2020 Frugal Living Challenge

mumtoomany

Sending hugs too, sounds like you're having a tough year. Here's to 2021. Mumtoomany.

Bluegreen143

Welcome @naomij1411 🙂

Good thoughts on mortgage all. I think I will get the EF to £1k then split between short term goals (eg replacing the car and maybe, just maybe, getting to go on holiday ever again 😆) and then OP the mortgage with the rest. I certainly don’t want to take another 29 years to pay it off as per the schedule. I would be 61 and my husband 65 so ideally hoping to have paid it off long before then!

@Deleted_User I’m so impressed with your frugal living and amazing mortgage OPing. That’s a really impressive sum in five years. We are just on one income too as I don’t work (for the moment, I expect I’ll need to once the kids are in school). My husband earns £32k which sounds really good to me yet it all seems to go quickly enough each month. He isn’t as frugal as me and I leave him a couple of hundred £ in his account when I take the rest for my budget - it’s worth it for marital harmony but it’s hard to hold my tongue as he completely fritters it usually (beer, vaping, junk food). He’s pretty good apart from that and does save us money by being so handy fixing and making things 😆 our outgoings/direct debits are more than yours (I had a look at your £5k budget but it would be impossible here as I’d not have much left for living after the bills). Maybe we need to take a good hard look at them all again. Our mortgage is £115k at the moment so would be amazing to challenge ourselves and see how much we could pay off in 5 years! 

sashacat

Oh dear mumof3 you are having a bad time. I hope you manage to have some respite so that you can enjoy Christmas.
I have been frugal today. I am eating the quiche I made with some of the free eggs and homegrown leeks. I had forgotten how much I liked quiche. I have put 5 portions in the freezer and may make another one to freeze tomorrow. 
And I had poached eggs for lunch
I have now lit my wood burning stove and am burning off cuts from my neighbours or wood I pick up on my walks. I also collect pallets but saw them up for firewood. 
I then put a kettle on top of the wood burner and it provides me with hot drinks for the evening.

I am envious of the beach combing. I used to live overlooking the sea until I moved here about 6 years ago. I used to collect seaweed for the compost or as a green manure. It is so good for the soil once it rots down.
I can’t believe how much food is listed every day on Olio. My nearest collection point is 9 miles away and it is always at night.
Frugaldom, can you ask for more than one thing at a time, because if I could say, ask for 3 things it would make the journey worthwhile? 

Frugaldom

@mumof3.12kindebt I hope you start to feel better soon. You appear to be tackling things head on with great enthusiasm so here's hoping your energy levels can keep up with your spirits. (Lifeforce, not alcohol! )

@sashacat you can request as much as you like because if doesn't all get claimed (and meant to be collected) before midnight on the date shown on the packs, it has to be transferred to animal feed or compost. If you want instant access to the postings via your notifications then I'd advise claiming half a dozen items, otherwise just go for it. I wasn't sure if requesting something meant you got it, so I requested about a dozen items then found out you get the 1-hour delay added to your account for going over average 7 items in 7 days or something like that. To be honest, there is so much bread etc that the hour delay is hardly noticeable to me when I don't check Olio often. I just set it to notifications within 5km of me. 

I had a few eggs still left over from a couple of weeks ago but they all seemed fine. I cracked them open into a jug then refrigerated them overnight. Today, I whipped up 2 sponges using the eggs and a block of vegan baking marg that had been lurking in the freezer for "scared to look" how long. I also had some free lemons (Olio) so grated the rind of one into the mix and also added the juice. This gave me enough for 2 sponges, which will do us right over the weekend as pudding, with custard. The lentil soup made with free & homegrown veg is enough to last similar and for tea tonight, I had half a long baton topped with stewed cherry tomatoes, herb (all free) and cheese, baked as a frugal French Bread Pizza. I got 4 jars of marmalade out the last lot of free lemons (gifted one to a neighbour) and have 4 more left

Edited in: the hens have been laying the occasional egg so we aren't having to do without them after all.

