2017 Frugal Living Challenge

Frugaldom

For those who may not know, I run my personal challenge elsewhere and you can find the frugal working project updates on my Facebook page. I'm not asking you to go there, just explaining that they are no longer recorded here.

HAPPY FRUGALING!

FrankieM

Hi Everyone

I'll be joining in again this year.

The plan is to earn as much as I can and save as much as I can for travelling and getting my own place later in the year.

Frugaldom

Great to 'see' you, FrankieM and Allie23!

*Jellie*

Frugaldom- is there somewhere we can get hold of your basic spreadsheet to save reinventing the wheel?

angelicious

Can I join please for 2017, really need to start living more frugally and getting the most for my money:T

Florence_J

My 2017 Budgets

Due to paying the majority of my money towards my debts I have decided I will only live on a tightly budgeted income of £100 once all bills have been paid.

I am hoping to get a job local to where I live to save on my season ticket costs so will readjust my budgets if this happens.

Gifts - £25 a month/£300 a year (I am hoping to heavily subsidise this with survey vouchers)
Health - £5 a month/£60 a year (This is for things like visiting the Dentist which is thankfully very cheap where I live. I just hope I have no problems)
Postage and Packaging - £5 a month/£60 a year
Travel (Visiting Family) - £15 a month/£180 a year (This is money I will put aside so I can visit my family more than I did in 2016)
Travel (day to day) - £10 a month/£120 a year (this is travel on top of my train season ticket and unrelated to social activities)
Work Expenses - £7.50 a month/£90 a year (This is to pay for tea and milk to take to work)
Social - £27.50 a month/£330 a year (I will have to be very careful with this budget)
Clothing Maintenance - £5 a month/£60 a year (I want to prolong the life of my clothes and shoes by taking them to be cleaned/fixed when needed.

I have decided that I will not be buying things like DVDs, Books, unessential homeware items etc in 2017. I have also decided that I will not be buying any clothes with cash and will instead have to ask for vouchers for my birthday or save up my survey vouchers for items I need.

lynnejk

Evening all

Hoping to get accounts and therefore budget sorted this week

I would like to wish you all a happy and healthy new year and good luck with being frugalities.
Lx

cybertortoise

I'd like to join please.

Our finances are so tight at the moment I need to do whatever I can to get the most out of my money. Plus I need some good habits rather than bad ones.

Happy new year to all x

Dizzy_Imp

Good morning and Happy New Year to you all...

Can I tentatively stick my toe in the water for this challenge please? Hoping for lots of inspiration and tips to become more frugal

Frugaldom

*Jellie* wrote: »

Frugaldom- is there somewhere we can get hold of your basic spreadsheet to save reinventing the wheel?

Hopefully this link will work and allow you to download and save simple spreadsheet. It is very basic and already shows my figures for £4,000 budget. You should change these to your own on the first page only (January) but do not change the totals as these will automatically calculate when you type in your own numbers. You only need to do this on the January page, then February through to December will auto-update.

Each spend you make, log it into the corresponding date and column as a minus, if you spend £10 on something then type it in as -10.00 so it shows up in red and is automatically deducted from your budget total as the weeks & months progress.

If you find that you are overspending in a category, go back to the start of January and see where you can make changes in the original budget so that the overall amount stays the same. Where the current total says £4,000, this should always show your budget figure, so if you have £10,000 coming into the household then that number cannot add up to more. If it does, start cutting back on the category amounts until you get it to show your budget figure.

Needs, not wants... prioritise your spending to keep a roof over your head, food on your table, warmth in your home debts that will eventually vanish and become savings.

ALWAYS MAKE A BACK-UP COPY.

CW18 did a more in-depth version of the budget spreadsheet and may still have it available. I find that keeping things simple keeps things simple and I have been working with this exact same spreadsheet for years.