2018 Frugal Living Challenge

LittleGingerFox

Hi everyone I'm not on here so much I'm sorry but I am still frugalling away. I have spent more this month but it has all been budgeted for so I'm not concerned. Me and my partner are still committed to frugal/ budget life so it has made everything easy. I am very grateful for that. I have also been ebaying everything and I've made over£200 this month which has gone straight onto the credit card. I have a "dave job" interview on Saturday so I'm going to try my very hardest as I really need to make super big payments on credit card. Some of my debt killing hunger has gone but the frugal lifestyle is normal and comfortable so I think I can carry on slaying this at payday. I'm also due some money back from my home insurance company for some fire damage repairs so whatever is left over after replenishing my £1000 emergency fund will go off credit card. I hope everyone is well - best of luck to y'all xx

Tanya12345

Hi Fruggies, just bouncing in ! Spent today -feeling glum, supermarket seems sparsely stocked ( no space for bargains !) plus food is rocketing up in price ! Any canned pulses are rising in price each week, am now costing out dried goods - I saw on a US website the plan of cooking a whole batch and freezing in portion/ recipe sizes ( makes such good sense but I has never thought of it -duh!!).
Perhaps it's just the winter blues, sure Spring is just around the corner - then who'll need the wretched supermarkets, forage, grow, scavenge and trade .
Onwards and upwards my friends, we will overcome... Hugs to all xx

Tanya12345

Hi Me again ! Having to do some serious juggling here !! Grocery budget has 38.30 in it, have just received vouchers from Morrisons with a min spend of £45.... If all the vouchers are redeemed it means potentially £8 in points/ vouchers....... At the mo my budget is per month so it means 'borrowing' from the eek fund or next months budget. Think I will have a juggle and take advantage of it as I can plan the list really carefully and stock up until the end of March.
Am I being hoodwinked into spending more than I should ?
Am I being careful/ frugal or just a victim of very clever marketing ?
Spudsmum - hope things are looking up.
Indigo warrior - hoping for positive things on your housing situation.
Hugs to all xx

cw18

Tanya12345 wrote: »

have just received vouchers from Morrisons with a min spend of £45.... If all the vouchers are redeemed it means potentially £8 in points/ vouchers....... At the mo my budget is per month so it means 'borrowing' from the eek fund or next months budget. Think I will have a juggle and take advantage of it as I can plan the list really carefully and stock up until the end of March.
Am I being hoodwinked into spending more than I should ?
Am I being careful/ frugal or just a victim of very clever marketing ?

As long as you're not going to be going into debt to meet the spends and you stock up on items you'd have been buying over the next few weeks (when you'd have been spending that money anyway), then I'd go for it.

The only store I get any such offers for these days is Icel@nd. I've recently completed one and need to spend the free £5 by this Sunday, but had already been planning for months to do a shop there this Saturday so that's fine. The one they sent before that I didn't do as I didn't have the freeer space to store what it would have bought me - and I won't buy things there that I can get cheaper at A!di just to meet the spend, as by doing so I'm already really wiping out the 'free' money. I did a couple last year which were at lower spend requirements, but the one I missed out on they'd lifted the amount I needed to spend which made it hard as a singleton on a budget even if I'd had space to store it all. This latest one was back at the lower limit. I'm now waiting to see what they do next time, but I'll be giving it a miss if they raise it back up again

mumof3.12kindebt

we are plodding on but we must try harder.

on the up side, i have some money to pay in the bank and once that goes in we have saved £4k towards our house fund.

i've decided this christmas im going to buy as much as possible second hand for our children, buying new just seems wasteful

oh we have also just moved over to black waste bins , and dont qualify for the bigger family size one, so we are going to have to be more careful from now on with what we are buying

cw18

mumof3.12kindebt wrote: »

we have also just moved over to black waste bins , and dont qualify for the bigger family size one, so we are going to have to be more careful from now on with what we are buying

I take it that's a wheelie bin? Do you also have the ones for recycling? How often is your black one emptied?

We've been on wheelie bins for years (16 years I've been in this house, and I guess it must have been in place for the 9 months we rented before that) with different colours being introduced as time passes. I have blue for paper & card, brown for tins, glass & plastic, green for garden & food, and black for everything else. Our collection schedule was changed last September and the black, blue and brown are now every 3 weeks, with the green being fortnightly. As a singleton my half size blue one is going out about every 8 months, my half size brown one about every 4 months, my full size black one about every 6 months, and my full size green one every fortnight during lawn cutting season and roughly twice between Novemeber and April (as the food starts to rot down and produce smelly liquid). I also have a compost bin at the bottom of my garden I should be putting tea bags and veg peelings into, but it needs the contents turning at the moment so I've not been paddling down a soggy garden during the winter!

Frugaldom

Hi fruguys and gals, hope everyone is batteneing down the hatches for the next batch of howling winds and possible snow. It's already very windy here and I am not venturing far - still eating out of stores so not shopping.

Grocery spends for year to date are £107.28 plus £2.99 on toiletries. We still have plenty in store for eating but I am almost out of flour and don't think pancakes made with wholemeal bread mix will taste very nice. Hens and ducks are laying now, so I definitely need flour! I'm now out of cheese, but we have started receiving leaflets through the door for Farmfoods, advertising cheese at £3.99 per kilo plus there are vouchers attached, so I am tempted to make the trip and stock up on about £50 worth of absolute essentials!

Only a couple more weeks until we get to the end of the first quarter and a proper analysis of the budget to date. Minimising March is being helped along by the winter weather. We'd bagged up a load of clothes for the charity collections but, once again, the bags sat out for 2 days and those responsible for collecting the filled bags failed to return! Most irritating, as these types of occurances cannot possibly be helping the charities involved!

DawnW

Frugaldom wrote: »

Minimising March is being helped along by the winter weather. We'd bagged up a load of clothes for the charity collections but, once again, the bags sat out for 2 days and those responsible for collecting the filled bags failed to return! Most irritating, as these types of occurances cannot possibly be helping the charities involved!

Same happens here. We get no end of these bags, despite having a notice on the door requesting that they not be left. If neighbours leave donations out, they end up scattered down the road blown into puddles by the wind, as they are left there for days

If you read the small print on the bags, only a small proportion of the money made from the contents goes to a charity, and these are often ones I have never heard of. I use them as free bin bags to be honest - there are charity shops in town raising money for a local hospice and a mental health charity that I prefer to donate to.

mumof3.12kindebt

Yesterday I sorted out our bedroom. I've ordered some chest of drawers and bed side tables 2 of each. Total cost £265 . Now I've got the place almost how I want it except for needing bathroom storage that is the last of a big spend this year except for booking a few nights away camping in the summer.
I've realised I've spent alot of money in the last few months on "stuff" most of it still brings me joy but some doesnt so I need to be more thoughtful in the future regarding purchases.

Anyway I've made a rule for myself that we have to hit 10k saved before I book a weekend away or we spend money on anything that we don't actually need. I hoping this will give me the motivation to be more careful with purchases etc


I'm going to go and do the housework shortly . But while the kids are happy playing I'm going to read my book for abit.

mumof3.12kindebt

it's snowing here at the moment