2020 Frugal Living Challenge

Frugaldom

@sashacat  you can compost the horse manure. I have set up a composting compound and if my plan works, we should be able to produce several tonnes of compost each year. This year saw a real shortage about here so I could have sold as much as I could have made, had I had any help at our project. 
@willow_loulou I can't remember the name of the website but there is one that construction related folks can advertise their leftover materials - wood, plasterboard, paint etc - plus you can also post wanted ads on your local FB pages or similar. 

2021 BUDGET
The following is my challenge budget for 2021. It steps over the top of absolute essentials to include luxuries like running a car, having telephone & internet and buying some gifts. We've no mortgage or other debts so everything over and above the £4k, after paying council tax, goes into savings & the Frugaldom project, which includes the ponies, hens, ducks and any accommodation we provide for anyone. Categories for my 2021 challenge budget are as follows:

Groceries, toiletries & laundry products - £850  (for 2)
Electricity & Heating - £1,000
Phone & Internet - £520
TV Licence - £157.50
Footwear & Clothing - £50
Gifts for others - £250
Car (fuel, tax, MOT, insurance) - £1,000 
Insurance - £150
Misc - £22.50
TOTAL £4,000

cw18

mumtoomany said:

@CraftyLittleLisa I pay the tv licence monthly by DD. Around £13 a month. It's the only thing I've found where you're not charged extra for paying by instalments. Won't make it any cheaper overall, but spreading the cost might help. mumtoomany.

You actually pay for the first licence over 6 months (so you pay double that each month), and then you start paying for the next one in month 7 - meaning it's already 50% paid by the time it starts.    Although it spreads the cost, it does mean you need to find the money for 1.5 licences in the first year !!

Frugaldom

Thanks for the heads up on that, CW18. Handy for folks to be aware of that in case it upsets any strict budgets.

ldee2111

£45 today on our weekly shop for our family of three and undoubtedly a top-up shop at some point during the week which i’ll try keeping below £7. I bought a couple of bulk buys on branded products because they were on really good specials and I’ve bought the amount I’d use in a year. Peanut butter £2 instead of £3.50 a jar of which I bought 5. And shampoo 2 for £6 instead of 4.99 a bottle so I bought 6. If I add that £28 to this week’s shop then I’ve actually only £7 for top ups based on our weekly grocery budget of £80. 

Today I made a batch of soup and some banana loaf to get me through the week. The OH chuckled when I put my leftover homemade chips in a tub for tomorrow’s lunch. Never tried reheating chips but will give it a go. Trying hard to cut food waste. 

YORKSHIRELASS

Frugaldom those are really impressive figures, I am inspired, but I could never get my grocery bill down below £350 a month.  However, I have worked out that allowing for the mortgage and necessary bills (which are now as low as they can be), I should have £22836 p.a. to cover everything else, so debt repayments, food, clothes, diesel, gifts, haircuts, and any entertainment.  I need to allow £5760 for food and diesel but potentially that leaves me £17076.  The only thing I havent accounted for are car repair bills or any house repairs, but I have £770 in the emergency fund.

It's a real eye opener looking at it like this.  Our ideal is to pay off the credit cards and mortgage reserve in 3.5 years but with £64201 to pay off this will be a challenge.  DH is going to need a new van during this time too.  I feel so determined though.

Frugaldom

@YORKSHIRELASS I was tempted to abandon the £1 per person per day for all meals as C19 has brought about so many price hikes and absolutely no signs of things getting any better - many of the supermarket own saver brands have vanished, or are vanishing, and for online shoppers, the restrictions are getting harsher while minimum order values are creeping up - now minimum £40 here and the delivery charges have increased. On top of that, with such a widespread and low population, our delivery slots are scarce. So, we now have a handful of people sharing orders, sharing leftovers and surplusm and now we also have Olio in our rural location. Our meals here are very much dependent on what is available at the time, what needs used first and creativity. Plus lots of soup & pudding meals, porridge for breakfast and whatever can be made with eggs when the hens or ducks decide to lay. One more year of this can surely be squeezed out of my personal challenge. My income is probably aboou half of yours but I have no mortgage, rent, debys or huge travel costs. 2021 is my year of cabin-building - better late than never, as it should have been for this year. Fingers crossed we all survive the C19 'war'.

