2014 Frugal Living Challenge

mummy2threeboys

Oh those who like to read this site gives away free books daily..mostly unknown authors but had a few good reads from them , they even pay postage , to have more chance being selected, leave book reviews ive found it helps https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway

littleskintdragon

mummy2threeboys wrote: »

Love the idea about rounding up the odd pennys, i think ill do that with my bank, transer the odd bit to the savings account then when it gets to a certain amount transfer that to the cc. All adds up!

lets bust that debt lol..have a great week all xx

I round the bank account down to the nearest £5, and send the payment to my cc. Really surprising how quickly it adds up and the cc balance comes down.

I had stopped before xmas, but have just started again. Really works because u dont notice it

mooomin

Morning all

I've been reading more than posting but I love picking up hints and tips from you all. I did a meal plan on Thursday that has us organised right up until Sunday night this week and I've spent less than £20 on buying ingredients/staples to feed us - a miracle for our household!

Today will be a NSD barring any major catastrophe as I'm not working and have plans to tidy/clean/do washing and also to get some batch cooking done. I have the ingredients for a massive pot of minestrone soup and we'll be having bolognaise for dinner. I hope to be able to get at least ten portions of the sauce out of the 750g pack of mince I have

vw_campervan_mum

Budget on track for the month. I set budgets within the total amount: petrol; food; me (includes any entertainment/meals out etc). Then I can see where I over-spend or can cut more money off. I am sticking well to meal planning and only shop in TAldi or grocers. Have walked everywhere to save petrol and haven't been out except to friends to stop any frittering. Quite a few of my friends need to spend less too so we make meals for each other to be sociable cheaply.
Balancing the mini budgets is like a little competition to make money-saving more fun:D
Keep all the good ideas coming and good luck to us to keep on budget:A

littleskintdragon

Spends all written up, im using a lovely big diary i got before xmas for spending over £40 with the book people.

Then im totalling up spends at the end of the week & month in their catagories.

Looking forward to see how it totals up

Lina_T

Smarterandharder re the Nectar Adpoints, they only have a limited number of ads which they put up daily and at different times of day, once enough people have watched them they stop offering points on them. It's best to check back a few times a day to see if they've added more.

There is also a maximum of 250 points a week (an equivalent of £1.25), so they wont pay points on top of this

littleskintdragon wrote: »

I have a slight issue im trying to work out. We are a family of 4, one being a bery small very sicky baby, so we have plenty of clothes washing. Now i'm determine to not use the tumble dryer, but also trying to keep the heating off where possible, which means nothing is drying, and the weather is rubbish?
What do u do? I cant get to the bottom of it?

Littleskintdragon have you considered investing in a heated clothes airer? They're very energy efficient (I think they use similar energy to a lightbulb) and do the same job as a heater.

kippers

littleskintdragon wrote: »

I have a slight issue im trying to work out. We are a family of 4, one being a bery small very sicky baby, so we have plenty of clothes washing. Now i'm determine to not use the tumble dryer, but also trying to keep the heating off where possible, which means nothing is drying, and the weather is rubbish?
What do u do? I cant get to the bottom of it?

I hang my washing out most days first thing in the morning. If the pavement is drying then your washing will dry a bit too....this way if it's not fully dry at the end of the day, you use less electricity using your tumble dryer as it isn't as wet as when it comes out from your washing machine.:T

tiny_courageous

Put a dry towel in the tumble dryer with your washing as well and it should dry more quickly.

*goes back to lurking*

Shortie

Afternoon all - sorry for the radio silence, it was a super busy weekend so I was hardly on t'internet.

Well.. This weekend could ahve gone better - it was definately a 'slip up'. However, unlike before we have the resolve to get back on track and not slip into the 'what the heck' frame of mind and make it worse and worse

It started on Friday when a nieghbour treated us to take out as a thank you for something. We haven't had takeout for months and it seemed to give us back 'taste' for it so while we were out and about on Saturday we got a McDs, and then we left my parent's house late Saturday evening and so got a takeout on the way home :(

It seems to be out of our system, but that's £40 (4 of us) that we could have done without spending really.

But on the more frugal side, we booked our £9.50 holiday this morning, Mr Shortie cooked a lovely banana and chocolate chunk bread with the boys yesterday to use up some over ripe bananas, and Mr Shortied used the chicken pieces from Friday's uncooked dinner to make a lovely curry for dinner last night with enough spare for dinner tonight - woo hoo!


So, my finances have taken a different perspective after I fluffed up my tax return calculations and I have to pay lots more tax than I expected by 31st Jan. I can move money aroudn to afford it (as I've been squirrelling savings away everywhere) but it means I'll be 1 month behind on paying my Dad back for the car loan, and thinking forward to next year I have to save lots more for my next tax return too, meaning my heating and building savings will be further away too. Pah..

Still, the money is controlled and we're doing fine - no mass panics thankfully. If we hadn't have paid our bank loans off though already, we would have come unstuck so I'm thankful and threads like this and the Lunch To Work one help keep me focussed and get back on track

Starting to get a nice plan in place now too for the year - we have booked our £9.50 Sun getaway for the October half term and we have our mega holiday (cruise - piad off with some of the equity from the rental house sale)coming early August. I'm desperate to book a day off work soon though, I think I'm on bit of 'work burnout' but we're waiting on an op date for my eldest so I'm waiting for that date to come through first and if it will be soon or not


Right - off to catch up on the weekend's posts

nat21luv

Having a good day today, Ive baked a cherry bakewell cake for a family members bday tomorrow and found a box of his favourite chocs for only £1.50 instead of £8 so that's only about £7.70 spend for the ingredients, chocs and inc a card too. The budget for his bday was £10 so pleased with that

My grocery spend so far this month is £10.40, this has been mainly salad items and milk. Wont have to buy any for a little while longer but its hard to use up cupboard items when im eating clean. Im making meals for the children every night so still using up cupboard items but im having meat from the freezer with salad or veg so difficult not to spend at all. Im very pleased though, £10.40 for 13 days shopping is pretty good going!