2017 Frugal Living Challenge

lynnejk

Kerry_Woman wrote: »

Sadly my darling Mummy passed away this morning. Very emotional time for the whole family. We are all trying to sort things out. Have to rethink now about spending/finances/my future.

Soo sorry to read your news and that I haven't been here before, but too much RL happening atm.

Many condolences, hugs and coping vibes for you and your family, and hope all the arrangements come together for you all
Lx

lynnejk

Frugaldom wrote: »

Link to the 2018 challenge

Many thanks for the new thread.

Pleased to read that things continue to go well for you and yours

I'll be joining in again for another year.
Lx

Frugaldom

CW18 Do you still have your enhanced spreadsheet if anyone wants to use that raher than my basic one?

Kerry_Woman

Frugaldom and lynnejk - Thank you.

Finally sorted out what I had spent in November. Notebook has been updated and figures put in the columns I have for the monthly spends for the year.

cw18

Frugaldom wrote: »

CW18 Do you still have your enhanced spreadsheet if anyone wants to use that raher than my basic one?

I do. It could do with a bit of touching up, but is still fully functional as is - and I'm not sure I'm going to have time to do anything with it before the end of this month.

If anyone wants a copy all they need to do is send me a PM with an email address I can send a copy to

Frugaldom

cw18 wrote: »

I do. It could do with a bit of touching up, but is still fully functional as is - and I'm not sure I'm going to have time to do anything with it before the end of this month.

If anyone wants a copy all they need to do is send me a PM with an email address I can send a copy to

How are you doing? I'm trying to clear a bit of time this coming year to keep up on here because the past couple of years have just flown in and I ended up out of touch with MSE for much of the time. I don't even have the time to read back through everything so I'm hoping some of the challengers will be able to provide us all with a summary of their last 12 months to get me up to date.

When are you coming to visit? I gave up trying to get you to move here but maybe you could fit in a few days getaway now I can offer you complimentary frugaldom accommodation. :j

cw18

Shattered would be an understatement, The volume of post in the run up to Christmas is ridiculous, and it makes for long days.

Those days are made even longer by the fact my car has decided to throw tantrums in cold weather, meaning I'm currently commuting by bus again. If I'm at "my" office that's at least 3 hours a day, compared to 1.5 hours if I drive. Only plus side is it's cheaper, and I can use my bus pass on my mid-week day off I'm still being sent to others a fair bit, but my manager has been told they have to be easily doable on a bus at the moment.

On top of that I'm desperately trying to get back to my running and fit in some classes at the gym (former happening but not as much as it should, latter not happening at all at the moment) as I've managed to get a ballot place in the London Marathon on my 7th year of putting my name into the 'hat'. This means I need to get back to watching every single penny. So far I've spent £300 on 4 pairs of running shoes, paid £39 for my place, booked accomodation (£240 between two of us, so £120 to me - that's for an apartment near Hyde Park and only 2.5 miles from the start line), booked train tickets (maanged to get first class returns for about £62 each), £25-ish on a water bladder and carrier, and another £15 on socks. By the time I try various energy gels, get anything else I need and add in a food budget for the 3 nights in London I reckon I'm looking at £800 :eek: My OH (bless him) gave me his old Heart Rate Monitor as it had functions mine didn't that were useful for me - and then (because I kept missing some of the buttons I need to press to get all the various bits of it working together) he's bought me an even fancier one (the same as he has now) as a combined Christmas and Birthday present. I told him off as I know what they cost (in the current sale the manufacturer has on), and even though I know he can easily afford it I now feel guilty about how little I've spent on him

That's money I'd pretty much earmarked towards car repairs / replacement, especially as I'm not convinced it will get through MOT this year. Needed a fair amount of work last July, has had more done since and there's more I should be looking at now (but it's still legal to drive, so I'm ignoring the minor issues).

And that's why I've given up on trying to do the minor maintenance to the spreadsheet by the end of the month. I'll try and do it earlier next year so it's ready for 2019 though It's mostly the way things get displayed as I originally wrote it in Excel, then had to migrate to Office which messed it up. I now have Excel again so should be able to sort it out.

Frugaldom

Wow. Cheryl, what a saga, but wow!Well done on gettng into the marathon, I am well impressed! Don't worry about the psreadsheet, I still have my basic one that I use and which can be downloaded, I just remembered yours was pretty more advanced than mine.

Good luck - happy frugaling in 2018 and PM me if you can ever fit in that long-overdue visit.

cw18

Frugaldom wrote: »

Wow. Cheryl, what a saga, but wow!Well done on gettng into the marathon, I am well impressed! Don't worry about the psreadsheet, I still have my basic one that I use and which can be downloaded, I just remembered yours was pretty more advanced than mine.

It still works as it is, it's just the text in some of the boxes may change colour for no apparent reason at the moment which sometimes confuses people

Good luck - happy frugaling in 2018 and PM me if you can ever fit in that long-overdue visit.

I will do

Frugaldom

Only 12 days remaining until we celebrate the end of this year through to the beginning of next and as usual, I'm last minute bargain bagging online via mu favourite cashback website and always hopeful that my free Lotto entries will win me a small fortune. Well... the syndicate won on 3 numbers, so we each got the princely sum of £1.25! As my dearly departed granny used to say, it's better than a poker in yer eye or a slater up yer nose! :rotfl:

My budget sheet has almost been completed - just awaiting the last electricity meter readings so we can pay it bang up to date. Everything else is looking not too bad, although I went a bit over on the groceries, having just done a big order from Asda online and then placed a Musclefood order to take advantage of their £1 deal. Just means the freezer and cupboards are full before we even start the new year.