2020 Frugal Living Challenge

Frugaldom

Deleted_User said:

Oooh the 2021 thread is on the OS board! Hurrah!! 🥳🥳🥳

I thought I would give it another try in there - it may get moved again but here's hoping. I never did agree with us being relocated into 'debt free wannabe' as that is definitely not what we are about. Achieving debt freedom is the ultimate goal for most but we are about lifestyle and a more traditional way of doing things. Those traditions are returning in fast and furious fashion as many more people are discovering that they need to learn to budget, make do, mend, preserve, grow food, reduce, reuse, recycle etc, etc, etc.  I think we may see an influx of newcomers who simply didn't see our challenge last year when Covid was all kicking off. 

Frugaldom

fionaandphil said:

@Deleted_User we make our pizza dough and natural yoghurt, from memory its 1.5 cups of self raising flour and 1 cup of natural/greek yoghurt and you just mix the two together and roll out.  We have it quite a lot and it always tastes good. 

Thanks for this, it's reminded me what else I can do with the natural yoghurt that always seems to be offered via Olio here.

Frugaldom

fionaandphil said:

I have tried to download the Olio app but my phone keeps saying it isn't working so I will give up until I get a new phone.  I'm most impressed with all your efforts.

If you go onto the website (www.olioex.com) you can register on there and use the site instead of the app. Ot says you need to download app and receive a verification but if you email Olio explaining that your phone can't use the app then they'll do a manual verification for you so you can just use the website. Mobile signal s so bad about here that few people I know have been able to use the actual app. Hope this helps

Viking_mfw

Ooh, it's all go today - just collected a boot load of burnable wood someone put on the village fb page. I reckon it's at least four bags of logs worth so has saved me £30. If I can find somewhere to stack it safely I may go back for more tomorrow as there was loads left - I think they must have demolished a bunch of floors and a shed. Obviously a reward from frugal karma for getting back to posting!

Bluegreen143

Pleased to hear this challenge is hopefully going to be on OS next year. I would have probably joined in in previous years if I’d seen it on OS before - I didn’t use to spend time on the debt free board. Now I am debt free again I feel my diary is a bit fraudulent but I do enjoy keeping it!

Bluegreen143

Oh another thing I was going to post - geek alert. I spent £47.73 in Lidl today, £3 on two of the cheap veg boxes (I only took two cos there were loads all stacked up and after I’d done my whole shop they were still there tempting me!). So just £43.72 on other food. I (very geekily) put the shop into Tesco to see how much I’d have spent if I got a delivery from there as usual. £50.75. So over £6 saved. Over a year that could be £300, not including the delivery fee. I think I need to switch back to Lidl - I did always shop there before but stopped when pregnant with my youngest as my pelvic pain meant I couldn’t push a full trolley. Then I found shopping with a newborn + 3yo stressful... then lockdown happened and it didn’t seem the right time to switch back to in person shopping. It’s time now though I think!

YORKSHIRELASS

Morning all

@Bluegreen143 so true about work.  I do a well paid job but it is very stressful and I do need to look smart, although I work in a very small team so not much pressure to socialise or do some of the other things, and I only work 5 miles away from home.  I have been questioning a lot recently whether all the stress and responsibility is worth it, but until we get the debts cleared and the mortgage paid off I have to keep going.

My Dad acquires bits of wood from various neighbours, the church, bowling club, and where-ever he can rightfully scavenge it from then either chops it up into kindling or small pieces for our fire.  It keeps him busy and we are very grateful!

I need to do an inventory of my food stores this weekend, I am losing track of what I have where.  Working from home is keeping me out of the shops though so that is good.

Have done some long days at the paid stuff this week so I only need to do 4 hours today to get my hours in, which is brilliant, and I am working from home so dont need to go anywhere.  Off to get a shower and get dressed.

FrankieM

Morning
Christmas shopping mostly done now and so is mum's. Glad that's over!
I'm also a big fan of leaving my purse at home so I don't spend, though I'm finding as time goes on the need to spend becomes less and less, though I'm a sucker for buying books on Amazon
I read a lot of Financial Independence blogs, but having come to the party a bit late in life, I tend to think of my lifestyle as Frugal Independence, spending less so I can work less and get away with earning less, as I doubt I'll ever have the ability to retire early.
I've always loved reading how everybody else stretches their money to make it work for them.

Bluegreen143

@FrankieM what blogs do you recommend? I’m so intrigued by FI though reckon we ought to have started in our 20s when we both worked and had no kids, we could have saved masses 🤔 but we are in our thirties now (I’m 32) so perhaps we can still retire early, it’s a long way off to state pension at 68 and counting! I mean I know I don’t work anyway 😅 but obviously DH does, and I will again.

Viking_mfw

Re wood: near where I work there are a lot of big houses which frequently have branches trimmed and then they just leave them on the pavement! I have been known to see some walking back from lunch, get my car from the car park, and go pick them up. I also scavenge. My husband finds the whole thing hilarious. 

Re FI blogs, I like Quietly Saving, plus she has a list of UK FI blogs that are still active. 
One frugal come FI blog which I really like but which is very different from the UK context is Frugalwoods, who moved with her husband and kids to the middle of nowhere in Vermont.