2020 Frugal Living Challenge

cw18

<Raises hand>    Aye.

Though we had an enforced cut in spending due to a cut in income which meant we had no choice, and it was totally new to both of us.   Hubby didn't take well to it at all, but I tried to give him what I could after bills as the chemo was knocking the stuffing out of him and he needed something to keep going for.

I've continued to work on getting into it properly myself since he died (almost 12 years now!).   I still impulse buy more than I should, mostly virtual race entries for my running, walking, cycling, swimming -  and rowing as well now.   The latter two are firmly on hold since lockdown in March though.   The gym re-opened and gave us the option to keep out accounts frozen for free.   This month we had to start paying again or pay a nominal fee to stay frozen.   I paid for 3 months, so don't have access to pool or rowers until January.   I'm hoping I feel confident enough to go back then, but may find myself asking if I can extend by another 3 months (we did have the option to freeze for up to 6 months).

I'm definitely much better than I was though.   And my fella (we don't live together) seems to be finding unexpected unemployment easier than I thought he might, which I'm partially putting down to the fact he's had almost 9 years getting used to me looking for bargains and shopping in discount stores (I drag him round with me at the weekends).   He'd never shopped in an Aldi and Lidl before meeting me, but now rarely shops anywhere else   And he'd never looked at reduced to clear items until 9 years ago - now he and I race to one section of a local-to-me store to see if something we both love is reduced, and work on a finders-keepers basis unless there's enough to share around     His redundancy is lasting longer than he'd anticipated (probably in part down to the pandemic, though he was made redundant before it), so I think it was good that his spending habits had already changed.   But I can't convince him to stretch his mince (even though he doesn't moan that I do it), and I always shudder when he gets two portions out of a pack of mince I could use to make eight portions by adding veg, lentils and oats.

LivingInTheBlack

*stares blankly, doesn't raise hand*

Not because my partner is good with the budget but because i don't have a partner and have never experienced this. And now part of the thing that makes me anxious about the idea of relationships is sharing financial responsibilities. 
My last boyfriend was spendy even when he lost his job. It boggled my mind and i couldn't imagine ever living with him.

I've also never budgeted for a year. It has never occured to me to. I didnt have a salary paid job before this job, just paid per hours which always changed so i was always budgeting to the lowest possible spends anyway.
When i got this job i just enjoyed not struggling for a while. Then covid hit and i realised how unreliable everything was, but i was mid year by then. 
What difference does yearly budgeting make? Is it for the one off spends? If so, i have so few one off spends. I'm still renting so white goods etc are not my responsibility and I don't have car repairs to worry about. My only year spend that i can think of is amazon prime. Birthdays are spread very well through the year and i obviously know Christmas is coming so budget accordingly. What is the yearly budget secret? I like the sound of yearly grocery goals, might make the small "whoops" moments more meaningful?? Is that why you do it?

I'm sorry to hear of your husbands death @cw18 cancer is such a cruel illness. x 
I love that you and your bf use finders keepers 😂 its an underused social rule in my opinion. We are too concerned about politeness. "I got here first, its mine." Brilliant.

Frugaldom

@cw18 - where do the years go?  I remember us discussing property about here before you moved into your 'new' house so that must be 10 or more years ago?
@LivingInTheBlack - I do an annual budget because I am self employed and like to know I have all bases covered. Nowadays, once I have earned the essential amount to cover a full year, everything else is a bonus that can be invested. If you read back through the very first challenges on here, linked in page 1, you will see how I arrived at  the annual budgets. I think it's in the 2007 or 2008 challenge
Edited in: Link to the original annual budget frugal living challenge (I was posting as NYK back then) - https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/640131/2008-live-on-4000-for-a-full-year/p1 

patentgirl

<Raises hand>    Aye. Definitely hard work with DH at times.
I am ready for 2021 challenge more so because finally handed noticed in so from 1st January will be retired it has been this blog and frugaldom that managed to do at just over 60 have been squirrelling away into retirement pot for years. DH will carry on for another 18 months so he will only have a to wait a year till his pensions. We have both Just gone over to a SIM only was trying to get monthly bills down but since May till few weeks ago had my daughter and her family stop with us while their extension was being built so water, Gas,and electric all gone up but will soon have them down hopefully. We will go down to one car but trying to wait till DH retired although he is still working from home so we could manage if they changed  him to that. I'm off to work out 2021 budget.

[Deleted User]

🙋 yep - dh is pretty good but he's had his moments!! 😂 
Thank you for the oatmilk recipe @CraftyLittleLisa 😊 I'm out of cashews at the moment but will give it a go when I next get some 😉 

I am going to struggle setting a budget in certain areas for next year - ds and dil should be moving into their own place by the end of February so it will be hard to estimate things like electricity and oil 🤔 I may just keep those budgets as they currently are and see how it goes!

