2017 Frugal Living Challenge

Little--fish

Hello Frizzlef :wave: Sounds like you have a great plan in place and how lovely that you are already in your forever home. It must be so nice doing it up knowing that you will spend many years there

I'm the same with children's activities. My two both have swimming lessons and it's one thing I wouldn't drop unless absolutely necessary. As I'm mainly being frugal in order to save (just a small bit of debt left to pay off) - and because I like this way of life, then I don't think it would be fair to stop the lessons just to shave a bit more off the budget. It's always about getting a balance isn't it - like the earlier commute cost/time discussion.

I've got my car (10 years old) booked in for its MOT at the end of the week and praying they don't find something wrong with it that will bust my car maintenance budget in one go. That wold be a bit disheartening, only halfway through the first month of the challenge! Fingers crossed it will be ok

Frizzlef

Thanks for the welcomes Determined and LF.

Dinner tonight involved trying to use up my potato mountain and my freezer stash. So sausage, mash and carrots was enjoyed by everyone!! Tomorrow will be omelettes to try and use up some eggs!!! They are out of date but after dropping them in water they are all fine. As my mum says 'they don't come out of the chicken with a date stamped on them.' Lol!!!
Well today has been a NSD. Apart for filling up one of the cars with diesel. My hubby doesn't count that but I do! Whichever way you look at it/ we didn't spend anything extra!! Lol!
Tomorrow I am walking up to do the school run, going for a run and then need to be back to let the tiler in. Then my plan is to have a housework day and get some more stuff put on g*m tr**.

See you all in the morning.

Frizzlef

We had our omelettes for dinner last night and they were yummy!! Can't believe this is a meal we dont normally have. Quick and easy and cheap!! We had a NSD yesterday. So far this week have only spent money on the weekly food bill and petrol. We are watching petrol closely as we have no idea how much we spend on this a month! We haven't got much in for lunch but I know there are some bagels in the freezer so avoiding the shops until tomorrow! Hope everyone else is doing well!

determined_new_ms

great going Frizzlef! quick & simple meals feature in our house at least once a week as well as a meat free night. It definitely helps in infinite ways. I work 2 or 3 full days (alternate weeks) so makes life simple to just have omlettes/something on toast/soup/jacket potatoes once a week. followed by a desert and it's a meal fit for a king

There has been an ongoing heated debate on fb over the article of the woman who spends £1pdpp and it has descended into a lot of food shaming! People saying if you don't spend £200 pw on groceries you obviously are a terrible parent feeding your children gruel! Honestly I wouldn't even know what to buy for that much! :eek:

foxyloxy11

People saying if you don't spend £200 pw on groceries you obviously are a terrible parent feeding your children gruel! Honestly I wouldn't even know what to buy for that much! :eek:[/QUOTE]

I agree!!I just think that they haven't got time to meal plan and realise how much money they're wasting! My budget each week is £80 for a family of 4. sometimes I'm under, sometimes if I run out of household/beauty items all at once I go a bit over but I never run out of food and we always have home cooked meals.

cw18

determined_new_ms wrote: »

People saying if you don't spend £200 pw on groceries you obviously are a terrible parent feeding your children gruel! Honestly I wouldn't even know what to buy for that much! :eek:

I'd love to know what size families and what income bracket those people fall into !!!

There was a time that I probably spent that (or very close to) to feed a family of 5 - and that was with hubby and I both having cooked meals at work and the three kids having school dinners on top of it! But we had income that more than covered it. I'm now trying to stick to £28/week for just me for all food (no work meals as extras), so if I were still catering for 5 that would be £140 (or possibly slightly less as there are some items it's no longer worth me buying in bulk due to wastage that I could if feeding that many).

My DD is a single parent with 4 children, and currently on benefits. By the time she pays all her bills (gas, electricity, water, part of her rent and council tax, contents insurance, TV licence) and puts money aside for birthdays, Christmas, school uniforms (currently for 3, 2 of them being at secondary school) and other clothing, shoes, school trips etc, I very much doubt she has anywhere near £200 a week left for groceries and my GDs certainly don't seem to be malnourished.

