2016 Frugal Living Challenge

mumtoomany

Hi all. We have not quite frozen to death! Ordered a new bonnet for the Stanley, £100 and a four week delay! OH bought a tube of fire cement. I have managed to re-assemble the old one temporarily, but then had to wait 48 hours for it to set. We've all been walking round in so many layers we began to resemble Michelin men! Have relit it today but the whole house is freezing. It is going to take a few days to warm through again, maybe longer now there is snow in the air. Added half the cost to my signature, other half will be paid by DD1 and DS-i-L1. I hope everyone else is managing to keep warm.

bmma

2 NSD's to add = 10 to date
2 freebies-1)box of thorntons chocs( 2) 2 sachets of fast acting yeast
made tomato and vegetable soup with fridge stores (tomatoes and veg 2 weeks old) x

COOLTRIKERCHICK

Afternoon all,

Well the weather is now more like winter ..we have had wintery showers all day.

Well didn't manage to stick to £20 for the week food shopping, but will def be under £30. This doesn't include animal feed or coal etc..

So I think if I can keep it under £30, but try and aim for £20-25 I will be a very happy bunny!!!! BUT I think I can only maintain this while I have a LOAD of meat in the freezer...

I bought seed potatoes in poundieland, but I notice home- bargains have seed potatoes, onion sets etc for 79p.. So will get more seed potatoes, and my onion sets from there...

Haven't started any seeds etc off yet.. Want to wait until the weather settles and the rain stops and goes back to normal for the time of year..( whatever normal is now lol)

crazy_cat_lady

Our January budget is dire - we're £700 short this month thanks to dh being off work... I reckon I have less than £50 for the next fortnight so I need to get back onto Jack Monroe's website and look for cheap ways to feed the family.

FunBrum

cw18......You will find living by yourself so much cheaper in general. When my youngest son moved out I was able to control not only my food budget, but also gas, electric and water consumption. You will save a fortune!:rotfl::money:

I've been for a lovely 7 mile walk in the countryside today. I'm lucky to live with country lanes starting at the top of my road so there are plenty of routes for me to hike. I also have a network of canals at the bottom of the road, so no excuses not to have frugal, free exercise!:)
I also forage but pickings are slim this time of year.
I'm still lucky with my food, and everything I've eaten today has all been free!:A
So all in all, a very frugal day and another NSD for me.:D

Pinkwhisk

Hi all,

Bit late to this but can i join please? really need to get living frugally!

Hope everones ok

cw18

FunBrum wrote: »

cw18......You will find living by yourself so much cheaper in general. When my youngest son moved out I was able to control not only my food budget, but also gas, electric and water consumption. You will save a fortune:rotfl::money::A:D

Won't actually save me that much. When he moved back in it was on the understanding he covered the increases in my bills. It's going to take a while for the utility companies to see the reductions in use (which is where regular meter reading updates come into play - did 1st Jan and yesterday, will do 1st Feb then try asking).

(Sorry - phone won't let me delete emojis for some strange reason!)

determined_new_ms

can someone advise me where to find out about the TCB contactless thing that is being mentioned? Or is it a TSB thing?

Ok I'd like to join this year if I can? Although I have a bit of an issue with sticking with things long term Am very good at getting excited about things and getting into them gun ho but am less good at sustaining things over a long period. I'll try my best!

I've been reading the thread over the last 2 days and considering my budget and it is an eye watering £8720 :eek: This is all spends except mortgage and household utilities. I've broken it down into categories and want to further breakdown the personal spends category.

£2160 food (2 adults 1 toddler), nappies & cleaning products
£1200 petrol £100 pm if any additional is needed will come out of personal spends
£2400 :eek: works out £200 pm seems loads and easy but then when you factor in days out/birthdays/clothes/incidental spends/any holidays etc it doesn't seem so much over the year
£1000 flights to Brasil (money I have in savings)
£250 car ins
£140 car tax
£250 car repairs
£150 birthdays
£200 Christmas
£660 lo clothes & general activities (works out £55 pm which comes out of her child benefit. Which leaves just over £400 which will go into savings for her

I've also rounded these figures up another £310 for "just in case". We have been renovating our house (for the past 3 years!) and are almost at the finishing line and will need to get a carpet and furniture for our bedroom and we want to get build in cupboards in the alcoves of our lounge. My half of these costs will have to come from this, my personal spends and any cash raised.

We owe oh's dm £2200 from money she loaned us when we bought our house. I want to pay this by the end of the year. We account £100pm for this out of our bills account a month which means we need to find an additional £80pm to be able to achieve this.

My financial situation changed drastically in June last year when I lost my job and my mother died on the same day. I was the breadwinner and working in stressful positions with a lot of responsibility. My dd has a mental health problem and my life is often stressful because of her illness. I was out of work until November and now have 2 part time jobs working approx 20 hours a week, one of which is in a pub and I am earning minimum wage.


I take home just under £600 a month so need additional income of about £100 a month to make things stack up. For the last 2 months I have been doing this through doing ms-ing - but jeez it's so dull! I keep thinking I'll return to work proper soon but then another tidal wave with my dd leaves me a wreak and makes me think if I added in full time work in a stressful environment I won't be any good for myself, my family or my employer so am still not looking. So think I'll give it another month and see how things are...

So the other way to make things stack up is to reduce my outgoings and the challenge will be to keep our standard of life the same and try to have some kind of life amongst the chaos.

I currently cook everything from scratch, have got into my garden since losing my job and intend to grow as much veg as I can, make my own compost and am going to invest in a wormery, shop at Aldi & Lidl and make the most of their offers, buy ys items that are useful, buy a lot of lo's clothes at the bootfair in the warmer months, juggle the Santander 123 account & Halifax reward to get about £18 pm interest. I also want to this year look at reducing our waste as much as possible.

So that's me thanks for letting me introduce myself

jess444_2

Welcome Determined New MS. I am a newbie to this thread too and also have trouble sticking with things! You sound organised, so hopefully can stick with it.

Sorry to hear how tight things are Crazy Cat.

A good week, have managed to stay within budget and have £40 to spare. Plan to put any budgeted money left at the end of each week into an emergency / treats fund - sometimes a treat is an emergency lol!!

2 NSD this week. Would have been 3 but there was a collection in work. I will save a fortune when I retire!

Just checking out my EDF account and looks like I can save £200 by switching tariff with them so will do this later.

Getting £100 back for my broken mobile phone as it cannot be repaired. I have a Talk Talk contract so think I will need to buy a sim free phone? The £100 does not seem to cover the cost of a new Nokia 625 which I had so think I will have to shop around.

Have also been on Tesco site and printed of £4 worth of vouchers to spend. Every Little Helps.

Have also found a bag of soap nuts that have been hidden at the back of a cupboard for about a year, so wont have to buy soap powder for a while.

Looking forward to seeing what I can save next week. Good luck everyone.

bmma

HI spends to day £6.79p--- cat food, milk, fruit and veg
running total £1,865.34/£1,920 off to knit myself a woolly hat- it is getting colder!x