2020 Frugal Living Challenge

frostie101

Love all the stories.
Looking to get my budget sorted once we shut our online store down for Xmas, which looks like it's going to be a lot earlier than usual, as its taking 10 days for some parcels to get there and some people can't seem to understand why! 
Along with the frugal budget I want a debt busting year, only around £3000 but would love it gone by 31/12/2021.
Just have to make £900 per month (self employed) online and through sales to cover bills. So I have two areas money making and money saving for 2021.
Keep safe and here's to a better 2021 (it can't get worse, can it)

ancientmum

Frugaldom, reading your views on food sharing has made me think more about joining in.  I've been one whose views tend to "I would be taking food away from someone in real need" but if you see it as preventing waste then it makes sense.  I'm going to investigate whether there is a food sharing group near me, so thank you for your wise words.

mumtoomany

Hi all. @Bluegreen143, but late to the party, I also recommend Beavers/Cubs/Scouts, even for your daughter. DD3 got far more from Scouts than DD1 and DD2 got from Guides/Brownies. Also if they are in your area St John Badgers, and later St John. All mine enjoyed these a d learnt a great deal. Again very cheap to attend, they even provided uniform.  
Off to get cleaned up, been out and wormed 32 ewes, ready for the tup. Only ended up lying in the mud once today! Better than normal. Have a good day all, mumtoomany.

ldee2111

I've spent this afternoon looking at our budget for 2021. Anticipating a job loss mid-2021, so our budget for next year is based on one wage, but emergency savings, mortgage OP, and non-essentials will be covered by second wage until it's lost. This will hopefully make the transition to one wage less of a shock.
For now, our non-essentials add up to around £6.4k! I think I can get this down to around £6k without causing too much upset with others in the house. Possibly £5.5k depending on choices we make when it comes to house improvements and holidays. If/when job loss happens, this list will be vastly different. 

Sky TV 

Netflix 

Disney+ 

Home improvements 

Bin cleaning 

Leisure/fun 

Holidays 

Gifts 

[Deleted User]

Good evening all, 

A quick check in from me again for accountability. It’s been another NSD, and I did actually make £10 selling something on FB marketplace last night 🤩so I am up!

The usual frugal bits done - phone & iPad charged at work; free lunch eaten at work & some snacky bits brought home for the children. I’ve resisted lighting the fire tonight; we are quite low on kindling bits and I won’t have more until a local chap delivers his wood off cuts to me on Friday (completely free 🙏🏻😊). 

The temperature is set to drop tomorrow and Thursday, tomorrow I will pop the heating on so the house is warm when we return from the food share (we have to queue outdoors and will no doubt be very chilly), then light the fire on Thursday. Being careful with energy consumption certainly takes a lot more forward planning, but it’s worth it tenfold. We’ve had an easy dinner of sausage sandwiches with beans 😋😋all from things we had in. Supper time for the children soon then I will settle down with my hot water bottle, a cuppa and some biccies for bake off 😊. 

sashacat

Hi everyone, I have been lucky today because my daughter gave me a good chunk of cooked salmon because they had cooked too much. It did me for 3 meals...well 2 plus sandwiches for lunch. They also gave me the ‘ends’ of the veggies they had used, ostensively for my compost but some of them were quite large cut off and nearly a whole courgette so they will all go in the next batch of soup.

YORKSHIRELASS

Hi all

DS cooked for us tonight, and went a bit overboard on portion sizes but I couldnt complain, it was lovely to come home to tea made.  Been in the office all day and I have ordered a couple of Christmas presents online but all within budget.  Need to get my Dad something for his birthday.  Tired now.

Frugaldom

ancientmum said:

Frugaldom, reading your views on food sharing has made me think more about joining in.  I've been one whose views tend to "I would be taking food away from someone in real need" but if you see it as preventing waste then it makes sense.  I'm going to investigate whether there is a food sharing group near me, so thank you for your wise words.

