2012 Frugal Living Challenge (Part 1)

findingmyfeet

purpleorchid wrote: »

sounds like you have it all well organised hun. hope you have a very enjoyable evening. (THAT INCLUDES EVERYONE).
where did u get the wool from? you mentioned no cash spent and i do a lot of knitting.

Luv P
xx

i got my wool from blacksh*ep wool online but it was paid for by my mum as part of my christmas gifts, they had the colour i was looking for. All wools and yarns seem extremely expensive to me , i can buy 2 or 3 jumpers in town for the price of some wools:eek: but this time i have substituted one wool for another because it was much cheaper, never done this before so hope it works. lots of people say you can get wool very cheaply in charity shops but i havent found any yet.

quiet day today , bit of cleaning to do and geting organised for tonight but thats all really, might run up a few mince pies for later too to use up the last of the mincemeat.

frugaldom-how do you make your rhubarb champagne? have lots of rhubarb but other than pies/crumbles i never know what to do with it, do you have any other rhubarb ideas?

tomorrow will be another year-this one has gone soooooo quickly.

determined_new_ms

letsdothis wrote: »

any advice peeps?? this is our list for 2 adults and 3 kids

my list which includes paying off arrears in mortgage/water gas/elec

Amount

Mortgage

3600.00

Council Tax

976.00

Water

650.00

Gas/Electricity

2184.00

Bldgs/Cont Ins

241.68

Phone & B/band

480.00

TV Licence

Mobile Phone

480.00

Windows

96.00

Presents

Car Insurance

480.00

Road Tax

240.00

MOT

60.00

Petrol

1560.00

central trust

1740.00

credit cards

420.00

bin cleaning

60.00

food

2600.00

tae kwando

1044.00

subs/pocket money

624.00

dinner £

520.00

provi

1560.00

mum

1040.00

at the end of the year this should be £4000 p/yr better off - but I honestly cant see anything else I can cut back on - any suggestions??? many thanks all

letsdothis the only things I could suggest is can the kids have pack ups instead of school dinners and can you shop around for a better deal on your phones? we pay around £22 pm for home phone & internet services and I just yesterday changed my mobile tarrif to 600mins/unlimited texts/500mb internet for £10.25pm

tonight we are going out with oh's family (mum, dad, aunt, uncle, cousin & his wife) to his other cousin's pub and there will be a lock in after hours. Oh's family are taking champagne for midnight so there will be free champs for us :beer: on Xmas day I had £28 in my purse and was determined not to withdraw anymore funds, I still have £17 in my purse & yesterday we sold something to a friend as we didn't want it anymore so made £30 which we will use for tonight, so very likely I will still have £17 in my purse when I come home!

Planning that my first week of Jan will be a NS week so today going to buy a few staples from Lidl & get petrol so I can leave my purse at home for a week. Am going to send off renewal for car breakdown today so I can safely say I won't need to spend a bean :T

Happy New Year to you all :beer:

cw18

letsdothis wrote: »

any advice peeps?? this is our list for 2 adults and 3 kids

Had a quick scan over it, and the only one that jumps out as a 'Why?' is the bin cleaning. While it's only a small amount of your expenditure, it's not something many people around me bother with - in fact there was only 1 neighbour immediately around me, and even she seems to have given up with it. I'm debating doing my green (garden) and black (general waste) ones this year after about 8 and 10 years respectively of ownership, but I can do them myself as I have a power washer. Possibly worth seeing if you could borrow one of those from someone (if you don't have one) to clean them yourself a couple of times a year?

I know a couple of my neighbours do their own windows, but that's one I'm happy to pay for - but again it's a personal preference, and something I'd drop if money started to get really tight.

