on ourselves, we had a grand total of £449.60.  We split it down the middle, I bought a dress and a couple of pairs of shoes for myself and Alan treated himself to a new power tool and it's accessories, the leftover cash paid for a nice meal out for us both.

Of course even though I thought I wouldn't be blogging anymore we are so used to doing this after all these years, that the tin was resealed and was back in use immediately .  Over the course of this year it has been fed with all sorts of coins, including once again a good number of £2s.  I was sorely tempted to open it up the other day, as it is so full that we have to give it a little jiggle to get any new coins in, but I fought the urge and decided to weigh it instead.

My normal scales said "err... get off you're too heavy".

(It means error really!!)

 I got out the other scales.  It turns out we have almost 6kg of money, I wonder how that will convert to actual hard cash?

So what are our plans for this cash?  Well we are in the early stages of thinking up a Challenge for next year, something along the lines of the previous ones, as we need to have a real cash saving, money scrimping year next year with the idea that we can then pay off the small mortgage that we raised on this house which we took out to buy our investment/retirement property eighteen months ago.

Fingers crossed that 6kg of coins is a good amount then ... and roll on the 4th December when I can finally prise the lid off and see what we actually have available.

How many of you joined in with the original Sealed Pot Challenge or do something similar now?

Sue xx

The Sealed Pot Money

Since opening the Sealed Pot on the 10th December the money has been sat waiting to hear of it's fate.  We were going to spend it on Christmas treats, but with our gift of a lovely hamper. lots of foodie goodies off visiting family and a couple of bags of chopped kindling off my eldest son, which has been very appreciated ...... they've saved me a couple of chopping sessions in the rain this week ...
we've been thoroughly spoilt.

  We think it's lovely that our family know just what to get us,  but between all these gifts and the things I had been buying week by week ready for our couple of relaxing weeks off work we simply did not need to spend any more money on things for Christmas.

So all that lovely cash is available for spending elsewhere, and in time honoured tradition it has spawned a Challenge for the next few weeks.  I think it will be a mini Challenge this time as there is only £61.21 (I don't know where the one pound coin is in the top picture but we definitely had one!!).

This Challenge fits in nicely as well with our new 'needs not wants' way of life, as we are going to spend the money on food for as long as it lasts.  As is my usual (but not for much longer) way there is foodstuff galore in the fridge, freezers and cupboards so before we spend any money on food we will be eating up what we already have in store.

I will only be buying what we need, ie.  milk, bread or any fresh foods that we require.  I will also only be buying the foods on my Capsule Kitchen list as this is something I have decided to go ahead with.  Things not on the list will not be replaced once they are used up.

Using up the foods in the fridge has been no hardship, in fact the other morning we had some freshly baked croissants, made using one of these 'ready to go' packs.  How easy and yummy was that, it made for a very special new years breakfast :-)

There is still some Christmas foods left in the fridge, a couple of large wedges of Stilton for example and all of these will be cut into usable sized smaller wedges and frozen for future use.  Many, many times as I'm sure a lot of you will remember I have made an effort to eat our way through the cupboards and always after a few weeks or months of serious effort things go back to how they were before, when bargains are spotted or mass baking sessions happen.  

Not that there's any harm in that it's just that this time I intend to get right back to basics, evaluate what we have and what we need and only keep in store in future a core stock of the real base commodities that will supplement and enhance our own home grown fruit and vegetables.

Back with more about my Capsule Kitchen tomorrow.

Sue xx

Opening the Sealed Pot

Better late than never, everyone else with Sealed Pots seemed to open theirs last week, but events caught up with us and it just didn't get done.  So yesterday after I got back from a couple of days with Mum, Lovely Hubby and me decided to go and do a bit of Christmas shopping, so just before we set off was the perfect time to open the pot.

I'm afraid my lovely shiny tin sustained some damage getting it open, who knew double sided sticky tape was that strong!!  We had to prise the lid off with the end of the can opener to get at our pennies.

  But it was worth it .... what a lot of pennies there were!

I'm afraid we cheated and used the cash counting machine at the supermarket, (I know it cost us money, but it was easy and we chose this option), and this is the grand total after all the tinkling and re-feeding the stubborn coins back through the machine was done.

We didn't spend it on Christmas things, instead we used our £35 of Nectar points and £12 of money off coupons on wines and two bottles of Port .... and brought the money home with us.

Where I set to and minimised the damage to the lid the best I could, and then re sealed the pot for next years saving.

Sorry for the rough treatment Mr Tin but at least you are once again sealed up, as every good Sealed Pot should be.

In other news (as they say) the fascia boards and guttering have gone up on two sides of the conservatory and what a difference it makes.  We're suddenly looking a whole lot smarter.

Really smart!!

