2014 Frugal Living Challenge

sparrer

Oh dear, not a good day OS-wise. Day out with DD, bought her a lovely dress for a special occasion, and bought myself some bling to sparkle up a plain cream pashmina I'm wearing to a do at the weekend. We also had lunch out. Card factory is selling 7 cards for £1 so added some to my stash. In my defence I shopped in Mr M just before closing and bought 4 pints of milk, 1/2 rack of ribs, a salmon fillet and two cream doughnuts for £1.43p. I have some L2S vouchers so will use one of those for a present at the birthday I'm going to at the weekend.

Thanks for the replies about DD's, SO's etc. If I could guarantee only shopping on the days they go out of the bank I might include them but I have a set routine of shopping on Wednesdays and Sundays on my way elsewhere, so will just leave as it is.

lynnejk

quidsy wrote: »

These are all things I can fix, I just lose interest & motivation but I am determined this month to do it so wish me luck.

Good luck quidsy - if you want to do it hard enough it will happen.

ALJA wrote: »

I wish I was retiring, but seeing as I'm only in my mid twenties, I have a little while to go yet unfortunately!!

I'm just glad I've already started to put money away and got into the saving frame of mind already.

Yes it's good about saving but DON'T WISH YOUR LIFE AWAY - it runs away quickly enough, and faster and faster as you get older :rotfl: You only pass this way once as far as we know.


Did the monthly accounts today and nothing much left in my personal account but strangely I'm not bothered. I need some undies but have some vouchers for MnS so that's covered. I need a haircut as well but the weather so bad that can wait :rotfl:


Hope you all have a tremendous Thursday
Lx

quidsy

thank you lynnjk, I went home last night & made mini puff pies with some left over gammon which should cover us for dinner tonight & I may have one or 2 left over for lunch tomorrow too.

I have done a whole months meal planning, including slow cooker choclate porridge for breakfast & my own lunchs to bring to work.

I aim to stick to this plan but will actually note down when I changed it & for what to see if I can find a pattern to why I go off the rails a bit.

tatabubbly

Planning on doing out a newish budget today! Got my job but won't be getting paid until the end of the month so that will be a wee bit awkward. I don't want to be living out of my cc this month..

Just after transferring all our money over and updated the wedding spreadsheet as well. Must check out how much OH has put away for it this month

skintygerlinky

Hi Frugalites xxx

Well my laptop has unexpectedly passed on so am typing this in my uni library!!
Haven't been reading this thread for a while and am hoping to get back on track! March was a fairly shocking month for me and my family but it's gone now so onwards and upwards!!
March was also an expensive month, too much spent on 'unneccessaries' but lets live and learn and here we go with April.

My freezer has lots of batch cooking and YS goodies in there, so meal planning all the way - I will eat well this month! Taking all lunches to work and uni. No excuses this month!!

Will try my hardest to catch up with this thread - hope everyone is doing OK and like me learning a bit more each day!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1tOHz2l0qE

Shortie

Urgh - what a pain about the laptop Skinty, and sorry that March was so pants for you xx


I need a serious kick up the jacksie - I'm still in budget (just) for the month but am wasting money on junk food like there's no tomorrow. That's neither frugal or healthy. I need to get back into a routine, that's part of my problem - I let the lunchtime routine slip

So, not a very healthy lunch I know but I've just munched some home made chips that were left over from last night's dinner slapped between two slices of bread. And porridge for breakfast..

I need to get back into a routine of getting to bed earlier too (which may help to curb the junk food cravings I'm getting).

I'm feeling oddly 'out of the flow' this month... I put saving aside as soon as I got paid and I have a bit of money left for the rest of the month but I definately feel like I could be doing much, much better. And reading over the posts, it seems that a few of us seem to be suddenly feeling like that this month. I wonder why?? It's not a super bad month, just.. well.. like I've gone on the back burner and am just cruising..??

just_the_two_of_us

Coulddobetter wrote: »

Had to spend £95 on fridge/freezer repairs, spent £32 at T****, fridge is full with healthy things. I have started my healthy eating again I am trying to focus on losing the weight once and for all. According to the NHS site I need to lose over 50lbs

Could do better x

I think I'll be joining you with the healthy eating Coulddobetter as my number is probably similar - i just daren't look!!!!

Frugalsod

Shortie wrote: »

I'm feeling oddly 'out of the flow' this month... I put saving aside as soon as I got paid and I have a bit of money left for the rest of the month but I definately feel like I could be doing much, much better. And reading over the posts, it seems that a few of us seem to be suddenly feeling like that this month. I wonder why?? It's not a super bad month, just.. well.. like I've gone on the back burner and am just cruising..??

Have you considered putting some of your income aside immediately you get it? So that the bank account does not look so healthy at the beginning of the month. I found that if you feel richer than you are you are tempted to think why the heck not? If you feel broke you get a lot more will power to avoid spending. Even though you might have a sum set aside.

Shortie

Frugalsod wrote: »

Have you considered putting some of your income aside immediately you get it? So that the bank account does not look so healthy at the beginning of the month. I found that if you feel richer than you are you are tempted to think why the heck not? If you feel broke you get a lot more will power to avoid spending. Even though you might have a sum set aside.

Actually you know what FrugalSod, there's a lot of sense in what you've just said... If I think about it, when I had a lot of debt, and then was panicking to get my tax money saved up (whilst also flapping about the sheer amount I'd need to find for building work at some point) I was on top of every single penny. Every single one.

This month I put aside the last of my tax money and got the arichtect to start doing their thang with the drawings etc which for some reason put the building work itself to the side - literally, the next morning I was no longer worrying about find the building work money (which is silly as I still need to find it)

And so, as I've been more chilled out, and slightly more flushed this month I seem to have felt like I can just spend it. What I should have done instead, was move the spare money straight out into a saving fund. If I'd have needed it I could have accessed it, but it wouldn't have been in my current account so I won't have felt like I had it to spend


That was a very good spot - thank you xxx

Next month I'm clearly going to have to decide how much I want to allow myself for personal spends, and then quite simply move everything else out on payday. And maybe to really make myself get back in the zone, make it a relatively small amount so that I challenge myself in some way to and get my 'edge' back

alja

lynnejk wrote: »

Yes it's good about saving but DON'T WISH YOUR LIFE AWAY - it runs away quickly enough, and faster and faster as you get older :rotfl: You only pass this way once as far as we know.

Haha! Don't worry I definitely allow myself to let my hair down now and again and also splash out on the odd thing, like holidays! Hehe