2014 Frugal Living Challenge

Soworried

Our frugal meals this week will be gammon based.
I roasted the 3k ys £4 gammon that I defrosted yesterday, I made a dinner then I made a gammon and spring onion quiche and 2ltrs of gammon and yellow split pea soup. There is still a load left over for other meals.

skintygerlinky

Hear hear!! Cheers frugalsod.
I love going to festivals and despite rising ticket prices I still think they resemble value for money. And they're a fab experience to boot.

Am going to see if I can manage a smaller one this year, closer to home, as they are much less expensive yet still infuse me with a lovely relaxed summery vibe...

Maaaaaaaaaaan!

Kerry_Woman

Baked a fruit cake and scones today. Also decluttered a few items.

I keep a notebook with my budget and spending. There are some others years budgets and spending in the book also, so is handy to keep a eye on how much I need to save etc.

I do not always cook from scratch which is my downfall. Most of the time I am tired to due health issues, having to work and caring for my Mum. Have to make sure that I do not over do things. This year I am going to look at recipes that are easy and quick to make. Unfortunately, my freezer does not have enough space for loads of batch cooking. At the weekend I have to catch up with housework and food shopping.

TM6

23rdspiral wrote: »

Is anyone else using spreadsheets to track budgets / spends?

I haven't seen as much about them as I have before on this thread. Is CW still around?

I sat yesterday and properly set up cws spreadsheet for the new year. I've used it before but not last year, and now we only have 1 income I needed to tweak things substantially. I wasn't sure how to add entirely new spending detail sheets so adapted what was there.

So 'Groceries' sheet now includes Cleaning (husband now paying, he didn't before) which frees up 'Toiletries & Cleaning' for another purpose entirely, and 'Other' will be my savings money I spend on me (clothes, toiletries, stationary etc, but hopefully not much!).

My husband won't track his personal spends (coffee, subway each Friday) but it's not too much and he'd spend it whatever so there's no point me worrying about things I can't control!:o

The Dog should have been on Other but I've moved her into 'Regular Spends' Spare 1, as it's not much more than kibble, meat & poo bags on repeat. I'm pretty sure I've got them as cheap as possible without compromising her health or quality of life so I shouldn't need to track that in detail.

I also used to note spends in a little notebook in my handbag. But notes would get lost amongst other things in there. So I've got a notebook/purse combination which should help keep things manageable.

I'm curious to hear what systems & adaptations people are using?

I love my Filofax and write all my expenditure in there.

I have a special wallet into which I put all my receipts into when I am out shopping. When I get home, I transfer the info into my Filofax.

I do not break down my expenditure into categories as I know 'my brain would melt out of my ears' if I did :rotfl:

There is one exception and that is fuel for our car.

What do you do with the information collected from all the categories? Do you actually cut down on your spending by doing so?

TM6

Frugalsod wrote: »

Have you considered three current accounts? Many current accounts pay interest and sometimes better than savings accounts.

No but I will do

Goldiegirl

quidsy wrote: »

Lol, now I know how strict I am about the heating. Ours comes on at 6pm till 10pm then 5.30am till 7am. No exceptions. I would never have the heating on during the day, everyone knows where the socks and jumpers are. Haha

I think we all have what I think of as our 'compromise point', linked to our ability to pay for something.


One of my chief aims for this challenge, is to live comfortably in my home after retirement. To be comfortable I don't want to be cold. I'm not afraid to put on a cardigan if it's chilly, but I don't want to be so cold in the house that I don't feel comfortable. Therefore, if the temperature outside dips, my heating will come on, even during the day. At present, the compromise is to put on the cardi, but I won't compromise any further.


If I had different aims, like paying off debts, or reducing expenditure due to unemployment, my compromise point might be different.


Although I am aiming to reduce fuel consumption, I won't go any further than my current 'compromise point'

23rdspiral

TM6 wrote: »

I love my Filofax and write all my expenditure in there.

I have a special wallet into which I put all my receipts into when I am out shopping. When I get home, I transfer the info into my Filofax.

I have a couple of Filofaxes of different sizes, I love them! My purse/notebook is actually a Filofax Mini

I do not break down my expenditure into categories as I know 'my brain would melt out of my ears' if I did :rotfl:

[COLOR="rgb(153, 50, 204)"] it's something I do some years and not others. As I Really need to keep on top of it this year breaking it down helps.[/COLOR]

There is one exception and that is fuel for our car.

What do you do with the information collected from all the categories?
the spreadsheet automatically adds up each month and tallys it against the set budget for that area, so I know if I'm under or over the annual spent in that area. (Proportion to date of annual spend). It's really not time consuming. I just enter the date, shop, and amount. For jan/June I usually put the grocery items as well so I can torture myself by knowing how much bread used to cost!

Do you actually cut down on your spending by doing so?

[COLOR="rgb(153, 50, 204)"] yes I believe I do, as i didn't do it last year and accidentally spent more than I'd have liked!
It makes me more aware of what I've bought and what I need. I guess it makes me aware of the money more, esp card purchases and direct debits. I'm numerically dyslexic so having the computer do the maths for me is best!
I used to just make a note in a notebook but I wouldn't 'use' those notes (add them up over the year etc) so they became meaningless for me (other than the 'diary' aspect of course.)[/COLOR]

23rdspiral

Gah! Keeping formatting right is really hard on a phone! Sorry! ^^

Mrs_Cheshire

Hi all, had an NSD today. Made a victoria sponge from supplies in the house, we had some for our afternoon snack and got half left for lunches in the week. Made a minted lamb and vegetable casserole in the slow cooker today, put 5 different vegetables in it and as there was only a little left over I blitzed it into a soup. Will freeze it so thats a lunch done for another day. In the past I would have just chucked the little bit left over!

Soworried

Mrs_Cheshire wrote: »

Hi all, had an NSD today. Made a victoria sponge from supplies in the house, we had some for our afternoon snack and got half left for lunches in the week. Made a minted lamb and vegetable casserole in the slow cooker today, put 5 different vegetables in it and as there was only a little left over I blitzed it into a soup. Will freeze it so thats a lunch done for another day. In the past I would have just chucked the little bit left over!

We call that SSS "Sunday super soup" and we fight over it