2020 Frugal Living Challenge

cw18

A_Random_Man wrote: »

I have also got the reading bug again so have been flying few kindle ebooks which are quite expensive so need to refocus on reducing these.

I have a vast library on both my Kobo and my Kindle - but I've only paid for one book which was a specialised non-fiction title. The rest have been freebies. I'm signed up to a service called Bookbub which sends me daily emails suggesting titles that fall into the genres I've told them I read, and there's often 1 or 2 freebies amongst them. Or I just search the relevant sites for books 'by price: low to high' - easier done for Kindle than Kobo I find.

patentgirl

Thanks for recipe Allie those bean pasties sound yummy trying to have few meat free days so will give them a go my day off yesterday so made big pot of veg and lentil soup and chicken curry which will do is for eat of week DD3 made a pasta bake so will have plenty of choice. Have good day everyone.

Herbyme

BelleBaluu wrote: »

Anyone got any ideas for some veggie meals I could cook, that teenage boys might eat. They are not overly fussy, eat most veg, but we’ve always been a meat n two veg kind of family. But I’m looking to include a couple of no meat nights in our week.

We are quite new to veggie-ism, we like the Linda McC frozen sausages (all the variants) which are good either as sausage casserole or just sausage and chips. Also Ald1's 'meat balls', the tomato ones are good with tomato sauce over pasta. Aldi do other veg/vegan fresh things eg sausages, burgers, but those are the ones we liked the best.

I've found it's good to have something that isn't 'a load of veg in tomato sauce' as my son calls casseroles!

cuddlymarm

Hi fellow frugalites
I’m feeling a bit grumpy today because I just can’t shift this head cold. It just keeps coming back, I’ve had it since the beginning of December and I just think it’s come and up it pops.
Unfortunately yesterday wasn’t a NSD day as I needed a couple of bits from the SM to hold me over until my online shop arrived. I would have done without but we had visitors coming and as we only moved back into the flat just before Xmas I haven’t had chance to stock up much yet, so I’ll forgive myself for that.
I’m on work later, so I’ve planned tea and done my weeks meal plan. OH got one of those Alexa thingies for Xmas and she says it not too cold and going to be dry so I’ll walk in to work and hopefully walk back to save the tram fare. ( I could have just looked at the weather report but being told is much more fun)
Anyway I’d better get on
Have a good and frugal day guys
Cuddles

Siebrie

I'm back working Wednesday mornings, which means dds (11 and 8) will be home before me (halfday at school on Wednesdays). I have put out the ingredients, the material (scales, etc) and a cookbook with a pancake recipe, and told them to prepare the batter before I get home. We will then bake the pancakes together. Teaching cookery skills and maths

Kerry_Woman

Hugs to those in need of them.
allie23 - Thank you.
Still trying to achieve NSD's. Have enquired about volunteering at 2 different charity events held on either Saturday or Sunday later on in the year. Heard back and they will let me know closer to the time regarding role and timings. Want to get back in doing some voluntary work this year, but only at the weekend. Have entered a charity 5K in London. They had a 30% off entry price so used that.

mumof3.12kindebt

Hello I'd like to join you all please.

We have been doing frugal living / essential spends only since November 2017

Since then we have
cleared our debts (£16-£18k) and became debt free Nov 2018
Saved £12500 to get on the property ladder. This covered our deposit and all our costs) and we brought our home June 2019
Since June we haven't done so well with being frugal.
We havve £5000 in an emergency fund and have made £1500 in overpayments to the mortgage

My challenge this year is to get £12k in our emergency fund and continue to overpay the mortgage. I also really want to quit smoking the money saved from this once I have hit £12k in our emergency fund will go towards saving for a trip to disneyland Paris. And then it will go in savings for work I want done on the house.

If I can convince my partner to quit too I have calculated we would be £3000 a year better off. :eek:


I also plan to complete my second diploma thos year and read 26 books (I won't be buying any though, I'll be using my library and library ebook service)

Overall I hope to be in a much better financial position this time next year :money

Have lovely frugal adventures everyone :j

mumof3.12kindebt

My overall goal is to be mortgage free in ten years instead of 40 :eek: (we will be 37)

And possibly cash flow a few properties to rent out after the mortgage is paid off...

MadamMim2013

Finally_Solvent wrote: »

Did anyone see BBC Breakfast this morning? There was a woman on there who has just brought out a book. How to feed your family for £20n a week (or a similar title). I didn't hear how many people are in her family though. She also said she has a website/blog but I haven't had the time to search for it yet. Her name is Lorna Cooper.


I know these sort of books come out with regularity and us old-hand frugallers find out little that we don't already know. Plus, we've had to fork out of our stringent budgets to buy it in the first place:rotfl:


Please don't get me wrong here, I'm absolutely NOT fat-shaming, but the lady was very much on the large side. I often find that these uber-frugal meal plans are certainly filling but it's largely on stodge and not necessarily on the type of things that we should be eating for our health.

Lorna is amazing!
Have followed the blog/site since the very beginning and have passed its details along to many who have found it very helpful when dealing a very tight budget.. The few recipes chosen for the book is honestly a drop in the ocean of what is available on the site, it’s not just about stodgy foods..
In regards to her appearance she has a particular health condition that restricts what she can do (If I remember correctly, she had a pacemaker amended/changed just before Christmas) that teamed with certain medication will most certainly effect her.

Take a look at the site, there is so much variety!

SummerDays

Thank you for all of your frugal wisdom. I need to catch up on the last few days of posts, but even just reading what I have so far has made me more considerate and very mindful before spending - in fact I have only spent on essentials this year so far! I have impressed myself!

I've read the entire 2019 frugal living thread and have almost finished reading 2018 thread. So much wisdom - it's great. Thank you to all who have posted.

I would like to build our emergency funds up, as we pretty much don't have any (aside from an overpayment sitting against our mortgage - but that would be absolute dire emergency to touch that), so lets say I would like to build our "accessible" emergency fund, whilst continuing to make regular monthly payments against our credit card. This is around £6000 and was for some larger purchasers, at 0% for at least another 18 months. Whilst it was considered debt and not just frivolous spending, and we have a plan in place to pay back before end of 0%, it still nags at me that it's there. I could pay off earlier, but there are uncertainties at my workplace, and a few people have been redundant over the last few months, so feel the most sensible approach is continue building savings, and continue paying off card monthly as it isn't costing me anything in interest. Would you approach it in a similar way?