2014 Frugal Living Challenge

Mamma85

£65 paid off the Argos card, using our British Gas refund, and had my loft and cavity walls insulated for free today, so hoping that will help the heating bills in winter.
Did have to pay out £7 on ballet shoes for dd1 and £2 for something at school yesterday.
Now I need to plan lots of free/cheap activities for the kids for the next 6 weeks. I'm praying the weather will be kind to us!

Kantankrus_Mare

Made my own pizza dough last night and have two pizzas waiting to go in oven for tea.

Think I have made them before but kids weren't impressed though me and OH really liked them. Youngsters don't know good food when they get it lol.

Just made a fridge cake with chocolate, peanuts, marshmallows and other yummy stuff.

Just about to have my first ever attempt at carrot cake as I love it and sick to death of seeing the remainder of bags of carrots go to waste.

ETA OOps lol wrong thread but being frugal at the same time sort of

ellie-g

Just thinking about reducing transport costs and improving fitness too. In spring I dragged my bike out of the shed for short trips to town which is only 2miles here. I am making a conscious effort not to use the car for short trips but to walk or cycle. A few months ago my old car needed replacing, so I now have a new (!) 10 year old Diesel Yaris, does 66 to the gallon and only £30 car tax. It's not like I couldn't afford a new car but being such a fugal person there's no way I could bring myself to spend 10K or more on a new car that then depreciates by several thousand before I leave the showroom!

skogar

Just had a look at this challenge. I noticed on the early pages that peopl were talking about buying books and ebooks. Someone has probably said this but many libraries offer ebooks now. For many you can join if you live outside the area. Some will only let you borrow ebooks if you live locally but many still allow you to borrow if you don't live locally. Many libraries have started doing emagazines on zinnio. Selection is very limited at the moment but is still worth a look.

hollieinbloom

Good morning, I'm awful at not posting often, I come to read more than to post but I should make it more of a habit to post!.

I have been doing so well living frugal this year so far, We are going on holiday to OH's parents on the 6th of August for a week and they live by the coast so lots of free days to the beach! We're trying to eat out of the cupboards until we go as we have plenty in! We also want to make a bit of room in the freezer for meat as The sun newpaper is going to have a voucher on Thursday 31st for £5 off a £10 spend on meat! so I will buy 2 or 3 papers to get some in. I'm a vegetarian but OH and DD eat meat so will try stocking up a bit. I found some fab offers on the cashback apps too and managed to get some sharwoods noodles for 70p a packet, bought 2 so we are stocked up for a while as we already had 3 packs in the cupboard!! DD gets free school meals in Sept as she will be going into year 1 so i'm happy with that as it will reduce the groceries a little!

xxx

Frugalsod

I have been emptying out the fridge, as food from months gone by was accumulating in there. So bubble and squeak for a couple of days got rid of most of the veg, some of which was starting to go off. Now I will have home made pizza for a few days as I have a lot of mozzarella in there, and a few rolls of chorizo to use up. I might have to get some salami but in the overall scheme that is minimal. I have a lot of mini canned drinks in there and am looking at clearing those while it is hot. So while I am emptying the fridge my spend has been minimal.

icontinuetodream

busy weekend with veg and fruit prep....got some broad beans, plums, rhubarb, grapes and courgettes for free....have started 2 gallons of rhubarb wine, 1.5 litres of plum gin, 1.5 litres of plum vodka, put 2 x 900g bags of plums in the freezer, made 2 litres of plum, rhubarb, grape and wine syrup for adding to sparkly water, prepped all the broad beans ready for tonight's dinner and have sorted my weeks menu to incorporate the courgettes (courgette 'spaghetti' with tomato sauce, chargrilled aubergines & salad) plus savoury stuffed pancakes (courgettes, tomatoes, carrots, olives, red onion and herbs) served with salad.....

I have sorted the menu plan for the rest of the days too...

Mon - I am having orange & thyme scented cannellini beans with chilli 'sausage balls', salad and hommous (juiced the two oranges that I needed/used the rind of for the rhubarb wine and infusing with thyme from the garden....cannellini beans are from store, I am using a sosmix base (dated 2010!! :eek:) for the 'sausage' balls along with a jar of salsa that has been lurking in the fridge for a number of weeks, plus a really good glug of the 'chilli sauce' that I made a week or so ago - hommous is home made and will use up chick peas from the freezer plus some lemons that are looking a bit worse for wear!! Salad will be some home grown tomatoes, leaves and pomegranates which I got mega cheap....

Tues - lamb with noodles and stir fry veg - all from the freezer and storecupboard

Wed - courgette 'spaghetti' with tomato sauce, chargrilled aubergines and salad - courgettes are 'free', tomatoes are home grown, chargrilled aubergines are from store and salad will be what I have left from Monday...

Thurs - Savoury stuffed pancakes and salad....courgettes, carrots, onions, tomato puree, spices and herbs, batter mix from stores, served with salad from stores/garden...

Friday - white beans with spinach, roasted red onions and salad - white beans from stores, spinach from freezer, red onions roasted in honey, wholegrain mustard and oil and salad from stores/garden

Saturday - beetroot soup with hm bread - beetroot from dehydrated stores, hm bread from storecupboard

Sunday - hm pea & mint ravioli with lemon sauce....peas from freezer, mint from garden, ravioli to be made from pasta flour in storecupboard - lemons juice and rind in freezer, will just need a small tub of cream to make the lemon sauce....


Other frugal news....I am cancelling s*y this week; the contract runs out at the beginning of august so will phone them to get rid of it all and get a cheaper deal on my broadband....I have also cancelled my mobile phone contract as I now have an alternative option and the last payment for that is the 1st August....it's all going in the right direction!!

Oh, and I quit smoking last Monday...I am not a happy girl and I am not doing well with it

Frugalsod

I was looking at upgrading my broadband but the line rental is a killer. I am on a special deal which is worth keeping so am looking at switching to a 76 Mbit fibre deal that is only £9 more than my current package.

hollieinbloom

icontinuetodream wrote: »

Oh, and I quit smoking last Monday...I am not a happy girl and I am not doing well with it

Good luck with it! Apparently the first week is the hardest so you're coming past that stage I am a smoker still and struggle to quit! I have no will power whatsoever so that's probably why!! :rotfl:

Frugalsod

hollieinbloom wrote: »

Good luck with it! Apparently the first week is the hardest so you're coming past that stage I am a smoker still and struggle to quit! I have no will power whatsoever so that's probably why!! :rotfl:

Have you tried putting the money that you would have spent on the cigarettes into a jar for a treat fund. As you see the fund increase you might find the motivation to continue. As I have never smoked it might not work, but who knows?