2015 Frugal Living Challenge

alja

Thank you both!! Congratulations on your little one wombatchops!


I started buying a few foodie bits today to start my food cupboard off, I think I'll keep an eye on the grocery challenge board. I have absolutely no idea what to aim for in terms of food spend per month, but I want to make sure I keep an eye on it to some extent and make it as low as I comfortably can

lynnejk

Hiya everyone


Sorry I've been MIA but with my hols and retirement etc life got in the way. Back now and hope to catch up soon

quidsy wrote: »

So why not agree to a set budget for personal expenses & the rest is put away for future spends? I personally wouldn't ask oh to list every penny spent so he gets his own personal budget to do with as he wants. The rest of his wages are paid into my account to manage.

Ask you oh how much he thinks he needs & see how he gets on with it.

Just to say I agree with ^^^^^. DH has his own personal budget and I look after the rest, pay all the bills etc. That way I don't have to worry about paying things and he can spend his how he wants

JustStartingOut wrote: »

Thank you all for your comments. I've signed up for a couple so will see how long I last (very impatient haha)

If you have a look at the 'Make £10 a day in April' thread on here, the first couple of posts give loads of ideas for making extra pennies. You will find the thread very helpful and friendly if you decide to join


Must now catch up and do my accounts for Feb/March to see where we stand. I have already moved all the monthly monies about but can always re-shuffle if necessary.


Hope you all having a great week
Lx

Bobarella

Hello All
Glad to see a few other people checking in for the first time in a while today. I have reopened my business, did so in early March after a 6 month closure due to flooding. And as you can imagine I'm here there and everywhere.
I too can't believe it is April. I am pleased with the progress my family are making towards our DFW life. It's slow but steady. If we were a patient I'd say our vital signs are all on amber. More money in savings, less in debt. Still turbulent months on the cash flow side that haven't helped but overall were getting there. Am still hopeful of reaching our DF day by end of the year, but even if we don't our lifestyle is allowing us to hang in there and battle on.
Glad to read good news from other members. And will be keeping more of an eye from now on.
Bob

lynnejk

Hiya everyone


Sorry I've been MIA but with my hols and retirement etc life got in the way. Back now and hope to catch up soon

quidsy wrote: »

So why not agree to a set budget for personal expenses & the rest is put away for future spends? I personally wouldn't ask oh to list every penny spent so he gets his own personal budget to do with as he wants. The rest of his wages are paid into my account to manage.

Ask you oh how much he thinks he needs & see how he gets on with it.

Just to say I agree with ^^^^^. DH has his own personal budget and I look after the rest, pay all the bills etc. That way I don't have to worry about paying things and he can spend his how he wants

JustStartingOut wrote: »

Thank you all for your comments. I've signed up for a couple so will see how long I last (very impatient haha)

If you have a look at the 'Make £10 a day in April' thread on here, the first couple of posts give loads of ideas for making extra pennies. You will find the thread very helpful and friendly if you decide to join


Must now catch up and do my accounts for Feb/March to see where we stand. I have already moved all the monthly monies about but can always re-shuffle if necessary.


Hope you all having a great week
Lx

[Deleted User]

Thanks lynnejk, I popped over to the £10 a day in April board and am planning to sell some old DVDs and a few books on Amazon.

I am also thinking of selling a Pandora bracelet that has 5 charms on it. Not sure of best place to sell it though and don't want to do ebay.

cw18

Finally finished updated March's pages, so this is where I am after the first quarter of the year...

Category - Anual Budget - Budget to end Feb - Spend to end Feb
Council Tax - £1212 - £140 - £140
Bang on target. Allowed for small increase for 2015/16 but have a zero increase again, so this should be slightly under budget for the rest of the year
Gas & Electricty - £900 - £225 - £181
Providers have totally messed this up for me. In Feb they refunded my credit balance, then because I was going through a tariff change they didn't take my D/Debit at the start of March - so I made a card payment as I didn't want to end up owing them. Then they changed my payment date and took a d/debit later in the month (I missed the notification as they sent it while my home internet was out of action), Had a conversation with them which ended up on the basis of payment date back to 1st, but nothing to be taken in April. They appear to have managed this, but I shall be keeping a close eye on my bank account.
Water - £288 - £72 - £72
standard monthly D/Debit
House Insurance - £270 - £0 - £0
due in Decemeber
Central Heating Cover - £240 - £60 - £58.20
standard monthly d/debit, allowing for an increase at renewal later in the year
Phone & Broadband - £264 - £66 - £188.10
Opted to pay line rental for a year up front when I changed provider in Feb, which as pushed me over budget. Waiting for a refund (£15+) from old provider.
Mobile - £150 - £37.50 - £37.50
standard monthly d/debit
Windows - £78 - £19.50 - £17
Payments back up-to-date with this one.
Vision (glasses and contacts) - £300 - £75 - £164.80
This is going to show as an overspend for a while, and possibly all year. Still trying to decide whether or not to stay on the contact lens scheme, but am leaning towards doing so which I didn't budget for.
Dental - £72 - £18 - £18.50
Almost within budget for this one now
Prescriptions/Flu shot - £48 - £4 - £0
Not needed anything
First Aid - £24 - £6 - £3.90
Nothing new needed.
Vitamins - £144 - £36 - £50.80
Still working on balancing out big spend in Jan
Presents - £480 - £120 - £63.30
Still picking bits up as I see them. Have now purchased all stamps I'll need for sending cards this year, as I keep risking losing No Spend Days for the sake of a 2nd class stamp!
Gym - £480 - £120 - £120
Standard monthly d/debit. But I went in on 31st and cancelled, so only 1 more payment to go and no access to the gym after 30th April.
Lottery - £372 - £93 - £53
Under due to a few small wins.
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 - £216 - £120.10
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 - £150 - £127.00
Thankfully no new repairs in March, so under budget for now.
Groceries - £2980 - £734.80 - £742.90
Not happy with myself for this one being over budget, but a quick look though March's shop purchases shows at least £90 worth carrying forward into April (and beyond) so I'm going to work on a major claw back. (Actually only spend £360.72 in the shops - the rest is vouchers, offers and long-standing stock use-up).
Toiletries - £180 - £45 - £39.90
Under budget, but running closer to my guesstimate than I really like.
Cleaning - £120 - £30 - £10.40
More a case of letting heavy-duty cleaning slip than having over-budgetted. Need to have a total blitz through the house (and then stay on top of it) just as soon as I can find the energy

