2014 Frugal Living Challenge

Flutterby83

I like the idea of the freezer inventory, I'm forever forgetting I have things in there and after the huge Christmas shop, I'm pretty sure we have enough to last another 2 weeks or so! I had another thought earlier too, again not sure if it's been mentioned before, but my youngest used to wear cloth nappies instead of disposables - much nicer to her as well as the environment! Granted, they are not for everyone, but they are easy to pick up on E-bay etc quite cheap and used are better than new (just make sure you strip them as soon as you get them!) as the rigidity has been taken out of them. They do come in sized, but there is a range that goes from birth to potty meaning you only have to buy them once and they adapt as your child grows. My youngest is 2 and a half now, but the health visitor signed a form when she was little which meant the council reimbursed me £35 for using cloth nappies, so if anyone is interested this may be worth looking into as I'm not sure if it's still available. Aside from that, the money saved by not buying disposables and the re-sale profit would be an added bonus! Not to mention not having to find money for nappies Just another idea to add.

SarahB1989_2

Starting to get somewhere with this change of financial mindset! Was supposed to be going to a party tonight to see friends, but would have cost me nearly £20 in transport and then probably another £10 on food & drink... Realised there was only one person going who I hadn't already seen in the past few weeks so arranged to meet her for coffee instead - only cost me a few quid for a coffee and paid Christmas cheques in at the bank in the same trip so didn't mind paying the £5 train fare.

KazLA wrote: »

Does anyone have any useful plans for old Xmas cards? I hv loads this year, and was planning to be good & cut them all up for tags, but found a pack of 100 sticky labels in card factory, for 49p, which is surely less than it was cost me for sticky tape to stick my hm ones on, so looking for other ideas?

When I sell stuff on eBay I always put a little note in the package (just to say thankyou for buying it, with my username so it's easy to tell where the package came from) and this time of year I'm using old Christmas cards for that - might be a little odd the rest of the year but works fine for winter!

mama67

COOLTRIKERCHICK wrote: »

thanks Mama67, I asked over on the os board too,


Has anyone worked out how much an actual loaf costs to make??


I can buy an 800gm loaf from A$dafor £1 and from te$co for £1.30, BUT I seen them painting the bread with some sort of solution before baking, and it is making me think,even though there will be less additives than sliced bread, there might be more stuff in it than if I try and bake some myself... Hope that made sense

CTC do you buy a crusty loaf? If so the solution could be a type of brine as that would help give a crust.

I used to work in a SM bakery and we did that for crusty and sprayed water into the bottom of the oven for steam for a softer top.

I make a loaf as follows:
1¾ cups water,
2 tsp salt,
2 tbsp butter/marg/oil,
200g plain flour,
500g white bread flour

use the dough setting on my BM and then either shape and bake in the oven for baguettes/rolls etc or take the paddles out and use the bake setting on the BM.
This gives a nice large loaf similar in size to the Split Tin from the SM bakery.

I change this around sometimes and add in some wheatgerm or oats or even broken weetabix but reduce the plain flour by the same amount.
I would say you could say approx 50 - 60p per loaf to make allowing for all the little bits, including the electricity.

hth

Florenceem

KazLA wrote: »

Having discovered Living Well Spending Less, when looking up 'children have too much stuff?' a couple of months ago, I have decided that's what I want to do-live a simpler, but better life, whilst spending less. I hv decided to try not to spend anything on non-essentials in January, so make a big chunk to save. I am also selling as much as I can, esp childrens toys now they hv new ones for Christmas.
My January resolution (going to think monthly rather than yearly!) is 'use it up, wear it out, make do or do without'!
Having found lots of American sites, I decided to head to good old MSE to see what frugal challenges were about.
Hoping to pick up lots of tips.
Does anyone have any useful plans for old Xmas cards? I hv loads this year, and was planning to be good & cut them all up for tags, but found a pack of 100 sticky labels in card factory, for 49p, which is surely less than it was cost me for sticky tape to stick my hm ones on, so looking for other ideas?

I recycle Christmas cards that I don't want - the designs I like are made/recycled into next years Christmas cards. I matt and layer + add candies + glitter/ribbon - makes them look so good.

millionaire_in_training

I did an inventory last night and no wonder I am skint :rotfl:

I found 3 sirloin steaks I had forgotten about and a silverside joint. So at least 3 lovely meals there. Also in my store cupboard I realised I had 11 tins spaghetti ( and 4 coming in delivery today) and 9 tins of beans :eek::o. That's not including everything else. I need to get a grip. Why on earth would I need 15 tins of spaghetti?? Guess what we will be eating all month :cool:

Made some money from 2nd job today and guests had left some crisps and mince pies so I snarfled them. Kids wanted McD's and paid for them themselves but I got a free cheeseburger from DD's student card. So free lunch for me.

