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

missymoo81

Yay for a no spend weekend that’s great! I need to make some more banana bread. I’m going to try flapjacks as well, haven’t made them for years!

Elisheba

Evening, all. I am curled up in bed with a hot water bottle and feel very cosy indeed. 

I worked out today I can save almost £5 a year by listening to the radio through my laptop, rather than turning an actual radio when I am working. It won't exactly keep any wolves from the door, but thats an extra fiver towards a birthday or Xmas present I suppose.

It also occurred to me that I am being quite daft to be squirelling away my emergency, holiday and annuals funds to Premium Bonds when I am paying £20 a month interest in an overdraft. My thinking was that it would be a lot harder to spend if it was tucked away, and it's not like it would gain much interest. Both very solid points, but the chances of it making £240 a year on a lucky draw are miniscule, and that's what I am paying out while getting excited over saving £5 a year on my radio! Bonkers really. 

So, I will have to think about what to do here. Logically I should keep all money in my account until my OD is cleared. Obviously some of that money is for spending so it won't always stay clear, but it'll certainly be cheaper in charges than it is now. I am tempted to keep some aside just for safety's sake - I know myself, and funds just sitting there tempts me something awful to big purchases I wouldn't otherwise make but which I convince myself I both need and can afford. I'll need to mull it over. 

Shopping wise, today was another NSD. I've run out of my yogurt shots though and will need to buy more tomorrow. I think of them like medicine as they seem to seriously enhance my mood (no real idea why - there is no scientific evidence to say they work at all) , but I am going to take a risk and try shops own brand and see how I get on. Its the same bacteria so they should work. 

Hope you all sleep fabulously, and have brilliant Tuesdays! 

Elisheba

Happy Tuesday all,

I have bitten the bullet and cashed in all the premium bonds I just bought, and emptied the annuals account, and put it all back in my current account with the large overdraft.  I'll just have to make sure I am super strict with myself - I can spend what is in my budget, not what is in my account!  And its an overdraft anyway - that isn't money, its debt! 

With what I've just transferred from the premium bonds, together with the £150 council tax energy rebate next month, and my local government cost of living pay rise from last year which has just been agreed and will be paid all in one go in this pay packet, and the fact almost all my bills come out at the end of the month I should hopefully not be in my overdraft for very long every month, and this should save me the best part of £240 a year.  Which is a heck of a lot more than I would get in interest, on on premium bonds almost certainly, so is a good use of funds - as long as I don't spend it!

I'm having a bowl of some really gorgeous carrot and coriander soup I made at the weekend for lunch, and a banana for afters.  I have the breadmaker on having been convinced its cheaper than buying bread (currently anyway - who knows what will happen to the price of wheat and hence bread and flour with the war in the Ukraine.  It produces 10% on the world's wheat - the things you learn when megalomaniacs invade innocent countries!) so will have a big hunk of warm bread and butter later on to fill up the gaps.

I have had to give up on one of my energy saving hacks, which was to shower less and just have sink washes instead.  I was getting skin complaints so I thought I'd better go back to showering everyday.  I have ridiculously sensitive skin so it could even be not quite rinsing the soap off properly (its Dove but even still - stupidly sensitive skin).  So a few pence more in a gas a day than I would like.  Come the warmer weather I might try only turning the water on for getting wet and rinsing, but I'm not doing that just now with the temperature of my bathroom!  Tried it once and it was horrible!

badmemory

My council are saying they are paying it April or May.

Elisheba

badmemory said:

My council are saying they are paying it April or May.

Oh. Well I suppose its much of a muchness really. I haven't even had an email paper bill through (although the letter was generated on the 4th according to my online account) yet. Not a problem in itself, as I can see it online, but there is a leaflet with the bill explaining what my council are doing about the heating rebate which goes with the bill, and which I can't see online, so I've no idea what my council are doing! 

badmemory

I think it has been thrust on them when they don't really have the systems to deal with it.  All they can do is do their best without any financial assistance to do it.

Elisheba

Yes I imagine that's true @badmemory. I'm in no hurry so it can appear whenever it appears. It did occur to me that it would probably do a lot of people more use if it was credit on the energy bill, like the October rebate will be. Then folk wouldn't fritter it away on nonsense as we are all wont to do at times. Perhaps that was too hard to organise at short notice. 

Elisheba

Good morning, frugalista campers! 

Hopefully today will be calm and peaceful for us all. I've been a bit sneaky this morning and transferred some credit on the account my ex and I use for shared debts/bills to my personal account to cover a bit more of the OD. It doesn't earn any interest and I'm sure he won't mind. I'll pay it back when the bills are due out, and in the meantime it's working harder for me saving me some interest than it was just sitting there.

I'm currently in bed but I'll get up soon, have a shower, feed the monkeys, make a pot of tea to fill the thermos and make some porridge for breakfast.
I'm determined to be productive today at work so I'll only check on here at lunch time! 

