2017 Frugal Living Challenge

Florence_J

My OH and I have decided to enforce 'No TV' days where we don't watch anything on TV, Netflix or a DVD and instead listen to our extensive music collection to make the most of it.

This has had a surprising positive benefit on being frugal as now that I am no longer tied into a TV series or watching some filler TV i can batch cook and prepare my lunches for the next day, and as a result I have enough food prepped for the rest of this working week.

I know this is probably far from news for anyone else on here, but it has been a revelation for me.

Jazee

Thank you for the basic spreadsheet. Not sure I'll be joining the challenge but it will be good for me to see where I'm wasting money. Ashamed to say my expenditure including rent etc is coming out at £32k.

Savvy_sewing

I want to try again this year.
I have followed your link and hope that my changes etc will help me slow down on my spending.
I always fall at the wayside when my children need bailing out.
My debt has therefore doubled in the last 12 months.
I am hoping to increase my wage and decrease my reliance on benefits and have a target for debt free and benefits free by June 2019
I need to slim down my spending and clear the debts and de clutter my home by June 2019 to be able to move in with my BF.
I am therefore on a mission to do all this once and for all. For 12 years we have not been able to move in together because of my financial and my personal situations and now we have a date to head for.

FrankieM

Hi everyone

I'm working on a budget of £1000 a month. That covers everything (including a rather large car payment) except for the mortgage and anything to do with my youngest DD who is finishing her last year of school, which is covered by my ex.

I think my situation will change mid year, but I'm not sure how that's going to look or how it will effect me financially so I'll leave that for now.

The past two days I've been doing some batch cooking. I still cook for 6 and then just freeze the extra portions. I don't really like cooking so it means I only really have to cook once a month.

I would love some meal ideas, though, cause it's easy to get into a bit of a rut.

Now that my DD is back at school, I can get back on top of lights being switched off and the heating not being on all the time

Penny_pauper

Morning
Spent some time going over my figures and they are coming out as 35,500 per year. Totally horrified at the amount we really spend. I know that for my family and for me as a first time frugal living challenger it is going to be tough to change our ways. Aiming to spend only £30k this year. Cancelled some direct debits yesterday so that's £24 a month I will be keeping in my pocket each month from now on.
Have a good Friday everyone.

wit40iwtwan

Thanks CW18 for the spreadsheet - I have completed actual spend to date for January as well as known dates for direct debits - it made for sobering reading for OH! ;-)

Doing the no spend days and no new clothing for 2017 has really supported my desire to be frugal this year.

Have also found out I have time still to claim back both ticket and learning subsidy from work which will give me a few ££ back. In addition I used my consumer rights to query Amazon charges, TFL charges and a delay repay which gave me some money into the account also.

Next on the agenda is a car boot or ebay of redundant things that are just taking up space. 2017 is so going to be a great year!

mattie1949

hello to all and best wishes for this challenge-- my previous user name was bmma-but late last year lost access to internet so could not finish the challenge.the Christmas fairy brought me a laptop - but this time have decided to do things in smaller chunks-taking it weekly but will still lurk best wishes m x

determined_new_ms

hello everyone have had microsoft packages installed on the laptop (free courtesy of oh's work on the pretext that he does work from home. In reality I've never seen him doing any!) So have installed the ss, thank you frugaldom :A I also tried to find your page on fb but couldn't! Can you give me the name?

So been real inventive this week for oh's lunches - russled up a couple of hm pot noodles using scraps of lo chicken in freezer and also frozen veg - and also treated us to a fakeaway last night - all items ys and a grand total of £3.08 :money: keeps him happy!

yesterday I picked up some ys whipping cream so going to make some butter in a minute.

pleased to say the grand total of grocery spends this year is £12 and have just done meal plan for the next week and have enough of everything with the exception of milk and probably a fruit top up towards the end of next week :money: total ys super fan! Will be making wraps, cinnamon buns and a pizza today and tomorrow

Have set myself a stretch target of earning an additional £300 over the year. I already assume I will earn an extra £50pm so this brings my target to £900 extra £ for the year. I've done a few days ot last month and this so that will really bump up the total With that in mind I will list some items on fleabay over the weekend.

I love frugalling! I wish oh was on board more

Happy days guys

Savvy_sewing

After being slated on my thread for my choices of having card debt and still having holidays and helping my children out etc. I am going to try harder to get the debt down quicker than I have planned and will try harder to make holidays etc more cash neutral etc.
I know that if I try to do everything differently all at once then I will fail.
So for the start of the year I am going to just work at keeping the miscellaneous Spends down and keep within the food one.
Once I master those I will look at other areas. My current target is £18,975 this year for everything.

determined_new_ms

Mooloo wrote: »

After being slated on my thread for my choices of having card debt and still having holidays and helping my children out etc. I am going to try harder to get the debt down quicker than I have planned and will try harder to make holidays etc more cash neutral etc.

I tend to file away other's opinions of my life choice along with everything else I have no need for (you know nod, smile sweetly, make appropriate hmm, ah sounds but then file away afterwards ) honestly it's your life, you live it how you want. You can also tell people, it's your diary! Someone on a thread I go on everyday says "sometimes you have to adjust your crown and remind people who they are dealing with"

honestly it's up to you how you live, what you are happy with and what concessions you're prepared to make. Yep the way you live your life may not be met with everyone's approval but who needs that albatross anyway?

for my oh travel is really important, has always been. His mother was a flight attendant throughout his childhood and he always travelled all over the world. It is something that is a deal breaker for him. He has made concessions over the years, when we were in debt (and now that my income has reduced drastically) where we would have 1 holiday abroad - best deal found of course! - a sun holiday and a couple of camping trips. You decide what works for you and that's ok