There's still the Velux and that side of the roof to do, but we have to wait for a dry and relatively wind free day for that.  Meanwhile work is cracking on a pace inside with nearly all the roof insulation now in place.

Advent Challenge - Day 10

A Christmassy magazine, discovered in the Christmas decorations box.  I remember putting it in there last year to hopefully dissuade me from buying too many Christmas magazines this year.  I have been quite good .... I have only bought two (not counting the magazines that I get on subscription), which is a VAST improvement on the many, many I used to be tempted into getting.

Sue xx.

Making the Most of What You Have

 

After the last post I had so many comments and emails saying that you were doing exactly the same as me,  spending money to save money.  I'm pleased that I'm not the only one, but occasionally I feel we fall into the trap of spending vouchers because we have them!!  The questions we should ask ourselves are:  "Would I have spent the money I did, if I had not been lured into the supermarkets by the vouchers that they sent me?", or "Am I going shopping today just because I have a voucher?".

 

 I don't know about you, but in my case some of the time I think I am playing right into their hands, spending my hard earned cash on what they want me to buy!!

 

But I'm not going to lose any sleep over it, what I am going to do is to make the most of the food I have bought so it last me the longest time possible and makes us as many tasty meals as possible, so I can keep away from the shops for as long as possible.  I need to keep myself accountable which is something I do most of the time of course, but it's easy to stray if you don't keep yourself in check.  So I am going to use the Blog for the whole of 'Stoptober' to keep myself accountable, plan my meals from what I have and give myself a strict budget for any food I have to buy.

 

 I intend to give myself a budget of just £10 a week for any fresh food shopping we need to keep us eating healthily.  I will put £10 into my purse on Wednesday 1st and then another one on each Wednesday throughout October.  At the end of the month whatever cash is left over will be added to the Sealed Pot, which this year is being used for our Christmas Fund.

 

So what did I do with the foods destined for the freezer from the last shop (with vouchers) I did?

 

 

I worked out how much they had cost me each just in case I want to price out meals, and then wrapped them individually and placed them in a big freezerproof box.

 

I did similar with the Garlic Breads, so that we can get one slice out as a time if we want to.  It's always good to open these packs before you freeze them as the breads tend to be stuck together with all the handling they have had from warehouse to supermarket to home etc.

 

The Southern Fried Chicken portions were also individually wrapped, priced and put into a tub.  I'm glad I bought two packs of these as one pack had one thigh and six drumsticks .... and the other had one drumstick and six thighs!!

 

All neatly poortioned and wrapped and ready for the freezer.

 

And because I have most of my foods like this in big boxes the freezer is looking pretty full.  Now if I can't make this lot last for at least month there is something very wrong with me!!

 

We only have guests twice this month so I should be able to cater for us (and them) very successfully.  I will put a couple of cartons of milk in there after I have been into Llandudno later today ... but that is all the shopping I am getting.

 

Stopober cannot come soon enough for me  :-)

 

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I apologise for any mistakes on my Blog, or on comments I may leave on any of your blogs over the next few days, but I am having to do all my computer work on my little laptop as our main computer has been taken very poorly and is at the computer doctors (hopefully) being made better!!

 

To add to my technology woes, this morning for the first time since we lived here I have no phone signal, so I can't phone anyone either.  Ohh woe is me ;-)

 

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Sue xx

My Sealed Pot is No More

 

Ooops, the first casualty of the move!!

 

My lovely Sealed Pot slipped through my fingers yesterday when I went to pick it up to pack it safely away ready for the move.

 

 

Suky the Pug was first on the scene to inspect the damage.

 

 

Luckily because it has just been emptied there was only a little bit of money inside the pot, imagine if I had lifted it the other week with all that change in it.  One less thing to pack!!  Poor Sealed Pot, it was brilliant while it lasted, luckily I have a suitable tin at the other house that I can seal up and continue our saving in.

 

The final push packing away all the bits and pieces of normal living is on now, to say we are living minimally would be an understatement.  We sleep on a mattress on the floor, we have the sofa and the small TV, the biggest luxury is in the kitchen where we still have the table and chairs, so at least Blogging and eating our evening meal is done in comfort.

 

Sue xx

 

Opening the Sealed Pot 2012

Our Sealed Pot for 2012.

We sneakily opened it one day early so Lovely Hubby could join in the excitement (and pose manfully in his beloved bright orange dressing gown!).

Ribbon peeled away and then the double sided sticky tape prised off, it was actually very well stuck down that lid, there could have been no sneaky dipping into this pot!

Our first impression - a pathetic little bundle of coins .......

.... languishing way down in the bottom of the 'bread bin'.

But once tipped out of their giant container it looked a lot more - PHEW!!  We had a little guess each of the amount contained in the pot, we were both way out (although I conceed that LH was slightly nearer).

