2012 Frugal Living Challenge (Part 1)

amber03

good luck susiejq hope you manage to achieve this, the next 2 and a half years will be here before you know it. Me and OH will finish our mortgage in about 16 monthes , so by time i'm 50 i will be mortgage free :j , this is one of the things i wanted more than anything to be mortgage free asap. We could have moved to a bigger house with a bigger mortgage, but decided our house was big enough for us and many of our friends envy us because yes they have nice big houses but have a big mortgage that will end when they are in their 60's at the earliest.

I'm focasing on paying one of my devts off by this time next year and hopefully making a dent in my CC debt.

merry xmas and a happy new year everybody.xx

Hiddenidenity

Only a week to go to start my budgets

Hope everyone has had a fab Xmas x

Erme

amber03 wrote: »

good luck susiejq hope you manage to achieve this, the next 2 and a half years will be here before you know it. Me and OH will finish our mortgage in about 16 monthes , so by time i'm 50 i will be mortgage free :j , this is one of the things i wanted more than anything to be mortgage free asap. We could have moved to a bigger house with a bigger mortgage, but decided our house was big enough for us and many of our friends envy us because yes they have nice big houses but have a big mortgage that will end when they are in their 60's at the earliest.

I'm focasing on paying one of my devts off by this time next year and hopefully making a dent in my CC debt.

merry xmas and a happy new year everybody.xx

Yeah a posh big house is so not worth it if you have a noose of a mortgage :eek:...

I'm lucky in that sense in that I rent and like am quite happy where I am (can't get a mortgage for it anyhow...too high up) and like it's a decent tenancy....though the building is quite old so no massive desire to buy... But one day perhaps I'd like to save enough for a deposit and get on the housing ladder *dreams - just dreams*

E

mookiepook

Morning everyone - can I join your challenge please? Today is the day I do my 2012 budget and I've taken the first step towards reducing my spending on non-essentials by unsubscribing from special offer websites - if I can't read about them, I can't be tempted by them! Thanks for the links to all those websites - wow, lots of reading to do!

Blossom123

Good morning everybody, I've been reading through this thread and the 2011 thread.

please sign me up for the challenge.

I was made redundant last year and I'm still struggling to make my lifestyle fit the reduced income. Just reading everything on here has helped me realise I can do it.

determined_new_ms

Hi everyone! Hope you all had a lovely (and frugal) Christmas! So I have had the house to myself this morning as everyone is still asleep and have been reading through this thread - its mammoth and I will probably have trouble keeping up with it! Been giving some thought to my budget - when I last posted I was trying to get a job in my home town and stop driving 40miles a day. Happily I have secured a position where I live and start on 23rd Jan hurrah! So that will reduce my outgoings but sadly I still need my car!

Things I intend to do to keep costs down:

not waste food! will check through my fridge/cupboard every other day & adjust meal plan accordingly
use coupons & meal plan, bulk buy when items are on offer/reduced
check my tyre pressure every other week & ensure car has NOTHING in it other than things needed for the journey
Plan out my days at work so I can walk to work a couple of times a week
keep a spending diary - this is so hard for me! Always start off with good intentions at the beginning of the month and at some point early on forget about it!
Give up smoking! I did this for 6 1/2 months this year - determined to do it for good this year
3 months a year have a "spending diet" where I spend almost nothing for a month other than essential expenses
shop around for big spends
save throughout the year for birthdays/xmas/car repairs/emergencies - I did this this year and it has been a god send. I have not spent any of my Dec salary on Christmas, my dd's 18th birthday, & my car cost me £650 in repairs a couple of weeks ago which I paid for with my car & emergency savings and paid £94 out of my monthly pay
try to keep energy costs down
cancel my vodafone contract & get 02 sim, for £10pm get 100 mins & unlimited texts
just generally cut back
do grocery challenge
cut back on alcohol & coffee
take library book to work for lunch breaks/walk to library & read papers for free or online

ok so I have spent this morning doing my projected budget & I have set up my spreadsheet. Here is
my outgoings/share of joint expenses

Bills/rent/food £6648
Mobile £120
Ins £300
Petrol £1200
Clothes £300
Exercise clothes £100 (trainers/sports bras)
holidays £1000 (essential for my oh! Easier to give him this than not, he doesn't ask for a lot and puts up with much!) £600
haircuts £90 [COLOR="rgb(255, 0, 255)"]£30[/COLOR]
Birthdays £360
Christmas £240
Car maint £600
shoe repairs £60
emergencies £120
Entertainment £1200 (hoping to reduce this! But it allows for £100 a month)
spending/pocket money £600

ok I work all that out to be just shy of £13000 so have added another £500 for unexpected emergencies but hoping to not need it! So my budget for spends is £13500

