2021 Frugal Living Challenge

Ellie79

Love all the posts, really good to hear what people do. Small steps here, but steps nonetheless. Was feeling a bit overwhelmed with work and the news today. Had the oven on for tea so whacked on some music, baked cupcakes with the youngest and had a dance around the kitchen. Always have the ingredients in for cakes, we had a good dance and now, more importantly perhaps, we have cake!

Frugaldom

CAKE ROCKS! 

I've just had my mobile ping alerts for Olio so fingers crossed I can rescue some of that lovely free food! Some carrots for the ponies and goats always good, too. Off to look!

Edit: Managed to bag some mushrooms, carrots, a lettuce, bread, pancakes and croissants. Woohoo! Food rescue mission a success. 

willow_loulou

Frugaldom said:

CAKE ROCKS! 

I've just had my mobile ping alerts for Olio so fingers crossed I can rescue some of that lovely free food! Some carrots for the ponies and goats always good, too. Off to look!

Edit: Managed to bag some mushrooms, carrots, a lettuce, bread, pancakes and croissants. Woohoo! Food rescue mission a success. 

So excited we have an olio hero here again, thank you for mentioning it as it was a reminder to check! It’s a bit late to message now but I’ll message in the morning 😊 whoop! 

willow_loulou

My olio haul is massive. What I thought would be a few things turned into a massive bag and box full of various things! The chickens will have a feast tomorrow and my freezer is full. I also got some free from stuff for my Mr. Not tried any of it before so that will be interesting. 

Hopefully this will be a regular ish thing to keep the food bill down. My coffee has gone up yet again and milk has gone up 5p for one pint! Luckily that usually last DS a week. 

Frugaldom

Well done, @willow_loulou I'm keeping an eye on the app tonight, too, as Thursday sometimes has listings near my DS that friend can pick up for us. I shared out my haul with our visitors and they are now Olio converts.  

Today's frugal items - ate Olio produce for lunch and dinner, spent no money and am still mulling over which card to switch to for Amazon next year. Cashback is thin on the ground so I will need to watch for the special offer of a free top-up, or else hope for a free voucher for switching to Mastercard or Amex. Trouble is, hardly anyone accepts AmEx about here.

Sweetlittledaydreams

Made a small batch of chutney tonight, used up some apples I foraged over a month ago that were looking a bit worse for wear, but the chutney tastes great and it stops waste. I just need to find a good cracker recipe now. Premium bond win paid for my drinks at the work Christmas party, such a good night and the venue paid for the food as a "covid thank you" which was so kind and made for a lovely low cost night.
Not been able to take all my annual leave this year so apparently I can get paid for the extra hours I couldn't take. Have 97 hours left so that could be a nice pay slip if they stick to what they've said. I feel like I'm getting on track with money at the moment, getting the balance right. 
Hope everyone has been OK in this last storm.

YORKSHIRELASS

ASB that is a pretty awe inspiring budget, it helps me to see your figures to remind me what can be achieved if you set your mind to it.

Our car has been back in the garage again and we are really hoping that the garage are right and the part that they put on last time is faulty.  I am not convinced.  We just really dont want to borrow the money to buy another so we just keep hoping it gets sorted.

DH is having a few health issues and we dont know what the long term impact of that is.  We are lucky that my wages are good so we could make adjustments to our budget if we needed to.  All the more reason to be sensible and keep working on clearing the debts.

All Christmas shopping is done within budget, and I am really pleased with what I have bought the boys - practical presents but ones I know that they will enjoy.

Mrs_Cheshire

Hi all, finally caught up with the chat. Excited to see the final hut @Frugaldom.

Thank you for sharing your budget and reasons ASB. 

Glad no-one was too badly affected by the storms. 

I've been tracking my grocery spends properly this year so it'll be interesting to see how much we've spent. 

Leisure is a large category for me so will be looking to see where I can reduce that next year. Also need to look at clothes as we seem to spend a lot ( even though we pass down clothing from the eldest to youngest- all boys) 

Tanya12345

Woke up to calm this morning but it's blowing a hoolie again ! We had to take the glass out of the greenhouse as in storm Arwen some pieces broke but we found another, intact, resting 20 yards away on top of the hedge - scary to think that we could have been out shutting up chickens or something, certainly wouldn't have seen it coming !!
We don't seem to get Olio here but I will research again as it sounds like a winner (sometimes).
Still getting a few bits of veg from the garden and polytunnel but most things have been wrecked by the wind trying hard to keep finding the joy - not always easy !
Indoor jobs tomorrow if this wretched wind keeps going
Hope everyone is managing to stay safe and warm. x
 

Frugaldom

For those who don't have an Olio food hero within reach - if you have a Tesco nearby then you could volunteer to be the local food hero, if you have transport and a spare couple of hours. Ours just makes up the orders from the requests and then sits them in bags or boxes with our names on them to pick up from their door / gate / wherever agreed.

@Tanya12345 that was some distance for the pane of glass to fly without shattering!  I'm definitely not a fan of storms of any description.