2018 Frugal Living Challenge

foggy_froggy

Hello, bit late but can I join please? Budget is £6000 but will try for less. Aiming for a more self sufficient life in 2019 but need to clear a few debts before hand.

CosmicZebra

I've been following and lurking since the new year. I've been really inspired by the posts here and it's made me conscious of how wasteful all this buying stuff for the sake of it is. Well, no more!
Last month, I managed to save more than half my salaryy, just by spending wisely.
I downloaded an app and logged every penny in and out
Food: I spent £386 for the month; roughly half the usual. Shopped at Aldee not Weetrose and made everything from scratch. Even bread. Batch cooked and froze. Used a weekly meal plan and shopping list. Much cheaper, much nicer.
I did a toiletries inventory (no more stupid expensive stuff and endless plastic) Using up what's there, then back to soap and plain stuff.
Not buying clothes unless replacing things.
Ordering books from the library, not buying.
Enjoying family walks with the dog rather than expensive days out.
I bought vinegar and Stardops, decanted in a spray bottle for cleaning. Cheap and great.
Got TV fixed rather than just buying a new one.
Not going near shops!!
Also got a savings goal app on my phone. I'm going to see if I can save £7000 this year by keeping this up. It's been pretty painless and I feel better for it! Thanks for giving me the impetus.

indigowarrior

I am assuming you said yes. lol. I haven't included my rent in this. I had to increase my some categories or I would have come well under £4000. So planned Expenditures are:
Food £1540
Electric £440
Subscriptions £205
busfairs 198
Eating Out £130
Clothing £200
Takeaway £220
Gifts £100
entertainment fund £440
Internet, Phone and Mobile. (They are all with the same company) £418
Sundries £100
Total is £3991

Not sure what I will do with that £9 lol.

LittleGingerFox

Evening all! Welcome to the newbies- lovely to have you with us! I spent today, but it was for a product that I'll get reimbursed for as work expense so that's fine, I also found 5p on the floor (whilst on my way back from picking something up on freecycle,....hurrah!) so I'm keeping on eye out all the time now for loose change I downloaded an amazing free book from tinybudgetcooking,com that claims the meals work out at less than 90p per person. The recipes look great but i'll use comparasaurus and mysupermarket tomorrow to do the maths.
From FB today.....has anyone heard of wombling? As in collecting disguarded receipts and seeing id there are items you can claim money back on/ points to claim etc? Is this legal? It doesn't sound right to me but wanted to sound it out with a few of you guys first.
I hope you have all had a lovely weekend and are ready for another week of NSDs

LittleGingerFox

Tanya12345 wrote: »

..... I'm ending up with more pots than Winnie the Pooh !

Hahahaha!!!!!:rotfl:

indigowarrior

LittleGingerFox wrote: »

From FB today.....has anyone heard of wombling? As in collecting disguarded receipts and seeing id there are items you can claim money back on/ points to claim etc? Is this legal? It doesn't sound right to me but wanted to sound it out with a few of you guys first.
I hope you have all had a lovely weekend and are ready for another week of NSDs ;)

Your not on a dave ramsey group are you? As that came up on there?

lynnejk

LittleGingerFox wrote: »

...........
From FB today.....has anyone heard of wombling? As in collecting disguarded receipts and seeing id there are items you can claim money back on/ points to claim etc? Is this legal? It doesn't sound right to me but wanted to sound it out with a few of you guys first.
I hope you have all had a lovely weekend and are ready for another week of NSDs

It's fine. It's receipts that people have discarded so their loss is your gain.

Suggest you ask on the Make upto £10 a day thread as they will probably be able to tell you more about it. Good luck
Lx

spudsmum

Frugaldom wrote: »

Wow! Over £1000 saved this year so far! Well done Spudsmum... Here's to your clearing all the CCs soon! I still use mine regularly but pay in full every month - it accrues a to y bit cash back.

Thanks Frugaldom I can hardly believe it - just shows the impact that mindless spending has - and what can be achieved when you really think hard about every penny you spend. I keep my card for emergencies at the moment but hoping a time will come where i have enough in my savigs pots not to need that little safety net!

evuka wrote: »

:rotfl: your mutant chicken always gives me a laugh!

That chicken will forever be legend in this house - must have got 25 meals out of the blessed thing - good job we all like chicken

spudsmum

Greetings from sunny Portugal!

Having a lovely time here and a fairly frugal one too! Been upgraded from a bog standard cheapo hotel room to a deluxe suite with kitchen and three (why would you ever need three??) balconies. The cost of this room would be over €400 per night and I didnt pay much more than that for the whole holiday so its all good!

Today was a NSD (yes I can do frugality even on holiday ) as we made the most of the all inclusive food and drink and just played on the beach for most of the day - excellent free entertainment.

We arrived early yesterday morning and all I have spent since being here is €50 Of that €30 is for wifi for the whole week (the boys cant live without it apparently! :mad:) €10 for a pair of sunglasses to replace the ones DH left in the car in the UK :mad: and the rest for a few bottle of pop to save us trampling down to the bar every time we want a drink plus milk and water for the babies so hopefully most of those will be one off expenses. Normally on holiday we just haemorrage money so I'm quite pleased with that.

I did however spend £45 in 5 minutes at W Smiths at the airport :eek::eek: a bag of crisps, a drink and a bar of chocolate each plus a magazine for each of the kids - I nearly fell through the floor when he rang it up - that will teach me! on the plus side that will come from my uk weekly budget and, as I'm not there now I wont spend any more of that this week!

Tomorrow may be interesting as we're heading into town - eldest wants to browse the sports shops. The kids do have their own spending money though so hopefully my purse is safe from persecution - wish me luck :rotfl:

spudsmum

Littlegingerfox I womble a bit!

Mainly my own receipts from Asda but if I find one on the floor or in a trolley then I'll do that too - its all perfectly fine and legal as long as you only take receipts that are discarded and freely accesible. eg from what I've read - you cant take them out of bins (which i wouldnt anyway lol) but ones left in trolleys or the floor is ok. I'd do it more but generally have the kids with me so dont get much chance to have more than a cursory look around :mad:

Theres a guy in my area does it as a hobby and uses the vouchers to buy stuff for the local food bank. He's a bit of a local celeb and always on the front of the paper and Asda are fine with it,

Asda's is really easy - just input the code from the bottom of the receipt and on a good day I can make back £3-£4 in vouchers which I use against my next shop. I've been doing it since xmas and got about £12 so far - probably would have been much more but I dont shop at Asda every week. You can only redeem 10 vouchers per calendar month though.