2014 Frugal Living Challenge

Mountaingirl

I'm on the train coming back home after the holidays abd I've just caught up with the (fast moving!) thread.
As we've been away I've not had time to meal plan so I must do that before shopping first thing on Monday. Tonight and tomorrow I need to write up a few lists and get the house back in order for the week ahead. I did leave everything fairly tidy with an empty linen basket but I'm sure we'll mess everything up again soon enough!

afoolwithmoney

Another NSD only because Ive checked the bank account & its going to be touch & go that enough will be there to cover the rent this month! Ive hidden credit/store cards so I couldn't do just a feel sorry for me shop in the sales. Off to sort out a spare room full of projects that when finished will cover all birthdays & Christmases for several years to come. Decided not going to start meal planning until the cupboards are bare & then start from scratch or else there will always be that tin of mutton in the back of the cupboard!!

Goldiegirl

Caseymoo wrote: »

Well yesterday I had a semi frugal day lol.

I wanted to post about my activities today and was wondering how to describe the day - then I saw Caseymoo's 'semi-frugal', and thought that was just about right for me as well!


One of our pleasures in life, is to have, from time to time, something nice from M&S for our Sunday lunch. I've got some vouchers, for each week in January, to get £5 off a £25 spend. So I went to M&S to stock up, and, together with other offers, saved £11 in total on a £31 shop, so paid just over £20 which was pleasing. I don't want to do this every week in January, but I'll probably do it once more at the end of the month, so I'll have Sunday lunches in to last for some time.


So although M&S isn't the most frugal place to shop, I did get a good saving, and I'm continuing to do things that I want, at a reduced cost, which is my aim for this year.


My breadmaker has been in action again today. This time I've done a couple of French sticks. To be honest, they are more like French blobs, as I should have shaped the dough longer and thiner, but they look and smell great. I mixed the dough in the breadmaker and baked in the oven. We'll have the bread for tea, can't wait. I'll do a loaf tomorrow.


So, semi frugal day, but I'm pleased with my savings

cydney65

Another NSD today, that makes 7 in a row! Was tempted to buy a new shredder this morning as I'm fed up with the one we have blocking up and not shredding properly. OH fed two sheets of foil through it and it should now 'do' for a while longer :mad:

Fished some mince out of the freezer to make various meals. Told OH that my mum used to extend mince with oats and shredded carrot...she made a face (she is dead fussy with food) but said she might try it.

Had a discussion about what needs doing in the house this year. The bathroom needs improving to make it more disabled friendly, we need a new fridge/freezer as this one is on its last legs, and need carpets in the two bedrooms. We have been saving like mad for the bathroom for 2 years and think we have enough now for that-Dad did help out too bless him- but we need to save for the other bits so am going to start putting dribs and drabs away in my old FD savings account. It means though, that money is going to be extremely tight this year and savings are going to have to come from us being really, REALLY frugal, so expect me on this thread several times a day!

susiejq

Have really enjoyed reading this thread on such a miserable, wet afternoon. I am an early retiree as well (59) which happened earlier than expected due to redundancy. OH is 65 and wanted to retire anyway so he is delighted. We have some very small pensions, mine when I am 60 in June. He gets OA pension and we have a couple of houses that we rent out so should be able to pay the mortgage ok. I have been a saver for years and the mortgage is covered by savings should interest rates go up beyond what we are getting on our ISAs. However, our income is going to be 2/3 of what it was and OH does like to spend money so looking for some more frugal living ideas as well as some money making ones.

DawnW

cydney65 wrote: »

Another NSD today, that makes 7 in a row! Was tempted to buy a new shredder this morning as I'm fed up with the one we have blocking up and not shredding properly. OH fed two sheets of foil through it and it should now 'do' for a while longer :mad:

Thanks for that tip Cydney - I have an old shredder that doesn't shred properly and bungs up as well, but I will try putting some foil through it and see if that makes any difference

Well, I sorted out my antiques unit, old stuff out, new things in, and now I have masses to find a home for - my evening will mostly be spent crawling about in the loft with boxes :rotfl:

While I was there I managed to find a nice birthday present for my friend. She likes clip on earrings, and I found a lovely vintage silver marquesite (sp?) pair in a colleague's unit for £9. So, she was pleased to sell them, I was pleased to get a nice present for less than I had budgeted, and my friend will love them

Not canvassing for business or anything , but do check out your local antiques / vintage shops for presents and things for your home, as there are real bargains to be had. It is not all thousands of pounds like on the telly :cool: Also auctions, great fun.

Ironically, I then headed upstairs to my own unit to pick up a little gift box to put my friend's earrings in, (it had been in there forever) just as a customer was heading off downstairs with it to pay :rotfl:Never mind, I have found another one at home, and the sale was welcome .

Done the supermarket shopping (Lidls, with a small top up at Mr S) as well. It makes you think, the small top up bits cost almost half of what the big shop at Lidls did :eek:

Minesamojito

Hi, first ever post on MSE but I have been a lurker for some time. You have inspired me to step out of the shadows. My OH is self-employed so our income can be erratic and together with a lack of attention on what we are actually spending, this has resulted in quite a large amount of debt. We had a good year income wise last year and both thought we had done well with debt reduction, but when I have actually added it up and compared the figures, we have hardly reduced the debt at all! I am trying not to dwell on that too much. At least it didn't increase and it has given me the incentive to really knuckle down this year, reduce our outgoings and keep a close eye on all spending.

Have not done too bad so far this month. Have had to spend on 2 days so far but mostly essentials and managed to resist sale items which previously I would have grabbed without thinking.

pm2326

evening all

I had to spend money today booo hooo!!

needed a top up shop so made the effort to walk 30 mins to aldi and managed to get everything for under £20 and should last me another 2 weeks apart from milk & veg

have made up 5 lasagnes using frozen mince so 1 is cooking now and other 4 crammed into freezer. i also defrosted sausages for a casserole which i'll do tomorrow but need to jiggle things around in freezer or else it'll be sitting in fridge for a few days while i eat some stuff!!

helencal80

I had a frugal dinner tonight. Beef meatballs with pepper and tomato sauce. The mince was "out of date" tomorrow and I had nothing to go with it, normally I would have gone out and bought something else but I made it into meatballs and roasted with loads of veg from my veg box, and bottom of the fridge, then blitzed the veg into a sauce. We had it with 3 partial packs of pasta from the back of the pantry lol! Yum!

sparrer

Thank you Goldiegirl you've just reminded me I have about £40 worth of M&S, Boots and L2S vouchers tucked away, that's almost 3 weeks grocery shopping