So that's it! Looking forward to all your frugal tips and the challenge of being in this together :T

More4Less

susiejq wrote: »

I am joining this as the next two and a half years are vital in order for us to be able to retire when we are 60 (me) and 66 (OH).
We need to pay off our mortgage. We have no other debts. We are totally focusing on being mortgage free and living as ecomically as possible in order to do it.
:j:j:j

Good luck with that! We managed it a couple of years back - feels wonderful! My next challenge is to learn to live on the basic state pension and have a life as well, did not think it possible, but this site gives one hope!

[Deleted User]

Item Annual Cost Monthly Cost
Mortgage £3600 300.00
House Ins £240 20
Council Tax £1416 118.00
Gas/Electric £1260 105.00
TV Licence £146 12.17
Phone/B.band £420 35
Mobile Phones (x2) £288 24.00
Life Ins £168.60 14.05
Top Up TV £131.88 10.99
Tax (x2 cars £320 26.70
MOT/Servicing £240 20
Petrol (x2) £3120 260
AA Cover £120 10
Car Ins (x2) £780 65
Gifts £360 30
Toiletries £100 8.30
Food £1800 150
Spends x 2 £1920 160
Total 16430.48 1369.21

Sorry about the mess of this - tried to copy it over from a word doc table but it wouldn't work.

Hi folks. This is the first time I have ever set out a budget like this - am shocked at th 16K+ total. :eek::eek:
Notes:
Mortgage - currently have an offset account so do not pay the amount quoted. Still budget for around £300 per month and the rest goes back into savings ie: ploughed into the offset account.

Council Tax is paid over 10 months. Still budget for the 12 months and save the £118 in Feb and March.

Gas/Electricity - hopefully this is over-estimated:D. I have paid £105 per month last year but always ended up geting money back due to being in credit. This will also be put into savings.

Petrol is clearly a huge expense. Most of that is for OH getting to and from work. Other care expenses are obviously a bit of a drain. Would like to go down to one car but where we live it is just not possible.

Was shocked at the cost of our mobile phones over the year. Mine is £8 per month and OH is £15 - mainly because he insists on having a new phone with his contract, I don't bother so get a discout. We are with '3'. Occasionally we send a photo or something and are charged extra for this so I have budgeted above the basic cost. Any ideas how we could reduce this cost would be welcome.

We are currently with BT for our phone and broadband. This budget is a guess based on what we paid last year - this year will be slighlty different as I have just paid the annual line rental up front of £120. We also have the 'Any time package' which is bundled with our broadband. It makes it quite difficult to work out exactly what these are costing me individually.

Top Up TV is OH's little treat as we don't have sky. We are considered 'abnormal' by both our families as they all have full sky packages - I think this lets OH feel a bit more normal . He has offered to go without it though.

Spends - this is for us to have some money each month for entertainment, clothes (although we don't buy much clothes), personal toiletries, make up (for me), hair cuts etc.

Food - quoted at the maximum budget. I am really aiming for £25 per week but may go over this at certain times of the year.

Please feel free to advise me on how to get these costs down a bit guys. All advice gratefully accepted.

Allie

System

can I join please? I never saw this last year, but am intrigued to see how we could do. I will go through the year's worth of bills and come back with the plan in the next few days...how exciting!

rising_from_the_ashes

icontinuetodream wrote: »

also use coal & logs as no mains gas where I am..... how much does this cost you and how long does it last??

Something else to consider is making your own fire logs.

You can get a "contraption" (from Ama*zon, E*bay etc) something like this http://www.amazon.co.uk/Paper-Briquette-Maker-Perfect-Waste/dp/B003WF4JHU/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1324925251&sr=8-3 and make your own "logs" from newspaper etc.

(If you don't use newspapers yourself, try at work - many Metros / daily papers end up in the recycling bin).

You do need to soak the paper first and then let them dry (which is a bit messy & it can be a pain to dry them in the winter - although they will dry on the hearth) so my advice would be to build up a stock of paper from now until summer and then spend a day (or a couple of 1/2 days) making a load of them when they can dry outside in the sun.

Not for everyone, but if you can source your paper for free, then it's only your time that's needed (and I'm sure we'll all guilty of having the odd day of doing nothing!). The cost of the briquette maker will soon be saved by helping reduce the amount of coal/logs needed.

HTH:)