2015 Frugal Living Challenge

cw18

January figures now complete (I hope - I think my brain worked well enough to finish them off this morning!)

Category - Anual Budget - Budget to end Jan - Spend to end Jan
Council Tax - £1212 - £140 - £140
bang on target. rest of year depends on what increase (if any) the council applies. I've allowed for small increase but change to 12 payments from April, and have seen they're hoping to keep bills the same as last year.
Gas & Electricty - £900 - £75 - £75
standard monthly D/Debit
Water - £288 - £24 - £24
standard monthly D/Debit
House Insurance - £270 - £0 - £0
due in Decemeber
Central Heating Cover - £240 - £20 - £19.40
standard monthly d/debit, allowing for an increase at renewal later in the year
Phone & Broadband - £264 - £22 - £3.50
line rental paid in advance until late Feb, so underspend will reduce each month from now on.
Mobile - £150 - 312.50 - £12.50
standard monthly d/debit
Windows - £78 - £6.50 - £5
allowed for 13x£6, but as first of year was after 2 weeks instead of the 4 I've switched to I paid the lower rate - so I should have an underspend of £1 over the year
Vision (glasses and contacts) - £300 - £25 - £164.80
this is a big overspend area, brought about by my vision changing such that I needed new glasses after just 7 months !!! may have to revisit this budget, as I planned to stop getting contacts completely but now think I need to just reduce as much as I can while staying on the scheme in order to continue with unlimited free eye tests and half price glasses (effectively getting me the contact for free)
Dental - £72 - £6 - £18.50
split cost for one tier 1 and one tier 2 over the year, but had a checkup (tier 1) in Jan. should balance out over next few months
Prescriptions/Flu shot - £48 - £4 - £0
not needed anything
First Aid - £24 - £2 - £3
slight overspend for new wrist support
Vitamins - £144 - £12 - £50.80
new when I set the budget I was likely to overspend in January, as Costc0 normally have these on offer in the first book of the year should balance out over time
Presents - £480 - £40 - £26.20
had 1 birthday to deal with in Jan, and have also bought Easter choc for 5 youngsters, start of Christmas for 2 of them, start of birthday for OH, and start of birthday for OH's niece - plus a couple of the cards I didn't already have in for the year. hoping I can keep this one under control as it's an area I've not done well in the past !!
Gym - £480 - £40 - £40
standard monthly d/debit
Lottery - £372 - £31 - £2
showing as big underspend due to winning £28 over the month
WLR subs - £96 - £0 - £0
subscription to a website I've been a member of for years. pay in 6 monthly instalments in June & Dec
Car Insurance - £480 - £0 - £0
due 1st Aug, so gets paid late July
Petrol - £864 - £72 - £50.30
this one's always a bit of a finger in the air when estimating - which has been harder to do since I put DS1 on the insurance as I can only work on his commute accurately, with his leisure mileage varying wildly month to month
Breakdown - £78 - £78 - £77.50
annual payment due in Jan
Road Tax - £132 - £132 - £130
annual payment due in Jan
MOT - £48 - £0 - £0
due in July
Service - £132 - £0 - £0
due in July
Repairs - £600 - £50 - £42
was hoping this would be a serious over estimate, but it's looking like that may not be the case (with a windscreen to be sorted tomorrow)
Groceries - £2980 - £253.10 - £231.40
shop spend was actually only £84.22, but I'm including replacement cost of stuff from stock (which I had in before 1st Jan) and not discouting for offers/whoopsies (the money saved gets used elsewhere - see later)
Toiletries - £180 - £15 - £17
slight overspend due to buying one pricey item that came recommended for trying to strengthen my nails. too soon to say if it's working yet.... calculating the same way as groceries. shop spend was £8.28
Cleaning - £120 - £10 - £7.80
calculating same way as groceries. shop spend was £6

Totals - £11032 - £1070.10 - £1140.35

Across various categories I used
stock (groceries) £110.28
stock (toiletries & cleaning to be replaced) £8.19
vouchers worth £23.89
and saved
from multibuys £3.68
from whoopsie purchases £22.55

giving me £168.59 to play with, of which

£84.30 has been put aside in case some of my budgets get blown out of the water
and
£84.29 has been allocated as available for my zero budgets

I also made £30.55 selling a few items on eB@y, which has been split
£15.29 for budget 'cushioning' and
£15.26 for zero budgets
(I split income from each item rather than as a total, so will never be a 50:50 split)

