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Especially for Christmas Day 2011 - Scottish Clootie Dumpling Recipe
Get Granny Kerr's Traditional Scottish Clootie Dumpling Recipe here soon
The 2012 Challenge
The new challenge set by NYK Media is to venture out as a tiny fish into the ocean of social media in an attempt to encourage others to kick their debts and get their bank balances back into the red. It's the 2012 Frugal Living and Working Challenge and it's FREE to join. Reaping the rewards is so much more satisfyng when you know it's your own money at risk and that any resulting profits are all yours.
The above feed, which will carry all the NYK Media articles, will include the Shona Prophett blog posts.
How it all began
1999 - My first regular column in a monthly newspaper was called 'The Scottish Pound'. This was an ongoing 'challenge' to feed a family of 4 a main meal for £10 per week. It made interesting reading and opened quite a few eyes to the needless extravagances ill-afforded by many breadline families without their even being aware of them. Frugal living and moneysaving pays and people are wanting to find out how! The first step is to become debt free and to do that takes money. Reduce, reuse, recycle and catch a severe dose of frugalitis. It's much more environmentally friendly and much more fun than being skint.
I also contributed to a column named 'The Plonkers'. This was an attempt to find some cheap alternatives to fine wine at the dinner table. In all these years, the best I've found cost no more than the sugar it takes to ferment the elderflowers, but it was still fun sampling wine provided by the stores in their hope of achieving some cheap advertising.
The 2006 Cyberdosh Challenge
Following on from the above, 'Now You Know' issued a booklet edition, in which my mission was to carry out the following financial experiment over the period of one year :-
- Spend £100 on lottery tickets
- Invest £100 in Premium Bonds
- Buy £100 worth of stock or shares
- Save £100 in a bank, building society or savings account
- Bet £100 on some horse races
- Buy £100 of scratch cards
At the end of the experiment, I had to report my findings and explain why I thought each of the above was, or was not, an ideal 'investment' opportunity. The results were interesting, especially as I got to keep the profits, the shares, the winnings and the Premium Bonds!
The
2007 Cyberdosh Challenge
Can you live for 12 months on £4000? Let's
Find Out Now!
To make all things fair, cost of living does NOT include rent / mortgage payment or council tax / water rates, as these costs are dependent on personal circumstances. The basis of the challenge is, live for 12 months on no more than £4000. This may seem ridiculously unrealistic to some, but I accepted the challenge. I'm almost sure that I'm of sane mind. It's a far cry from the original £600 experiment! Once again, my one stipulation was that at the end of this experiment, I keep any surplus stocks, shares, cash, bonds or winnings. On £4000?
2008 - Frugaldom - 'Living on £4000 for a year' Challenge
See the Moneysavingexpert 'Debtfree Wannabe' forums
2009 - Frugaldom - 'Living on £4,000 for a Year' Challenge
See the Moneysavingexpert 'Debtfree Wannabe' forums
2010 - Frugaldom - 'Frugal Living - Living on Less than £4,000 for a Year' Challenge
Started off on Moneysavingexpert 'How Much have You Saved?' forums, now click here
2011 - Frugaldom - Frugal Living & Working Challenge
Now running through the Frugaldom Forums, it entails living within a household budget of £4,000 for the year, working from home to create a 'microholding' and ensuring that all associated projects are sustainable and cash neutral. Preferably, they should all have shown a profit by 31/12/11 Oh, and we managed to buy a house outright on the savings from the previous five challenges. Frugaldom renovations now in progress.
~ Shona Prophett Blog ~ Forums ~ Twitter ~ NYK Media ~
2006-2011 (c) NYK Media. Shona Prophett writes for pleasure, entertainment value and payment only. Nothing within her writing should be taken as financial advice and she removes herself from any responsibility, whatsoever, for anything. This is NOT advice, it is simply reading material.