[Deleted User]

Good evening all,

Delighted to report that I haven't spent a thing at all this week. Tomorrow is payday, and I will be transferring £8.50 to the chap who delivers our fruit & veg but no other spends are on the cards for this week either. Meal planning up to month end has really meant I am focussed on using what we have in and 'shopping from home', adapting the plan to what is already in the house. 

For our £5k challenge, I won't be including the mortgage or council tax, as per the original challenge rules. I will, however, include water - we are on a meter and therefore can control how much we spend on this by being careful with our usage in exactly the same way as our gas and electricity. My figures are as follows (annual figures)

Gas and electricity (I forage wood for the fire and get lots for free from local sites) - £750 
Boiler insurance (includes the cost of the annual service) - £140
Sky TV & Broadband Internet (my luxury, I rarely go out socially, we enjoy & use this and are on the best deal for it. Cinema nights here are huge fun 😊😊) - £660
TV Licence - £157.50
Life insurance- £120
Water - £410
Netflix - £72
Mobile phone - £96
Buildings and contents insurance- £240
Total - £2,645.50. 

So we have £2,354.50 left, so £45.27 per week, which has to cover food, gifts (we don't really buy gifts we tend to make them or trade things with people), school trips etc. My children are small so trips are inexpensive. 

It is worth mentioning that I don't run a car by choice, this is a fairly recent choice and works well for us, from both an environmental and a health point of view. I get free lunch at work, DS is in KS1 so gets free school meals still. DD takes packed lunch. A lot of our food comes from the local food waste groups. My mother keeps chickens so we never buy eggs. My freezer is stuffed with foraged berries from our efforts over summer. We eat veggie a lot and don't waste a thing. 

£45 per week is very tight, but it's meant to be a challenge for a reason and, to be honest, I'd like to finish the year well under budget. I sell bits on eBay and FB marketplace which will provide money for extras, for example I am going to treat DS to a small lego set as he had a wonderful wonderful parents evening, that money will come from my eBay earnings. 

It's lovely to come on here and read everyone's updates, keep on keeping on guys xx

cw18

@Deleted_User
Sky TV & Broadband Internet (my luxury, I rarely go out socially, we enjoy & use this and are on the best deal for it.

Looking at the price you list for this, my OH (the one with Sky pricing knowledge) suggests you possibly have just cinema and entertainment with Sky?     If so, have you considered switching to NowTV?   He made the move last year, and it's saved him megga bucks (especially as he got a Black Friday deal - annual pass for both for about £100).  

Downside - can't record, but most (if not all) is available to watch whenever (although some has a 'watch by' date which is normally a couple of months off from first available date). 

Upside - you can watch anywhere and on (almost) any device.
He can watch on phone/tablet/laptop, and log in to the Roku box at the property we borrow when we're away from home.   A good selection of the channels can also be accessed live through it, so you can still watch at the normal times.
As long as you stick to the catch-up side of it you don't need a TV licence (that's a bonus for me, but he still needs at his as he uses BBC a few times a year!)   Netflix doesn't require a TV licence either.

He uses it through a NowTV stick (and needs a Firestick for Prime).   I use it through a Roku box (which also gives access to Prime).  All three devices also have a Netlix app on them.   There is also a NowTV box, but that doesn't give access to Prime despite also being a Roku type device (I believe the same firm makes and supports them).

DawnW

@CraftyLittleLisa do you mean Microsoft Office software? If so, I have found the open source, free Open Office to be just as good, for home use, anyway. I have had it for ages, so couldn't remember where I downloaded it from, but a quick google revealed https://sourceforge.net/projects/openofficeorg.mirror/

mumtoomany

Thanks @cw18, I hadn't realised that you pay for the tv licence, effectively six months in advance. I've been paying monthly for as long as I can remember. I don't think it's worth swapping to one payment and keep the other six months in the bank. Don't think I'll get much interest! lol. 
Trying to empty the freezers again now. Having emptied them a few months ago to fit the pigs in. Now trying to make space for Christmas eve. Normally plenty of yellow sticker items. Aldi and Lidl both close for two days, usually manage to get ours of non seasonal stuff reduced. Last year lots of fish things,starting steak and mince. 
Hope everyone is well, mumtoomany.