Payday on Tuesday but I have already set my budgets for January and started using them. I am feeling determined xx

COOLTRIKERCHICK

thanks Mama67...I was thinking of getting a 'farmhouse loaf' size tin... as that's the size loaf we normally have...


So If I put a little tray of water in the bottom of the oven while baking the bread, that will make it a soft crust ??


Hubby had a little fiddle with the kenwood.. in the end I treated myself to a new mixer.. I think being frugal also entails making decisions on when a purchase could be an asset and save you money.. Which this will def do...

nannygladys

Hi everyone, with DD2 and family staying here Im trying to keep sane - not easy I can tell you. Anyway, heres hoping I last until Jan 1st!!!!
I will update in a couple of days as Im working tomorrow and Monday.
Nannyg

mum2one

KazLA wrote: »

Having discovered Living Well Spending Less, when looking up 'children have too much stuff?' a couple of months ago, I have decided that's what I want to do-live a simpler, but better life, whilst spending less. I hv decided to try not to spend anything on non-essentials in January, so make a big chunk to save. I am also selling as much as I can, esp childrens toys now they hv new ones for Christmas.
My January resolution (going to think monthly rather than yearly!) is 'use it up, wear it out, make do or do without'!
Having found lots of American sites, I decided to head to good old MSE to see what frugal challenges were about.
Hoping to pick up lots of tips.
Does anyone have any useful plans for old Xmas cards? I hv loads this year, and was planning to be good & cut them all up for tags, but found a pack of 100 sticky labels in card factory, for 49p, which is surely less than it was cost me for sticky tape to stick my hm ones on, so looking for other ideas?

I would keep a few cards for tags - for bigger presents, but what about getting some plain cards and cutting the design out and using these on cards, if you want to jazz the card design you could use some glue and glitter. xx

mum2one

Habibiboo wrote: »

:wave:
Hope everyone's OK and had a happy Christmas!
So, my frugal aim for 2014 is to live as frugally as we can and pay as much off the mortgage as possible across the year.

As such I'm trying to sort out my frugaldom figures, but struggling as self-employed so I don't really know what my income is until I get it. I'm working on an average figure and then cutting this down to what we need to survive, then adding in extra ways to add to income and to help pay off the mortgage more quickly. I'm finding it easiest to calculate it all over 3 monthly periods, so I've come up with £780 per 3 months (food, bills, prescriptions etc), whilst everything OH puts in the pot will take care of rest of bills and then go towards usual mortgage payment (approx £1,000 per month), so whatever I earn / save on top of £780 per 3 months will go into mortgage overpayment. I also need to skim cash out of the £780 for extras too ...

I tried to keep this Christmas fairly cash-neutral (made presents and only spent what I had saved up for presents) but would appreciate others' thoughts on big birthdays - I have loads coming up in 2014 and they're all the kinds where the rest of the family want to do something big that everyone else chips into, eg: mum's 70th, sister's 50th. The family discussions over Christmas were already about all of this, so if anyone has ideas about how to balance this (both costs and family plans), I'd be really grateful to hear them as I can't seem to balance what I need to do, with what my family want to do, unless I set up extra savings pots and regard these big birthday extras as treats for us as well? All thoughts gratefully received!

The freezer inventory is a great idea as January's frugal food plan is to eat from the freezer / cupboards: fresh fruit & veg shopping only! However, I'll wait till the first week of Jan to do my inventory as OH's daughters are with us until then, so I'll see what's left after that, they are always hungry, bless them! Thankfully we've saved lots of Christmas goodies for them ... and like us, they love a few lentils, so we're good until next weekend!

Happy new year to you all too!

Hi
Don't know if you do the pre-payment card for prescriptions, there handy if you know you need a certain amount in 3 months or you can do a year long, for the yr you can pay by direct debit.
What I use to do was buy a 3mth card and make sure that I had enuf items to last a month, (asthma - inhaluers were my biggest need) so over a year, I would only need 3 x 3 months, but the yr may be better as they never use to do direct debit.

just a thought re the big birthdays - I would set up another pot as there an exceptional spend. Would it be worth getting together and work out what everyone wants so you can get an idea of budget.

What I would do, is look at surveys, review sites etc - get vouchers that are useful and swop these around, I get Love to shop vouchers from one site, and spend these at Iceland, another I choose Boots vouchers and either save for sales or use for top up phone then I put the money from these in a seperate tin.
Each yr I use them differently, but for two years running, I use put the money saved on supermarket promos into a tin, and that paid for trips on the Orient Express. (I can highly recommend the Christmas trip on Orient Express), they have 2 trains running, Northern belle - mid England upwards, and another one for down south, xxx

Soworried

I have been keeping a rolling freezer inventory since November, it helps keep the spending down a lot.
It helps you see what meals you can make without buying any more items.