A happy five minutes was spent stacking and counting and a big grin is hidden behind the lid, if you enlarge the photo you will see a little blue eye looking at you!  This was one very happy little bunny, well a big orange happy bunny actually!!

And the GRAND TOTAL - £480. 

Yep, that's right four hundred and eighty whole pounds all in two pound coins.  Someone did a happy little jiggy dance all around the kitchen, can you guess  who it was.....no photos were taken so you can be sure it was the girl with the camera clutched in her little mits!!

Did you even know that £480 in £2 coins would weigh exactly 3 kilos .... nope neither did we, imagine what the jar would weigh if we had filled it right to the top!!

Next mission .......  seal up the pot again ready for next years challenge.

No sneaky getting into this pot, with new sticky tape and the ribbon back on and it looks as though we have never opened it, so  much more cost conscious than last years 'smashing' time (see HERE).

And here are all the lovely £2 coins tucked into our Housekeeping Tin, they fit absolutely perfectly right up to the rim, you wouldn't be able to get one more coin in if you tried, how weirdly fateful is that? 

And what are we using all this lovely lolly for, well I decided a while back that in the interest of saving for our new 'forever home' I would start the year saving as much as I possibly could from the housekeeping budget, so this little stash is the Housekeeping Budget for 2013.  Well for as long as we can make it last for that is.

A whole new Challenge opens up for 2013 on the results of our Sealed Pot.  It gives us a weekly shopping budget for food of £9.23.  Seems a tiddly amount but if I can be super frugal and if we eat our way through the freezers and cupboards in a serious fashion and then plan a clever planting plan for the Veggie Patch we could just do this. 

Couldn't we?

After all I have lived on £1 a day for five days twice now when I took part in the Below the Line Challenge, can two of us live for £1.31 a day for a whole year?

Many thanks must go to Sft from My 101 Challenge Blog who started this whole Sealed Pot idea last year, and as today is her birthday, why don't you nip over HERE and wish her a very Happy Birthday.  You can also see how much all the other Sealed Potters have managed to save.

Happy Birthday Sft

Sue xx

Buying, Selling and Saving

 

 

The buying is most definitely reducing to almost minuscule levels and the selling is increasing, the right way round thank goodness.

 

Yesterday whilst in the village posting off the bags I sold on EBay last week I called in the health food shop for some Oatmeal as I wanted to make some oatmeal biscuits, so that was two things being sold off and one thing bought.

 

 I managed to make a profit of £16.11 on the blue Laura Ashly bag and £11.80 on the green  Hotter bag, so I was really pleased with the outcome. I guess at a car boot sale I would have been lucky to make more than a couple of pounds each for them.  I say profit because I have been carefully working out how much things are costing me to post and how much the charges for selling are, it does need to be worthwhile all this wrapping and posting things off.  And I do try and combine the drive to the Post Office with other reasons for visiting the village to keep fuel costs down.

 

Ebay is proving to be good for things like the bags that have well known names, but Amazon has been brilliant for Dvd box sets and selling books, especially a lot of my diet type books.  I put six more books on there yesterday and two sold within minutes, I have to find four things to put on Amazon this afternoon to keep up with my weekly challenge of listing 10 things each week.  It is going pretty well so far.

 

I will have to update my '£2012 in 2012' challenge page in a minute to get it up to date and see how much my shortfall is at the moment, it would be lovely to complete this challenge properly.

 

On the back of my mind at the moment is my plan for our Blog subtitle for next year.  You may have noticed that each year it varies slightly.  Up to now we have had (as listed way down in the sidebar) -

 

 

Our Blogging Years

2009 - From Townies to Country Folk

 

2010 - Pigs and Chickens

 

2011 - Our Year of Living Simply

 

2012 - 'From Simple to Frugal....and Beyond'
(one couples journey to jump off the consumer bandwagon and live more simply)

 

 

I have a definite idea for next year and it's all linked to the Sealed Pot Challenge and what I intend to do with the money (when I see how much it is).    I guess I'll let you all know what our Challenge is going to be when I open the pot on 3rd December, it's a date firmly marked in my diary.  If you want to know more about the Sealed Pot Challenge pop over to Sft's Blog  HERE and have a read.  I have already signed up for next years Sealed Pot and once I open mine up this year and remove the contents for counting I will be resealing and re-using the same pot again.

 

 

It would be criminal not too, it's lovely and fits in with our kitchen beautifully.

 

 

 

Lovely Hubby drilled the hole in the top ....

 

 

 

... and last year we managed to save £258 in it, not a bad little haul.  Here's hoping for similar (or even better) this year.  Every penny is earmarked for the Challenge and nope, we won't even need to go to the bank to change it into notes!!

 

There....have I left you suitably mystified or have you guessed what we are up to?

 

Sue xx