2015 Frugal Living Challenge

COOLTRIKERCHICK

Debsnewbudget wrote: »

I did lamb in slow cooker last week. Put stock cube in half pint of water, potatoes, carrots garlic and it was lovely
I just tend to search for slow cooker recipes and then only add on what I have I the cupboard.
One for pork last week had jam in it, but it tasted really good.

Thanks, I dont buy stock cubes anymore, as I found you were tasting 'the stock cube' rather than the flavour of the meat, If that makes sense..


I personally try not to buy cheap meat, I did quiver not so lon back and thought about the meat deals in farmfoods, but then I soon snapped out of that idea lol...

littleskintdragon

I'm not sure about the spuds, never tried that, onions will be fine though. Let us know what happens to the potatoes it'll b lovely if they cook. Most people i know put a little water in with the meat, i dont though.

kb_soma

Thanks for the tips on finding out where the meat has come from.

I did the freezer and cupboard stock check last night and found about 10 portions of various different cuts of pork, I think I will be using that over the next few weeks!

Broken_Biscuits

just read the whole 500+ posts and wasn't sure if i should join in or not. You seem a friendly bunch and most of the convo appears to be about cooking ( a hobby of mine) so happy to at least lurk and get some ideas. Im definitely making me some home made Irish cream in the very near future!

im a bit late to the party as only just stumbled over this thread. I am not or never have been in debt and so have not really been on this board before. I applaud anyone tackling their debt head on and making positive changes. I did see a slight disagreement on what frugality means. Well for me last year i saved about 40% of my pay... Which is pretty much the same as saying through a few methods including frugality i only spent 60% of my pay. Im looking to bring this down to 50% this calendar year. I do love a good rummage in the bargain bins and have been known in the past to salvage a few items from actual bins. Its crazy when people throw out perfectly good electrical items and furniture etc.


hopefully im not too offensive by not quite fitting the mold. Im using frugality to save for a better future rather than cutting debt. Pay period of dec 2014 to Jan 2015 saw me save 67% of my pay, so well on track.

best of luck to everyone on achieving their goals this year

COOLTRIKERCHICK

Hi Broken Biscwits.. nice to read your post.


my house smells lovely with the lamb in the SC, decided against the pots, so only put some onions in with the lamb

lynnejk

:hello: round the door-post


Feel a bit awkward coming on after causing a bit of a ker-fuffle with my budget. I didn't mean to upset anyone and thought I was setting my budget within the confines of the thread ??


I hope you'll have me back as I find it very helpful and sensible on here.


Lx

Needhelpsaving

Hi all,

I am just sticking my head above the parapit on this whole debate on furgality.


I too have joined this year and aim to become as frugal as some of the members who have been using this board for a long time. However, I do recognise that for our family frugality is a long term journey as I think that if we dropped our expenditure by 3/4 in a year, we would probably give up.


I am trying to take tips from this board and MSE in general to start cutting costs. I am setting myself some targets along the way and can use the experience to see where I have gone wrong/got it right.


So, I say stay . . . and we can all learn something from those posters who have been on this journey longer than us; we all have to start somewhere.

cw18

Well, it seems like my car is fighting my frugality this year !!

10 days ago I had a puncture that couldn't be repaired - £42 for a new tyre

Today DS1 spotted a chip that's cracking outwards on the windscreen, and a chat with Aut0glass (insurance companies approved company) suggests it's just too big for a repair - so I'm almost certainly going to have to shell out the £75 windscreen replacement excess Won't know until they can come and look at it though, and that's not until Tuesday due to a weather induced backlog which they expect to increase from 3-5 days to 3-5 weeks if the cold snap keeps up :eek:

Broken_Biscuits

ive just finished reading a book quite relevant to the "what counts as frugality debate". The book is called the moneyless manifesto by mark Boyle. He talks about POP scales (plan of progression).


in brief, if your ultimate aim is to live moneyless (as the author did for 2 and a half years in Bristol) its ok to be further down the scale at this time of your life as long as you can visualise how you will progress further up the scale towards your goal.

for me POP scale level 1 would be not having to work as frugality and passive income takes care of my living costs. Im probably at about level 5 or 6 on the POP scale. I can live fairly comfortably on less than two thirds of my salary.


if i achieved level 1 in the future and then met someone at level 6. I would respect them for starting out on the journey. We are all at different points of the same journey.

id recommend mark boyles book. I got it for free from local library.

maria3104

Hi

Hoping to stay focused throughout whole of 2015.

Today a normal MR T shop of around £40. This is for up to 5 people for a week.

DS off to collect a KS bed base for our house, £125 and it is new and we already have a mattress. I have trawled the sales trying to find a bargain and failed, so this is a real godsend. I am also bidding on 2 local 2nd hand beds that if I get, will complete our bed issues for 2015. It has been a long and boring saga, I have put off buying them until the rooms were ready as I could not face having tidy beds stored in a farm shed with a leaky roof and be worrying. So we are now ready and rolling along to completion of bed plan! Sad really.

Next on my list is bedroom drawers and bedside cabinets for 3 rooms, I will visit sale room and either paint purchases or leave as they are if they are tidy enough. Sales 2015 put these items at a total of £4500 if I haggled. I do not want new badly enough to part with £4500. So far £125 spent. My budget is £250 the lot. Probably around 7% of new. 2 sofas, multi york got for 10% of new including courier delivery last year.

Sorry to be rambling on but sometimes I forget just how much I could be spending if I whipped out the CC and bought new.

I fancy a read of Mark Boyles

Maria