2014 Frugal Living Challenge

cottage_retreatist

Some amazing comments on here!

I generally lurk and read but I agree with pm2326 - we also used to spend money and now have nothing to show for it except debt!!!!!!!! :eek::eek::eek:

It wasn't all reckless spending, it was living too close to our max and then OH losing his job, the cost of 2 people communting into London :eek: or buying 500l of heating oil in one go! In fact one Christmas we couldn't afford the heating oil so spent xmas day with ice on the inside of the windows wrapped up in 7 layers each!!!!!!!!!!!!! :eek::eek:

We have broadband and Sky but we never go out even though we relocated to live in central London!! I don't drink and I haven't bought any clothes in a year (or shoes - but think I might have to as the soles are coming apart!) I have one haircut a year and have changed from bleach to highlighted hair so the roots are not noticeable and always get the haircut half price through online offers. I cook everything from scratch (I have a few weaknesses like nice coffee!) and make jam each year from the family fruit trees and give them away as xmas presents!

My only cleaning products are thick bleach and a solution of vinegar in water that I spray to clean everything!! I think that saves a lot of money!

Just little things but they all save the pennies! Not debt free just yet but managed to reduce our debt from 25k this time last year to 10k this year!!!!! Hopefully zero by the end of 2014!!!!

Good luck everyone!
C-R xx

Teacher2b

Hi I'm new to this thread but similarly to others want to develop good habits. My area of a weakness is socialising, going out for meals / cocktails regularly and I have tended to get taxis home rather than the bus which obviously mounts up and my other weakness is buying too much food. I live alone but OH comes and spends time and eats here on his nights off. He works shifts and it can be unpredictable so I end up buying stuff for both of us and an embarrassing amount gets thrown away. I must deal with this as I'm sure over the year it amounts to hundreds and hundreds of pounds!

Frugalsod

Teacher2b wrote: »

Hi I'm new to this thread but similarly to others want to develop good habits. My area of a weakness is socialising, going out for meals / cocktails regularly and I have tended to get taxis home rather than the bus which obviously mounts up and my other weakness is buying too much food. I live alone but OH comes and spends time and eats here on his nights off. He works shifts and it can be unpredictable so I end up buying stuff for both of us and an embarrassing amount gets thrown away. I must deal with this as I'm sure over the year it amounts to hundreds and hundreds of pounds!

I would imagine that it would be far higher than that. If you are buying meals in expectation and simply not using them it could be thousands. If you could freeze them and so eliminate the waste that could fill your freezer at the same time.

Socialising could be cheaper if you do it from home or go to cheaper places. Suggest it, you never know that they might all be thinking the same thing.

pm2326

Teacher2b wrote: »

Hi I'm new to this thread but similarly to others want to develop good habits. My area of a weakness is socialising, going out for meals / cocktails regularly and I have tended to get taxis home rather than the bus which obviously mounts up and my other weakness is buying too much food. I live alone but OH comes and spends time and eats here on his nights off. He works shifts and it can be unpredictable so I end up buying stuff for both of us and an embarrassing amount gets thrown away. I must deal with this as I'm sure over the year it amounts to hundreds and hundreds of pounds!

Hi welcome to the thread....

The food you're buying is it ready prepared or is it the ingredients you need to make something from scratch? I only ask as if you're trying to cook from scratch you could tell us what's about to go off/be thrown out and we'll try and help you save it, which in turn will save you some money.....if its ready meals you can as Frugalsod suggested just freeze them rather than chuck them.

going_nowhere_fast

Wow you are all so friendly!! Well I'm going to start.
I think the first thing to do is buy some envelopes tomorrow (spending on my first day at this frugality lark!!!) so I can start allocating myself some money each week. It's too easy to swipe that card. In future I must leave cards at home and take cash!!!

All the pennies that you dont spend i.e. that one magazine, that one bar of chocolate - do you think it really helps to reduce the debts over a period of time?

I need to get in the mindset - every little helps..

Teacher2b

pm2326 wrote: »

Hi welcome to the thread....

The food you're buying is it ready prepared or is it the ingredients you need to make something from scratch? I only ask as if you're trying to cook from scratch you could tell us what's about to go off/be thrown out and we'll try and help you save it, which in turn will save you some money.....if its ready meals you can as Frugalsod suggested just freeze them rather than chuck them.

