2017 Frugal Living Challenge

try_harder

Thank you both for the warm welcome ,i am now going to work my way through the posts

Jazee

Ok, so I must try harder. Overspent by £380 in March against budgets. Did spend £500 on home improvements, but all the same there was no council tax or water to pay. Also, I'm not sure what's going to happen on the job front for me in the near future so I do need to be careful.

danni.yelly

Frizzlef wrote: »

I don't know if you have kids but my kids love angel delight so I tend to do that when we have a surplus of milk. Also you use a pint in tuna pasta bake so we tend to have that when we have a lot of milk.
Do you definitely have to buy a new oven. Ours stopped working last year. We googled it and there was a brilliant website that said what part we needed to buy and how to fit it using a step by step video!! Think we fixed it for about £60. Worth a try if the cooker isn't too old!

No kids but I love a bit of angel delight and the pasta bake tip is perfect, thanks!
Also thanks for the tip on the cooker, unfortunately we had a friend take a look over it and it was too costly to fix, we did manage to get a re-furb for £100 with fitting included, so not too bad!

danni.yelly

Oh it is so motivating to be reading what everyone has been upto on here!
Im not doing too badly on the budget, just worked out spending for March and i've a few bits to add on (need to find the receipts!) but its looking ever so slightly under budget for the month, yay!

Im glad as February was a terrible month!
Our cooker had broken so we'd spent extra money on eating out (I don't own a microwave) and then the cost of a new one. Work was quiet for me (im freelance) so had to borrow a little money from my savings to cover that but March has took a nice turn keeping me busy.

Thanks for all the tips on using up the milk, we're not big milk drinkers here so some lovely advice on ways to use up! Have managed to cut the food shop right down now, averaging £20-£25 for 8-10 days (theres just two of us) which is allowing us a fortnightly dinner date and still under budget which is really nice!

Gas and Electric are TINY compared to last year now, I changed supplier to Bristol Energy and we're paying roughly £40 for both a month. I think a massive amount is due to us making sure to unplug everything not in use such as phone charges and laptops! That saved me £5 alone! Now looking at timer plugs for things like the internet and lights for when we're out the house/asleep to really keep the cost down. Water bill here is unmetered so nothing I can do there.

BUT Sky and mobile phone contract are on the naughty list EVERY month. I NEED to get the costs down on these. Ill be haggling with Sky again this week, wish me luck!

Penny_pauper

Morning everyone,
finally got round to looking at the figures for March. Came in under budget by £92 which frankly I was amazed at as I feel I was constantly paying out for things. able to make a £300 payment towards the debt so currently at £6597. Have a good weekend
PP

parsniphead

I really enjoy this thread and it does focus the mind but I think it's time to really begin to focus as my fixed term contract end in June. My self employed work is starting to build but I need to keep pushing and cutting costs.

I have a load of veg plants which need sorting out, planting and transplanting. It's such a lovely day, I will enjoy spending it in the garden.

I also have a new 0% card to transfer some debt with interest too. Later a new meal plan and freezer/cupboard inventory.

Keep going everyone

WeeMidgie

Hello, everyone, I have just retired and it's a good time for me to join in, as I've retired 31 months before my state pension age. I'll post my budget later, but just wanted to say hello to my fellow frugallers!

determined_new_ms

welcome WeeMidgie! kudos on retiring early. My retirement seems so far off and in all probability I'll be working till lunchtime on the day of my funeral!

parsniphead

determined_new_ms wrote: »

welcome WeeMidgie! kudos on retiring early. My retirement seems so far off and in all probability I'll be working till lunchtime on the day of my funeral!

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

Welcome weemidgie

I'm seaching through the house today to see what can be sold to reduce the debt and the house stuff. :eek:

My cupboards and freezer and very full so I want to go through the everything and see what I can do for my meal plan before shopping on Thursday. I want to keep the shopping billf as low as possible.

I've put lots of stuff in the garden but plenty more to put in. This should cut the veg/salad bill later this year. I'm going to eat a veg based diet as much as possible.:j

WeeMidgie

That made me laugh out loud, sympathetically.... I've retired because of health issues... holidays had become convalescent periods, latterly spent in bed, in between the uphill trudge of work. So relieved to have stopped and to be able to live life at my own speed!

I'm not on sickness benefits so income is a work pension, £4,516 once the tax gets put back in, which I can apply for at the end of May, and the rest of expenditure will be spent as frugally as possible from savings! I've saved like a woman possessed in the past few years, as I could see this day coming. But although my GP fully understands my health issues, they don't equate to points in the PIP or ESA benefits. So retiral it is!

The house is paid off, and is small, modern and well insulated. Car is small, modern and sips petrol! All this was planned into the Great Work Escape. I need to finesse my Sky bill for phone and internet, so will phone and threaten to leave, again... it has worked well before!

I intend building up my stamina and using my older person's bus pass as much as possible (I live in Scotland where the bus pass option kicks in at 60). I had got a bit lax with meal planning in the last few months of work, so the sensible chef's hat is back in place, and I'm enjoying browsing my cookery books.

I'll do the budget later on, I promise.