2015 Frugal Living Challenge

vw_campervan_mum

maria3104 wrote: »

Love the renovations so far. A wonderful project. Good luck.

Here I am celebrating with soup for lunch my 20th nsd of jan.Sighing as I type.

Toying with planning a fantasy holiday and then not booking it, effectively saving thousands, could then reward myself with a chocci drop!

Keep being frugal everyone.

:rotfl: Love the thoughts :T

Keep on frugalling!

cw18

rising_from_the_ashes wrote: »

I thought the budget was to include everything so apologies as'ive obviously misunderstood the challenge as I thought it was to try to live as frugally as possible and to reduce 'unnecessary' spends to the absolute minimum.

Reducing essentials (such as groceries and fuel) to the lowest possible amounts leaves more money for other areas.

So being frugal in some areas means you can then enjoy the rest of your money, and feel as if you 'live' rather than 'exist'.

For some this means buying property/land to be as self sufficient as possible, for others it means holidays.

But for some of us this challenge involves cutting everything back to bare bones as we don't have enough income to do anything else. I can only afford holidays (which only involve paying for fuel used in the property, so not much more expensive than staying at home) because I buy YS groceries or stock up when things are on offer, thus releasing money from essential areas of my budgets.

quidsy

Originally Posted by rising from the ashes
I thought the budget was to include everything so apologies as'ive obviously misunderstood the challenge as I thought it was to try to live as frugally as possible and to reduce 'unnecessary' spends to the absolute minimum..

The challenge as I understand it, must suit your lifestyle & work for what you want out of it. Everyone has different wants, lifestyles, pleasures & needs so it means different things to different people.

COOLTRIKERCHICK

Yep agree with CW18..


I am very lucky ( and mad) to be in the position I am in, to have been able to buy a smallholding and still carry on with the house we got, BUT.. I have borrowed, juggled, and have been frugal to get the dream of the smallholding, BUT.. we cant juggle no more, and we need EVERY penny to carry on doing up the place.


We are not the type of people who you see on grand designs lol, who have a budget of xxx hundreds of thousands of pounds, our budget is ZERO.. so whatever things cost I got to get my thinking cap on, and save/earn and be as frugal as possible.. this isn't cutting corners, its just being inventive and creative lol..
So we are trying to be extreme frugallers so we can spend it on renovations...
after being on the bare bones of our butts a 10 - 15 years ago, I will always be frugal now regardless, as you don't know what is around the corner, and with us being each side of 50, and flip knows what the state of the country will be in when we are older... its batten down the hatches when it comes to every day living spending

cw18

Not very frugal thing for today - new tyre for the car, having picked up a screw in one leaving me with a flat yesterday. But it's the first time I've had to change a wheel on this car, and as I've had it almost 8.5 years I suppose I shouldn't grumble. (Not the first flat, but the others were repairable and also held inflation to get from home where I found them to the garage).

Frugal thing for today - picking up chocolate ready for Easter for 5 young girls. I normally allow (and budgetted for) up to £2 each for an egg, but A!di have chocolate bears (bbe June 2015) on clearance from their Christmas stock at 35p each. Reindeers (if they still had those) would have been a bit too obviously seasonal left overs, but I decided I can get away with teddies Got milk chocolate for GD1 and GD2, and white chocolate for GD3, GD4 and OH's niece.

Mrs_Cheshire

rising_from_the_ashes wrote: »

If you have a means of paying for a breakdown (eg credit card / savings) and waiting for it to be paid back, AutoAid is fantastic - they are quick to pay out so realistically you could put on a credit card & be paid before you had to pay the bill

Thanks for the recommendation, unfortunately it's not something we could do at the moment as we only have a basic bank account!

dizzytina

Successful shop at Tesco metro last night. Warburtons toastie loaves down to just 14p so I got 5:D
Single cream just 17p ( used it on homemade apple crumble tonight)
And mini scotch eggs down to just 17p so I got 2 and popped them in the freezer!

rising_from_the_ashes

quidsy wrote: »

[/I]
The challenge as I understand it, must suit your lifestyle & work for what you want out of it. Everyone has different wants, lifestyles, pleasures & needs so it means different things to different people.

Yes - of course everyone has different lifestyles and budgets, but it is after all called the 'frugal living challenge'! By definition, that surely means reducing waste at a minimum for all - and to others also means living simply.

I've done this challenge for several years and the above has always been true.

However, it seems that my understanding of the meaning of living frugally is now at odds with many others - and that's fine, we're all different.

However, as I don't want to offend people (which is not why any of us are here) and which I will inevitably do (as tongue biting isn't really my thing:o), I shall bow out of the challenge this year.

I wish you all well for the year ahead and hope you all achieve your goals.

COOLTRIKERCHICK

Rising from the Ashes.... I think it is a bit harsh that you are leaving the thread..


I personally think if any thread helps someone be more savvy, frugal, budget, or generally get their life back on track by inturpriting a thread challenge to suit their needs, ideas surely that is the good thing, and the whole ethos of the MSE forum..??
Please don't leave...we can all gleen off each other

quidsy

^^Agreed, seems a tad flouncy tbh, leaving a thread because people are not participating in the way you want them to. It should make no difference to how you approach the challenge.

Yes - of course everyone has different lifestyles and budgets, but it is
after all called the 'frugal living challenge'! By definition, that surely
means reducing waste at a minimum for all - and to others also means living simply.

That is your interpretation of it only. You don't know how people used to live. Me for example, I used to spend money like it was the end of the world, bought into the whole consumer lifestyle, would throw away rather than fix anything but how I live now IS frugal in comparison.

I will think twice about throwing things away, try to find a 2nd use for a now defunct item, convert old clothes into dusters & draught excluders, will read meters religiously & drive oh mad with my switch turning off. But I still have alot bad habits. Hopefully across time I will learn even more frugal ways but for now, this is what I can manage & what I am willing to cut back on & this thread helps me be mindful of it.