2021 Frugal Living Challenge

MazzieD

Actually had some rain yesterday, it's been almost unbroken sunshine for last 3 weeks.

I'll be interested to know how much of a difference all the boxes and bags have made to food budgets.  It's really difficult to work out the cost of contents for F&V boxes so will look at how much difference the cost of the boxes (£1.50) and frozen veg has made this month. 

Very little YS in the shops, wondering if it's because more people are venturing into food shops now that shielding has ended, vaccines and restrictions lifting are making a difference.  Definitely noticed more shoppers buying groceries.

Frugaldom

Good morning frugal folks, I hope you are all doing well and able to make the most of the continuing good weather (if it's where you are). Spending has been minimal here, aided by the return of Olio and a few extra swaps for eggs.

There's a slight increase in mobile bill so I think I'll contact V,0daf0ne and find out about a better deal. We are fairly restricted in choice here owing to there being not much signal at Frugaldom and even less at home. Communications category now shows our biggest monthly household spend, which is crazy, Almost £100 per month on landline, broadband, a mobile phone each and mobile MiFi hub as signal in our area is so bad. I do count these spends as household but over half is work related do claimed through accounts.

Submitted my SEISS claim yesterday so that payment will help a lot and now that Scotland is open for business I have started booking in visitors again. It's been over a year since being able to host guests so I'm looking forward to greeting our first this bank holiday weekend.

This week I'm planting free trees we were awarded by the Woodland Trust and bagging up free manure to give away at the gate. First of my seeds have germinated

Frugaldom

@AskYouWillGet I always transfer the savings and longer term payments into premium bonds as it's impossible to lose it or spend it on a hurry.  I think I will do similar with my SEISS grant money to replace some of what it has cost me in planning application fees.

joedenise

Could you do away with your landline and just use mobiles?  We have a mobile hub at home for unlimited broadband which is about £23 a month; our mobile phones - DH has 100Gb a month but I only have 1Gb as don't really use data on my phone which costs another £29 a month so a lot less than you are paying.  Definitely worth looking into.

zafiro1984

Frudaldom I think our phone bills are quite low.
Land line is £14 per month (National Business Services) all national calls free
Mobile, we have very bad reception here so tend to use the land line when at home, however giffgaff costs £15 per month for our two phones.
Computer is with Plus Net and costs 23.99 per month
Total comes in at under £60 per month.

balabooberlies

Have learnt when they reduce at local small supermarket.  The last lot of reductions is at about 6pm but I go in for the second round of reductions between 3 and 4.  If I wait until 6 most will be gone.

Was thrilled today, small chicken for £2.00.  This will feed 2 adults and a dog 2 meals each.  And remnants to my foxes.  Bargain ! 

bala

willow_loulou

@MazzieD this week I’ve spent £11 on bags and £6 on salad and milk etc. On previous weeks where food has increased in price that’s on a good week half what I spend normally. 

4 weeks ago I spent over £70 in Asda and it was gone in 5 days. 

The only downside to the bags is the spicy food, we’re not big fans of it so I don’t benefit from the money saving. 

moneyonmymindsam

balabooberlies said:

Have learnt when they reduce at local small supermarket.  The last lot of reductions is at about 6pm but I go in for the second round of reductions between 3 and 4.  If I wait until 6 most will be gone.

Was thrilled today, small chicken for £2.00.  This will feed 2 adults and a dog 2 meals each.  And remnants to my foxes.  Bargain ! 

bala

That was a good find - our local YS is at totally random times and pricing depends on which manager is on shift!! Some take 10p off and some reduce things to 18p 😂😂

willow_loulou

I’ve reserved two M&S bags for tomorrow, the idea being I don’t need to shop until Tuesday as I’ve so much work to do. I can get my milk there, I like their lacto free. 

I’m really pleased with ending the month on a positive with the tgtg. Had I not used them I suspect I would’ve been about £60 over my food budget. 

With that in mind my May focus  (how is it May already?!) will be trying to keep up with tgtg and looking for an even more frugal gardening option. We’ve had a couple of house issues so that’s taken all of my emergency fund (thankfully I had one) and the bit I had for the garden. I’m also hoping to prolific up some money towards the garden. 

I think I’ll pay for the garden recycling service for a year, to get on top of the over growth. Something to ponder and budget for.  

zafiro1984

Over the last few years I've always bought summer bedding plants plus some smaller plug plants. However, I've always grown most of my vegetables from seed.

This year, mainly due to the lockdown, I decided to be more frugal and grow all my bedding out plants. I have to be careful in what I grow, they need to be deer resistant as we have far too many here. So armed with the RHS list of resistant plants I ordered several packets of seeds from one of the seed companies. The plants are coming along nicely and should be ready to go outside at the end of next month.

I roughly added up the cost of this exercise. It has cost me about £50-£60 which covers the cost of seed and compost - I already had enough seed trays. I've got about 2k-2.5k plants so I reckon I've saved a good few hundred pounds. I just now need the energy and the weather to get them outside.

This is the first year I've made a serious spreadsheet to track all our household/living spends. Basically, I used to look after the day to day running costs of the house and garden. DH did everything else. Since (and I have to say somewhat perversely, enjoying) being frugal I want to also pay the Co tax, electric, oil, water and house ins out of my money. I probably won't manage to do everything but I'll give it a go. So there's no surprise where my garden savings will go.