2019 Frugal Living Challenge

peony40

Hello All,

I would like to join you in 2019. Our finances are taking a hit from February, £200 less a month, so need to budget accordingly. I will work on the figures tomorrow. I definitely need to be better organised on grocery shopping and meal planning, so I have joined the grocery challenge too, on the old style board. Also, like doing the fiscal fast too which is on the same board.

I have not worked since 2011 due to fibromyalgia, and so no income. Husband works, but hoping to retire within the next 5 - 10 years, if at all possible.

slowlyfading

I'll be joining in again this year need to really reign in our spending in 2019.

miss_empty_piggy

Can I join please?
Off to sleep now- happy new year everyone. ��

peony40

Happy New Year to All.

Last night I started working on our account figures. Excluding the mortgage, gas & elec, Life Assurance, House Insurance and Car expenditure which I still need to look at, our annual expenditure is currently running at £10,800/annum. Quite an eye opener! There are a few areas that I can reduce, but I know some will go up, such as the Council Tax, and I still have not budgeted for gifts and haircuts.

This year is definitely a year of being mindful, to become aware of bad habits that need to be broken and new healthier habits to replace them with.

I look forward to taking part this year.

FrankieM

Happy New Year

I'm in again for this year. I have lots of plans but the main two are paying off the last of the debt and getting the emergency fund in place.

Lots of things learnt from last year (and my many years of being part of this challenge)

Frugaldom

:beer: HAPPY NEW YEAR AND WELCOME TO THE 2019 FRUGAL LIVING CHALLENGE, which officially started today.

I crammed as many payments into the final week of 2018 as possible - hay for the rescued & rehomed ponies at the Frugaldom project (costs over £200 a month), cylinder of gas so there are 4 full at the caravans (£70 per cylinder), and submitted an electricity reading for the cottage, but it wasn't updated until after midnight, so it has become the first payment made of 2019.

Now begins the task of remembering that it is 2019!

Good luck to everyone taking part this year - succeess is declaring that you want to do something and setting out to do it! If you look at it that way, you cannot fail. It's just a mater of working out how much you succeeded.

mumof3.12kindebt

Afternoon everyone.

We spent £5 today on essentials at Tesco. Was going to do a full food shop at Aldi but they were closed.

I also sent £50 to our help to save account. This does not go towards our house deposit fund. So still have £16300 to save by December.

Hoping to get it down to £14940 by the end of January.

So our first target for the year save £1360 in January.

mumtoomany

Hi all, and Happy New Year. Back with my budget for 2019.

First the ones I can do little about.

Council Tax: £950
Car tax: £300
Car Insurance:£200
House Ins: £250
Electric: £700
Gas(bottled): £600
Water: £100
Phone/net £300

other stuff:
Clothing: £100
Pocket money(dd3): £20/£250
Xmas/bday: £250
Diesel £800
Groceries £1200
Mobiles x 3 £20/£150
DIY/car maintainance/repairing equipment:£500
Animal feed: £500
Everything else: £1000
Savings: £10/at least £1500
TV: £6.42/£0
That is a total, I think, of £9400. Also want to try to find £1000 for driving lessons for DD3. M2m.

Shortie

Hi everyone

I had plans to stay indoors all day but a facebook post caught my attention of a bundle of my size clothes for £10. It was just a photo of the bags so was a gamle but oh wow was I glad I went for it.. there were tonnes of lovely items in the bags

My new workplace uniform isn't suits which is what I've been wearing for the last 20-odd years, so I suddenly needed some new office suitable cloths and trousers (at home I live in leggings and vest tops - often a little tatty as I'm not a huge fan of clothes shopping so I don't throw clothes often)

So, trying-on-session being well, I have lots of new to me lovely items to choose from at about 20p an item .

*Jellie*

I’m in again- although I’m another who tends to lurk and needs to post more!
Last year saw a couple of major spends so we need to work on getting our savings back up. I’m still adjusting to circumstances leaving me on a lower income and there is a chance this will worsen within the household this year. I aim to get better on tracking and sticking to my budget as well as keeping up my current frugal habits.
Top goals at the moment are to live as much as possible from storecupboards and do lots of batch cooking. Get stuff listed on ebay. Sort out PPI reclaims. Also to start planning/ideas in case our incomes tumble this year.
Thanks to all those who post regularly and keep us on track and inspired.