2015 Frugal Living Challenge

Bambywamby

Today's frugally bits have included;


Batch baking with the little one. She loves baking, mixing, icing, folding, using cutters... saves money and teaching her a life skill; perfect afternoon.


Gutting the kitchen this morning with lemon juice, vinegar and hot soapy water. I needed quite a bit of elbow grease... but it was a good work out.


Made some lovely coleslaw from slightly limp, grated organic cabbage, grated carrots, onion, mustard, pepper and mayo. Nearly lost my finger tips trying to grate the rubbery cabbage but there is no way I am wasting organic cabbage.


Selling a leather handbag on Ebay that has been in the back of a cupboard for a couple of years. It smells a tad fusty... so I have put bicarb in a one of my little one's old socks and have popped it in the bag. Hopefully in a day or two the whiff will have lifted.


I banked a work cheque (walking there) good exercise and banking money... bliss.


Have been offered six hours overtime this week... and I have accepted.


Other things to do...


Nice relaxing bubble bath. Not so frugal but I don 't drink, smoke, eat chocolate or sweets so it is my relaxing pleasure. I refuse to give it up. I have alternated days though - shower one day (boo - hiss) and a lovely bath the next.


Declutter bathroom cabinet whilst bath is filling, quick wipe down whilst steamy and use up all bits of lotions and potions before cracking open a new one.


I have a large pan of beef and tomato stew waiting to cool down and be portioned up for the freezer. Slow cooker is full of lentil soup at the mo, so I had to cook on the hob.


Give the dog a quick walk, it's getting colder and darker and little one will be with me. So that is in fact next on the agenda.


Have a lovely evening everyone. xx

miss_try_to_save

did a small shop spending £25 but this included 14 cans of pepsi for £1.10 and 14 cans fosters lager for £5.75 a Iceland shop mainly using love to shop vouchers so cost me £5 also got oh two shirts for work from charity shop they had a jan sale lol so got both for £4.75 and a jar of nescafe 200g for £2.95 in my local savers so I feel I did very well and now have not got much shopping left to do on thurs mainly fresh bits

his_missus

Needhelpsaving wrote: »

Hi everyone,


I have been lurking on the 2014 thread for a few months, but would like to join the 2015 thread.


I haven't set a yearly budget, but monthly ones, with a personal challenge to beat them and send any of the savings over to our mortgage.


6 days into this year, I am struggling with other peoples view of my money - examples of this are 'I have seen a lovely bookcase you should by for DD and paint' I have removed the other one as it would likely give me away, but it involved me spending £10 on a relative of someone a family member has been goin out with for 1 month.

Do any of you come up against this? Do you have any tips to deal with this (bearing in mind that my money burning family already call me cheap).

In the first case I would probably say that DD didn't need a bookcase or, if she needs one, that I wasn't planning on buying one yet.
In the second case I'd say no as I'm not buying gifts for anyone other than immediate family or, if it's a meal/night out costing £10 say I was busy that day.


There will come a time when you are financially secure and you can tell them your "cheapness" has paid off.


It's kind of how me and DH got into debt - trying to keep up with his circle of friends - nights out, expensive holidays and home improvements. Eventually, we said enough was enough and reined it in. We had to make up excuses to avoid events, we ignored the comments about our £9.50 newspaper holidays, we had to limit spending on birthdays etc.


Now, a few years later, they're all still complaining about how skint/in debt they are whilst we're now in a position to say, rather smugly "Oh we've managed to save up for whatever is in question."


Stick to your guns!

his_missus

Spend free day here. Leftovers from last night's meal for lunch, also meant we had smaller portions last night so good for the waistline too.


