2015 Frugal Living Challenge

Frugaldom

Updates from Frugaldom - January proved to be ultra-expensive as the telephone line rental was paid for 12 months up front, the annual house and contents insurance got paid and the electricity meter got topped up with the full £199 allowed. As a result, spend to date have amounted to just over £1,000 which, as you all know, is over a quarter of my entire annual household challenge budget. I did mean to post my budget on here but never got around to it. (It is online elsewhere.)


February, in Frugaldom, is a month of kick-starting our frugal fitness challenge, so the portion control helps keep the grocery budget in check, use-it-up meals are 'interesting combinations' and the winter stores are all being run down before restocking, to ensure all the foodstuffs are rotated in date order. Last year's frozen garden produce and bargain buys all need to be used before being replaced when operating a zero-food-waste regime. I run a tight ship as far as budgeting is concerned.


So, week 2 of month 2, 1,5kg less than I weighed at start of February's frugal 'fight the flab' and I'm hoping to get through the next 3 weeks with absolute minimum spending while also saving every other penny available towards the Frugaldom Project.


It's good to see so many people still taking part here, many thanks to all concerned and apologies that all my daily frugaling is posted elsewhere.

LolaLemon

im back again. was off on holiday with teh family for a week, weather wasnt as good as we hoped but it was way better than home having minus degrees! We flew out as the snow was beginning to fall. I found the week a success in that i barely spent any money, unsiccessful as i was a greedy git and put on 6LB in a week!!! dam All Inclusive!
I have waged a bet that i can get back to my ideal weight by 1st august. Its the only bet i have ever placed and im determined to get their. Today i go and get weighed so i have my offical weight starting and anything that comes off will be great from now til then. this may or may not help with my budget, as to kick start me off i am doing a nutrition boost by juicing and blending all foods for a week and then slowly introducing solid foods again. we dont have any markets near here so fruit n veg is expensive but with regards to my health is a cheap price to pay to be healthy.
Also convinced my son to give up sweets and chocolate for lent so that should hopefully help us both change our tastes to include less sugary foods and spend less on school snacks!
I emptied out our fridge and freezer in the run up to the holiday so starting again is great, i have great stock cupboards so it will just be fresh foods we need to get in.

LolaLemon

all the thanks buttons have disapeared but thanks to all the grerat posts that i am catching up on.

Aaleigha

Well my first frugal act of our new life
Yesterday while food shopping (with a list and the bear minimun) I bought a bread maker - and stocked up on flour and yeast
I have made my first loaf of bread in the bread maker - the whol house smells wonderful
I only made a small loaf as its DH that eats the most bread and I dont want it to go stale - so tomorrow he has hm bread (while and spelt flours with dried onions) that will go with his cheese tomorrow

today I am going to go through the bank statement and get online - will calculate all the dd/so

Oh and I also spent £193 not very frugal you might think - but that is a months worth of premium dog food - I wil cut our shopping bill but not that of the dogs - with six of them to feed and finding a food that they all love and they are all in fantastic condition they still get their food - oh and out of that my dd gets a sack for her two - she is supposed to pay - but that has not happened yet

cw18

just initiated change of phone line/broadband provider for the first time in about 9 years :T

if for some reason the cashback DOESN'T go through I'll save £26.29 over 12 months - and gain free calls to/from my parents (retain free to/from DD as she's moving as well)

but if it DOES got through cleanly, I save an ADDITIONAL £70 - a huge saving giving the bill was only £218.16 for the year if I stayed with current provider and didn't renegotiate with them (they offered to match monthly costs for 12 months but wanted an 18 month minimum term, so I declined as it also wouldn't give my parents free calls to me and meant I could only call them eves/weekends instead of anytime)

So next Feb the people I'm moving to have to come up with a good reason for us to stay (we're not accepting an increase of £7.49/month, which is what we'd otherwise have due to end of offer), or we move back via the cashback site


OH says I'm not a credit card tart, but I am a phoneline tart

miss_try_to_save

I had a epic fail on the onion bhajis the other night Bombay potatoes a success though will have to trawl the internet for another recipe for bhajis having a reasonably frugal day however will need eggs as dd2 managed to drop the ones I had left on the floor

bmma

• Hi items bought today
• tinned peaches-juice will be drained,some water added then brought to boil add agar-agar and hopefully jelly made (first try)
• hummus (red pepper,seasame seeds,gatlic -reduced from £1.27 to 97p-added to mashed potatoes made 4 portions (large)
• red seedless grapes reduced from £2.00p to £1.00p - got 6 portions-in freezer (first try)
• wholemeal bread - divided into daily portions - in freezer
• this week to be made - home-made soup,shepherdess pie,custard
• also barley risotto and maybe lasagne (all vegan) x:)

optimistic-mummy

avoided going to the shops for a spag bowl sauce and made my own today so that saved me a few pound ... im not sure if the family will like it as its a first attempt and I adapted a recipe slightly ... we will soon see at tea time


I have transferred the weekly budget money once its gone its gone nd its tough lol ... we have a freezer full of food and ive transferred enough for this weeks bills and essentials milk etc so lets see how we go hope everyone is well hugs to all that need/want one x

Broken_Biscuits

started a new job and its slightly amusing to see the faces of some of my new co workers when i tell them about the 2nd hand cupboards i got for free last night.

"why not just get them brand new from ikea?"

ive purposely not joined in the convo about credit card debts and blowing most of paydays money the first weekend.

i think it would blow their minds to hear pay day is just the day the savings are topped up. There's enough to cover not working for a while should i fancy it.


out with the new team tonight. Will waste quite a bit of cash on food and drink. Feels wrong but probably a necessity as a team building exercise.

will "punish" myself for the rest of the week to bring down average spend!!

optimistic-mummy

hi everyone ... not a NSD here .. but I did manage to get 3 2.5 litre tins of paint for £6 so going to use them to decorate my kitchen


the one wall in the kitchen needs skimming so got to get the stuff for that and then dads gonna skim it for us but hoping other than the skimming to do it all for less than £10 to decorate and we need new flooring but I haven't measured up yet too look for a deal ...


anyway other than that its been a frugal few days ... hope everyone is well x


ETA ive also ordered a new bathroom mirror for free ... I have a lit£$%o%&s account (haven't used it for a while) but had built up £10 of rewards so got a mirror for the bathroom in their sale