2020 Frugal Living Challenge

Siebrie

Husband went panic-buying on Friday, in the midst of the day, in the middle of crowds of shoppers: 10 tins of sausages we don't like, 6 tins of sardines, 1 cake....

Yeah, there was no need, as there is plenty of food, etc in the house, and it was him who finished the emergency supplies and let the fresh stuff go to waste! (Still plenty in the freezer, don't worry.) Our Aldi closed at noon, as it was empty.

I gave husband a shopping list for today, which should tide us over for another fortnight.

Frugalistamama

Been a bit quiet in the last few weeks because I've been feeling bad that I've again given in to my food hoarding due to all the panic buying. I haven't needed anything, but keep stocking anyway. I have a problem. I haven't been going really crazy like some in the supermarket as i already have loads in store so I'm not feeling panicked, just giving in to the urge..... I think i actually need to stay out of the shops and shop online. I thought i could get away with a weekly lidl trip and only spend £30 but i just keep getting seduced and spending nearly my usual shop of £70 so I'm going to try to do a minimum spend of £40 for online Tesco hoping that'll save me money.  
Any other advice for me?  Xx

willow_loulou

I’ve just been shopping. Had to by branded stuff in Tesco which made my usual £30 ish way more. I don’t need anything for a while now though, just eggs and flour (ha ha) and milk in time. 

Meh. Hope this nuts is over soon. 

CraftyLittleLisa

The next few weeks are going to be difficult I think but, on the plus side, I could end up saving a lot of money if only because there is nothing in the shops to spend it on.  So far I have had 7 no spend days this month and there is still another couple of weeks left to go of the rest of the month.  I normally struggle to do that in a whole month. 

To try and deal with some of the panic buying issues I raided my rag bag and found an old dressing gown and an old pair of pyjamas so I have turned them into some reusable toilet paper to use if things get really desperate.  I also used some stale bread to make bread pudding, used vegetable peelings to make crisps and made some biscuits from scratch to make sure I had some snack things to ensure I have enough to eat in the cupboard.

Following on from the announcement this afternoon about minimising social contact I'm wondering what is going to happen about my yoga evening class I have paid for.  I need to make a call tomorrow to see whether they are still going to run them or whether they will cancel and refund the weeks that are left.  Watch this space.

cw18

Finally managed to get some tinned potatoes today - and a second pack of instant mash.   I don't really like either (and I don't eat potatoes often, other than jackets which I can't stockpile), but I do like a change from rice, pasta and couscous sometimes so wanted to add these to my grocery supplies.     Still no bread flour anywhere though     That's the one thing I could really do with finding, though I do now have porridge oats (and some dried fruit and seeds I can mix in) to replace the toast I have for breakfast, and a few packs of part baked baguettes and wraps to replace the rolls I take to work for my lunch for a few weeks (but beyond that I either need access to more wraps/rolls or to have found bread flour to make my own).   I'm hoping to clear some space in a freezer for some of the wraps though, as the rolls and wraps only have about a month before their best before date.  (And yes, I do - and will - ignore bb dates as long as my eyes and nose tell me the items should be OK to eat.)

I also picked up a tub of custard powder and a couple of cartons of long-life soya milk so that I can make custard to go with some sponges I have in the house, and I have a huuuuge tin of stewed rhubarb I've been meaning to turn into crumbles for quite a while (picked up plain flour a couple of days ago as was running low, and already had the fat and sugar to make a dairy free crumble topping).   I also have some pudding rice in the house, so can use some of the milk to make that into a dessert as well.  May pick up a couple more cartons of the soya milk yet - with a date of very late December it won't get wasted.   Also have all the makings for flapjacks and/or Twinks Hobnobs, neither of which I've made in a good long while.  These things should hopefully remove the need for my regular excursions looking for sweets and such.

I've also picked up general tinned veg (peas, carrots, beans and sweetcorn) that I don't generally buy, but used to keep in as emergency stand-bys when I was catering for a family.    As I'm not keen on them (others ate them without complaint) I've drifted towards not bothering having any in over recent years, but decided it was time to get a few tins in again as I don't have freezer space for my normal frozen types (especially not if I want to make space for wraps, which I can't get a long life equivalent for).

These are the types of purchases that have made my grocery spends shoot up in the last couple of weeks.

