2017 Frugal Living Challenge

Kerry_Woman

As I have been doing the Frugal Challenge for a few years, I went over the past spends and put them onto a spreadsheet for my own record. The overall totals have gone down over the years. Last year unfortunately, was up slightly. It will be good to keep a closer tab on my spending.


Last year I recorded the amount of toiletries used. It seemed better to me to see how much I achieved. Still going to be doing again this year.


Still achieving NSD's. Am not getting a weekly bus pass as this will encourage me more to go out and spend. Just adding a top up on my oyster card. Have been doing this since I finished my last temp job, so have saved money there. Am hoping by the end of Friday working day, I will know when I am starting my temp job. Might be starting on Monday. Then I have to put on a weekly zone 1-4 travel onto my oyster card.

Little--fish

Hello everybody,

I was hoping I could join you this year for the challenge - I've just started posting and have started my debt-free diary, but am wanting to join in with some challenges as well. I have been reading the forums for a few years and have followed the Frugal Living Challenge for the the last couple of years (but not being brave enough to join up and post), but now I've got my courage it would be great to join you.

I've downloaded the spreadsheet which Frugaldom posted recently and am in the process of altering it with my own figures and categories - when I have finalised it I will post my annual budget. Thank you for sharing it Frugaldom - I've really struggled in the past to find something that suits me in terms of recording expenditure but I absolutely LOVE this spreadsheet, it is so simple and yet contains everything I need to keep track

I am going to work through the figures tonight and hopefully post tomorrow - it will be quite eye-opening for me I think!

SusieHo

Hi all, I'd also like to jump in on this challenge. I'm 12 days into a 12 month sabbatical, after all bills etc. are paid, myself and my partner will have £400 a month for food, fuel, socialising and any other incidentals.

Over the past few years I've been working on getting our bills down, bulk buying meat and dried goods, tins and stuff, trying to meal plan and have finally bought a slow cooker. I've got my gas & electric down to under half what we were paying around 4 years ago, mainly through advice in Martins emails. Just got a great sim only deal for my partners phone with my current provider, same minutes, texts and gb allowance but sim only from £55 to £9. My contract ends in August and they will be moving my tariff on to this new one also so with those savings I'm hoping to make regular overpayments on our mortgage.

I'll be particularly interested in tips and ideas for batch cooking. I did a huge muscle food order when they had some good offers on which I piggy backed and used some loyalty points also so the freezer is absolutely packed.

Also looking to get really fit this year, I've joined a free meet up site and would like to join some walks that they offer, explore some new places with my dog and I've also looked into some free groups in my area, like a reading group at the local library.

Apologies if anyone nodded off ha ha I can ramble on a bit

SusieHo

cw18 wrote: »

DVD buying restrictions have been tested to the limit today. By early afternoon I'd watched 12 since the start of the year, which left me 'able' to buy a 6 disk set or needing to watch 2 more to buy a 7 disk set. After much consideration I went for the 6 disk set as it was at the lowest price in over 3 years and 63p less than I was prepared to pay for it. The 7 disk set is almost at lowest price ever (and available on another site slightly below the lowest ever Amaz0n marketplace price), but is a lot newer so I'd expect it to start coming down on a more regular basis over the next 12-18 months (plus it's still £1+ more than I'd really like to pay, and almost £2 more than the one I bought).

Have watched another DVD this afternoon, so I'm already clocking up towards being allowed another purchase :whistle: Should hopefully manage at least another 4 before the weekend, and will watch at least 1 on Saturday with OH. Might have to try talking him into watching another on Sunday as we're unlikely to manage one the next weekend due to family commitments

Hi there, not sure if I've done this right! Would you not consider buying an android box at a one off cost, unlimited box sets for just one outlay then? May save you some money in the long run? I know some people enjoy owning the physical item though but it could be a cheaper alternative?

Susie

determined_new_ms

Hi guys not really much to report - usual work, home, food, bed rinse and repeat!

Still working on getting all costs onto the ss I know I'vce spent £32.24 on food this year. Definitely have enough of almost everything to last until the end of the month apart from milk, bread and fruit although cleaning products are dwindling - I guess I'll have to take one for the team and not do much for the next 18 days

saw the sky bb deal in the newsletter so think I will sign up for that for a massive saving

today I've been home alone so reseasoned my le creuset skillet I also took a couple of hours to sit and watch a film. Felt guilty not *doing* anything but sucked it up and did it anyway....

tried out making skimmed milk from powder rather than buying fresh - can't notice the difference so there's a small saving - when you're right at the frugal ends of frugality there's not many savings to be had!

Really not very rock and roll I'm afraid!

cw18

SusieHo wrote: »

Hi there, not sure if I've done this right! Would you not consider buying an android box at a one off cost, unlimited box sets for just one outlay then?

I've seen a lot of chat about these (mainly on a couple of budgetting FB pages), but I've never actually seen one in action. I'm really not sure what the options are or what you can see on them, but the two biggest stumbling blocks for me are (1) if they can receive live TV it'll be an issue with me being licence free, and (2) I'm really not sure how legal they are given everyone who swears by them seems to have had them hacked / chipped so they can access services that they'd otherwise have to pay for!

