2021 Frugal Living Challenge

Mamaspender

Good morning all 
it’s been a spendy couple of months as both my children had big birthdays March & April after what feels like an age I’ve finally been paid 🎉
Bills have been swept into the relevant account for ready for the dd’s , I’ve had a look at what we’ve got in & have decided we’re good for this week bar a few bread & milk top ups . 

Baby steps for me I think this month , budget has been set & im hoping for as many low spend days I’ve decided to take the advice of not going for NSD’s whilst I try to get out of my spending ways

I know it’ll be a marathon not a sprint for me , I feel like the bulk of my money seems to go on food but we never seem to have anything in (if that makes sense ) everyone’s fussy in their own ways I’ve a teenager that only really likes pasta , a small person that doesn’t really like anything except toast & fruit & luckily my oh will eat anything .. I don’t always feel like eating after a long day at work so I have been toying with the idea of having my ‘main meal’ at lunchtime & something light when I get home, if I can work on this I think we’ll be so much better off - So this week we’ll have a crack and see what happens! 
Have a lovely Sunday xxx

hikingqueen

Love reading all your frugal ideas.

I've been living abroad for a fair few years, so am now catching up with all the new (to me!) things that are now available.....I had no idea there were such things as 'too good to go' bags, or olio before coming on here! Now filing them all away in my memory for when I come back to UK later this year.

Little bit of frugal for me today, my lovely neighbour called me over and gave me 8 freshly laid eggs, so they will keep us going for some egg on toast, and omelettes. 

fionaandphil

@Bluegreen143 we found with the electricity that if you start with the easy bits it builds up. We check prices on the comparison site and have an alert set up. We don't always go cheapest but a combination of price and customer service. We swapped our bulbs to LEDs so when they are on they are cheaper, Poundland have some which seem fairly reliable. We've also stopped using the tumble drier now the weather is better. I got DS and DH  on board by getting an energy monitor ( a good few years ago) and the could see the impact every time something was switched on, it became a little competition to work out what had been switched on every time it shot up. Your smart meter should help with that when it gets fitted. Good luck! Our electric has stayed roughly the same over the last year but our water bill is up about £25 per quarter

willow_loulou

Picked up 2 cafe Nero TGTG bags (a different branch)which combined with a previous bags ceaser salad made a lovely dinner. DD had vegan meatballs! 

I’ve booked a Greg’s one for tomorrow as I finally saw it available and want to see/share the contents with you all. I’ve really enjoyed trying the different places out and not having to do a proper shop 

[Deleted User]

I picked up my first Greggs TGTG bag today. It contained
1 x steak bake
1 x sausage roll
2 doughnuts (boxed)
1 x chicken club bagette
1 x ham sub

Cost £2.59

We were delighted with this and ate most of it as todays dinner, keeping half the bagette for my lunch tomorrow.  This allowed us to move today's planned dinner to tomorrow and have the afternoon relaxing in the garden enjoying the weather.  Bliss.  Will definitely buy again.  This is our second TGTG bag and we've been happy with both. 

Tightpants24

@Bluegreen143 I  have a smart meter and it really does make me think about electricity usage.  The tumble dryer, kettle and particularly the power shower are the big costs.  I also notice quite a difference if the washing machine is heating the water so have experimented with lower temperature and it is fine.  Trying to avoid tumble dryer if possible.  I don't feel ready to skimp on kettle use or showers yet 😕 
I also have oil central heating and this is easy to monitor as I can check the tank.  I know we have used more oil than usual this winter to spring but that is down to being home most of the time and having colder weather.  On the other hand, we have spent much less on fuel for travel.

GSDMum

What a great thread, just 'up my street'! Thank you for all the tips. I'd never heard of the app 'Too Good To Go' either - what a great concept.

The old gardeners were very wise in storing fruit and veg without freezers and fridges. I've stored heads of cabbages on racks in the shed over winter and they kept their perfect condition through to late spring. A quick google will soon offer advice.

Something I've recently learnt is that storing onions near potatoes can cause the potatoes to sprout eyes. I used to always store root veg together - we're never too old to learn

A friend's old walnut tree lost a huge branch one stormy autumn night in a gale, and she said we could salvage the walnuts. We collected the nuts into two big plastic sacks. Walnuts have a fleshy exterior, rather like conkers. This fleshy bit had to be removed before the nuts could be stored. Dauntingly the fleshy bit has a natural dye that can turn your hands and nails black for days/weeks, so I wasn't looking forward to storing them. After a week or so, I thought I'd better see what I could do to store them, and was delighted to find the exterior fleshy bit had turned to mush in the plastic bags. The bags were tipped up on some rough gravel, and the nuts were hosed down! The walnut shells after hosing were as clean as a whistle. They were were soon gathered up, filling a fair sized hessian sack. Those beautiful nuts lasted well over over Christmas. What a treat they were! Free stuff tastes so nice!

annieb64

We have a walnut tree. It's  a struggle to get to the nuts before the squirrels.  One year we had enough nuts to last us until May.

I wait until the nuts fall off the tree. By then the outer husk has split and it's  easy to remove the nut. We leave them in the shells and store them in shallow boxes in the garage.

My grandfather  loved pickled walnuts but I hate them.

willow_loulou

Collected out greggs tgtg

2 vegan sausage rolls
1 steak bake
2 iced doughnuts 
1 chicken and mustard sub 
£2.95

Bulked out with some salad. I really enjoyed it. It made a lovely change.
I got it and my passport photos at the same time. Will be popping out for a Waitrose bag later and dropping off some ziffit books. Though I found out today I can do that at the greggs garage! 

I spent £5 in Sainsbury’s on salad and veg, hopefully that’s it for proper shopping until Thursday. 
 

 

willow_loulou

I picked up a tgtg bag from Waitrose again, it was great value around £17 of food. But this time the staff members were a little bit, well they made me feel uncomfortable. The app states you must swipe the collection not them, but of course I did to show the till person but couldn’t for the person bringing it out so he tried to accuse me of having a screen shot! 

Everywhere else bags up and numbers the food for each order, they just seem to grab a bag so probably have been conned.