2021 Frugal Living Challenge

Mummy2cheekymonkeys

carolbee said:

Mummy2cheekymonkeys said:

Just had the kindle daily deal email and today they have A year of living simply by kate humble for 99p. Might be an interesting read if anyone is interested. Tonights dinner will be jamie olivers recipe of cauliflower mac and cheese although I will be using penne as i have about 25kg of it!! I really need to be trying to cook pasta at least once or twice a week since i have so much of the stuff. 

I’ve just finished reading library copy of this book. It’s lovely

Thats good to know. I have downloaded it. I haven't managed to read a book in about 3 years but heres hoping lol. I need to phone and cancel our sky tv at some point. My sons are not sleeping well at the moment and me and OH find ourselves going to bed just after 8 as we never know how much sleep we will get. I cant remember the last time i sat down and watched tv in the evenings. Seems a waste to be spending £25 a month on something we arent using. We bought a amazon firestick recently and all the programmes the boys like watching can be streamed on it so we will just use that from now on.

sashacat

Hi folks, I hope you are all keeping safe.
This is my 5th NSD this year. Made soup today with some carrots s friend gave me (she bought 2 lots by accident) and lots of veggies from the garden that I had frozen. Made 7 portions. I have at least 30 portions of all different soups in the freezer. 
I am hoping to get some bread from olio this week as that’s all I will need. 
I use long life milk from Al*i and but 12 cartons at a time so I have plenty.
I need to be really frugal as my boiler needs a new motor and with the work I have already had done in the last few days, it is going to be expensive. 
Good luck to everyone in their frugalling efforts. 

Viking_mfw

I went to look for the book jn our library, @carolbee (I'm having a no spend January) and all three copies are out so it's obviously a popular number!

DH made fish pie for dinner from freezer stock, topped with crumbs made from the stale cheese scone, last of the batch I made for Sunday breakfast. How's that for zero food waste?! 

carolbee

Viking_mfw said:

I went to look for the book jn our library, @carolbee (I'm having a no spend January) and all three copies are out so it's obviously a popular number!

DH made fish pie for dinner from freezer stock, topped with crumbs made from the stale cheese scone, last of the batch I made for Sunday breakfast. How's that for zero food waste?! 

Problem here in Kent is that we can keep the books for such a long time, at present. I can return to another library about five miles away, but my normal one is walking distance.

Mummy2cheekymonkeys

We had strata for dinner last night which is basically a savoury bread and butter pudding. It used up a large chunk of the homemade loaf i made the other day.  I added some broccoli, spinach and chorizo. It was very tasty and stopped the bread being wasted. 
I finally managed to get the sky tv cancelled after nearly 3 hours on the online chat. I was out of contract for the broadband so renegotiated that as well and managed to get the bill down from £58.74 a month to £27! Very happy with that, even if it did take a long time.

Wildrose

I had a marathon cooking and baking session in the kitchen today. I live on the edge of one of the great food producing regions of the country and every week my oldest friend buys a load of veg from a farm shop and gives me a couple of bags of it. She's been doing this for the last couple of months and its such a help. I'm only allowed to thank her once, so I find different ways to pay her back.

So today I made: the veg filling for a vegetable lasagne, a double quantity of versatile veg soup, a roast dinner using up lots of root vegetables I had planned on using for Christmas. Cooked up enough spuds, parsnips, sprouts, carrots and leeks to have plenty over for a bubble and squeak tomorrow. I also made a batch of Nigella's Christmas Morning muffins. I'd got all the ingredients in when I thought we'd have a few more for Christmas Day than we actually did. Then a lemon dainty, one of those self-saucing puddings. So I've cooked up a lot of veg and eggs which needed using and made good use of a hot oven. 

Next goal is to start selling items again. I sold a lot of books through Music Magpie a couple of years ago, so that might be one of the first things to look at.

mumof3.12kindebt

Good evening frugal friends. 
Today is day 5 of 2021 and our 5th day this year of no spend days  (I don't include what is budgeted only if it is something unbudgeted, unneeded or over budget). We have just under £13 left of the food budget from this week. And I've made some money on surveys the last few days so have made some small payments to the debt. I have 2 items sold too. Bidding ends tomorrow night. Also made some bread today which was successful. Currently reading a book on my library ebook app so that was free, and I've found a few services that our local community offers that are free that will be of interest to us, school uniform exchange,  book swap and there is a community food thing sometimes where you pay £1 for a carrier bag so I'll definitely be keeping my eye open for when that's available. I hate food waste and this is what it is for to prevent the food being thrown away so its a double win. I think I've also worked out when our local supermarket (Mr t & al$i) do their yellow sticker reductions. 

All small achievements but they all add up very happy with how the last few days have gone. 

 I might end up doing our next food shop that we normally do on a Thursday tomorrow as I'm not sure I'll have time Thursday. 

I may put up any left over money from the food budget towards a chest freezer. 🤔 ill see . We don't have a lot of freezer space and I feel having the extra freezer space we would definitely save money In the long run. 

Have  a good evening everyone 

[Deleted User]

Evening all,

Other than direct debits, no money has left my account this year. As a key worker, my children will be back in school full time from tomorrow and I'll be at work. We were at home today, and used the time to chop wood, walk the dog and take delivery of our hens! They are a joy and have settled in already. No heating on today, used the woodburner all day. DS (6), spotted a pallet outside a house on our dog walk. He knocked on the door, asked very politely if it needed a new home, and carried it all the way back!

Tomorrow evening is the food share and more wood chopping. Aiming for our January dual fuel bill to be <£50. Off to sneak a look at olio now before bed.

Take care all xx

fiwen30

Belated happy new year all, hoping to stick my nose in here quite a bit this year, as we try to pull our savings back up to scratch after buying our first house at the end of November. Got big vet bills on the horizon too, so keen to keep hold of the pennies where possible.

Have always shopped secondhand, and am learning to tell the difference between need & want - more details on my debt-free diary thread, if interested. Have very little experience with cooking, but have been slowly learning to meal plan and cook more from scratch.

Have been following The Budget Mom methods of budgeting & saving, and am keen to marry this with a more intentionally frugal way of living.

Missywissy

I know this is really bad but my cat isn't insured. I keep meaning to do but worry that if I need to make a claim they will find a reason not to payout. Does anyone have any advice on who to go with to get her covered?

Thank you