I have access to DS1's Netfl!x account, but find it a pain trying to see what they have. If I know something I fancy watching I can search by title (and they have very few of the things I try to find), but I can't find any way of just sitting and searching through what they have on offer looking for inspiration (other than just flicking through the 'recommended' or 'top picks' on the front page). If the sticks run the same way I'd likely get fed up fairly quickly. Wouldn't be as bad if I could seach by actor/actress, but Netfl!x doesn't even seem to let you do that

I have to admit to liking having DVDs. I tend to go and randomly pick a dozen or so out of my boxes of them (yes, I have that many), then read the write ups on the back and decide which to watch first. Work my way through those (or most of them), and then go and randomly select another dozen or so.

Little--fish

Hi all, finally finished the annual budget - which has been a real eye-opener if I'm honest! I've never thought of things on annual basis before (always weekly/monthly) but I think I much prefer it. I also think it will help me to keep on track as when you see how much little spends can add up to over the course of a year it's scary!

So, my total annual budget for 2017 is £17 000. This is WAY more than the figure I'd imagined before I started, but actually, I think I've been pretty strict and if I keep within that figure I will be very pleased (and surprised!) Here is the breakdown:

Rent - £7800.00
Council Tax - £1200.00
Electricity and Gas - £500.00
Groceries - £2000.00
Petrol - £2600.00
Car Maintenance, Insurance & Tax - £600.00
Telephone, Internet and Mobile Phone - £280.00
TV Licence - £145.00
Footwear & Clothing - £200.00
Gifts - £200.00
Kids Activities - £250.00
Life Insurance - £740.00
Charity - £120.00
Solid Fuel (Coal) - £130.00
Cleaning, Nappies, Toiletries - £120.00
Misc. - £115.00

So, there it is! Petrol is necessary for getting to work but highlights to me that I need to be closer to my place of work in the long-term. Groceries will be a tough budget but hopefully possible (and I love reading the OS board so that will help!) Kids activities includes swimming lessons which I feel are fairly essential and the charity payment (one of two) includes entrance to the Wetlands Trust Centres and we go quite often to our local one for a free day out.

Oh, and in the household are me and my two little ones (3 and 6 years old) - they are the motivation for being as good with my money as I can be as I want us to be financially secure - and I really want to buy as house in the next few years so all spare pennies will go to my house deposit fund (and having seen how much I spend annually on rent :eek: I really want to buy somewhere).

I also want the kids to grow up being used to a more frugal and less wasteful lifestyle. They are very good already and help with not wasting food - coming up with ideas for leftovers, etc. and they love collecting driftwood for the fire and things like that. They are also happy to get warm by the fire and have hot water bottles in bed - so not using the heating too much! They are good with free activities too and love walking and playing outside (and helping with the veg growing).

Anyway, as this is my first year (hopefully of many) doing this I really hope I'm not too far off with my budget. I'm sure I will have missed things off and under/over-budgeted in some categories. However I will treat it as a learning year for me and I'm look forward to reading along, learning some new things and keeping up with how everyone else is doing

Oh, and finally - my ultimate aim (in about twenty years probably) is to build my own house, somewhere rural and be a s self-sufficient as possible. It will be tough to get there but it's my dream!

Sorry for the mega-long post, hope everyone is doing ok

lynnejk

Afternoon all

Finally finished annual budget for 2017. Have rounded up to nearest £ and totals £17,796. This is for me and my DH.

Rent...£3558
Council Tax...£1020
Electric...£1560
TV licence...£145
Phone & broadband...£324
Mobiles...£426
Insurance...£48
Bank charge...£120 *
Car insurance...£200
Car Tax...£130
Petrol...£1200 **
Car maint & Mot...£520
House insure...£80
Housekeeping...£2500
Wine...£1020
Misc...£720
Personal...£1200
Ent & Hols...£3000

*....package which includes breakdown, travel and mobile insure. This works out much cheaper than paying for them separately.
**..DH has to drive to/from work due to location/timings

Good luck everyone with their frugal attempts. Hope you all having a super weekend
Lx

[Deleted User]

Morning All, I haven't been on here much due to technical difficulties with my PC at home. I still need to do my budget for the year - I will try and get this done tonight and put up onto the page.


Frugal plans for tonight are:
Washing on and dry on kitchen pulley
Do annual budget and post to this page


If time, finish off a crochet blanket to set aside as part of a gift for my 4yo niece for her next birthday. To go with this I will also do a pillow and buy a doll as a later date.

Little--fish

Hi all,

Just wanted to say how fascinating it is to read other people's annual budgets and look at how different/similar they are. I'm also utterly in awe of those who manage to stick to the original £4000 total for the challenge - wow!

Looking forward to reading your budget allie23. The crochet blanket and pillow set sounds lovely, I'd really like to learn to crochet/knit but never quite seem to find the time to manage it. One thing I've noticed is that the more frugal I am, the more time it seems to take up - so cooking from scratch, growing food, finding wood, chopping wood, walking instead of driving - I feel it's all worth it, and very satisfying, but it can be quite tiring and time-consuming - does anyone else find that? I would't change for the world though!