2019 Frugal Living Challenge

spudsmum

Not posted for a while but been reading along.

Did well with my budget last week - £65 under budget and shopping was only £27 but that is offset by the fact that my car broke down on Friday and just when I was congratulating myself on the fact that I already the money in my car savings account one of my toddlers broke the tv today - we've only had it 2 months after they broke the last one and I definitely don't have any money in savings for that.

They say these things come in threes - dreading what the 3rd thing will be.

ma-ri-ella

payday on Friday , quite a low month with no overtime so hoping to be extra frugal and keep the spending to under 30 quid until next pay (4 weekly) should be fine as there is still plenty of stuff in fridge etc. Its just these not needed but wanted purchases cause problesms

gien

Evening all. Went back to work today after sick leave and am ok, a bit washed out but functioning. All my ebay listings finished on Monday and one sold so that went off in the post. I'll wait for my ebay invoice to be paid nad thne transfer the paypal balance into my savings. We are off on holiday next week so I will probably relist the ones that didn't sell on Sunday and then they are ready to be posted (or not!) when I get back.

Otherwise everything is going well - we should come in on budget this month for most things but I need to put some more aside for our summer holdiay (we do like our holidays!). Am working on ideas for extra income over the next few months....

little_green

ma-ri-ella wrote: »

payday on Friday , quite a low month with no overtime so hoping to be extra frugal and keep the spending to under 30 quid until next pay (4 weekly) should be fine as there is still plenty of stuff in fridge etc. Its just these not needed but wanted purchases cause problesms

:eek::eek::eek: £30 spend over 4 weeks wow :T that's ambitions, let us know how it goes!! pointers welcomed!!

PipneyJane

Crafty_Lisa_Hampshire wrote: »

Just a quick question for everyone. I was wondering how much people budget for their food and also for going out. I want to see whether I budget too much or not enough. If I budget too much then I need to bring down my costs. I live on my own (if that makes a difference) and in my "food" budget I generally include all household spends such as cleaning products and toiletries etc.


Thanks in advance for your feedback.

Lisa, there's two of us and our housekeeping budget per month is £220, which is subdivided as follows:-

£120 - general groceries, cleaning products, supermarket spending
£ 40 - Meat Fund. Gets saved up until we go to the butcher shop and refill the freezer
£ 40 - Bulk Fund. Used for big stock-ups on groceries and for shopping at Costco or Wing-Yip. Gets saved up until used.
£ 10 - Christmas Fund. Used for special Christmas food (e.g. a goose) and also for chocolate for Easter
£ 10 - Garden Fund. Used for seeds, compost and small tools.

For going out, we have a "Joint Date Night Fund" into which we contribute £60 per month. I also have a separate "Fun Fund" for nights out with my girlfriends, to which I contribute £40.

After all the bills are accounted for (including the above and petrol) we each have about £260 left over as "money to live off", which is to cover the day-to-day e.g. lunches bought, etc.

HTH

Pip

little_green

oh also I just want to add in here reasons for my decision to live frugally. Growing up my paretns both worked minimum wage jobs. They both had to work 6 sometimes 7 days a week (opposite shifts) in order to save enough money for us to be able to afford to do/have nice things & a nice hope. I feel bad that they had to work so hard. I dont want to be in a similar position as they had to be & I want to ensure I can offer to give them nice stuff they gave me growing up & that means me being financially responsible.

Crafty_Lisa_Hampshire

Thank you lifeisforliving, PipneyJane, CapricornLass and cw18. My budget is way too high then so I am going to try and bring it down which I am sure I can do with all the support from everyone. I am also trying to buy ethical/plastic free goods as well which probably adds a bit to my shopping bills but if I am "frugal" this should still be possible. Thanks again.

miss_empty_piggy

Good evening everyone. Just caught up with the thread as been off work/life with illness - nothing serious just flu which knocked me off my feet for several days but am fine now.

Just wanted to say Hi and hope everyone has had a lovely Valentine's Day

Nicki_Sue I'm so pleased to hear about your bungalow.

Frugaldom

Apologies for lack of posts but I have been using Kindle on free wifi for messenger rather than my PAYG sim and the signal is so intermittent that I concentrate on elsewhere. I'm afraid MSE isn't high on the priority list when I have pages, sites and forums elsewhere. But I'm here now (on PAYG). My budget doesn't stretch to unlimited access nowadays.

On the food budget side of things, I allocated £800 for the year for 2 of us and placed my first supermarket home delivery order of the year on the 10th - the first available £1 delivery slot was 20th, so a 10-day wait, but we're halfway there and I can update & alter the order in between times. I've enough on it to last through March with only minimal spends elsewhere for things like fresh fruit and milk. Total grocery spend to date (inc order) is approx. £140.00

Eating porridge most mornings and making plenty of soup keeps the budget down. Porridge is still only 75p per kilo and you get at least 20 to 25 servings out a pack, so still less than 4p per bowl. I cook it with water & salt and add a portion of sultanas and a teaspoon of honey, which bumps up the price, but it gets 1 of the 5-a-day into the diet.

Miss Empty Piggy, I hope you are feeling better now.

PipneyJane

Crafty_Lisa_Hampshire wrote: »

Thank you lifeisforliving, PipneyJane, CapricornLass and cw18. My budget is way too high then so I am going to try and bring it down which I am sure I can do with all the support from everyone. I am also trying to buy ethical/plastic free goods as well which probably adds a bit to my shopping bills but if I am "frugal" this should still be possible. Thanks again.

Start small, Lisa, so that you don't get disheartened. Try shaving £10 off one month, then make it £20 the next month. Also, keep a spending diary, so that you can see where your money currently goes and find the easy leaks to plug. How about joining us on the monthly Grocery Challenge? (Link is to February's.)
It's not too late to start.

One thing I do is play mental games to see how far I can stretch my money, e.g. asking just before I go on a charity shop crawl "What if I only had the clothes I'm standing up in, my handbag and £50? How would I clothe myself for work and play. How far can I stretch that £50?". (I don't physically buy all the stuff, but it does make me shop more thoughtfully.)

Fashion on the Ration is one of those games; £50 February is another, where the goal is to only spend £50 on groceries for the entire month of February. (I'm not doing it this year - I didn't have the oomph - but I have considered building a £50 February shopping list and a list of recipes. Maybe next year.)

- Pip