Frugal Living Challenge 2011 - part 1

Living_proof

Anyway, we've taken to doing a bigger shop at the supermarket every other week then a teeny shop at the co-op on the other weeks. It's worked well for us, we spend about £8 on the small shop and about £25-£30 on the other week. And we don't seem to have any less food![/QUOTE]

I am thinking that this is the way to go, otherwise you never actually get to the stage where you either do without or become inventive with what you have lurking. Unfortunately, and because I work at home and have little contact with the outside world, shopping (even for food) is a diversion for me and something I enjoy. I am having to stop myself buying the M&S Mother's Day offer - whilst it is good value, I have tons of food in the freezer. This weekend I will just have to buy exactly what is needed and ignore the offer, whoopsies, et.c which will be surplus to requirements. Then I will do a big shop the following week.

All being well.

23rdspiral

miss_empty_piggy wrote: »

Also, I did realise that I had finally growed up when I admitted that I now like wine and olives where I used to like crisps and pop!!! Darn it.

Big hugs everyone. x

:rotfl: brilliant! welcome to the club!! (though i do still like crisps and pop too!)

tumptyteapot wrote: »

Thanks Sandra, it was really good to see a positive balance in the bank at the end of the month for the first time in ages.

:T that's brilliant! you should be rightly very pleased with your efforts. i think an 8.00 meal out is a worthy celebration!

flying_fresian wrote: »

Afternoon all,

I managed to get a gammon shank today from Morrisons in the whoopsie aisle, but can't be @rsed making soup tonight. Does anyone know if I can freeze it?

yep. they freeze well and i've never noticed any difference at all. personally i defrost before cooking. well done on getting one woopsied, i've only ever found 2 reduced.

23rdspiral

:T wow minnie! you're doing amazingly. health issues and a broken foot but still working so much! paying off debts, working overtime to do so. i'm so very impressed with your efforts and attitude. thank you for the inspiration.

Lesley_Gaye wrote: »

have just spent £17 in the CoOp, but it was all stocking up on buy 1 get 2 free offers. So now have 6 bottles of shampoo, 6 tubes of toothpaste, 2 deodorants £1 each etc etc .... the loft has loads of pks of loo rolls up there

thanks for the heads up. i'll go look in co-op when i can. also for the idea of putting loo roll in the attic, the new house's upstairs showerroom thing is very small and i wondered where on earth to keep such things. we havent braved the attic yet but fingers crossed it's dry!

rising_from_the_ashes wrote: »

However, OD did remain at under £900 (yeeeehaaa) which is the 1st time for many years and determined not to go over this during April (think trying to pay anything off may be a bit out of reach this month as only £100 left)!:eek:

woop! woop! bravo on keeping your OD below your target!! :T good luck with hopefully keeping it there and lowering it as you can.

LauraM65 wrote: »

I may even put the small bits of chicken that have come off the carcus and bones in at the end when the veg has cooked and then whizz it all down.

Hi Laura, welcome to the thread. you've certainly been putting being ill to good use! good luck with your personal challenge, it sounds like you're heading in the right direction to make the changes you want to make.
~ i pride myself in getting all the meat off the chicken, even bits it didnt know it had! :rotfl: personally, i add these little bits after i've blitzed the soup as i prefer the texture that way, and so my OH knows there is at least a bit of meat in there!;)

23rdspiral

re our house - thank you everyone for all your well wishes. it will be so good for us to move finally. however, we've a little while longer to wait as it needs full re-wring and other work, so we've decided to take that on the chin and stay put for a few weeks. it's costing us more money in mortgage ect, but much less stress and hassle, and with it empty the electiricians should be much quicker, and therefore a bit cheaper too.

but we can sort out the garden! today i bought some weed supressant cloth stuff, a mini cloche/tunnel thing and 4 seed kits from 99p stores. whilst i know it would probably be cheaper to get seeds, compost and the propagator things seperatly, these have instructions!! and i'm impatient and excited and now have a garden and want to get started tomorow!!

(oh and 99pStores now do some fresh goods... they had 2 litre milk, corner shop brand IYSWIM for 99p!)

seriouslyfrugal

Hi everyone


Welcome everyone new


I don't know what I thought of the frugal programme on wednesday all though i did find that they had so many takeaways really bizzare I think it was the fact that they didn't think it abnormal that got me.


nothing really to report with me other than i'm still doing the challenge & logging all spends on the S.O.W.

I hope everyone is ok and have a good weekend

mooomin

Well the end of March means the spreadsheet is finally up to date:



I'm doing pretty well overall, but will see how things look when the council tax starts up again. I don't think I'm going to be able to keep to my groceries budget though I have £180 allocated monthly but this is for all food, toiletries and cleaning products for two of us and two cats. The cats cost us a fortune every month with food and cat litter, so I think I'm going to have to revise this budget upwards from next month.

