2012 Frugal Living Challenge (Part 1)

PinotGrigio41

Can I join please ??

Determined to keep positive and frugal in 2012 !!

determined_new_ms

Hi I would like to join this challenge. I tried to convince my oh to do it last year - I was wanting us to have a joint account that we both paid our wages into, & then had a set amount for spends & saved the rest. Sadly he baulked at this. I earn more than him so he felt it wouldn't be fair & also this last year was the first time we had been debt free & he was/is enjoying building up some personal savings. I felt given this is would be too complicated to do this challenge but every now & then dip into the thread and am amazed by how frugally some of you can live!

This year I have decided to do it on my own. I am also looking to change jobs, hopefully less than full time, less stress & in my home town. If I do this I can sell my car and save myself around £3000 a year! I've just spent some time looking at what our budgets (personal & joint) might look like for the year :eek: despite everything it looks like I would still need to take home about £1100 a month to meet my outgoings even being frugal! (obviously less if I didn't need a car) I will continue looking at the budget and see how I could reduce it more. We don't have debts but one of the things that my oh will not compromise on is holidays so we do go on average on 3 holidays a year.

I'll have a month to continue refining & then I will post.

prepareathome

I have done on of those statement of affairs, can someone point me to where I should put it please? Should I put it on here? We thankfully no longer have debts but incoming could drop drastically, depends on whether I get ESA or not so have done two statements one with income the way it is and one if I lose my Incapacity Ben and don't get ESA - which means we don't have enough to live on, which is what I thought and why I have joined the challenge and somehow I have to save to go to Melbourne in March 2014 as oldest son is getting married and I cannot not go ( doctor has told me she has some meds up her sleeve that would keep me going to get there and back, and for wedding, so it is just money that would stop me). He and his fianc!e have actually chosen this date to give us as much time as possible to save up, but they are both now in their 30's and don't want to put it off to long as they do want to have a family.

CheapsKate_3

My spending is not ridiculous and certainly I am far more aware of what I'm doing after a year of MSEing but always room for improvement... I've just gone down to working part time (my choice) to have more time for other projects, but it means money will be totally tight for a while. However, I have plans

in 2012 I will
Dispose of £3000 CC debt - was twice that 6 months ago, so doing not too bad
Refine my budget further - er AND stick to it
Control grocery shopping - much better than it was, but lots of room for further savings
Sell HUGE amount of clutter on ebay to fund house and garden works - mostly stuff belonging to now-dead relatives, a few good things but mostly sadly not, although you never know what people may want
Prepare for sale (and actually sell!) nice young horse which I bred - think best time to sell may be spring/early summer
Get large-ish garden into shape and way more productive - fruit, veggies, maybe chickens
Work on 2 rooms in my house (rather ramshackle farmhouse) so that they are lettable to lodgers - not necessarily straight away, but think this may be my pension plan!
Enjoy the frugal journey and learn lots

ClootiesMum

OK. I need to sign up for this. Can I be included?
I'll come back later with more definite plans but at least I've put something down in writing now.....:eek:

mooomin

ClootiesMum wrote: »

OK. I need to sign up for this. Can I be included?
I'll come back later with more definite plans but at least I've put something down in writing now.....:eek:

*waves*

Not seen you in ages missus, hope you're keeping well?

HelenPie

I would like to try again, if I may? I didn't do very well last year. No excuses.

I've reviewed my old SOA and our income is up and expenses down (slightly: paid off two small loans, but increase in insurances, rates, etc.) Unfortunately used the credit card a few times so debt only down 13% overall since last year.

We're getting married in June so overall lifestyle wont be particularly frugal, but hoping to make frugal changes for day-to-day living.

Will sort out my very out of date signature soon.

H x

ClootiesMum

Not seen you in ages missus, hope you're keeping well?

I've been here - more lurking than posting though.

Seem to have too much to do @ work these days - you know how it is

Keep in touch

But I still think that the eyelashes for the Fiat should be compulsory.

CM

rising_from_the_ashes

Frugaldom wrote: »

As long as you don't delete the actual codes that calculate the numbers. I tend to delete numbers using the backspace button rather than the delete button. I've been using same spreadsheet for years.

Ahhhh fantastic *exhales loudly and breathes a sigh of relief* - I will be extra careful when removing the figures as I think this may have been what happened mid Sept .......

ClootiesMum wrote: »

But I still think that the eyelashes for the Fiat should be compulsory.

Ohhhhhh yesssssss, Fresian you've got to get some for Fred!:) There's one in the village where I live and I grin everytime I see him/her!

mooomin

rising_from_the_ashes wrote: »

Ohhhhhh yesssssss, Fresian you've got to get some for Fred!:) There's one in the village where I live and I grin everytime I see him/her!

As Fred is a boy-car I don't think he would be too happy.

Plus, Mr Fresian has forbidden it :rotfl::rotfl: