2021 Frugal Living Challenge

Siebrie

nannygladys, we have the heating on, because we have an old and not terribly efficiently insulated house. The thermostat is set to 15C during the night, 16C at 6 am (when dd1 needs to get out of bed), 17C during the day. We have found that raising the temperature just half a degree will help us feel warm; it's the heating up that helps, for us it doesn't have to be 20C all the time. So, we will sit in 17C, and if/when we get cold we raise the temperature to 17.5C, only occasionally to 18C.

nannygladys

Siebrie - I put the heating on when I got up and so far it's on track with what it was yesterday, but I won't know how much it has cost until I read the meter at bedtime. Tomorrow I will put it on in the morning for a couple of hours and then for a couple at night. I must admit it's on the lowest setting but it feels very warm, so far I'm happy.

Cooked a spag bol today and there's enough for my dinner tomorrow, I would freeze it but I can't get anymore in the freezer. I've tried freezing a loaf of bread but having to slot the odd slice in where I can lol.

Nannyg

Ellie79

Well, no heating on here. My only nod to frugality today. Red weather warning here. I'm praying my greenhouse survives. We have all gone to bed to keep warm and hide from the awful weather. 

I did collect my boy's ashes from the vet today. Very sad but glad he is home. 

Hope everyone keeps safe. Off for covid booster in the morning. Feeling utterly burned out, roll on the end of semester.

willow_loulou

Evening. I have the oil heater on in my bedroom, I’m chesty and need the room warmer. I’m only keeping it up to 18 as it’s too warm otherwise. It’s 12/15 I usually prefer but I can’t seem to get the heater thermostat to like that 🥴 

2 little frugal wins today, son is working on a house refurb so came home with wood off cuts and a new piece (skip saved - second hand but perfect) for our curtain pull that had snapped. He’s learned well as he kept looking for more this we could use. He also set the Christmas wine going. 

The livingroom is still warm enough with the heated airer and the occasional fire. I’m currently charging everything in case this wind knocks the electrical supply out. I grabbed 2 bags of logs on my way home from work so we’re fine if it does go. We’ve had a fair few flickering moments. 

I’ve ordered a new thicker duvet - my 4.5 tog isn’t sufficient even with the heater on. I’ll get that tomorrow when I’m on my Saturday errands. 

Sweetlittledaydreams

I do love a good storm! The front door is leaking and the gutter downspout has been blown off the front of the house. Hoping the fences and little greenhouses stay up. I hope no-one experiences too much damage from the storm, and if so hopefully repairs can be made cheaply.  
Social plans tonight and tomorrow have been cancelled, due to high winds the bridge is closed so friends can't get to town, its a shame but safer so that's the main thing. Treated myself to a readymeal and some homemade wine instead, not particularly frugal but still cheaper than a night out. The lights keep flickering so I hope the electric doesn't go out, I'm a bit scared of the dark - ironic for someone that almost always works night shift. Think I should get the candles ready. 
I'm going to try and make some more draft excluders, I've had the heat on today but sure a lot of it leaks out the gaps in the door frames and windows. I usually keep the house around 15c then put the heat on to 18c for an hour or two if I get cold.
Have gone over my £50 shopping budget for the month already by about £14 but shouldn't have to spend anymore this month on food, drink or household things.
I'm going to try and get a charity shop bargain this weekend, got a smart party to go to next week and the dress I was planning to wear doesn't fit anyanymore.
Hope everyone is OK. 

AnimalTribe

I got away fairly lightly with the storm thank goodness. A leak in the porch, capping stones and slates gone from the barn roof, a broken greenhouse door, and water barrels, plant pots and small branches littering the garden. All repairable. However, I live on a single track road, and trees are blocking both exits - so DH and I are trapped until at least one of the trees is removed. We are both due for booster vaccinations today so that's an unwelcome turn of events. I hope everyone else got away relatively unscathed.

Scottiedog_3

@AnimalTribe I hope you can re-schedule your booster vaccinations quite quickly. Do you have to phone up the emergency services to get somebody to come out for the blocked trees, or does a local with a chainsaw come to the rescue?

AnimalTribe

Scottiedog_3 said:

@AnimalTribe I hope you can re-schedule your booster vaccinations quite quickly. Do you have to phone up the emergency services to get somebody to come out for the blocked trees, or does a local with a chainsaw come to the rescue?

The vaccination centre sent me and DH a cancellation message for the booster, which makes sense as the staff probably have to cope with poor access to the vaccination centre due to storm damage too. So at least we haven't 'wasted' an appointment. We will be able to rebook, but I will wait until next week to ensure the road is clear. It's not just a single tree, but multiple trees both ways. I think a local farmer might clear one way, but as I'm not sure I'll report both blockages to the local council. If the council have to clear the way we may wait a long time as their teams will be very busy, and as there are only 3 houses, a few miles apart, on this stretch of road, I doubt we will be their priority. Some of the trees are leaning on the phone lines, and mobile reception isn't available here, but as long as the satellite internet stays available that's not problem. The householders here are used to difficulties though, so no one will suffer. I only hope the snow that's falling doesn't complicate things.

RainbowHippie

@2Scratters love the idea of your wreath wall! Might have to pinch that for a future year. In our last house we chose not to have a tree (i don't enjoy picking up after a real one and OH doesn't like artificial ones) so i copied an idea i'd seen somewhere of a wall tree, a selection of sticks arranged from short at the top to long at the bottom and tied together with twine to form a triangle shape, hung on the wall and decorated with fairy lights and a few handmade ornaments. We loved that it didn't take up floor space, and that we could use it as an extra lamp over the festive period.

After a bit of negotiation we've now had an offer accepted on the house we liked!! It will be ages before we move in of course but i am quite excited. The house has a multifuel burner, is in walking/cycling distance from shops and a train station, and (the biggest luxury) has a lovely view, all things that will improve our quality of life and hopefully help us live more frugally (the view is a bit tenuous there but i'm hoping being in a nice location will inspire us to stay in more, and it will be an option for friends to come to us for holidays rather than all going away somewhere, which will save everyone some pennies!) I'm looking forward to the view of course, and cosy evenings by the fire, but many of the things i'm looking forward to are seriously mundane - for example i'm genuinely excited about having space in a freezer to stock up and do some batch cooking!

I'm also really looking forward to being able to control the amount of 'stuff' in my surroundings. By necessity we've both become quite minimalist while moving around, hopefully i can maintain that change in mindset. As an example, i absolutely agonised over what clothes to bring with me when we first set out, and had a decent size suitcase stuffed to the brim. It was a wrench to leave behind the level of 'choice' i was used to. Now all the clothes i travel with fit in a small rucksack, i have just enough and think about clothing generally in a more practical way. I still have a large suitcase full of clothes in storage and every few months swap out seasonal items, but haven't looked at most of it for a long time. The thought of having my entire wardrobe accessible again in the new house is kind of exciting but also quite overwhelming! I expect to feel similarly about a lot of the 'stuff' we stored away - we sold and gave away loads at the time and we thought we were being ruthless, but i think (hope!) that with our current perspective a lot will be coming out of storage and straight onto ebay.

Today's frugal-ish task is to clean a pair of second-hand shoes i bought off V1nted a couple of weeks ago. They arrived smelling very musty and with what looks like white mold in parts of the inside, so i'm going to give them a bit of a scrub out with some disinfectant and put them to dry. The seller was very apologetic and kindly refunded me a few pounds for the hassle of having to clean them, hopefully they will be ok, they weren't super cheap but should be worth it as they are Doc Martens and should last me a good while if i can get them wearable.

Hope everyone is ok in this weather! Stay safe folks xx

Sweetlittledaydreams

@2Scratters your wreath wall sounds lovely, I might do something similar or maybe up the side of the stairs with homemade garlands.
Trees that came down last night blocking the hospital in both directions have been cleared, there's still some smaller ones across other roads so I walked into town rather than driving - added about an hour but I wasn't in a rush anyway. Is it too cheeky or uncharitable to return something for a refund you bought from a charity shop? Bought two dresses but neither are quite right so even though they were cheaper than buying new I still feel like I'm losing out.
I might have already mentioned but I've drawn a picture of my house then surrounded it with saving goals, it's stuck on my fridge and it's so satisfying when I can colour in another saving target that's been met. Helps keep the motivation up when it starts to slip.
@RainbowHippie congratulations on having your offer accepted! That's great news