Having watched the terms of lock-down in other countries (I have contacts in North Italy and Spain to ask questions of), I decided I needed to get in a bit more than I'd planned on doing.   The postal services in both countries are still 'business as ususal', which means if we follow suit I'll still have to go to work.   And that means I won't be able to get to shops until the end of the day, by which time many essentials that were delivered that day will possibly have sold out.   But because I have an active job I need to be sure I'm getting enough calories, and because I'm going to be high risk for catching this thing (due to the number of people I'll come into contact with) I feel it's also important I do my best to continue to get a varied and balanced diet so that I don't get run down which will probably leave me more susceptible to it.      So I'm seeing the extra grocery expenditure as an investment in my health, and just hope that things balance out over the course of the year as iI work my way through these new purchases instead of buying fresh stuff on an almost daily basis.......

pelirocco

Frugaldom said:

Muggle1000 said:

Hello everyone, struggling with the budget over the last couple of weeks due to empty shelves.  Having to buy more expensive brands.  Paid £5 for a pack of loo roll today.  I may need therapy to get over that.  Does that class as an emergency that I can did into my emergency fund for? 
My frugal thing this week was to re-home our last few fish in the big tank we have.  So now we can sell the fish tank and save money on electric, food and filters. 

Muggle, I was doing my supermarket order and was quite shocked at how many items were out of stock. So many of the basics were gone that I began wondering if they simply were not restocking on items with next to no profit margins attached to them. Loss leaders have virtually vanished, forcing everyone to step up a brand or 2 and, in some case, spend doub;e what they would normally pay. In the past, we have dbated this very subject - what to do in the case of the cheap brands vanishing if that's all a household budget can afford. I's very much a case of keep on looking. Things I noticed missing were spaghetti, pasta, porridge oats,tinned tomatoes, baked beans, UHT milk... all the things that we frugalers usually buy every other month. A search for alternatives did reap some benefits and, in some cases, cheaper options! Hard to believe but 4 tins of beans for £1 simply because they are reduced salt & sugar is fine by me. All the shortages seen in the towns don't seem to be filtering down to local village stores just yet but I topped up on milk powder, flour, sugar, coffee and tea just in case. It really puts things into perspective when thinking about how many people consider frugalers extreme.
 Stay safe and stay healthy, folks, and support one another wherever possible. 

I am not sure that you are correct in thinking the more expensive the item is the higher the profit margin is

Frugaldom

Pelirocco that is definitely NOT what I meant as price does not reflect percentage mark-up. Apologies, yet again, for writung in a way that my words can be misconstrued. Supermarkets sell loss leaders - products sold at less than their real cost - in order to encourage customers to buy more. It makes business sense to me that they steer panic buyers towards products with profit on them. 

CW  why not just make flatbreads and your own wraps? They are really quick and easy.

Personally, I don't get the panic buying thing. Most long-standing frugalers keep a basic foodstore of items that can be mixed and matched to make meals, yes, things could get interesting if shops close, but no matter what anyone thinks or does, life goes on. Farmers - the framework and cornerstones of food production - won't  stop working, Forestry workers - the framework and cornerstones of toilet paper production - won't stop working, and the homeless, addiction and financial problems within society won't be resolved by any virus so please spare a thought for all those who can't just run a hot tap and wash their hands whenever they want. Hopefully this crisis will be over within a few months but in the meantime, share your knowledge of frugal living and keep making do. Sudden change in circumstances is one of the main reasons some people find themselves having to learn to budget wisely and save what they can. 

Good luck to all, I hope everyone stays healthy, stays safe, follows guidelines and can make the most of frugal living to weather this storm.

cw18

Frugaldom said:

CW  why not just make flatbreads and your own wraps? They are really quick and easy.

Not something I've ever tried to do, and I don't have the time this week.   I may have a go next week, but need to see if I have (or can source) the ingredients.   But I've never had a lot of success cooking any kind of bread product - and even with a breadmaker my loaves are hit and miss

Frugaldom said:

Personally, I don't get the panic buying thing. Most long-standing frugalers keep a basic foodstore of items that can be mixed and matched to make meals, yes, things could get interesting if shops close, but no matter what anyone thinks or does, life goes on. Farmers - the framework and cornerstones of food production - won't  stop working, Forestry workers - the framework and cornerstones of toilet paper production - won't stop working, and the homeless, addiction and financial problems within society won't be resolved by any virus so please spare a thought for all those who can't just run a hot tap and wash their hands whenever they want. Hopefully this crisis will be over within a few months but in the meantime, share your knowledge of frugal living and keep making do. Sudden change in circumstances is one of the main reasons some people find themselves having to learn to budget wisely and save what they can.