Frizzlef

Before we had children we would spend about £80 a week but a lot of that was prepackaged food and 'luxury items' like B and Js ice cream. We bought a lot of things that were BOGOF and a lot of branded items. But we threw so much food away! Now we don't really have any branded items (just one or two that we couldn't do without!) and generally we eat more fruit and veg and throw less food away. So I think our general diet is better. Loads more fruit and veg and far less fizzy drinks! So I think it is better for the children. Our kids don't question it apart from wanting crisps every day! But that's not me watching the pennies, it's me wanting them to enjoy other foods and not get into a habit of crisps all the time.
Another NSD today. Don't think it will be tomorrow though! ��

lynnejk

Evening folks

I honestly think some people have more money than sense !

I do wonder if some of the people bad-talking someone who lives frugally are either jealous or feel guilty that they waste so much. How on earth can anyone spend £200 a week on groceries - unless they have a large family and live on take-outs - is beyond my imagination :eek:

There is just my DH and me now, and we live really well on just £25 a week each for all our household spends. We could live more cheaply but both enjoy eating well and having meat or fish at least five times a week. We both have three meals a day, plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables and nearly everything is hm from scratch.

I have found that it does mean meal planning, batch baking and freezing, buying things ys or on offer, trying to zero waste and to keep ahead of the sms. However, once you get into the swing of it - it's not really that difficult to keep to a reasonable budget.

I really admire people that can do the £1pppd, but know that this is not possible with the diet that we both enjoy and the fact I don't have anywhere to 'grow my own'. I'm happy with how we eat and what we spend and that's sufficient for me.

Hope you all have a super weekend
Lx

Penny_pauper

Hi Everyone,
We are about £200 a month for a family of 4, so about £50 a week. Never any shortage of food but not a lot of sweets, biscuits or fizzy drinks. That's more a choice I'm making because if it's not in the house, I won't eat it I have no problem with the kids having treats and if need be I'll make a cake or biscuits with the girls. As said earlier in the thread it does take more time but I like the time it gives me to chat with my girls as we work.
I haven't posted often as the month has been tough as we had mot, road tax, 2 car services and 2 cars insurance on top of normal January spends! We have made it to the end of the month with no overspending and potentially £75 left to overpay loan (will know for certain on Wednesday) all food already bought in up to Wednesday (can you tell that's my pay day?) and as long as there are no unexpected costs between now and then, we should be golden.
My biggest problem has been me. I can't believe how much I want to spend, now that I have signed up to this challenge. I have had to talk myself down from booking a weekend away for the family because I feel I deserve a reward for staying on budget this month. Please remember I am new to this but I think I am probably going to learn quite a bit about what motivates me as this year goes on. Happy frugalling everyone. PP

determined_new_ms

I know! I am now time rich and cash poor so our outgoings had to be reduced drastically. I am experimenting with doing 1 shop a month for store cupboard items and going to the SMs at ys sticker times and then basing our meals around what I get. I'm hoping this month my gc bill will come in under £120. This includes cleaning products - like seriously how much cleaning products can you use? I get a bottle of bleach every few months and a bottle of cleaning fluid & a bottle of polish probably every 4 or 5 months. Seems that covers our cleaning needs.

I went gc shopping yesterday at 7 spent £61. went to Mr S, Mr A & Mr M and picked up veg for the week for about £1.20, what isn't going to be eaten over the weekend was frozen. I won't post this on the discussion as don't want to be reported to child services!

We are on a low income and what we can save means we are able to do things we enjoy doing with our money so seems like we are on a higher income than we actually are. In fact our budget for gc is actually £180 a month and if I can keep it down I can buy oh & I a membership to a spa (well it's a swimming pool and a sauna at a hotel and oh & I are sauna junkies) for 6 months out of the leftover cash from our gc budget - it's £80 each for a 6 month membership. Win win! eating healthily, exercising and doing something we love and not just mainlining our hard earned cash into the pockets of the big 4