Frugal, thrifty, make do, mend! Let this debt come to an end!

Elisheba

DawnW said:

I would definitely wait to replace appliances if they still work ok. Throw the money at your deposit fund instead.

Yep, I agree.  Doesn't make any sense to replace them at this point.  

Makingabobor2

Some interesting numbers there.  I've never thought to work it out like that, maybe I should.  If it was me, I would be wanting to spend more on adventures, and less on clothing and Christmas.  I might actually sit down and work out some numbers like that, not that I have a clue how much I spent on food last year exactly, or clothes. I know what I budgeted, but didn't keep tabs on exactly how much I spent. I am going to do that this year.  

MFWannabe

If you get a diesel car older than April 2017 some of them are £20 or zero tax per year 👍 

Elisheba

Makingabobor2 said:

Some interesting numbers there.  I've never thought to work it out like that, maybe I should.  If it was me, I would be wanting to spend more on adventures, and less on clothing and Christmas.  I might actually sit down and work out some numbers like that, not that I have a clue how much I spent on food last year exactly, or clothes. I know what I budgeted, but didn't keep tabs on exactly how much I spent. I am going to do that this year.  

I have found writing down all my spending on an app on my phone very useful. I use Notion now, and have set it up so that for each purchase I have to allocate it to a category. Then at the end of each month I can sort by category, and see what I have spent on food, pocket money, pet food/litter, diesel, travel, and annuals.

Then I replace my budgeted amount for each category on my s/s with actual spending. I've got a separate s/s for the annual pots, so I can break that spending down to each category as well. So as long as I fill it all in it's quite easy to see what I am spending both monthly and annually.

With saving for the house now all the pots are getting reduced, and adventures will be severely curtailed for a year or two. Once I have a house though everything can be reassessed.

Elisheba

Morning, all,

I have just spent a pleasant hour working out a basic shopping list for my £100 a month food budget. All prices are from Ald! Apart from the wholemeal bread flour which they no longer seem to sell, and so that is Mr M. I have based it on 4 weeks, but there is absolutely loads there to stretch for a 5 week month. In all honestly with some of the stuff I may not even need to buy it each month, but will see how I get on. I'm also planning on 16:8 intermittent fasting, so will only be brunch (muesli) and main meal for dinner. I don't normally have dessert but there are a few options if I take a notion for it.

The plan is to go back to going to the supermarket myself as it's cheaper than online, and to go weekly. It'll give me an excuse to go out early on a Saturday morning, and I can walk silly dog and get my free sea creature energy company coffee from Gr£ggs at the same time. Might pop to the library as well.

I'm also aware I currently have a full freezer, and a pantry with a lot of this (plus loads of other stuff) already there so when I'm making a shopping list I can take that into account. The whole thing won't start until February as I will be up in Scotland for most of January. 

It comes to £22.54 a week at current prices, and leaves £2.46 for bits and pieces as needed like oil, herbs, spices, yeast, sugar, tea and coffee, seasonal fruit and veg that looks good.

Obviously it's doesn't include household stuff, so I think I'm going to budget an extra £10 month for toilet roll, deodorant, toothpaste, period products, and cleaning products. I'll probably have to stop buying the Who gives a **** toilet rolls and go back to supermarket own to stick to that, but I'll stick with W!ld deodorant. I've never had a separate budget for the household goods, so I may have to adjust the budget as the costs for all that become clearer.

The marmite, marmalade, baked beans and dried fruit are UPF, but everything else is homemade. I'll need to seriously cut back my coffee use and get back to loose tea again. I may end up adding tea and coffee as an actual item in the budget, but we'll see how I get on.

Just as a point of interest I noticed when doing this that nowhere sells own brand wholemeal bread flour any more, and baked beans are being reduced by 10g in each tin. 

Weekly

2.90 - 8 pints milk (muesli, hot drinks, Mac cheese)

1.99 - butter

0.90 - 1 kg porridge (muesli)

1.65 - 1 kg wholemeal bread flour (bread, pizza, rolls, wraps)

4.58 - muesli seeds and nuts (see below for breakdown)

0.75 - wholemeal pasta 500g (pasta bake, Mac cheese, spag bog)

0.78 - bananas x 5 (muesli, snack, banana bread)

0.85 - greek yogurt 500g (muesli, dessert)

3.96 - monthly singles (see below for details)

0.28 - baked beans 410g (cheese beano, eggs and chips)

2.40 - monthly multiples (see below)

