2020 Frugal Living Challenge

mumtoomany

Hi all. Thank you to everyone who has been concerned about my DH and his fall through the barn roof. He still has a black eye, but is on the mend. He is back on the roof, finishing putting on the new metal sheets! He was last heard humming the signature tune to Captain Scarlet!

Did the big Tesco shop yesterday with DD2. Spent £79.99 on food and £19.26 on other groceries. All after the 10% discount. Now have enough beans, squash, shampoo, deoderant, tinned tomatoes, oats, etc till at least June, when they will be down again.

Someone asked about surveys for Amazon vouchers. (sorry not sure who). Try the "boost your income" board, for loads of ideas. The ones I use are Swagbucks (Get about £25 per month) and Grab points (about £5 per week when I can find the time) Grabpoints on the tap reasearch wall, give you points even if you can't complete a survey. But it's a bit tedious.

Regarding the book mentioned above. It appears that the £20 a week only covers one meal a day, if I've read it right. So not quite as good as it first appears.

Still being as frugal as possible, speak soon, Mumtoomany.

[Deleted User]

DH and I really love Christmas pudding, whatever the time of year or the main course of our meal. We've had it after beans on toast and such like:rotfl:. I always stock up after Christmas when supermarkets are reducing them as they keep for months, often beyond the next Christmas, although there's no chance of them lasting that long in this house. Strangely, this year there seem to have been very few available:mad:


DH was going to a town we don't normally visit today and I asked him to keep a look out for any stray Christmas puds. He came back and took out 6 puds from his bag with a flourish. My jaw dropped as they were quite small with price stickers of £6.50 each:eek:. He said they'd been reduced to 'buy one get one free' so the 6 were actually £19.50. The shop assistant then said he could have them for £18 seeing as they were the last ones left. Probably a bargain really as they are a local 'posh' make but they're not helping towards my frugal goal:(. I've not read all the label but it says they are from a 1940s recipe. Not sure if that's a wartime 'ration' recipe or not:eek:

mumtoomany

Hi, Finally Solvent. I've always found £1 shops are a good place to buy Christmas puddings this time of year, Mumtoomany

1LuckyLady

Hi all, I didn't get round to posting yesterday but I kept this thread in mind.
I did spend but it was on a nhs dental check up for me and the hairdressers for the kids not silly spending. The rest of the day was the usual bits of eating from stores etc.

Today was a spend day but mainly stuck to my list at alddeee and icyland just bought a ys bread and ys yogurts so I was happy with that. Lots of decluttering going on here also, I found another kids tech item to sell to cex, will post it tomorrow. I've accepted a revised offer for a very old mobile that I didn't expect to get anything for at all tbh just happy to have it gone.

Right I'm going to read back todays posts as I'm a bit behind!

slowlyfading

I'm up to NSD 7 which I'm pleased about; feel much more positive about our finances at the moment!



That being said, trying to juggle being a mum, working, blogging and youtube-ing is really tricky. At least it stops me from spending money

Frugallife

NSD here today.
Worked half the day and also sorted some finances in terms of closing old accounts that I’m not using.

Someone else mentioned decluttering and simplifying life in general and I’m trying to do that.

Carried on using up food from Christmas. Pretty much done now but did find some homemade pastry in freezer from goodness knows when. So will find a use for that this week.

Really need toilet roll recommendations...

cw18

Kerry_Woman wrote: »

Have entered a charity 5K in London. They had a 30% off entry price so used that.

A pink one by any chance?

In 2019 I did five 10k runs at one location that were part of a 9 run series, and for this year bought a series pass with a Black Friday discount on an already reduced price (should be £20 each, I paid £75 instead of £95 for the pass).


I did at least one 10k (various locations and companies) every month last year, and want to do the same in 2020. The series gives one a month for 9 months, but I'm likely to be at work for one (8 are Sundays, but the Saturday one isn't one of my weekends off so I'm trying to get a swap with someone). Had to find for June, November, December and possible September. Then I got a 30% discount code for a pink charity I did a local 5k with last year, but that clashes with another 10k I'm doing in 2020. So I had a look around, and they have a 10k in June at the same location as the series - so I've signed up for that as it fills in a gap for me



Already have November's option lined up but not paid for (one I've done in 2018 and 2019), so just December (and September?) to sort out now. Have a possible for September if I can't get the Saturday off work (another I did last year), but nothing local-ish coming up for December on a date I can manage yet

cw18

SummerDays wrote: »

.....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?

The biggest issue I have with that plan is that if you put into savings and get made redundant then your savings count against you if you try to claim for any income related benefits. They totally ignore any debts you have, so if you have more than the permitted savings you have to live off those before you see a penny (and it used to be the case that they only allowed for you spending it at a certain rate, so you couldn't book an exotic holiday or buy a new car to get rid of it) - and in the meantime you could suddenly find you're also paying interest on the credit card as your deal has ended. So yes, build up some savings. But watch out how much - and before you hit the cap the benefits agency apply start throwing what you can at the card to get that paid off. I believe they reduce benefits if you have more than £6k , and won't pay anything if you have £16k.

Siebrie

Yesterday's dinner was the last of the potatoes, broccoli, and the 3 last chicken sausages (1 was getting freezer burn). Dessert was hm custard that I didn't measure properly, so it was very thick and not sweet. DD1 did not like it, but I enjoyed it with some jam and whipped cream.


Tonight husband and I are going to the opening gala of the Brussels' car fair, a rather grand affair. Husband has a €25 black suit and white shirt, we are borrowing the butterfly tie. I already have a dress (the €8 dress I bought in the charity shop is too grand, I have noticed on last year's pictures of the gala affair). The most expensive part is the babysit at €5/hour, which will cost a total of €25. At the gala, there will be enough nibbles/apero's/snacks to make up for a meal, I have been assured.

[Deleted User]

mumtoomany wrote: »

Hi, Finally Solvent. I've always found £1 shops are a good place to buy Christmas puddings this time of year, Mumtoomany

Thank you:T. Sadly, we've both tried all the ones anywhere local to us but not a Christmas pud to be seen:mad: