2014 Frugal Living Challenge

Bobarella

Hi All
I hope you don't mind me asking but is everyone picking their frugal figure they hope to live to for the year & going with that? I saw from the first page that £4000 was mentioned but am guessing that is a specific persons challenge not what everyone here is doing?
Many thanks
Bob

cw18

Yes, we all have our own budgets.

Frugaldom (who set the ball rolling with this challenge a number of years ago) sets her budget to £4k, but that doesn't include rent/mortgage or rates (which for her includes water as she's in Scotland).

I include everything other than rent/mortgage. The only other I'd consider taking out is Council Tax, as that's the only bill I have absolutely no control over. I'm not in Scotland so my water's a separate bill - and on a meter, so I do have some control over that.

optimistic-mummy

just caught up on posts. im trying everything possible to get the budget lower for next year but i feel it is 'tight' as it is and don't want to do it all too tight and end up unsuccessful.

im going to give the once over again anyway and hope we come in within budget.
i lost track this year so next year will be our first full and hopefully successful year and it will carry on from there hopefully.

the budget is £8000 for 4 of us ... would you fellow fruglers say this was good as compared to some budgets it seems high (it doesn't include rent or council tax) but everything else is included

cw18

From next year I'm on just over £8,200k for me (and my OH at weekends). The money I get from DS1 has been deducted before I end up with that figure!!! That includes council tax, but has zero budgets for loads of things (including clothes and shoes which wouldn't be possible with youngsters in the house). If I deducted CT my personal budget would come down to £7,120.

Bobarella

Hi CW18
Thank you for that very helpful reply. I will have a good think about what our bare bones budget would need to look like & maybe join in for 2015.
Very interesting stuff.
Bob

Bobarella

cw18 wrote: »

but has zero budgets for loads of things (including clothes and shoes which wouldn't be possible with youngsters in the house). If I deducted CT my personal budget would come down to £7,120.

Could you possibly remind me how a zero budget works?

cw18

the way I'm working zero budgets is in this post

lynnejk

Hiya everyone


Sorry been missing for a little but life happens eh.

Frugaldom wrote: »

Can you post a link to an example of towel rails that cost 1p per day to run? I suspect this is a typo, as a 5w LED bulb costs more than a penny a day to run, but I live in hope of miracle finds in the winter warmth department.

Sorry been so long replying but wanted to check with the supplier. My figure was wrong and you're right. They are 55watts so I reckon about 1 pence an hour is nearer the mark. They are from the Coopers catalogue.


However, we are in a tower block apartment that is all electric and not allowed gas heaters etc. Also our walls are not insulated and so it gets very cold here (we live on the east coast on the Firth of Forth). These heaters mean background heat for bathroom and kitchen and somewhere to dry towels and other stuff quite cheaply.

Busymumofthreeplusdog wrote: »

WARNING I NEED TO RANT!

My hubby was going into town this evening to visit a friend.I asked him to get me 2 x £15iTunes vouchers as Tesc@ as they had a £15% off special until tomorrow. He managed to spend £45!!!!!!! On booze, crisps and chocolate. I had spent 4 hours today doing xmas shopping online, making sure I got best prices, going through cashback sites, looking out for voucher codes. He has single handedly undone every bargain and penny I saved in the space of a 10 min shop!
I'm so frustrated I could weep!

It's taken me 19 years to 'educate' my DH but now he bargain hunts as much as I do. A few years ago we agreed to have small separate budgets for such things as clothes, personal things, alcohol and sweet stuff. Once he had to buy his own he started going to £1 shops and limiting his purchases :rotfl:

cw18 wrote: »

Yes, we all have our own budgets.

Thanks for all the info about your budgets. I am going to have to make a day free and sit down to sort ours out. I am pretty penny conscious already but it would be good to actually write it all down large and see if we can stick to it for the year.


Thanks for all the help and information and hope you all have a thrifty Thursday
Lx

quidsy

I have a slightly different approach as I am not looking to cut my families living down to as low as possible just get the best deals as possible. So my spreadsheet works out what we pay now, maximum food & other spending (clothes, presents, personals) budget per month & dates that any utilities end so that better deals can be found.

Excluding rent, council tax, childcare & travel for work (uncontrollable expenses) our maximum estimate is £10,680 per year, that is for 2 adults & one child of 7. £4,800 of that being food.

I'm not interested in us living on bare bones, we like our sky, mobiles & super fast fiber optic BB. But I plan to write the actual spends in monthly columns & when end dates come up attempt to cut the costs in some way. I would ideally like our ACTUAL spend by end of next year to be 9k or as close to as possible.

One of our biggest costs is food, OH isn't good at finding YS items & is one of those people who dislikes pre-planning, he likes to eat what he wants when he fancies it & often pops in to buy ingredients after work we don't have at home, even thought he fridge is stocked with other stuff. He also doesn't really eat English food either so we spend a lot on SE Asian stuff, which is usually imported & expensive. It may be better to set him his own budget & get him to buy out of that. When that's spent he can use his personal money if need be. Needs more thought!

cw18

The main thing is that YOUR budget has to be something YOU can afford, and has to be something YOU think that YOU can realistically work with.

As my only income is a small widow's pension which I have to supplement (hugely) from savings each month, it's important for me to keep all costs as low as possible.

My one exception is food. I'm aware I should be able do that cheaper (even after I've cut it back by £1/day from 2014 to 2015), but I really don't want to. I'm mildly lactose intolerant (worse when I do more exercise) which means more expensive milk and cheese, have high cholesterol I'm trying to control by diet as I don't want to take statins (which means lean cuts of meat), and am at high risk of type 2 diabetes (so also need to watch sugar content in things). On top of that I'm doing a fair amount of exercise (helps my cholesterol and diabetes risks, as well as doing me good mentally) which means I need extra calories/food going in, so I honestly think I'd struggle to work with those if I set my budget much lower.

My 2015 budget is currently £4/day for me (£1,460/year) for food and drink (no alcohol as I'm tee total), with extra for DS1 (which he gets charged) and OH's weekend visits on top of that. I've not added extra for holidays when I have OH full-time and (for some of them) GDs or GDs and his niece to feed as well - so that effectively has to come out of my personal annual food budget.