2021 Frugal Living Challenge

MazzieD

CRANKY40 said:

Hello all, 
I've been thinking and thinking about a way to do this. My budget can be different depending on how many weeks are in the month and also, some bills like gas & electric (direct debit), insurance etc are set in stone. I've used comparison and moneyback sites for insurance so not much room for change there at the moment. That leaves my food and petrol budget that I can be fugal with.

I have exactly the same problem.  I  budget monthly, but as I pay some bills annually, some over 10 months DD and others are monthly DD (if there are no interest charges!) I find my bills really vary.  In the end I decided to go for an annual budget after looking at my spreadsheet as it evens out over 12 months.  Like you it's only my food budget and petrol that I can be flexible with.

Frugaldom

Welcome on board, guys! We no longer have a list of those taking part so just join in and 'pkay' along as the challenge progresses. I'll be adding in various little bits and pieces along the way once we get started this weekend. I will request the other thread be closed from next week. Good luck and have frugal fun in 2021

welshspendthrift

Hello everyone, looking forward to joining in with a more frugal lifestyle to pay off debts then reducing mortgage, our main overspend is food and gifts for birthdays. Will be learning from you all here’s to a better 2021 for us all 😀

longhill

hi i would like to join too. My husband died in October and as i gave up work to look after him i now have to live on of his small pensions, beravement benifit (18 month) top up with savings.  Icould try and go back to work but dont really want to , I have 8 year to go before i get my state pension. I have no debts and mortage paid off so its do able just need to stop the on line shopping, aimming for a budget of £8000 heres hoping good luck to everyone 

Couldsavemore

Hi,,,
Am hoping to take part to get a better balance in life!
I started looking at chaos of my finances in october. Luckily nothing I can't afford but want to pay off debt asap.
Also I want to feel I'm participating in my life not just spectating. Slow down a lot but still do more and build a better relationship with my son.. he's 9 but has ADHD which makes life hard for both of us.

 

leftatthetrafficlights

I'd like to join too if I may? My circumstances have changed recently so I'd really like 2021 to be a frugal year! 

oceandreamer

I'd like to join it too.  I'd like a more frugal lifestyle so I can spend my money on what really matters - which next year is going to be starting to overpay the mortgage so that once it's paid off I can retire.  

Bluegreen143

Think I’ve finalised my budget - I’m going to work off a monthly one - trying to do an annual one was making my head hurt!

I’m a stay at home mum living with my husband, two littles aged 5 and 2, three chickens and a cat. We have a garden with a veg patch/greenhouse/fruit bushes. My husband Red is an unwilling budgeter but is great at woodwork and other handy skills and can fix pretty much anything; I love to cook and bake, knit and am learning to sew. 

We have no debt except my student loan (I doubt I’ll ever pay it off) and owe £115k on a mortgage with 29 years to run! So want to start to knock some off that this year. Red usually earns £32k + overtime + on call bonuses but is earning less right now due to often being on furlough, we are getting a bit topped up by UC so it’s hard to know exactly where we stand in 2021 as to when he will be working full time again etc.

We’ve found that our income has fluctuated every month since March but we never seem to get less than £2,000 in between Red’s salary + any UC we get. So have worked on that as a minimum income with the hopes that every month we will have extra.

Red transfers me £1,700 on paydays plus I get the child benefit £140 every four weeks. We are agreed that any extra money in whether from his on call, me earning any, cashback etc we will split. I’m not going to budget in the money Red keeps for his spends as I have no control over that.

Bills = £850 (I’m going to try to reduce this eg tackling energy consumption, reducing phone contract when allowed etc). Mortgage is £421, council tax is £155, energy averages over £100 p/m, rest is insurances, car tax, internet, phone etc etc. I haven’t accounted for our Disney + or Amazon prime subscriptions we pay annually. We can either earn extra to cover them, Red can pay or I will just cancel them 😆

Christmas & birthday fund = £150

Home & car maintenance fund = £50

Minimum savings of 10% = £170
(£50 into each of our help to save account, £50 into my lifetime ISA, £20 into emergency fund)

Leaves £480 + child benefit for spending on food, household items, petrol, clothes, doing stuff with the kids, any bits for myself etc.

My challenge I’m setting myself is to be frugal and get everything we spend paid out of the £480 to leave the child benefit totally free to save (£1,800 over the year). I want to pay for a cheap caravan or other local holiday this summer with these savings and use the rest to build our £1,000 emergency fund. Fuzzier goals - I would also like to buy a cheap (under £200) laptop at some point as we only have our phones, and buy myself a bike and possibly a bike trailer. I’ve borrowed my mum’s for now as haven’t cycled for over 15 years 😂 our car is 12 years old and will need replacing at some point too but hoping to keep it another two years if feasible.

As well as cutting our costs and living frugally I want to set myself the challenge of earning £1,500 extra income this year by myself. I’m hoping if I could find a side job to do from home and build on it over time then in three years when my youngest is at school I might be able to continue to work part time from home and avoid having to get a “proper job” - we’ll see! 

sazzles01234

Hello 👋🏻👋🏻👋🏻 Checking in for 2021! Really trying to pay off as much debt as possible to keen to stick to budget and not spend anything I don’t need to! 

Have set my budget for the year and will have around £130 per month for food/cat food/household (eg cleaning) stuff. This is just for me so is doable!  

First job I have done today is a food inventory 🤓 and will start working my way through what I have in! My pay day is the 22nd so I’m already in my dec/jan budget... going ok so far! 

Fizzyisbusy

Happy to join in again this year! And am aiming to do better abd stay focused on not spending !! 

😊