2019 Frugal Living Challenge

ecoelle

Morning everyone. I have just checked the bank as it's pay day for me and it's gone in...plus an extra 25 from moneysupermarket which i had totally forgotten about☺ t was an offer when we switched our gas and electric. So I've paid 25 off the mortgage. I figured i hadn't been expecting it so a mortgage op was a good idea. I am waiting until monday to do the money move round as that's a, when my husband gets paid, and b, my day off. Cash spreadsheets here i come! One of my friends at work has offered to help teach me to use excel so I'm hoping to produce my own budget sheets and also be able to track my spends. Anyway ramble over. Just wondering...if you had money given or you found money or you get extra money what do you all like to do with it?

sinkorswim2018

Whipping1 - are you keeping a running total on your scratch cards so you know exactly how much you spend? Do you have a budget specifically for them? I'm just thinking an exact budget might allow you to feel in control? You might even be able to reduce it a little each month?

Hi Marinebee. Suddenly you will see where money has been wasted and you can deal with that cc. Do you have it on 0% interest?

The poster who asked where the spare money goes...my phone won't let me check whilst I type.... mine will go off my cc. After that I'm not sure whether to pay what I can without getting penalties on my mortgage for over paying. My plan is to save towards an extension which at the really expensive bit - knocking through and getting a new kitchen - I will need to borrow from my mortgage. By then I should know my budget very well - estimate in 3 years or so - so I plan to pay the increased mortgage hopefully on a shorter term ( I'm also due some pay rises before then).

josie

skint_chick wrote: »

Still haven't spent any money other than groceries and petrol. Mostly working from home this month, although I do need to buy new bras and some new trainers next month. Bras in my size are always more expensive, I would love to be able to buy Primark price ones but I have big boobs and they need good support at my age!!

Don't want to get personal about your bra size but have you looked in Asda? They have some nice underwear and it's pretty good value - they may do your size.

Frugaldom

Whippet1 wrote: »

... I have kept all my receipts however, which is a good move, and I now announce the latest spending from Whippet1:

Fri 18 Jan - Charity raffle ticket £1, groceries £2.60.
Sat 19 Jan - Snack lunch £6.06, household item £2.99.
Sun 20 Jan - Snack lunch scratchcard and paper £7.06, groceries £4.88.
Mon 21 Jan - Groceries and scratchcard £10.65, snack lunch and paper £6.53.
Tues 22 Jan - Zero.
Weds 23 Jan - Snack lunch £3.30, groceries £2.74.
Thurs 24 Jan - Dog food £5, snack lunch £3.15.

Hopefully I am back on the wagon now and will post more virtuous spending from now.

What did the extra spends total? (Sorry, brain not up to mental arithmetic at the minute :rotfl:)

Frugaldom

ecoelle wrote: »

...Cash spreadsheets here i come! One of my friends at work has offered to help teach me to use excel so I'm hoping to produce my own budget sheets and also be able to track my spends. Anyway ramble over. Just wondering...if you had money given or you found money or you get extra money what do you all like to do with it?

There's a lnk to a cash spreadshett in the first post, it's the same siple version I have been using for the past 20+ years, you can download it free and play about with it for practice.

Extra money - if I pick up any pennies, they go into my 'I'll never be penniless' pot, anything more than that tends to get spent on trees or hay for the rescue ponies. If it was a large enough sum, then premium bonds as a way of saving while the interest rates are so low. No debts or mortgages after doing extreme frugal living for many years, March 2019 is the 20th anniversary of the first moneysaving challenge I did/ran/published.

Frugaldom

Marinebee wrote: »

Hi everyone!

I have been following this thread with interest and have decided that this forum is going to be good to help me keep my spending in check!

Welcome to the land of extreme frugal living, or even just a bit of conscientious spending to help with your finances.

Do you pay your CCs off in full each month and are you getting cashback?

Contrary to what many may believe, I pay as much as possibly on my cashback credit card and then pay off the balance in full every month. I use my Nectar card wherever possible (mad at buying from Argos and forgetting I can collect points there) and I always check for links on the top cashback site. Over the space of a year, this extra 'free' money can mount up into quite a tidy little sum.

Food budget - I tried to remain with my £1 per person per day budget but it's very difficult when having to rely on local village stores where things can be twice the price of supermarkets and we don't have any supermarkets neaby to make the most of yellow stickers. I do, however, have friends who visit and bring a selection of whatever was available when they were in, so I swap tese for eggs from our hens or ducks.

little_green

Ok so here's a prime example of my frugality:
Today I find myself in a dilema. 3 items a I bought prior to the new year are now in the January sales. All items are still new with tags in returnable condition therefore o have the option to return and reorder and I'd save a whopping £7.50
I can return in store but I would need to order the replacement items online in order to get the full discount.
My qualm is - I may return the items, order online but then they are out of stock so I don't end up recieving the replacements
I could order the replacements first then returns the first bought ones to store (will still be within return period) but what if there's an issue and they don't take the return and then I'm left with 2 of each item.

Or should I just cut my losses and accept the £7.50 "overspend" for being impatient.
Fyi the price difference from what I paid and what I could get them for now breakdowns for the 3 items as follows £1.75 , £3 , £2.75

Kaylataste

Spent 9 pounds over the last 2 days but I’m still adding to my savings account and also I am using a help to save account from HMRC that I found out about.im useless at links but if you search it,it should come up.

Kaylataste

Little green I would cut my losses,you weren’t to know they were going into the sale.what if they are out of stock when you re order? Would you be disappointed? If yes, then keep them.

Flossygrows

A good week here. Did have an online shop from Mr Sains but had a 'spend £60 get £12' off so knew this was a good way of stocking up on those items we like from this store plus the odd own brand things we know are cheaper here than even some of the discount supermarkets.

Been reading this thread daily though so felt enthusiastic every day to work on being frugal. Made mac n cheese on Wednesday to use up a load of cheese we had been given by a friend who works for a local cheese company. They had lots of cut up sample sizes about to go out of date so she had given me a couple of bags. Some gone into the freezer and then a couple of batches of cheese sauce made and frozen as well as munching on it!

Then made a lovely parsnip soup from a couple of bendy parsnips lurking at the bottom if the fridge. My Mum popped in for coffee and brought a couple of her bendy parsnips and potatoes she would have otherwise chucked so used the parsnips and will use the pots this week. Gave her a portion of Mac n cheese in exchange!

This weekend I need to investigate both of the two freezers in the garage. I am sure I not only have frozen roasted courgette from the allotment but also leeks that were chopped up and frozen when had a glut. OH and I have homemade soup for lunch every day (him at work and me at home as I work from home) so both of these will be used to make more soup for next week.

Hoping now we can have a week of minimal spending. We now have a week without DSS2 as he is with his mother for a week. He is a VERY fussy eater (worse than my 8 year old DD) so we should be able to live out of the freezer and be creative with left overs this week.

I downloaded Frugaldoms spreadsheet yesterday as it is different from my own budget sheet. Going to run them side by side to help keep me focussed. Mentioned to OH that our household outgoings are about £2k a month (this is all my spending, food, petrol and bills and doesn't include any of OH's spending such as car costs or child maintenance/money for DSS1 at uni). £2k doesn't sound too bad but when you realise this is £24k a year it is quite a shock. He immediately asked how we can reduce that so he is totally on board with my aims and goals.

Tax bill to be paid on Thursday next week. This will wipe out my cash savings and then I am back to zero on my emergency fund so lots of work to be done to get that back into a good positive number!