I'll need to make some new soup in the soupmaker for lunch, so I'll put that on a breakfast time. It'll be carrots again as I've got lots to use, and possible the rest of a carton of pasatta I opened last week. I think I'm going to try home made tortillas for dinner. They need to rise for half an hour so I'll probably make the dough before my dog walk this evening. I just hope the kitchen is warm enough for it to rise! Perhaps I should leave it in the oven?

Anyway, if I make them then I'll have them filled with fried peppers, onions and mushrooms cooked with a stock cube, and some grated cheese and Greek yogurt. All of which need used up. I'll probably make enough for 2 days so that's tomorrow sorted as well.

I'm still quite pleased with myself for all my money saving this week. With the £200-240 saved on interest on my overdraft, a fiver saved on energy costs for the radio, £24-40 saved on toilet roll, that's basically the cost of Christmas saved. Since I heard the advice to treat pennies and pounds the same I've found it so useful. It's so easy to write off a £5 a year saving, or fritter away a few pence here and there. It all adds up though, so if I can save a few pence here and there and it doesn't cause me any problems then I will.

I think me being vegetarian, wanting to live a simple life, and also wanting to be as environmental as possible within my budget also helps. Obviously I don't buy meat so that saves money, but I also have made a lot of changes because I think they are better environmentally. I try and avoid single use plastic, and whereas as I might throw my hands in the air sometimes with money saving and think **** it, I often fall back on things being better for the world so just keep plodding away. 

Elisheba

Well, I have done some sums over my lunch break on what I think my energy costs will be for the next 6 months on  April's tariffs, based on my average usage in February (when I was being very good with energy and had the heating on very rarely).  I work it out to come to £84.55 per month, or £1014.57 per annum.  This is £35.43 less than my energy company thinks it will be, so just goes to show it really does pay to be very frugal with energy.

I still have some credit on my account so I won't increase my DD this month, but next month I will increase my DD to £85 a month and keep an eye on how it goes. I'll feed it into my budget as well.  Its only £5 month more than I predicted (albeit £47 more a month than I was paying last month!) so that will be fine.  Honestly when i think about what else i could do with £50 a month, I get stomping mad!  I could have a leisure club membership and go swimming and in the jacuzzi everyday, or some fancy wine club subscription and try bottles of lovely wine every month.  Instead I'm paying £50 more a month to receive the same thing and make some !!!!!! oil tycoon richer.  So annoying!

Of course even although I will be banking a bit because I will use less in summer, it won't be enough to cover the October price increase.  However, that's where the government £200 credit will come in useful and will cover any shortfall (although hopefully there won't be much).  Fingers crossed by the subsequent April the prices will have stabilised again somewhat, and new price cap will be about the same and I'll have caught up with myself again.  

Elisheba

Goodness, I took a 2 week break from this forum and now all the threads I like reading have got 100s of posts, and the prepping for winter thread has started up again! 

In money saving terms, I've not been brilliant but I've not been terrible either. I did overspend on food, mainly through feeling a bit worn down and buying junk food. I also lost gas for a few days and bought really easy microwave food to cope with that. I also overspent on my social budget, but not massively. All in all, I'm not going to beat myself up over it but will try to do better for April.

The reason I was without gas was due to a leak. It's all fixed now, and I'm wondering if it will make much difference to my energy costs! 

I need to do my monthly animal food shopping so it's time for my regular moan about the rising costs of catfood. Mine eat Butchers, and the best deal I can see near me is at PAH, 48 cans for £30. Not that long ago I remember similar deals at 48 for £20, so I'm not hugely impressed!

I am wondering if its worth me trying them in T£sco own brand again. There is a club card deal of 12 for £5 right now. The thing is they are likely to eat it for a few days and then stop eating. It might be worth trying it I suppose. If I just buy a few and see how they get on it couldn't hurt.

I've been focusing of simple living recently. Taking pictures of the Spring flowers on walks and IDing them when I get home, going for much longer walks now the evenings are lighter. I'm also trying to declutter some more, which is a work in progress! I may never use my fancy coffee maker for example, but I saved up for ages for it so it's quite hard to think about selling it! And there is some stuff that has become hard to get rid of through the sheer fact that I've had it so long, not that it had any particular sentimental value in the first place!

I'm going to keep at it though. Extra stuff is just more stuff to clean and clutter my space. I'm not a full on minimalist, but I do hate cleaning so there is a balance to be found. 

Since it's the last day of slightly cheaper energy tomorrow I might strip my bed and do a 60 degree eco wash with that and some towels and cloths. It's needing done, although I normally wait for the weekends. With the weather cold again I'm also not very enthusiastic about taking off the warm flannel bedding and putting on the cotton flowery bedding quite yet. I've had to pull out all my thermals again after putting them away last week. Had to put a hat and gloves on today for my dog walk it was that chilly!

Hope everyone is well! I'll have to put some time aside to catch up on diaries soon!