Frugal Living Challenge 2011 - part 2

slowlyfading

Can I join in the mean May thing too? April was much more expensive than it should have been! So I'm hoping to pull it back again with May - I need to!

1st NSD of the month today though, so off to a good start

tumptyteapot

just spent £5 in Mr T and I got a pizza express pizza, pizza express dough balls and garlic dip, 2 breaded plaice, 4 smoked haddock fish cakes, 3 small lamb chops, 2 small rump steaks and a large pot of single cream! I love the reduced section! I also got the Observers book of birds eggs (1967) for £2 and I see it on ebay for over a tenner. And I had a free ice cream (saffron) and a free coffee with ice cream in which is the best invention ever at my friends cafe cos he owed me for typesetting an advert for him. A good start to the month!

pink_numbers

oh I absolutely need to do Mean May also! I've had three months of overspending, I really need to knuckled down and get back to my old ways of keeping everything well under budget.

Aril

Hello fellow frugallers:j
I shall have to go for a damage limitation May as we've got a holiday [we will self cater] and the road tax renewal aswell as 2 birthdays [although have already bought all the presents for these]

No saving opportunities today except have batch cooked up all the mince in the SC whilst we were out for the day so it's ready to be frozen into portions. My frugal free treat was watching red kites swooping and hunting over my head at the White Horse near Uffington. They were magnificent.

Aril

tumptyteapot

Mean May, love it! good luck everyone!

SandraScarlett

Decided to act as I "mean" to go on, in Mean May!!! Went to the terrific Marty Wilde show (he sang for nearly an hour and a half in the second half, without a break) and in the interval, DH asked if I was going out for icecreams.

I said "definitely not, they're £1.50 here, and if you wait a couple of hours, we've got loads in the freezer, that cost 25p each"! DH thought I was joking, but I stuck to my guns, and we relished our treat when we got home!

I'm going to pull in the reins hard for this month, cos I've definitely slipped as each month has gone by, but hey! - we can all be determ ined and try to make our May spending resemble January's!

Can we do it? Yes we can!!! :beer:

xx

never_too_old

watched extreme couponing, why dont we have that opportunity, i could be really frugal doing that and debt free on no time:D

Frugaldom

Good luck to all for 'Mean May'.

Current budget spending works out at £97.26 per week for the frugaldom household. This has included several 'big spends' like a year's worth of house insurace, car insurance, road tax and BT line rental up front, all things I used to omit from my original budget but now need to be counted in my 'everything counts' practice run for 2012.

Grocery shopping is averaging £18.07 per week, mainly thanks to the stock piling, bulk bargain buys and batch cooking. Running between two houses is costing a small fortune but I am not counting in the costs involved in moving, as we've another 5 weeks to go between the two. Savings being used for this and the renovations costs.

Hope everyone has a good month, don't be too mean, otherwise your frugal living plan may become a bit of a chore rather than be fun.

tumptyteapot

l.m.hart wrote: »

watched extreme couponing, why dont we have that opportunity, i could be really frugal doing that and debt free on no time:D

is that something we can see online? I'm so frugal I don't have TV or sky etc. :-)

kittiej

Morning all

No work today - :T I'm getting too used to these short weeks lol.

I've got £12 in my purse so I am going to see how long I can make it last. My sons are taking packed lunches to school and whereas I would think nothing of going out and buying crisps and biscuits I'm going to make a madeira cake in my BM instead.

Being mean in May for me is about re-focusing on my spending habits and using up what I already have. Today will be my 2nd NSD of the month, unfortunately it won't last cos I need to get petrol tomorrow and the price seems to rise each time I go to the petrol station!

Keep up the good work everyone