I always have (probably too) large stocks of some items and reasonable stocks of others.   But there are some items (long life veg/potatoes in particular) that I just don't keep in as I don't use them (or only have enough for 1 or 2 days).  I don't have a local network who could pick stuff up for me and dump on my doorstep should I need to self-isolate for 14 days (or longer if I actually then develop the symptoms), and if my elder son also has to self-isolate I have don't really have anyone I can ask.  Plus he'd likely descend on me if I was also self-isolating as he's not one for coping with absolutely no human contact (even though he'd probably spend most of the time cooped up in 'his' bedroom) which would mean me needing more food - and he won't have much to bring with him as he tends to shop every couple of days with an otherwise empty fridge and freezer, as well as empty cupboards other than pickles and ketchup type sauces!!    Until such times as I need to self-isolate (if I end up having to) I won't be able to get to shops until the back end of a day due to having to go to work - and at the moment that is when there are huge gaps on the shelves (managed to get some long-life milk for my fella today by being at A1di just after opening - he doesn't keep stocks of that, and his local stores have had none in this week).

I've picked up additional tins of tuna and jars of mayo so that I have something to put in my lunch time rolls/wraps if I can't get hold of any cooked meats (I normally buy big packs of ham offcuts), but I use that throughout the year for butties and on jacket potatoes so it'll get used quite easily - normally buying the tuna when I get down to my last couple of tins and mayo as I get towards the bottom of the jar.   I also add tuna and tinned tomatoes (which I already had about 14 tins of) to pasta to make a q&e meal - normally with frozen peas & sweetcorn, but can easily be done with tinned which I've bought. 

Compared to other trolleys I've seen in stores I've not really bought a lot, even working on the assumption that most trolleys are for a family of 4.   And there have been a number of items on "everyone's list" that I haven't needed (toilet rolls, tinned fruit, baked beans, tinned tomatoes, pasta and rice for starters  )     I actually got a number of strange looks at the A1di tills this morning, as I must have been the only person NOT to have the one packet of toilet rolls they're limiting customers too

Herbyme

Apparently most of the pulp for our toilet rolls comes in from Finland.
I just noticed that the sell by date on some halloumi I happen to have in the fridge is May 2021. Would I be the only person in the UK to stockpile halloumi? 
Frugalistamama, you may find it hard to get slots for online grocery deliveries, hope your area is better than here. One thought would be to get all your tins, packets etc out of the cupboards and put them in one place eg on your dining table, then take a photo of them to keep on your phone. (NB best to work fast if you include frozen things!)  Then when you get the urge to get more, you could look at the photo and maybe feel reassured that there's no need to buy any more? You could also plan a week's menus, write out the (stockable) ingredients and then work out how many weeks worth of food you have in stock to cover those menus, then see if that feels like long enough. EG you might have enough tins of tomatoes for ? 10 weeks of meals, but enough pasta for ? 8 weeks, so you might want a couple more bags of pasta but no more tins of tomatoes...I just made the numbers up but you see what I mean. 
HTH but these are crazy times, we all need to cut ourselves some slack (I'm personally rationing the amount of time I spend absorbing info about it all, either on the news or onlline, it's doing my head in. All I need to know is the - very small amount of - info that's actually true and evidence based: https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavirus-covid-19/)
Stay safe all and learn to love halloumi 

lcc86

I must be one of the minority who had every single item available on my weekly shopping delivery. Prior to this whole thing kicking off I did a cupboard inventory and saw I had too much food so was planning on running it down. Instead I'll keep what I have (and use some of it) and just do regular weekly shops unless told otherwise. 

I work in a statutory service so have to pick up work from others who've had to self isolate, morale is low but not much else we can do. We can only do our best.

I've cancelled a spa day next week and a couple of other things. I want to support businesses but also need to take appropriate measures. It's difficult to strike a balance here - do we carry on spending (frugally and within reason of course) or stop just in case? A friend of mine got agreement for a loan a few days ago before this worsened, she's not sure if she should cancel now just in case the worst happens to the economy.

Stay safe Frugalers!

Ps I LOVE halloumi @carolinerunner