Last of the home grown onions and garlic all now dried for using over winter and I have a few cloves spare to plant in a raised bed at the Frugaldom herbery. This year, I have invested in cheap fleece to cover the beds and keep them from freezing too solid. I hope it works. Now saving for a set of 'hubs' so we can build a geodesic dome next Spring and I'm trying to get more grass to grow for the ponies by scattering all the sweepings from their hay over the herb paddock, then mulching with the hay swept from the shelter. We try not to waste anything and using seeds fallen from hay usually works; you can tell by all the grass growing through the pallets where the bales get delivered.  

YORKSHIRELASS

Hi all, some great moneysaving going on here, well done on those mortgage figures ASB that is really impressive.  I have been thinking a lot about our outgoings too, I have cut back on so much unnecessary spending in lockdown and havent missed it, it really makes you think about your priorities.

Budgeting can be tricky for us because DH is self employed, so I always try and work on a fairly low average for him.  Even then we should have £1400 left each month to throw at the debts if we are really careful.  Christmas is going to be a dilemma this year because DS1 is back at work earning good money and doesnt want anything much, but DS2 is a poor student and cant find a job, so he could really do with some money for clothes and a few treats.  I like to spend the same on both of them.  Will think about that some more over the next few days.

My big news today is that we have run out of milk and rather than driving to the shop I have saved just enough for DS1s coffee in the morning as he leaves for work at 6.30am and the milkman comes about 7, and we will manage without until then.  If I had gone to the shop I would have bought other things and I feel ridiculously pleased with myself because of this.  I also used up some rather squidgy mushrooms to make some pasta sauce for tea.

Be kind to yourself Mumof3, positive vibes to anyone else that needs it, it really is the small steps that count.

[Deleted User]

A quick frugal check in from me. I haven't spent anything since Monday, and don't need to either. I am doing some trading at work - a colleague is mending some clothes (I am hopeless at sewing) for me, in exchange for a bottle of wine which I already had in the house that was a gift & I don't  drink white wine. Another colleague is trading me some of her HM shortbread for HG kale from my garden. I am lucky that I work with a group of like minded women, and we are all Yorkshire born and bread so making our money work for us is in our bones 😂😂. @YORKSHIRELASS your milk comment made me smile, that's the sort of thing that would make me very happy too xx

The laundry successfully 90% dried on the line today, and is now airing off in front of the woodburner. Our meal plan for the rest of November allows for £10 spend on fruit & veg, and our monthly milkman bill is always around £25 (we get eggs, milk and butter from him twice weekly). So between now and 30th November only £35 will leave my bank account... 😎

ldee2111

Some little frugal successes today - after chasing for 2 months, I finally got a refund of £9 from an e3ay purchase that never arrived, I found another game in the charity shop for £3 for my DS’s Christmas, and found 20p on the ground 😄 

I did nip to the shop to get some soured cream for dinner costing 75p but really it cost me 55p after I deduct the 20p I found on the ground. 

cw18

He knows me so well....

Last night OH and I were discussing what we might have for tea on Saturday.  We don't live together, and often end up wandering around A!di looking for inspiration - which I didn't really want to do this week.   Didn't settle on anything.

So tonight I sent him a text with just the names of three meals that use minced beef.   His reply.....

"Get some reduced to clear mince did you?"

Well, I had to nip in for bread - so I did a quick scan around shelves for reduced stickers

Frugaldom

Well done with the milk dilemma @YORKSHIRELASS I always like to have some powdered milk in the cupboard for just such emergencies, although no milkman here, usually just a month's supply of UHT.
I successfully managed to rehome some windfall apples via Olio so that was good - just need to see a few more people signing up in our area but we are sparcely populated, barring the holiday park and campsites nearby. I was given more apples so have plenty for the cider vinegar, ponies and for stewing to make crumbles through winter. I've polished off the last of a carton of natural yoghurt with a scoop of plum sauce made from garden grown plums so I'm doing pretty well at the minute so I'm starting a new challenge pot to afford to buy what I need to build the geodesic dome greenhouse.
@cw18 nice work with the mince!

willow_loulou

@Frugaldom idiot question, how do you use powdered milk? Do you mix up say a pint or just add powder to tea or something 😊 also do have a favourite brand 
Thank you. 

Mumof3 zI feel your pain, it took me many years to get back to work after a crisis physically. Once diagnosed I was so depressed and fatigue was/is such an issue. But I eventually got there. I needed to accept where I was and find a new way of living. It wasn’t easy, be kind to yourself as it takes as long as it takes xx