Total 22.54

Monthly Singles, ie. Buy once a month and divide by 4 for a weekly amount 

Muesli stuff

1.65 - Mixed nuts 200g

1.49 - raisins and cranberries 300g

1.25 - 4 seed mix 250g

1.99 - Brazil nuts 200g

1.39 - chia seeds 200g

1.39 - flax seed 200g

9.16 Total 

Other monthly singles 

4.88 - mature cheddar 900g (Mac cheese with various veg, cheese Beano, sandwiches, pasta bake, spag bog)

0.95 - frozen carrots 1kg (soup with beans, side dish, curries, casseroles

1.19 - frozen brocolli 1kg (mac cheese, soup with cheese, side dish, risotto, casseroles, curries)

1.10 - frozen peas 900g (side dish, curries, casseroles, risottos)

0.59 - white potatoes 2kg (baked, mashed, chipped, roasted, curries, casseroles, soup)

2.69 - 15 freerange eggs (omelette, fried, scrambled, boiled, curries)

1.99 - marmite (toast, pasta, mince)

0.79 - marmalade (toast)

0.49 - green lentils 390g (use as mince replacememt - mince and potatoes, chilli, spag bog)

Total - 16.66

Monthly Multiples (buy 2 then divide by 4 for weekly cost)

0.99 - frozen mushrooms 500g (pizza, soup, mince, pasta bake, spag bog)

0.49 - tinned chickpeas 400g (curries, hummous, salads, roasted snack)

0.33 - kidney beans 400g (rissoles, chilli, salad, curries)

1.25 - red lentils 500g (soup, curries, casseroles)

0.75 - celery (soup, casseroles, snack, curries)

0.99 - frozen onions 500g (soup, casseroles, curries, mince, risotto)

2.99 - mixed frozen berries 1kg (muesli, desserts)

Elisheba

Just realised I've forgotten tinned tomatoes. Oh well, it is a work in progress.

foxgloves

I've also noticed unavailability of own-label wholemeal bread flour except for Waitrose's own 'Essentials' so we buy that & it makes good bread. I used to stock up on Aldi's a few times a year but haven't seen it on the shelves for at least a couple of years so can only assume it is no longer a product they stock.
F

Elisheba

Just a very quick update to say I spied 1.5kg bags of wholemeal bread flour for £1.09 in Mr L up here in Scotland. So I might stock up when I go home.

Slowdown

Hi @Elisheba
How is January working out? Cold I suspect! 

Looking forward to an update. 😊

Elisheba

Hi All,

I am still up in Scotland with family and very little spending is going on so that's why I haven't been on here much - not much to report.

One little thing of note was there was a bit of a mix up with my W!ld refill deodorant subscription.  I skipped the 3 monthly mailout as I have lots left from the last one, but due to having accidently having set up 2 accounts, one saying gmail and saying googlemail, I still had an email to say they had sent the order out.  I emailed to complain and in the end they refunded half the price of the order (and sorted out the account issue).  So although I don't need them now, I now have ones for the future and got them half price.  

I am still monitoring my sea creature energy account, and the combined undercounter fridge and chest freezer usage has dropped from 1.84kwh the day after I left to 1.23kwh the day before yesterday.  Just goes to show how much energy is used to keep them cold.  

I got a secondhand copy of Meet the Frugalwoods by Elizabeth Willard Thames a few weeks ago for about a fiver.  Have been reading and it is really very good.  Its a memoir format which makes it interesting, and reading the changes they made and how they manage money is very inspiring.  I have looked at her Frugalwoods website before (although she doesn't post much now) but I am finding the book more motivating.  

I'm off to walk silly dog in a bit.  The deep freeze has ended here, thankfully, as I was getting a bit sick of it being an ice rink on the country paths that hadn't been gritted when I went out.

Its still too early to see my February payslip, so I can't finalise my 2025 budget yet. The good news is that being up in Scotland with Mum buying most for the food means I'll be underbudget by a fair bit for January, and that will go straight in the new house pot.  I'll need to set up a s/s to track the savings at some point.  Until I sell the car though its really just going towards debt.  

Oh, and there is a really good documentary on Netflix for any of you who subscribe (I am taking advantage of Mum's subscription while I am here) called Buy Now - The Shopping Conspiracy.  Really clearly outlines how multinationals deliberately build in obsolescence in order to get us to buy more, so they can produce more and more to increase profit.  Then they take nothing to do with product end of life, so the world is left with increasing amounts of, often toxic, waste which isn't dealt with well.  Really makes you think.  There isn't a huge amount that we can do as consumers except try to be very, very mindful of what we are buying.  

Hope everyone is well and wasn't too cold last week.  I'll be up here for another 2 weeks so probably won't be posting much as nothing much is happening moneywise (other than not spending money which is the most important thing really I suppose!).