2014 Frugal Living Challenge

lhead123

Hi All

The boot fair on Sunday went well - OH sold a lot of his old stuff and made about £120!
Between my old stuff and J's old clothes we made £55 - for good behaviour over the last couple of weeks and eating all her dinner enough times to get stickers on her reward chart, me and J took a trip to T0ysRus and she chose a sylvanian families nursery and a few playmobile figures, so that's her share of the profits gone!
I did end up with 2x £2 coins though, so they went in the new money jars they both got when S was born.

OH is out of work at the moment, but has been offered a job at a coach company, and they will pay for his training We've had to fork out for a medical for his provisional licence, and he's currently studying the theory for the theory and hazard perception tests in 2 weeks time - once he's passed those he'll be on a 1 week intensive course with the driving test at the end, so hopefully he will be earning again soon!

In the mean time, we are trying to spend as little as possible - especially a we are relying on tax credits at the moment, which will go down dramatically when OH starts earning again, and then they will no doubt tell us we've been overpaid and they want it back

J is at nursery tomorrow morning, so hopefully i can catch up with the growing list of housework and things to be sorted!

OH was up with S from 4am this morning and went to bed at 8pm after J! So I'm trying to stay in the front room as long as possible with S this evening to let him catch up on sleep....contemplating sleeping on the sofa tonight to let him get a decent amount of sleep.....

Right, time to stop rambling and take a look at our budget - I get paid tomorrow, my last 90% paycheck before going onto SMP..

Night All!

mothernerd

Thanks Skinty - just what I needed. Finally back on my feet after 10 weeks - not fully co-ordinated or very fast but at least I'm not falling over. Someone just put the universe song on Buffy's thread and then saw this.

lynnejk

skintygerlinky wrote: »

Evening Frugalites xxxx


Meal plans done, food shop done (inc some good YS bargains) and toiletries topped up.


Lets see how we do this month!!!


*squares shoulders, dusts self off, deep breath, frugal attitude once more in place**


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kS-zK1S5Dws&feature=kp

Hey Thanks Skinty - Just love that song - it so fits how I feel some days :laugh:
Lx

cw18

Finished pulling together May's accounts (must get the figures posted) which have a huuuge "ouch!" in my 'others' expenditure due to needing new glasses. And today I discover June is going to be at least as bad, as the wiper control stalk in the car is seriously misbehaving and a replacement is going to cost me as much as my glasses did last month :eek:

lhead123

cw18 wrote: »

Finished pulling together May's accounts (must get the figures posted) which have a huuuge "ouch!" in my 'others' expenditure due to needing new glasses. And today I discover June is going to be at least as bad, as the wiper control stalk in the car is seriously misbehaving and a replacement is going to cost me as much as my glasses did last month :eek:

I hate how much glasses cost! I try to wait as long as possible between eye tests as they inevitably lead to new glasses.

We have had a mostly frugal day today, J was at nursery and S was mostly asleep all day, so I have managed to deep clean the kitchen, OH did the front room ans we shared the bathroom cleaning Just got to tackle the bedroom tomorrow and J's bedroom...
On a less frugal note, some of my boot fair profits have been spent on D0minos pizza as neither of us had the energy to cook after all that cleaning!

Now time for a long hot bath and a good book

cw18

lhead123 wrote: »

I hate how much glasses cost! I try to wait as long as possible between eye tests as they inevitably lead to new glasses.

Unfortunately I don't get much over 12 months before I know something's not right. I had my previous pair 15 months, by which point I was struggling to read my laptop The change in prescription over my last 2 checks has been significant enough the optician has now put me on a 12 month recall as standard :eek:

cw18

Finally grabbing a few minutes to post my figures as of the end of May



Most things are almost bang on target, the anomalies being...

Windows- slightly over, as I pre-paid to the end of June back in March.
Presents - hard to work on this month-by-month as I tend to buy as I see (already have 2 birthday presents for December, but still owe one from April which was pre-arranged that way)
Petrol - July is going to be a very heavy month compared to the year so far (Lakes and back, then to Cambridge and back with a stop in Bristol on the way down), but it's still looking like I've seriously over budgeted for the year despite using last years mileage as a starting point for this :think:
From DJ for car - I've had more from him than the spreadsheet expected, and this will continue all year. I worked the figure based on him only using the car for to/from work, so all non-commuting mileage is extra
Contact Lenses - a change in prescription at the very end of last year saw me get a refund in January. And I've taken 'holidays' for two months (more contacts in the house than I'm using), plus already have another 2 booked for June and July meaning it'll be even more under budget
Camino - Another that's hard to pre-plan the spends. I've allocated most of the budget to September through November (when I'm actually walking so need to buy food and pay for accommodation on a daily basis), and just split what I expect to need to spend on kit across the first 8 months of the year. So far it's looking like I'm not going to spend all I expected to before leaving, but I still have things to pick up so I'm not assuming this will continue under budget
Groceries - seriously under budget on this one, but I think it's mainly down to the fact I'm using up a lot of stuff I already had in (including 2 full freezers which are mainly protein sources, which means the expensive part of most meals isn't coming from this years budget!). I'm now trying to keep track of what I'm using from stock as well, as that's the only way I'll be able to set a realistic budget for next year
Anything Else - I've spent more than I'm really happy with, but in the main this is down to £170 on a pair of glasses just 15 months after my last change of prescription (and not budgeted for this year!)


Overall the picture's looking pretty good. My overall spend for the year to date is over £1300 less than I'd allowed. This is mostly down to the underspends on contacts, petrol, groceries and camino - so I'm hoping I can leave most of it in the bank long-term

Frugalsod

Frizzle wrote: »

Lol! Good way of looking at it! I love making bread but find it takes so long so hopefully this way I will get the best of both worlds!

I found that it is a very useful way to motivate myself to actually use it and to enable me to actually buy it. If I know that it will save me month every week then that is a real plus. If it had no benefit in terms of household savings I might still consider it but be aware that other household investments should come first.

Frizzle_2

Loving my bread maker. Have had it a week and have made a white loaf, a 50/50 loaf, a fruit loaf and pizza dough to make 4 pizzas. It is so easy and they come out beautiful! I just hope I keep using it! Fruit loaf was great as I had mixed fruit and eggs that needed using up anyway!

I was very frugal yesterday! I had made 4 hm pizzas (one for dinner and three for the freezer). I had some passata left. I also had one sandwich thin left. So I split it in half, put some passata, LO onion, toms, ham and cheese on and made two mini pizzas perfect for lunch boxes. I had a little bit myself and they were yum! I'm thinking I might do this next time I make a batch of pizzas and then freeze them. This would make 12 mini pizzas for next to nothing!

lynnejk

Taken out a new bank account this week for the following reasons.


Our yearly travel insurance was nearly due and our breakdown cover was also due. I looked at the renewals and had a punt around the various sites to see what it would cost for next 12 months. In total it was going to come to £121 for the year. I have also been a bit concerned that our mobile phones weren't covered and thought I should look at that also. The cheapest seemed to be around £60 for the two for the year. So total would be £181 for all three for year.


I remembered that Nationw*de had sent me details of an account that had some stuff bundled so dug it out. I read through and then checked online and went to the branch. The account charges £10 a month (£120) a year but will give us yearly worldwide travel insurance, car breakdown cover Europe wide and the same mobile phone cover I had been looking at - so opened a joint account so we are both covered.


Result - saved £61 and phones are covered. Even better - it pays 3% interest on all credit balances and you can use the card abroad at ATMs commission free :money:


Hope you all have a great weekend
Lx