2020 Frugal Living Challenge

MazzieD

Thanks for your input about water butts, I was out the garden with a tape measure yesterday measuring my two plastic downpipes!  Funnily enough it has rained quite a lot since I posted about lack of rain!

Planning to go and have a look at a water butt this week.  Looking online doesn't always help me, I'm the sort who needs to have one in front of me so I can have a good look at it!.  YouTube is a great idea, 

Trying meal planning at the moment, seems to be working quite well.  Got a whiteboard and did 2 weeks, week 1 was a success so will continue with that.  Have enough meals batch cooked for rest of my financial month.

I have folded up an old shawl and am now using that as a face covering when I go food shopping.  Feeling safer and venturing out to the shops more  Doing really well with grocery shopping this month, looks like I'll be a few pounds under budget, Grocery Challenge is really helping.  

sashacat

I am trying not to shop at all, mainly because I can’t cope with all the different perceptual attacks at once. I am slightly autistic so the colours, smells, music and people are just mind blowing. 
So I am trying to eat from the garden, cupboards and freezer. 
I am harvesting courgettes, lettuce, rocket, radishes and herbs. My friend has chickens so I buy his eggs but they are very cheap and I don’t eat meat. And I make scones, flapjacks oatcakes. 
Every two months I go quickly to the supermarket when it is not crowded. 
I stock up and it seems to save me a lot of frivolous spending. 
I am desperately trying to save money for some necessary work to the house. 

nannygladys

Just popped back on, I only try to shop once every two weeks and write a meal plan for a week and cook each meal then freeze one for the following week, it doesn't always work like that but I do have a nice amount of different meals in the freezer so really could go longer without shopping - except for fresh salad stuff etc. Im the same Sashacat, shopping once a fortnight is saving me some money by not spending so much on goodies! Anyway, Im still doing quite a bit of sewing to keep me out of mischief, I didn't realise I had so many kits and bits to do, but Im enjoying it and 'stuff' is getting completed and more room is appearing!
Nannyg

Frugaldom

@nannygladys don't try to justify your food shopping, it's al going to be used. The trick now is to keep te purse strings tightly closed and try your best to justify future spends when your cupboards are already filled.
With only a couple more weeks until the halfway mark for this annual challenge, it is weighing rather heavily on my mind that mis-summer's day is only a week away. Lockdown has turned the calendar all askew despite having been working 7 days a week continually for the past very long time. I had a day off in February 2018 They say a change is as good as a rest so more changes are afoot here as I try to muster up the frugaleers, at the ready as soon as lockdown is eased in Scotland.  I'm looking into getting a geodesic dome greenhouse built and I also need some secure, fox-proof enclosures for the ducks, just in case broody 'Cher' hatches any of the eggs she has been sitting on for the past week or two.

Pixiehouse55

Hi everyone. I've been reading through and learning. Hubby and I want mortgage paid off in 2 years. 1 cc to pay off and a shop card to pay off.
Food wise can be difficult as we have 2 Adults with Learning difficulties living with us, one a very fussy eater the other not too bad.
I'm going to follow for the rest of this year and start Jan 2021 to be frugal... We do try our best most of the time. Hubby went shopping 10 days ago and brought everything we needed, but will have to pop out for bread milk fruit and veg.. happy that weve had 9 NSD 
Keep Safe 

Frugaldom

@Pixiehouse55 welcome to Frugal livng challenge. I'd say if your fnances stretch to clearing these debts within 2 years then go for it with all your strength and will power. 2 years, in the grand scheme of things, is nothing... and then there's the ultimate freedom to live life the way you want. Good luck, I wish you every success. I can see your emergency fund is fairl close to the sum total of CC and store card debts, if I'm reading correctly. Personally, I would use those funds to (almost) clear the retail debts and then hold onto the best CC as emergency back-up. Keep it active by paying in full anytime you use it. CCs can be great things for so many reasons once we get used to avoiding paying any interest or other charges on them.

willow_loulou

Welcome @Pixiehouse55
you're doing really well with your debts. I’d use some of the emergency to reduce the debts too, keep £1000 if you’re worried about finding money quickly and don’t want to use credit again. I have a months bill saved as a just in case. I really understand that worry. I’ve paid off so much from such a small income this year by being frugal, this thread is an absolute godsend. 

There are simple things you can do now so you don’t have to wait to be on your frugal journey, the easiest for me was a list of my must haves (coffee and shampoo) and hunted for a cheaper outlet. It was lack of shopping delivery here that started this as my only regular delivery option doesn’t do my must haves. I found eBay a great option and get my coffee delivered for 50p less than Tesco price. 

I’ve also spent a long time thinking how I can reuse what I recycle or throw away, repurposing can be fun and maybe your additional needs adults could help with that if making things is something they enjoy. 

Anytime you struggle just look at your signature, mine inspires me every time I want to buy something or feel down because my ‘spare’ money has been put on the CC. 

willow_loulou

@Frugaldom What winter veg do you grow? Any tips? 

I bet you’re exhausted not having a day off in so long x 

Frugaldom

Hi @willow_loulou, I tend to mainly have simple things growing that will keep on growing so things like perpetual spinach beets, leeks and cabbage, plus salad leaves, spring onions and chives can keep going throughout the year if you cover them over in winter. The chives don't even need covered, they just keep growing - always handy if the hens or ducks are laying.   I am really, really HOPING that I can afford to have a proper greenhouse built later this year so I can grow stuff all year round. I'd love one of those geodesic domes so it gets the sun from every angle but because we are on agricultural land, I need prior approval from council planning department. Fingers crossed we get that in the next few weeks. I'm also tempted to build a small black polythene tunnel to enable us to grow mushrooms but unless we get the hutting community up and running so there's help when needed, I wont have enough hours, days, weeks, months in my year to do everything I want to do.

willow_loulou

Thanks @Frugaldom that makes good sense. I love the greenhouse idea, they do look fabulous. I love something that looks like that! 

For now I’m working on a bottle one, with a combination of bottled and an existing rack. The main issue here is wind as there is little between me and the coast even though I’m a good 8 min walk to the beach.