2020 Frugal Living Challenge

willow_loulou

OLaney said:

I know @willow_loulou 😣 it is a catch 22 situation isn’t it?
Thanks @sashacat... I’m hoping to get started next week, weather permitting.

My Mr has been here a fair bit as he’s unwell, this has left my cupboards a little depleted. I think I’ll do a stock take/ tidy list and see where I’m at. I have plenty of pasta and tinned tomatoes as I bought them each week but we stopped eating pasta in the heat. 

Does anyone here use loose leaf tea? What do you do with the leaves? 

Also - dumplings, easy recipes? 

My bargain slow cooker is big enough for a decent sized stew and a dumpling each! Luxury. 

sashacat

Willow, loose leaf tea leaves are brilliant on the compost.

willow_loulou

Thanks Sasha. I might start off putting them under my big bush thing in my driveway then move to compost 

Bluegreen143

Hello, can I join in? I’ve just read back over this thread, along with some of the 2008 one 🙂

I’m a stay at home mum and live in Glasgow with my husband (he is a smart meter fitter), my 4.5yo son and 21mo daughter. We don’t have a lot of debt - once I’ve made this month’s payment it’s down to £300 😁 (it’s the very last of £5k owed to MIL from when we bought our house five years ago and she helped us top up our deposit). Apart from that (+ mortgage and my student loan), we have been mainly debt free for the last decade. A couple of years of credit card debt (£3k at it’s worst) when I gave up work three years ago, mainly caused by it taking me a while to adjust my lifestyle! But that’s all been paid off. We’ve never had a car or other commercial loan. So it’s not been too bad debt wise.

However we’ve also not really had much in the way of savings and never felt like we were getting ahead. I started a debt free diary at the end of June and since then have paid off £200 on my credit card that crept on over lockdown, £950 to my MIL and saved £350 into an emergency fund. Not bad given my husband has been on furlough most of that time. I’m feeling soooooo motivated and ready to get ahead financially, I’ve been rereading Your Money or Your Life and also a bunch of old “classic” threads/diaries on the Old Style and Debt Free boards, which is how I found this thread! 

Red, my husband, is the “less frugal” one in the marriage 😆 he doesn’t have expensive tastes (doesn’t spend on cars, socialising, gambling, holidays etc, and isn’t bothered about upgrading the house as a status symbol) but he does like to “fritter” - he vapes which is a least a bit cheaper than when he smoked, and he likes to feel he can go to the supermarket on a Friday and pick up beer, crisps and junk without worrying about it - he does feel a bit deprived if I’m too strict on things like that. So I’ve just started giving him his own, fairly generous budget in his own account and am trying to encourage him to stick within it without me otherwise tracking it at all. He is extremely handy though and loves to build/make things, mainly out of wood, but is pretty good at trying his hand to fixing anything. His speciality is “bodge jobs” with whatever free materials are on hand 😆 he is creative that way. 

As for me, I LOVE all things cooking, baking, preserving etc. We have a lovely garden with four chickens, fruit bushes and a veg patch - we are VERY amateur gardeners though and have more than our share of failures!! I intermittently knit and crochet and would love to learn to sew and quilt. Also thinking of taking up card making. 

I’ve just done my Oct budget as payday was yesterday for my husband. It’s never occurred to me track it annually before I found this thread and its precursors! I think I’ll sit down tonight and do a pro rata annual budget til the end of the year. I’ll post up my Oct budget later in case anyone has any ideas! 

Frugaldom

Welcome @Bluegreen143, it's great to see new people joining us in virtual Frugaldom and especially not too far away from here (Dumfries & Galloway region). Sounds like you are already ahead of the game despite covid19 situation so the first thought I had was can you afford to save whatever difference their is in wages once hubby returns to usual income? By your description of lifestyle and likes, I almost wish you lived nearby so I could hire your hubby for help to renovate an old caravan 😁

Frugaldom

@willow_loulou How's your OH doing? Hopefully he is on the mend and not emptying your cupboards too quickly. 

Frugaldom

OFFICIALLY THE FINAL QUARTER

Where have the past 9 months gone? Evaporated, I think! Anyhow, welcome to part 4 of our 2020 challenge. It's certainly been a year to remember so far and one that will make it into the official annals of time. We are literally making history by sharing our lifestyles while combating a deadly virus that's creeping in stealth mode throughout the world. It makes you think of what you really need to survive when there's no place left to shop so any fruit, veg and berries you can grow are like gold. Preserve what you can, waste nothing. And keep a supply of soap, salt, herbs, spices and essential medications that won't go out of date. Best suggestion for those who read but may not yet want to post or even try frugal living is don't fall into the false economy trap.
Good luck to everyone in October. 👍

fionaandphil

Thanks Frugaldom for keeping us all on track.  I don't often post but am always inspired by everyone's posts.  I'm still harvesting tomatoes and turning them into pasta sauce for the winter.  Apples are stored ready for winter and some more still to come in the next few weeks.  Wood is dried, stacked and ready and the cupboards stocked for whatever the weather may bring.  Some unexpected spends this year balanced by no spending during the full lockdown period and its given us a good excuse to have a clear out of the cupboards and freezers.

Frugaldom

@fionaandphil I have been doing similar with cupboard stock and managing to get grocery deliveries every few weeks. Lockdown brought so much extra work here as there have been no helpers staying at all this year so my grocery challenge has had to be suspended. No longer can I achieve £1 per person per day with current prices soaring and possibly worse to come. Great work with the tomatoes! It's apples I'm processing at the minute, making apple cider vinegar with whatever can't be used elsewhere. Also have a load of pears awaiting something. 😊

willow_loulou

Frugaldom said:

@willow_loulou How's your OH doing? Hopefully he is on the mend and not emptying your cupboards too quickly. 

Thanks for asking ❤️ He’s up and down - my cupboards have been replenished somewhat, I have plenty of tea and biscuits plus some decent coffee. 😊