So zero budget income is
£10 from DS1 (his contribution, in return for which I do his laundry)
£45 from surveys (claimed as Amazon vouchers, slight cheat as I could have claimed £30 of them in December but waited until 1st Jan making it easier to track/record the spends over this year)
5p from roadkill
10p from presents stock (birthday card bought last year)
£2.12 value of toiletries/cleaning I won't be replacing (only used up because I had in the house)
£84.29 from the savings made across categories with budgets
£14.48 from grocery budget to cover items DS1 and OH paid for but didn't get paid back by me for
£200 gifts (my Christmas and Birthday cheques)
19p loose change from regular bills (rounding d/debits up to next 10p)
£1.53 loose change from groceries (rounding up each spend to next 10p)
18p loose change from toiletries (rounding up each spend to next 10p)
5p loose change from vitamins (rounding up each spend to next 10p)
£15.26 from eB@y sales

giving me a total income for zero budget of £373.25 - a monthly figure I don't expect to repeat this year !!!

of that I've spent

Books £24.92 (10 titles - 8 new health and fitness, and 2 pre-owned cookery)
DVDs £1.42
Footwear £22.99 (new casual trainers I was in pretty desperate need of)
Household 'bits' £34.51 (including hooks for bathroom door, an ethernet cable, and - the most expensive item at almost £28 - a set of ink cartridges for my printer after I put the last I owned into it)
Everything Else £8.79 (including postage on a 'pass it forward' gift, an item for the local food bank, and a musical box from the charity shop which brought back a lot of memories as it's almost identical to one my paternal grandma had and loved)

[Deleted User]

youngmummy wrote: »

sorry to post again ... just looked in the fridge and I have eating apples that the kids haven't eaten and getting worried they wont last much longer any ideas on ways too use them up please x thanks in advance

Make a nice apple pie. Easy and cheap.

maria3104

COOLTRIKERCHICK wrote: »

how many acres have you got maria??


we just have a 'little ranch' with approx. 3.5 acres, wooded, over grown etc, which is ideal for pigs...

own 232 acres and rent another 250.

Rubies forever, will be really interested how you get on with SC, good luck with it.

M

Frugaldom

Youngmummy - even cheaper and less hassle than apple pie is apple crumble. I add a handful or 2 of sultanas and a sprinkle of cinnamon to mine.

Bambywamby

Or if you're trying to eat healthily... baked apples in the oven with a sprinkle of cinnamon and sugar when they come out. I like to add a spoonful of greek yoghurt... the hot/cold contrast is nice. x

Bobarella

Hi All
Just to say have been reading along but havent had masses to post that I dont already contribute on other threads, I was inspired by the NST guys to go for a debt free day, which I've never really seen the point of before, so I am now fixed on the last day of this year. I do have a plan (& its so cunning you could pin a tail on it and call it a fox) but life has a way of scuppering those...soo...
Glad everyone is doing so well.
Bob

youngmummy

thanks for the ideas regarding the apples.... can I freeze apple pie or apple crumble or not ?




I need to get some milk today but other than that im hoping for a LSD ... I hope to be able to transfer some more money to the saving or credit card before Friday

cw18

I freeze apple crumble, but generally just stew the apple and freeze that - then make the topping when I want it. Saves on freezer space, and also means I can have stewed apple with yoghurt or ice cream as a warm weather pudding if I prefer (or apple sauce with pork).

cw18

Well, I just made a phone call which appears to have been 'just in time'

I've had a food magazine on subscription for quite a while - and almost cancelled when they shrank it to 'handbag size' a few years back Since then I've tended to only open them when I feel guilty because I have 3 or 4 issues still in the wrapper :eek:

Saw the payment go out the second week of October, and decided that would be the last. Thought I paid every 6 months, so assumed I had until end of March to cancel,
Latest issue arrived yesterday, so today (while I had my subscription details to hand from the insert) I went to my subscription account only to see it said 6 issues remaining with an expiry date of 1st Aug. That didn't make sense given the last payment went in October, nor did the payment they took make any sense against any of the prices being quoted now.... so I decided I need to speak to someone.

Turns out that when I subscribed there were 10 issues a year, so my 6-monthly payment covered 5. It's now monthly, and rather than increasing the amount taken every 6 months to cover the 6th issue, they've been taking the same amount every 5 months to still cover 5. So the next payment is actually due out early March rather than early April.

Subscription now cancelled, and direct debit (which I spotted is also no longer the cheapest way to pay for it anyway) has also been cancelled at my bank end. That saves me £2.60 a month :T

[Deleted User]

I have had a constructive frugal morning today. Had a look around the cupboards and in the freezer to see what I could use up - made a bacon and cheese quiche and a raspberry crumble. Hoping to make it to the end of this week without buying food. I will need to get milk though.

Tomorrow I will use up some chicken I have in the freezer and a jar of sauce and do a chicken tikka in the slow cooker. Also planning to make fairy cakes as snacks later this afternoon.

Other than that bedding changed and washed. I can't wait for the warmer weather to come in so I can get my washing back out on the line again.