2018 Frugal Living Challenge

FrankieM

Have a lovely time moll such a bonus to know you have the money made for it
I've decided to put 'extra' earned money aside for those sorts of things after reading of your sucess. It's such a great idea.

Failed again frugaldom and topped it off with a chippy tea. It's starting to get ridiculous now...lol
So, I'm getting a plan together, like my money plan to pay debt off and still save a bit, I now need to find a workable plan for food/weightloss.
I've got my notebook out

Salad again for lunch with ham, cheese, onion and mayo (another firm favourite) and I'm doing chilli for tea.

I'm going to head to wickes tonight with DS and buy the items needed for him to do my garden and then he can get on with that when he has time. I've budgeted £100, though I'd like to come in under so I can buy myself a sun lounger
Then it's his 'labour costs' to pay for and then....I can start putting my extra money towards some things I'd like.

Frugaldom

Have fun, Moll. I have my American student here for summer again so will be doing a few exra trips but nothing too far from home.

FrankieM, I am making an effort to lose weight and bring the spending under control again so we'll see how it goes. Garden-wise, can you borrow tools and posts ads on local freebie or swaps pages on the likes of Facebook or Freegle and try to get some planty things and a sun-lounger that way? I know that for me, it sometimes works out cheaper just buying the stuff online, as travel for collection costs more, but mybe you are in a more built-up area than me. Save from spending and throw that money straight at the debts. Your bugbear could be the very common scenario of feeling the need to see your money doing something for yourself but, unfortunately, until you are debt free, you'll need to re-educate your thought processes to get them accepting/understanding that all money is someone else's until you've made the transition to debt freedom. It's a very difficult concept for many to accept or even understand but one that penny drops, it s all so much easier to make small changes. Burt seriously, at the end of the day, the aim is to have your money really and truly being YOUR money and not just the next installment of what you owe anyone else. Hopefuly that makes sense without sounding moany or cheeky, as it is meant in a helpful manner.

I have asked my student to remind me every day that I am to lose weight by buying and eating less junk. I have a month left before she leaves.

FrankieM

Frugaldom Not moany at all. All tools will be borrowed but my DS is doing a little seating area with slabs, so that's where the cost comes in. I've not seen anything going for free recently and I need to get it done before he goes back to Uni.
Still, so far we've not bought the supplies required so it may not end up happening which will save me money!
I'll keep you posted.

My weight loss and debt free plan is a 12 month plan. I've worked out what I can over pay and it'll take me a year. I've also worked out that 2lbs a week will take a year too. It's about life changes and baby steps and new habits.

I've also worked a 'zero dollar' budget. All my money now has a place to go and is paying for something.

Anything else I may earn, because it's not for certain, is for trips out, travelling and treats.

lessonlearned

lessonlearned wrote: »

No 44 here.....I haven't kept a real track on things but I think I'm doing ok.

I shall be moving house soon and will be incurring quite a few expenses but I shall definitely be reading and posting more often from now on. My budget is going to be very tight so I have started really tracking my spending now.

Well done Madam Mim on being debt free.

Well My frugalling has been much better since I last posted. I have been keeping a spending diary and it has really helped me focus a bit better. Fewer impulse buys and non budgeted spends and even managing to get the food budget down a bit.

Still not got a moving date yet.....hoping for September.

Like Squirrelgirl my new house will be a "project" and I will have a very small renovation budget. Going to have to be resourceful and imaginative. :rotfl:

FrankieM

I'm looking forward to hearing about your renovations lessonlearned

Did the grocery and fuel shopping yesterday and stuck to the dwindling budget. It feels good to not be going into next month with any of this month's spending!

I went into Iceland to buy some frozen cauliflower, knowing that I only had 90p in my account but 10p cash and it was £1. Asked the guy at the til if I could pay 10p cash and then the rest on my card and he didn't bat an eye. I guess It wasn't as weird a request as I thought!

I've sorted out MS Money again and set up my budget on there. While I was doing that I noticed I'd budgeted money for DS when he's at Uni twice so that felt like a windfall.

Lunch made and chicken out for fajitas tonight

Siebrie

I once sold a stamp I kept in my wallet to a passer-by, and with that money bought 5 loose carrots and 1 chicken sausage. Together with some rice I already had at home, that was dinner......

Frugaldom

Staying with the same theme of juggling and scrimping cash, many years ago, I used t be able to take hen eggs to the local shop and trade them for fresh dairy produce - mainly milk and yoghurt. I was a great agreement with the shop owner, who was using the free range eggs for themself. Nowadays, there are so few small, independent shop owners that it's almost impossible to find one who would, or even could, trade anything. It certaily puts things into context when reviewing how things were and comparing them to how things now are. I checked back some old records and, as a prime example, in 1991/2, a friend and I were selling a full case of eggs every week at £3 per tray of 30 eggs (£90 worth of sales) between us. Move on 17 YEARS and you can still buy a tray of 30 eggs for £3.25 The value of money, itself, changes over the years and some tings we currently buy are much cheaper than they were in the past. Frugal living can be seen as a way of playing the system at its own game - the ability to adapt diet and lifestyle accordingly is, for me, the key to success.

mumof3.12kindebt

Kids broke up on Friday for the summer. I'm so excited .. I have taken off 3.5 weeks in holiday.
I have also done some research and managed to cover around 3 weeks of the holidays with activities (mainly out of the house) we have national trust passes which helps massively. We have a few appointments too and I'll be at work abit so it's going to be a busy summer but I'm really excited and determined to prove to myself I can give the children an amazing summer without spending a fortune and becoming skint . All of the days out we will take a picnic and snacks and drinks so most of the days will be no spend.

I've got a last little bit of debt to clear then I can concentrate on building our emergency fund and then our deposit fund. So I must stay focused. I wrote out a new more realistic budget but deleted it from my computer so I need to do that this week. Also need to do my studies for my diploma ... Life is busy but for now it's all good things.. Hope everyone else is keeping well

FrankieM

I remember those school holiday days. We lived in a village at that point and most of the time the kids went off and I didn't see them until they needed feeding!

Now I look forward to the summer holidays cause the roads are lovely and clear for the commute to work

Your plan sounds great mumof3

We're having an afternoon tea to raise money for cancer today at work, so no lunch made. I made the flap jack that I'm taking though and the last of my cash pennies will be going into the pot.

That'll be my money gone and a clean slate for my new budget from payday at the end of the week. I feel quite organised with it as every penny has a home, rather than the slightly 'fudgey' way I've been dealing with the money that isn't for the main spending.

cw18

FrankieM wrote: »

Now I look forward to the summer holidays cause the roads are lovely and clear for the commute to work

Me too


And, strangely, the post gets very light too. So that makes for easier/slightly shorter days at work for a few weeks. Then we start ramping up for Christmas