The dates on my challenge are different as my 'new year' starts on 1st November - which means I really don't have a lot of time to get these budgets sorted!! 🙈 I think that this weekend I will do a full stocktake of my stores etc then write a budget and see where I can set some targets and make some savings. I am determined to stick to the plan this time!!! 😂

sashacat

I am very lucky in that I am veggie, grow virtually all of my own vegetables and fruit and herbs and live alone. I also swop a lot of vegetables and my neighbours and we give surplus stuff to each other. I got about 20 lovely red eating apples yesterday from my neighbour across the road.
All through late summer when I have gluts of garden produce I batch cook soup or other meals and freeze portions for the winter. I also preserve stuff by making pickles, chutneys etc. I have enough meals in the freezer to last until the end of January. 
So I spend very little on food but obviously I have to buy tea, butter, flour etc and cleaning things. I go to aldi  every couple of months and stock up. 

I have oil oil central heating as the village has no gas. But I have a wood burner and scavenge for wood which I then saw up. So, very low heating bills but a lot of hard work. 
I don’t have a TV as I don’t like watching it. I don’t drink as alcohol always makes me sick. 

I think i spend a lot a lot less than £4,000 per year on things but my broadband cost is very high.
I am going to try and do an annual budget.

good luck to everyone who is doing their budgets. It is very hard to predict prices but we can be very sure that prices won’t go down. 

[Deleted User]

Well my budgets have been done - it's quite scary how much we have to spend! 🙈 we both work full time and live in the sticks so need 2 cars; we are locked in to our internet costs as ther are only 2 providers locally who can provide us with high speed and as I work from home speed is esential; our council tax is pretty high as are the water rates (I don't have a meter as it would probably cost more) so my 'fixed' costs are quite big! 
On the variables, there are things that I could reduce but am unwilling to - we feed a multitude of wild creatures throughout the year, we support a paticular charity, I employ my dd as a cleaner for the sake of my sanity and also to help her out financially and we have a healthy 'persie' allowance because we have spent years being massively careful with money so that we could pay the mortgage off 😉 Anyway, upshot is - big figures!! 😂 However, the running costs are all paid from one salary - the other salary will be used this year for savings, debt repayment (very old debts that incur no interest) and a couple of other things that we need to buy but haven't got round to yet! 🙈
I always overestimate my budget, so my plan this year is to keep a very close eye on my actual costs and see what is left over at the end - I will do what I can to reduce my grocery bill, my electric, oil and petrol bills. I will be growing more of my own food, foraging when I can and 'shop' from our very healthy stores 😉 Obviously I will shop around for the best deals on insurances too - I need to just check out the renewal dates so that I don't leave it to the last minute and panic buy! 😂 
I'm pretty confident that this will be a good year! 🙌

willow_loulou

Well done @smushesma
I spent the first half this year reducing my DDebits and am now down to under £300 a month. That doesn’t include electric though. So I’ve been mulling my food budget for a few days. I think I’m going to give myself a monthly hopefully budget inside a maximum budget so I have wiggle room and an area I can make savings on. This will hopefully cover increases and not put me in a stressed state each week. I just need to agree with myself what they are. 

FrankieM

Hi All
Sorry I've been missing in action, mostly cause I felt I had nothing to contribute.
We are just in the process of house buying. The contracts have been exchanged and completion due in a couple of weeks.
I've no idea how much the new house will be to run so I think i'll be spending til the end of the year seeing how that goes before looking at budgets.
I'm now working permanently, only minimum wage though so need to make that work as best I can for now.
It's been lovely to catch up on everyone's frugalling news and I'm looking forward to getting back on the wagon.

Bluegreen143

Lovely to catch up on this thread today. I’m really looking forward to doing an annual budget for 2021. I think it will keep me more on track and better at focusing on those big picture goals.

Had a sort of epiphany moment today. Went to a big shopping centre to get some Christmas stuff eg kids PJs as want to be organised and not shopping last minute. It was horrifically busy, I felt unsafe and had to leave without buying anything as I felt very guilty for contributing to the problem. Honestly it boggles my mind that everyone else was continuing to shop when they were being jostled about in a crowd...

Anyway, I realised that I didn’t feel right being there not just due to Covid but also because I felt I was being overly consumerist and just out shopping for cheap tat. So I came home and had a chat with my husband and my mum about it all and my mum has encouraged me to try making clothes for the kids so I’ve ordered fabric to try making PJ bottoms for them and I found an online tutorial for using old/charity shop adult tshirts cut down to make kids PJ tops. It will cost more than Primark PJs but actually when stuff is cheap you buy too much anyway, they don’t need like 6-8 PJs, I do washing every day so they could have 3 really nice hand made pairs instead.