2014 Frugal Living Challenge

happybird71

Hi everyone,

I kind of fell off this forum wagon a while ago in the midst of busyness! I've been looking at my spending app & trying to get my head round it! Just wondered - what are your monthly food bills roughly? This month we've spent almost £400. We're a family of 4 with a 14 month and 2 year old. This is food only. We do have friends round a lot. Does this sound excessive? :shocked:

Thank you.

cw18

My grocery budget for just food and drink (no alcohol as I'm tee-total) for just me is £4/day as I move into 2015. I hope to come in well under budget as I can't afford to maintain that long-term (unless I find another income). I've started costing up my main meals properly this last week or so, which seem to be coming in at an average of £1.60 per portion. So I imagine I should be able to manage on £3/day even without reducing portion sizes. So that's about £120 a month for one adult at the moment, hoping to reduce to closer to £90. If I catered for a second adult plus 2 very young children full time I reckon that I'd manage comfortably on £300 - as long as it didn't include things like nappies and wipes. But I'm not sure how visitors would impact it, as it depends on how many / how often / what you serve up while they're visiting.

Toiletries and cleaning products have their own budgets for me, as do any medicine type purchases. And any eating out tends to come from my 'anything else', as wriggle room in my grocery budget is swallowed up by having OH's niece visit and/or taking her and/or my GDs away when they need feeding too.

macwah97

My family think I have gone mad.

Slept intermittently during the night as I prepared HM Bread (Crusty Bloomers). Yes I do have a breadmaker but I love knocking the dough about!! Cooked the bread before taking DH for a scan.

Made chicken soup to have with the bread then

Spent this afternoon making homemade firelighters !! and they work LOL.

Then they had YS dinner which was yummy.

Also on my travels called in with local butcher and greengrocer to price up veg and meat. ATM Arsda is still cheaper so will keep an eye out for special offers.

Quick question - does anyone know if nappy bags are a suitable replacement for poop bags - do they have to be biodegrdable for disposing in council doggie bins?

Happy New Year!!

cw18

macwah97 wrote: »

Quick question - does anyone know if nappy bags are a suitable replacement for poop bags - do they have to be biodegrdable for disposing in council doggie bins?

Never used a council doggie bin (no idea where my closest is), but I've used nappy bags instead of poop bags and put them into my general rubbish bin (and council general rubbish bins around the streets)

macwah97

cw18 wrote: »

Never used a council doggie bin (no idea where my closest is), but I've used nappy bags instead of poop bags and put them into my general rubbish bin (and council general rubbish bins around the streets)

:T Thank you - certainly a lot cheaper than regular doggie bags.

Frugaldom

Everyone I know uses cheap nappy sacks when dog walking.

On the food budget subject, I base mine on £1 per person per day for all meals. For 2 of us it is about £60 a month, but was closer to £100 when son was still at home. (I do run a challenge thread for this, but it isn't on MSE, sorry.)

Happybird, if your lifestyle and eating habits cost £100/week or thereabouts, you have virtually no food waste and your income affords it then that can't be excessive. I would base it on how much of that food gets wasted, then decide for yourself. As someone whose entire household budget is about £400 a month including council tax, that amount on food alone would terrify me. LOL (No offence meant.)

COOLTRIKERCHICK

I know our local council supply them for free, you can pick them up in the local libraries, and council offices, might be worth you phoning them up on Monday.. and asking..


or when you go to the supermarket, take a few more plastic bags that they supply for your fruit and veg..so instead of using one bag use 2 or 3 and etc..


I don't know how much nappy sacks or poo bags are, but even if this saves you a few £££ a year, it all adds up..

his_missus

I always use nappy sacks instead of poo bags - never considered the biodegradability of them.


Made some pickled red cabbage this morning, well I prepped it last night and put in jars this morning. Cost me £1.60 for the ingredients and have made 3 jars, need another jar though as I have some leftover. Hope the recipe works well, it's much cheaper than buying ready made pickle.

mama67

we also use cheap nappy bags for dog walking, Mr T have their value ones at 300 for 39p I think it was, so even if have to double bag still not extortionate.

happybird71

Thanks Frugaldom and cw18. I'm very chuffed to tell you that I have now done a complete inventory of kitchen and garage freezers. They are full! Cupboards are too. I took advantage of the £3 Tescoh delivery monthly charge and have been stocking up. We're not big eaters and rarely buy biscuits but I probably need to use things up first before buying more. One thing I find frustrating is the amount of food my children waste. DS1 (almost 3) is a really fussy eater but I do try often to give him different food which more often than not goes in the bin. Apart from that we rarely waste food.

I'm now going to try to make a monthly food plan to ensure the food bill is lower in Jan. Got friends coming tonight for a wee party but apart from a shared cost of food it won't be expensive (or noisy!)

Happy Hogmonay everyone