2014 Frugal Living Challenge

miss_empty_piggy

Flutterby83 wrote: »

The sun holidays are great, we always go to the Haven sites as the kids love them, always plenty to do and I think every one is by the sea so lots of beach days too (weather permitting obviously!) There are 6 of us, so it normally costs £57 to the paper to book, then we get an invoice for about £60 from the park for the entertainment passes, electric etc, so it costs £117 for a 5 day break for 6. The last few years, however, we have been upgraded as there hasn't been enough allocation on the standard caravans and as we were one of the first to book owing to me being sent a bonus token, we had the privilege of being upgraded to a better caravan I would definitely recommend them, although we won't be going this year due to lack of spending money and my lovely other half wants to go and see his brother in France in September which means sorting all of our passports out!

Oooh passports - expensive or what??
thanks for the feedback - I'll have to have a look into it. Might be the only way we could possibly afford any kind of a holiday this year. x :rotfl:

debbiedeejay

Thank you Frugaldom for setting up the 2014 new thread - I will definitely be trying out some of your mini challenges this year as I need all the help I can get to be inventive with the (little) income I will be earning this year.

2014 is going to be more challenging for me than last ,for many personal reasons as well as financial but I am determined to battle through so am looking forward rather than downwards:)

I am hoping my landlord is going to fence off the little bit of grass/garden that I have at the back of my house and once this is done I hope to start growing my own veg so will need to find a thread to inspire and guide me but again money and time is precious so will have to weigh both up to see doing this right now would be viable and doable.

Anyway looking forward to being frugal in 2014:)

optimistic-mummy

Pips_Mum wrote: »

Coming out of lurkdom as I literally just had an email saying January 12th
https://www.ukholidaysinthesun.co.uk/ :T

TYVM hopefully wilI remember that date as its my sons birthday is it a week you collect vouchers 4 ... as I may ask local shop to put the sun by each day I need the vouchers as they always seem to sell out

Habibiboo

mum2one wrote: »

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[/QUOTE]

:wave:
Thanks MumofOne ... yes,I prepay my prescriptions on monthly direct debit - I'm going to log each script /pick up each time in 2014 though to see exactly how much money it saves me. I know it served me well in 2013 as I had pneumonia twice as well as some trial and error with seizure medication - some months I had up to 4 scripts at a time which the GP then phoned and changed after test results came in, so my little 10.40 per month saved a fortune!
I've joined a few survey sites but tend to not be eligible for lots of the surveys as kids are all grown up and left home and we don't have a TV -as soon as you can't comment on TV you tend to get a thanks but no thanks message (although I appear to be in about 30 draws for an iPad)!I do get at least 5 .00 a month in Love2Shop vouchers from Royal Mail Surveys though, so that's good advice, I shall try to find ways and means to add to these for special birthday gifts ... Orient Express sounds perfect!
Ta for hints and tips, lovely thread, although very fast moving - will have to remember to stop by daily.
Happy new year all,and all the best for your frugal adventures in 2014!

tinks112

Can I join. Please need to have a very frugal 2014

yukkibear

I've entered what feels like to be a million competitions today. All ending at the end of the month.
I love comping but rarely have time for it so am going to try and get into a routine of entering the ones ending the next day for anything we can use, want or re-gift.

Any wins will be nice treats and save money

bmma

Gifts of food today -1 ltr soya milk- 1 tub of soya spread-2 bags of vegetarian mince and half of a cauliflower-a very good start x

Penny2myName

Decieded to make some homemade cookies to be frugal for my pack up, anyhow just worked out all the ingredients cost and it has cost £3.33 to make just 26 palm sized cookies. They work out at 13p each. Thinking it may have been cheaper to just buy aloud of biscuits.

Flutterby83

miss_empty_piggy wrote: »

Oooh passports - expensive or what??
thanks for the feedback - I'll have to have a look into it. Might be the only way we could possibly afford any kind of a holiday this year. x :rotfl:

Yep, and there's 6 of us so we're looking at around £350 before we even go anywhere :eek: think that may have to be put off until 2015! I would definitely recommend them, the weeks we went would have cost us around £500 just for accommodation had we not used the tokens and the entertainment etc is still as good if you chose to go during off peak (March - May or September-November) x

zafiro1984

Just found this thread and have spent the last couple of hours reading it. It sounds just what I need. I'm not in debt but can see how much more quality of life I could have by being more frugal and then being able to do things I want to do.

I have already set myself the following budgets. Electric usage, grocery/cleaning, petrol. I have a figure in my mind for running the house for the year, includes health ins, ins, co tax, food, electric, oil, cars and garden. I want to come in under budget as it would feel such a sense of achievement if I could do this.

I have tried this in the past without any support. I usually set off fairly well and then fall off the wagon, lose heart and give up. Hopefully this year with support and new ideas from this thread I may make it.