2019 Frugal Living Challenge

ladymay

Thanks Crafty Lisa for the welcome. Slowly plugging away!


I'm still feeling a tad run down from a manic August so having an easy day today. I'm going to take a 'stock take' of everything I have in the cupboard and freezer and make a meal plan for the 10 days or so. I'm not very good at sticking to meal plans but once I've run down supplies in the freezer I can batch cook something and not have to think about it quite so much!


Planning for a NSD and not leaving the house... I've been away for work/seeing friends for a couple of days so need to catch up on tidying and budgets.


I hope everyone's keeping well

little_green

today I made myself chuckle with my level of frugality.
little conversation i had with myself (inside my head) when saw a pack of free coffee sachets at work
"i should take those. Hmmm. I don't know if I even like them. They're free! You'll learn to like them!! "

Siebrie

little_green wrote: »

today I made myself chuckle with my level of frugality.
little conversation i had with myself (inside my head) when saw a pack of free coffee sachets at work
"i should take those. Hmmm. I don't know if I even like them. They're free! You'll learn to like them!! "

And if you don't like them, you'll incorporate them into something else to hide the taste :rotfl:

Crafty_Lisa_Hampshire

I had a rather emotional weekend (which I won't go into here) but normally when I am in that frame of mind I tend to start spending to cheer myself up. I did do a little bit of spending but it was only on things I had planned. I went to a garden centre (which I had planned to do) with my sister to buy some plants to refresh my pots by my front door for winter (I love gardening). Instead of going crazy though I was looking at plants and saying to myself "can I split that one up into more than one plant", "is that on offer", "can we buy one each and get a discount". I also went and had a look in the reduced section and managed to get some violas for a £1.00. They were a little tired but the same ones in the "new stock" were £4.00. I even managed to get my sister to consider them ones instead of the more expensive ones. I also took some cuttings from some plants in my garden (to save pennies) and was given some seeds to use by my sister instead of buying fresh.


I sat down and checked my budgets yesterday to see how I was doing this month. I am away on holiday from 21 September, for which I have already allocated money, so I only have 11 days left to worry about for this month. Bearing that in mind I still have money left in the food budget (about £50), the spending budget (£10), going out budget (£28) and the petrol budget (£19). Everything else I needed to spend money on this month has been done. I am rather pleased to have that much left at this stage.


The frugalling habits are starting to imbed themselves into my DNA at last.

ladymay

Siebrie wrote: »

And if you don't like them, you'll incorporate them into something else to hide the taste :rotfl:

Yes! If they're not to your taste and you bake, it might be worth trying to pop one into a chocolate cake! I'm not one for coffee but it really does bring out the richness!

Frugaldom

Hi fruguys and gals, glad to see things are still ticking along and that the planning and budgeting are moving in the right directions. Hopefully, so too are any debts and/or savings.

This coming weekend I have another of our frugaler get togethers, so that should be spent doing some blackberry picking and looking for windfall apples so we can make crumble at dinnertime. I do enjoy the get togethers and we always tend to do some non-cash trading by way of swaps of some sort or another.

Has anyone in this group heard of hutting? My grandparents and their family extended family used to enjoy visiting their hut and my mum remembers her holidays from many years ago. This is something I have been looking into for Frugaldom so I'd be interested in hearing from anyone who is part of the rediscovery of hutting.

ladymay

Teeny weeny frugal win last night - Where I volunteer people bring in their surplus of home-grown fruit and veg to raise funds for the charity. Got a lovely punnet of red and yellow cherry tomatoes for 50p they're cheaper than L!dl, they'll taste great and I've put 50p in the charity coffers - not much I know, but I call that a win :T

[Deleted User]

Frugaldom wrote: »

Has anyone in this group heard of hutting? My grandparents and their family extended family used to enjoy visiting their hut and my mum remembers her holidays from many years ago. This is something I have been looking into for Frugaldom so I'd be interested in hearing from anyone who is part of the rediscovery of hutting.

This sounds fascinating:j. What kind of huts are they? Would love more information when you have the time please, and I'm sure others would too.

Frugaldom

Scrimpess wrote: »

This sounds fascinating:j. What kind of huts are they? Would love more information when you have the time please, and I'm sure others would too.

I'd love to build huts for friends and family use so I've been looking into how best to get started on a frugal budget. They are just basic huts (some may call them cabins) where people can get away whenever they need, forget about the 9-5 and freedom the great outdoors. Escaping the rat race and stripping life to the barest necessities now and again can be very therapeutic and enlightening. I guess it's like going camping in a shed without the pricetag slapped on for 'glamping' because the hutters build and own their huts. :cool:

Loads of info available here -> http://www.thousandhuts.org

ladymay

Frugaldom wrote: »

I'd love to build huts for friends and family use so I've been looking into how best to get started on a frugal budget. They are just basic huts (some may call them cabins) where people can get away whenever they need, forget about the 9-5 and freedom the great outdoors. Escaping the rat race and stripping life to the barest necessities now and again can be very therapeutic and enlightening. I guess it's like going camping in a shed without the pricetag slapped on for 'glamping' because the hutters build and own their huts. :cool:

Loads of info available here -> http://www.thousandhuts.org

Sounds perfect for a writing retreat!