I am so pleased to hear that! Well done on your open mindedness. The problem with the likes of food banks and charities relates to the types of food that can and cannot be donated, plus it depends on best before dates. Fresh food can't be donated so meat and dairy products, bread products, not-so-fresh fruit & veg, readymade sandwiches or fresh prepared meals end up needing binned if they can't be distributed between store closing and midnight. Likewise, if something expires on a Friday, often it can't go to the charities because there's nobody available over weekends to orchestrate the distribution on time. If collected by individual volunteers, they can share it locally to save it from being binned. There are usually ways of helping to support others in your community by offering your own surplus, be it food or otherwise, or even making little gifts to give away. I usually give away things like herbs, eggs and windfall apples or whatever surplus I have growing at the time.  I have a very active wormery for making homemade plant food so any unused or unclaimed food that can't be fed to ponies, chickens, ducks, rabbit, cat or even wildlife gets put into the wormery. I love being part of anti-food waste brigade as it is so frugal. Last week I made enough carrot & tomato soup for 3 households and all from free surplus. This week I'm making carrot and lentil, but I supplied the lentils. My freezer is always full and if there are any spaces, I fill them with bread products as a full freezer is more economical to run than a partially full one. I've also made several trays of croutons to go with the soup. These have been put into jars to keep them crunchy. Citrus fruit gets made into marmalade or curd (if I have spare eggs). The other thing, of course, is that it is money-saving and the assortment of plastic storage containers, trays and pots can be used for seed sowing and all sorts of other things.

Frugaldom

mumtoomany said:

Hi all. @Bluegreen143, but late to the party, I also recommend Beavers/Cubs/Scouts, even for your daughter. DD3 got far more from Scouts than DD1 and DD2 got from Guides/Brownies. Also if they are in your area St John Badgers, and later St John. All mine enjoyed these a d learnt a great deal. Again very cheap to attend, they even provided uniform.  
Off to get cleaned up, been out and wormed 32 ewes, ready for the tup. Only ended up lying in the mud once today! Better than normal. Have a good day all, mumtoomany.

I love that it's not just me out in all weathers, tackling animal care and dealing with the aftermath. My waterproofs & wellies aren't even getting a chance to dry form one day to the next.

mumof3.12kindebt

Morning everyone,  
Loving everyone's posts. 

Gone over budget this month already. I need to get a birthday cake for ds2. But we have had to send for a covid test for DP and I don't think we will get the results before his birthday so I think i will make some cupcakes. Id make a cake but I don't have the stuff to decorate it 😕 

Its been a few rough days here. DP poorly my health still isn't great although I've been finding short workouts are helping not only physically but mentally. And I'm definitely feeling the difference when I don't drink enough water or when I don't get up before the kids to do my little morning routine. Anyway dd has pooed this morning after having lots of meds the last few days . I had to give her fluids through a meds syringe every half an hour on Monday to try and get some fluids in her as she was refusing to eat and drink. Lots of calls to gp a trip to out of hours etc. She seems abit better today though so hoping we are over the worst of it ..
I also need to speak to gp about a few prescriptions for the kids. 
I haven't spent anything yet regarding working out and loosing weight. I'm using a free app to track my food and drink intake. And I've been using yout_be for free workouts..

I have a couple more Christmas presents to sort out. They won't cost much.  So that's that sorted. 

I want to try and bring the food shop down in price so will do a meal plan with what we have and see what we need for December.  I've budgeted £30 for Christmas day food.. we spend Christmas day on our own now we have moved. 

Ds2 has been diagnosed with ahstma and I'm asthmatic so we still need to be careful regarding the current situation. 

I'm off to make a list of phone calls etc I need to make . Most are to the gp surgery  

Kids are off school due to situation with dp ..
They all did cosmic yoga this morning on you/ube . Ds1 is now using bbc bitsize for science.  And I'm about to do something with ds2. 

Hoping for a pretty chill day after a few hard nights with dd. 
Going to get some jobs done and some exercise and hopefully wash my hair and have a shower. 

Have a lovely frugal day everyone 

Oh I wanted to ask .. does anyone make homemade cleaners here. If so what recipes do you use and for what cleaners 

Many thanks