Thanks for the welcomes! I tend to buy fresh ingredients eg I currently have a bag of spinach waiting to go and the amount of unused chicken I let go past it's use by is shocking. I don't like defrosting chicken in the freezer but should really get doing this as then I can defrost exactly what I know I'm going to need rather an defrosting twice as much then not using it and obviously it's not safe to keep for very ling after that. I'm good at cooking from scratch through I'm happy to turn cheap ingredients into yummy meals it's just getting the quantity right that's an issue. You lot seem to be full of amazing advice :j

apple_muncher

going_nowhere_fast wrote: »

Wow you are all so friendly!! Well I'm going to start.
I think the first thing to do is buy some envelopes tomorrow (spending on my first day at this frugality lark!!!) so I can start allocating myself some money each week. It's too easy to swipe that card. In future I must leave cards at home and take cash!!!

All the pennies that you dont spend i.e. that one magazine, that one bar of chocolate - do you think it really helps to reduce the debts over a period of time?

I need to get in the mindset - every little helps..

The pennies really DO add up! Every penny off the debt/mortgage is a penny less that 'they' will charge you interest on. I used to keep a note of what I didn't spend (mags, choc, like you mention) and then added it up at the end of the month. It soon adds up to a hefty amount!

cw18

The pennies definitely add up.

If you spend £1.50/week on a magazine (looks to be on the low side for the going price these days), £4 on a monthly magazine (Tesc0 site suggests this is an average price) and £2 on a weekly 200g bar of chocolate that's £18 month if there's only 4 weeks in the month. Over a year it's 52x weekly spend plus 12x the monthly, which comes in at £230.

Even without looking at using that for debt repayment, it covers my road tax and car breakdown with a bit left over. Or my mobile phone contract, my streaming service and the broadband part of my home phone package. Or my landline rental and broadband cost (with a bit left over for unavoidable chargeable calls). Or almost my entire annual water bill (I'm paying £20/month, but slowly building up a bit of credit by doing so - so £230 would probably cover the year).

So I look at what the dropping of 'luxuries' can cover in terms of things I consider more essential (water) or longer lasting luxuries (mobile, broadband and streaming), and find that this encourages me to hold back from spending on things that last me less than an hour

I actually only have the streaming service as I got a low fixed price for life (which is half the standard rate) for signing up when they were setting up and because I don't have a TV licence. So the £36/year for that one is actually more than covered by the £145 saving made by not watching any TV as it's broadcast

Becky_2

Another frugal week has gone by. 5 NSD's in a row mainly because I am too tired to spend any money during my lunch break. So far this month we have spent much less than we normally do on food because OH has been working away from home. Recently I transferred £500 to my ISA from my current account thanks to this challenge.

If you do have a current ISA account don't forget to check what's the interest rate is on your account. On the 6/4 I started to look for a new ISA account since I knew that my current one was being reduced and realised that the ISA I currently had, had a much better interest rate compared to other banks. Needless to say I never changed ISA account.

Coulddobetter

Hi

I did my degree whilst working full time with 2 small children, it took 5 years but it was worth it. I was able to leave a job I didn't like but which paid well to go to a much more interesting job. That one lasted for 5 years and was wonderful until it was closed due to public funding. What the degree did do is give me more confidence when looking for a job. My OH was wonderful and had the children entertained on a Saturday whilst I studied. The good thing was we all benefitted even the children who saw Mum as a real go getter and someone to look up to. Real social mobility at work.

Had a great weekend using my free 1month membership to E H@ritage. We visited Bolsover Castle which was fab. They had a marvellous horse riding display on for an extra £1each. The riders were so talented and the skills they had imparted to the horses were amazing. We took a picnic and only bought an ice cream each. We are now planning next weekend treat....:T

The freezer is still overflowing with food so this should keep the food costs down this month. Just need to buy bread,milk and tea bags this week.

Just sorted my car insurance last week and got it down from £384 to £277 with £47 cash back. I am a very happy bunny:j what a result. OH saved enough for him to buy green flag membership for the year so it was definitely worth the effort of shopping around.

Could do better xx