Totals - £11032 - £2485.80 - £2415.90
still under target, but not by much.

Across various categories for year to end Mar I used
stock (groceries) £266.60
stock (toiletries & cleaning to be replaced) £23.64
vouchers worth £39.09
and saved
from offers (half price type) £22.09
from multibuys £11.38
from whoopsie purchases £47.09

giving me £409.89 to play with, of which

£204.95 has been put aside in case some of my budgets get blown out of the water
and
£204.94 has been allocated as available for my zero budgets

I've also made £61.87 selling old bits on eB@y, which has been split
£30.99 for budget 'cushioning' and
£30.88 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
£30 from DS1 (his contribution, in return for which I do his laundry)
£60 from surveys
12p from roadkill
£7.99p from presents stock
£4.93 value of toiletries/cleaning I won't be replacing (only used up because I had in the house)
£3 from purchasing bits from non-zero budget (presents) using loyalty points
£52.96 from cashback (on grocery purchases, via Apps on my phone - this is what's been claimed and paid into my bank)
£204.94 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)
59p loose change from regular bills (rounding d/debits up to next 10p)
£5.32 loose change from groceries (rounding up each spend to next 10p)
46p loose change from toiletries (rounding up each spend to next 10p)
16p loose change from cleaning (rounding up each spend to next 10p)
5p loose change from vitamins (rounding up each spend to next 10p)
£30.88 from eB@y sales

giving me a total income for zero budget of £615.88 - another £100+ added in March which shocked me

of that I've spent £375.01 as follows

Books £24.92
CDs £9.00 (actually 3 albums on vinyl, but I don't have a category for that!)
DVDs £73.54
Footwear £22.99
Fitness £25 (annual membership fee to running club)
Household 'bits' £44.79
Houshold Repairs £143.00
Everything Else £31.77 (includes some writing paper, envelopes and stamps I'm going to give to GD2 - on the understanding she shares with GD1 if wanted - after my Mum helped her send a postcard to me to tell me how much she misses me. Also some stamps to go into my stock for writing back)

his_missus

Well, after a splurge on payday, we have had to be very frugal this month.


We spent £16 on our glamping break to Scotland, £10 of that was on a chippy tea as we ended up with a Scottish note and needed to spend it .


Hubby went shopping this weekend as I was full of a cold. He ended up buying lots of treats though, tut tut! But it was his spending money he used so I can't really complain.

alja

Had a £1 off a £5 spend coupon for the co-op so I used that this evening for some essentials. I also picked up a free bottle of coke using my o2 priority app this evening too.

I'm in need of a new car, so any savings I can make here and there will mainly be going towards that, now that I've purchased my home. Still need to get a few bits for it, e.g. coffee table, dining table etc, but I can live without those for a while really.

Definitely need to get back into doing online surveys etc for some extra pennies

adrisco

Went out at 8.15 am - car as dead as a door nail. A.A. man replaced battery - £76 later I am good to go. All the overtime pay since New Year seems to have disappeared ... little unexpected happenings, Easter, birthdays. Although looking at things more positively, if I had no overtime I would have been completely up the creek without a paddle. Onwards and upwards .. and a lot more frugality I think!

COOLTRIKERCHICK

Evening all,

Hope you are all injoying this beautiful weather,

Made the most of b and q offer on the 2 for £10 big bales of compost, so hopefully this will last me the season, also bought 3 tomato plants they are a plumb type for cooking, so hoping I can make and freeze my own tomato sauce to add to slag bol etc. Sowed normal tomato seeds this week, a bit late compared to a lot of peeps, but I find they do catch up quite quickly once they start growing lol.

Finding eBay a bit quiet, but it seems everyone seems to be quiet, so fingers crossed after all these bank holidays have finished next month things will pick up a bit