Submitted my gas and electricity reading for December and we actually used less electricity compared to November, amazing really considering I used the dryer more and we had tree lights on for most of the month. Gas has obviously increased with having the heating on but I'm going to try and cut back on that a bit this month.

cw18

I'm lucky that I don't often get comments like that - and when I did it was from 'youngsters' (18-23) I worked alongside, so I mostly could just shrug it off. My parents and (adult) children all know things are tight (and getting tighter) for me, as does OH. My eldest GDs weren't old enough to realise how I 'splashed the cash' before my income started to nose-dive and I had to stop the spending, so there's never an issue when we haggle over what they want for birthday/Christmas and what I can afford (GD2 wanted something that cost more than I'd planned for Christmas so was told she'd get less for her birthday in April - and at almost 10 she was old enough to understand and accept the terms )

I'm afraid my reaction to people who have remarked on my spending patterns (or lack of spending) and not been able to understand my need to economise has always been along the lines of "it's my money and my life, and I'll do what I want with both"

COOLTRIKERCHICK

Afternoon all,


haven't long come home from work and the farmfood leaflet was posted through my door ( the one with the moc on it)


I haven't bought frozen meat in a VERY long time.. and stop buying it, as I didn't think the quality or maybe the health and the welfare of the animal was good, as a lot of the frozen meat is imported.


Anyway.. I REALLY do need to be EXTREMELY FRUGAL this year... and was thinking of buying more stuff from the likes of farmfoods ..


so apart from the pork items.. have anyone bought their frozen meat..


I see that they do 3 for £10, and 4 for £10..


edit.. I do shop there, and get bread, and frozen veg etc

cw18

I've had frozen chicken breast and mini breast fillets from there - a few years ago. Found both were over salty, especially the mini fillets.

But I don't use salt for anything but bread making, so do tend to notice it long before anyone else

DawnW

COOLTRIKERCHICK wrote: »

Afternoon all,


haven't long come home from work and the farmfood leaflet was posted through my door ( the one with the moc on it)


I haven't bought frozen meat in a VERY long time.. and stop buying it, as I didn't think the quality or maybe the health and the welfare of the animal was good, as a lot of the frozen meat is imported.


Anyway.. I REALLY do need to be EXTREMELY FRUGAL this year... and was thinking of buying more stuff from the likes of farmfoods ..


so apart from the pork items.. have anyone bought their frozen meat..


I see that they do 3 for £10, and 4 for £10..

Sainsburys often do 3 for £10 on meat, including fresh British farm assured (mince, chicken, pork steaks etc), can't speak for the other big supermarkets but I would be surprised if they didn't do something similar, as Sainsburys aren't especially cheap. Our butcher often does better. Is it really such a good deal?

rising_from_the_ashes

Nicki_Sue wrote: »

Have a look on the Superdrug website. They often have nice shampoo and conditioner at less than half price, I've just had a biggish delivery of Dove stuff (free delivery over ten pounds so I only order when my Mum / sister all want to so we all benefit). Worth a look and they have a Beauty Card which accrues points you can use to knock off future orders. Hope that helps.

Thanks for that I didn't know Superdrug had an online site and there's not one near so I don't get there often (and get envious of the prices when I do!)

Really needed a few bits (hand-wash, bubble bath - my luxury item! - deodorant etc) so got a lot of stuff on offer. Spent just over £11.50 so got free delivery & will have enough bubble bath & hand-wash for about 4 months so well pleased .... and cashback too! :T

nicedream_2

Nicki_Sue wrote: »

Have a look on the Superdrug website. They often have nice shampoo and conditioner at less than half price, I've just had a biggish delivery of Dove stuff (free delivery over ten pounds so I only order when my Mum / sister all want to so we all benefit). Worth a look and they have a Beauty Card which accrues points you can use to knock off future orders. Hope that helps.

Thank you I hadn't thought of that. I usually just tag shampoo onto a food shop, but Superdrug have much better offers.

A nice frugal shop on Oc*do tonight. I had a £50 voucher code, after a product I bought in my last shop made me ill (:eek:, but always remember to complain ) and a £5 code for checking out on their app for the first time + free delivery. £25 for a shop that will see me hopefully through the next couple of weeks.