As my energy direct debit is going down a lot (Essentially halfing) I'm going to increase the groceries budget to £200 for April and see how I go from there. That will make the annual budget £2340. I'll reduce the overall energy budget by £270 to compensate for this.

Not included within the budget for the year are holidays which have been paid for from both my annual bonus and from the savings I've made through this challenge. I've also treated myself to a couple of bits with my bonus which haven't been put onto this challenge - if I didn't get a bonus I wouldn't have bought them.

I know I'm nowhere near the levels of frugaldom shown by some of you, but I love this challenge for how it's making me think about the little frittery spends. I need to try and rein in my little fripparies like tea and food at work, but I also know I'm a lot better than I used to be which is comforting.

I've made £63.80 this month from card sales, Ebay and from the Reward payments on my bank accounts, which is pretty good going. I'm enjoying making cards for people, but can't rely on it for income really. I'm hoping to get a reasonable chunk of overtime at the end of April too.

All in all things are going pretty well for me. Well done to everyone else too and welcome to the newest frunchkins

rising_from_the_ashes

flying_fresian wrote: »

The cats cost us a fortune every month with food and cat litter, so I think I'm going to have to revise this budget upwards from next month.

I've made £63.80 this month from card sales, Ebay and from the Reward payments on my bank accounts, which is pretty good going. I'm enjoying making cards for people, but can't rely on it for income really. I'm hoping to get a reasonable chunk of overtime at the end of April too.

Just a quickie as heading for an early night....

I was always way over on my groceries & have now separated out the pets and this is where a lot of the money goes! (Still over on groceries but nowhere nearly as bad). Think in some respects I was better not knowing how much they were costing (but I wouldn't be without any of them)

It's funny as the cats cost way more than the dog when you factor in things like litter etc which I didn't expect.

Well done on the card sales, that's fantastic!:D

Still haven't found the SoW stick (3 weeks now) so looks like I'll have to re-enter everything again from my last back up - unfortunately I only do this at the end of each month so the whole of March to re-enter. Another task for the weekend and I'll let you know how my 1st quarter is looking then!

LauraM - welcome!

mooomin

rising_from_the_ashes wrote: »

I was always way over on my groceries & have now separated out the pets and this is where a lot of the money goes! (Still over on groceries but nowhere nearly as bad). Think in some respects I was better not knowing how much they were costing (but I wouldn't be without any of them)

It's funny as the cats cost way more than the dog when you factor in things like litter etc which I didn't expect.

I wouldn't be without them, but the cost of them drives me scatty!!

We always used to manage ok on £180 per month for the four of us (may as well include the cats as people!) but the cost of a number of things seems to have increased recently. I always used to do well on whoopsies, getting meat for under £1 most weeks, but it's harder to find bargains now I think.

That being said, in March I spent £208.31 on groceries etc but the total value was £275.27 so I am saving money somewhere This will also include any special offers or BOGOFs too.

I've topped up my groceries account for April from my savings so it's now sitting at the revised £210 budget for the month. Hopefully at the end of April I'll be able to declare an underspend!

silvasava

flying_fresian wrote: »

I wouldn't be without them, but the cost of them drives me scatty!!

We always used to manage ok on £180 per month for the four of us (may as well include the cats as people!) but the cost of a number of things seems to have increased recently. I always used to do well on whoopsies, getting meat for under £1 most weeks, but it's harder to find bargains now I think.

That being said, in March I spent £208.31 on groceries etc but the total value was £275.27 so I am saving money somewhere This will also include any special offers or BOGOFs too.

I've topped up my groceries account for April from my savings so it's now sitting at the revised £210 budget for the month. Hopefully at the end of April I'll be able to declare an underspend!

Just spent an hour on my SoW - cross referencing it from our bank account to make sure I hadn't missed any of DH's spends. I had a figure of £400 for the two of us & puss for groceries etc & the SoW says we've spent over £800:eek::eek: I was blaming DH for his forays into the DIY Stores but he's only spent about £130 so the blame is on me. However.......I have included a number of spends that wer'n't groceries but they still have to be budgeted for so FF I'll have a 'Could do Better' on my report:o

enjoyfinancialchallenges

Hi, I've been away from the computer for a while, ever since I realized I was sort of addicted to seeing what you were all doing. I haven't caught up with all the news as the pages have mounted up whilst I was away and I don't have the time to read them all which irritates me as I must be missing loads of news. I need to find out where the new quarter starts so I will have to look a bit I suppose but am trying not to be tempted to stay up all night in order to keep up. Will post all my news soon and get you up to date with Marmalade Mansion next time I post. Hope all doing well and health staying good to fair for you all . XXX