You can't do much about mortgage, council tax, water, gas & electricity (apart from cutting back on useage of water - if metered - and gas/electricity)

Insurances - definitely shop around when they're due for renewal

Mobile - review your useage/package, and see if you can get cheaper elsewhere (or drop to a lower package with current provider)

I agree that your phone/broadband looks high - mine's rarely more than £25/month, and it it only ever goes above £22 if I have to make daytime calls to numbers that wouldn't be free from my mobile (I get free evening and weekend calls on my landline, but hardly ever use the 100 minutes on my mobile package - so I use those for daytime calls even if I'm at home, apart from to my local council as it appears they must use the same provider as I never get charged for calling them, and to my daughter who's definitely on the same, and in future to my elder son as he's now with them too)

General car expenses - probably not much you can do about these, but I do think twice about using my car to get places in order to reduce my petrol costs.

Can't say anything about central trust or provi, as I don't have a clue what these are.

Credit cards - I assume that's paying off a balance, possibly with interest. If they're charging interest on them, then start throwing what you can at them in order to clear them faster - don't just pay the minimums.

seriouslyfrugal

I am staying in tonight as taxi's are so expensive to where I live from town


I might fill up with petrol today - hopefully it will last a few weeks


I hope everyone has a happy , healthy and frugal 2012 :beer:

Igamogam

We will be going to a friends house for the evening - four families intotal and have been doing it for many years since our children where tiny - which was why it started really. None of us have extended famliy for babysitting and we live in a rural location so we took it in turns to have socials at each others houses with the children and bring food and drink to share - host family ususally doing a main course type dish. For NYE it became a a fixed date on the calendar for everybody to get together and now even though the oldest children are in their 20's and doing their own thing we still have young teens and 9 year old joining us In fact one of the offspring has a birthday on NYE so for the past 14 years or so she has always shared her birthday celebrations with everybody - she opts to have a party with her own friends on another day. So at midnight it will be party poppers and something fizzy having tucked into some lovely food and played daft games or just had a natter in the kitchen We think its a tradition which may continue long after all the children have grown up

septemberblues

Today I am houseworking (want a spotless house to see in the New Year) and sorting out my budget. Whats an SOW?

Tonight I will settle down with my dogs and watch some "Greys Anatomy" from my Series 1-6 dvds that eldest DD bought me for Xmas yay, and eat some biscuits from a tin that was given to me for Xmas
Happy New Year everybody :beer:

cw18

septemberblues wrote: »

Whats an SOW?

Some of the members nicknamed my spreadsheet the 'Spreadsheet of Wonder' which stuck - and became SOW for short

There's a link to it at the top of the thread (think it's listed as 'My FREE Spreadsheet'), and I'm happy to help out anyone who has problems with it - just drop me a PM if you've any questions, and I'll do my best to get you sorted out ASAP

Mrs_Good_Life

Please can I join in?

Have debts that need to be cleared,want to reduce my grocery spending and learn to live as frugal as possible.

Off to look for the SOW spreadsheet.

Happy New Year everyone.xx

rising_from_the_ashes

septemberblues wrote: »

Today I am houseworking (want a spotless house to see in the New Year) and sorting out my budget. Whats an SOW?

Me too September:D (having a wee break atm) - have let things slide recently but want it spick & span to see in the NY on a positive front!

Paid my huge December cc bill this morning (several unplanned & large things all hit this one - vet, fridge freezer etc etc) and .... for the first time ever .... had money in pots to help cover the costs:) - will def be continuing with these into next year.:)

Car is in need of some liquid gold but decided to wait until after the NY (may regret that later!).

Cheryl really quick SOW question (sorry if it's been covered before) - I've put my totals etc in ... but how do I get it to start working so that it automatically changes month? Do I have to wait until tomorrow & do something?:o TIA

letsdothis

cw18 wrote: »

Had a quick scan over it, and the only one that jumps out as a 'Why?' is the bin cleaning. While it's only a small amount of your expenditure, it's not something many people around me bother with - in fact there was only 1 neighbour immediately

Hi thanks for the input - we are looking at mobile tarrifs at the mo - but the bin cleaning is £2 every 2 weeks we have MAJOR problems during the summer with maggots - not us but at least 5 bins in the street do and TBH I dont want to take the chance.......although I could catch them and do my own bush tucker trial !! ??