2021 Frugal Living Challenge

skint_chick

Another blow too my frugal ways - I had a minor car accident! My first in 12years and I've managed to scratch and dent a neighbours car - £200 worth of damage so could have been worse. OH is going to wash mine down tomorrow and see if he can T cut my scratch out, which is unlikely. So I'll probably be paying my insurance excess of £250 and slightly increased premiums for a couple of years. Literally just after having to get a new laptop! Hopefully nothing else breaks or goes wrong this year 
Checked out 'what vivi did next on YouTube and will be watching that this afternoon, as I'm very tired and am treating myself to an afternoon in bed with a hot Ribena and an extra duvet matching up on TV, YouTube and podcasts, and maybe a nap!

fionaandphil

skint_chick said:

Another blow too my frugal ways - I had a minor car accident! My first in 12years and I've managed to scratch and dent a neighbours car - £200 worth of damage so could have been worse. OH is going to wash mine down tomorrow and see if he can T cut my scratch out, which is unlikely. So I'll probably be paying my insurance excess of £250 and slightly increased premiums for a couple of years. Literally just after having to get a new laptop! Hopefully nothing else breaks or goes wrong this year 
Checked out 'what vivi did next on YouTube and will be watching that this afternoon, as I'm very tired and am treating myself to an afternoon in bed with a hot Ribena and an extra duvet matching up on TV, YouTube and podcasts, and maybe a nap!

@skint_chick it may be cheaper for you to actually pay a local garage to repair your neighbours car and pay for it direct than doing it through the insurance.  Somebody hit my car in a car park a few years ago and got a local bodywork place to do it for about £250, their excess was higher than that so it made it worthwhile for them and saved their no claims

[Deleted User]

OLaney said:

Green Renaissance on YouTube.....a self funded channel by the most incredible film maker.....so inspiring and makes you appreciate the things that are so important in this life. Watching these videos also helps me get a kick up the backside to get rid of this debt. Hopefully, it may inspire others too. Happy Friday everyone ❤️

OLaney thanks for recommending this channel on YT.  I love it, it is so inspiring, thought provoking and motivating. 

RainbowHippie

@OLaney and @roblou27 thankyou for the YT recommendations, will give them both a watch!

AskYouWillGet

Last week I had a shopping mishap... Left 4 pints of milk behind after a bag for life handles snapped then noticed. A few days later when checking receipts I noticed that some teabags that bought on half price offer £2.50 had charged me  £6.40! Must have had lots of 'bargains' as would have noticed as total bill under £20. I just wrote off the loss of these 2 things a value of about £5 
Went back to MrS and mentioned if any thing could be done - got a £5 gift card with no issues whatsoever!!
A fine example of my Motto : Ask You Will Get
Lessons learnt : always check receipts and total up as putting things in trolley! Although I was under my £20 budget!!
Happy weekend everyone  YouTube binged coming on with those recommended 👀

roblou27

Frugaldom said:

Good evening frugal folks, I'm on another very late night catch-up so can only apologise for not posting more often and responding to individual posts. I, too, use containers f all shapes and sizes as we did a container garden challenge a few years ago. Over the years I've collected all sorts but found free is definitely best. Posting on any of the free ads sites usually nets loads of pots but I now also use farm tubs of various sizes - most contained sheep or cattle vitamin / mineral licks and range in size from 2kg right up to 80kg so the biggest ones are deep enough for carrots. And then there's the milk carton gardening that one of our fellow frugalers introduced some years ago - I still call mine 'Mishy-pods'. They are great! Not sure this link will work but here are some of mine at Frugaldom. 
I have to add here that since we first began using the milk cartons, the quality of the plastic used in manufacturing them has changed to the point that you only get a year or 2 from them before they go brittle and start falling to pieces. I'm assuming it is to make them more degradable or recyclable but it's still a cheap way of making a hanging garden for strawberries, salad leaves, herbs, peas, cherry tomatoes, spring onions and even a few radishes. I really like pod gardening and will continue using them. I hang mine on broom handles as the garden canes snap too easily. 

Love that strawberry planter idea...food for thought there. 🤔

roblou27

OLaney said:

Green Renaissance on YouTube.....a self funded channel by the most incredible film maker.....so inspiring and makes you appreciate the things that are so important in this life. Watching these videos also helps me get a kick up the backside to get rid of this debt. Hopefully, it may inspire others too. Happy Friday everyone ❤️

Thanks for the heads up OLaney will have a looksee.

roblou27

I have to say I am getting more inspiration from  YT than the telly these days. I don’t know about anyone else but just cant to seem to get into any thing these days! Waiting on the new series of Graysons Art Club and Jamie’s new series of Keep Cooking and Carry On. On the frugal front still on target to get my 20 NSD and looks like we could have a few bob to transfer at the end of this pay cycle. We are confined to barracks from tomorrow so over the next ten days will be tidying the garden doing any make do and mending jobs and generally keeping ourselves busy. Looking forward to getting in the garden. My seed potatoes came today so they are now sitting in egg boxes on our north facing living room window sill. No point in any seed propagation at the moment but was lovely to look at the prospect of seed sowing and having a bit of a plan for our little veggie beds. 

moneyonmymindsam

Frugaldom said:

Living_proof said:

I recently took swab tests for the Imperial College survey, assessing the Covid infection in the population overall. The worst part, by the way, was constructing the box required to send it back - like something out of the Krypton Factor. One of the questions on the survey asked that if you found you had an unexpected but necessary expense of £850, would you have the resources to pay it? It has bothered me that the specific amount was mentioned - do you thing the Government is going to slap us with some sort of bill in the future and they are trying to assess what sort of amount would be reasonable? Or maybe I am just cynical.

Like you, I would also be wondering about the £850 figure and the reasons for asking such a question in the first place. I can just see the spin on the resulting findings though, rolled out on some TV documentary and as headline news, something along the lines of "79% of the population have less than £850 in emergency savings". This is purely made up on my part as a bit of a cynical joke but it does make me wonder. 

The figure is based on an already existing ONS personal and well being survey. All about financial well being and being able to save or not as is the case for some, all to do with economics and all that stuff. So hopefully no big bill coming to us all. 

Sam x

Jazee

Morning all.  

Trying to be frugal.  DH has some temporary work so currently using his wages for food so we don't have to touch the savings at the moment.  I still haven't been to the community fridge for free food as no appointments in town have coincided with their opening times but I will go in future.  I've saved some money this week.  We had two broken toilet seats.  I managed to make one good one from the two which has meant only buying one new one, and this morning I've cut up milk cartons to make lots of plant labels.