2021 Frugal Living Challenge

willow_loulou

@Frugaldom I have challenges for next year. 

1. Not buying any clothing unless I need something specific and I have nothing to make do. And even then I’m only buying second hand. I have lots of clothing and will get rid of what has not been worn by next December. I will need shoes though. 

2. Lose 3 stone which works out to around a lb a week. Each lb I’ll put a £ in a savings jar. 

3. Build better chicken area and back fence with pallets and plant the willows accordingly. 

4. No food spend January. Well a target of only buying food to make meals to top up supplies and olio. This should be relatively easy - the only things this doesn’t include is mushrooms, green beans, eggs, butter, Maggi noodles and milk as they are my staples. If managed I will continue and try and make it a lifestyle. But it depends on my Health 

That’s on top of the usual and keeping to a £5000 budget. 

[Deleted User]

I've had a think and here are my first set of challenges:

January
General No Spend month.  No spending on anything other than food (in house), petrol.  Focus on decluttering one bedroom.

February
No eating out or takeways.  Plan to celebrate Valentines day with a special meal at home or a walk and an picnic.  Make more snacks/home baking.

March
Make 2 -3 new planters for the garden using free sourced palletwood.  This will be a big challenge.  May need to get some help with this one as we have no clue!  Alternatively source free/cheap planters on gumtree or fb marketplace.

April
We are off work the first week or so in April but not going away on holiday.
Spring clean the house.  Declutter as we go.  OH to paint room of his choosing, ideally LR at minimal cost as we should have enough paint.  We do need to get a window replaced as it is fogged up - we will set money aside to do that this month and shop around for quotes.
Set up the summerhouse
Remove winter blankets and cushions, clean, wash down windows and walls.  Repaint the outside (me) if weather permits - we have the paint already.

That's it so far.  There are some things that will be ongoing.  They are:

Continue to use the library. 2022 will be a no buying books year again.
Keep a close eye on utility bills and minimise where possible.
I do have a gym membership so plan to use that as much as I can to get my monies worth from it.
Minimise spending on gifts by shopping sales.
I need to lose weight and want that to be a major personal goal in 2022, using frugal methods. 

nannygladys

You're so kind Frugaldom taking the ponies and goats in.

I like the idea of challenge a month to participate in, it'll keep the interest and encouragement up! I am going to try and learn something different each month, or read a book that I wouldn't normally be interested in.

It's been a 'can't be bothered' day for me and I really wanted to take some decorations down, do menu plans etc but I'll try tomorrow instead. 

Jellytotts

Love the idea of a challenge a month too.  Our January will be a low/no spend one.  Food needs to be supplemented as much as possible from Olio.  In the past 2 days we've picked up £70 worth of stuff so needless to say we're heading in the right direction.  I now have 15kilos of potatoes to deal with and a lot of fruit to jam/jelly/eat.  

nannygladys

Frugaldom - I will do the 'Justifying January spends', it'll probably be all year so I will also be doing a 30minute walk each day, it can be longer but not shorter. This will hopefully go towards me getting a bit fitter and healthier.
Nannyg

patentgirl

@Frugaldom how lovely to take in goats and ponies in. My frugal challenge has gone well for 2021 especially as we lost my wages as officially retired from January 1st one of my challenges should definitely contribute more on thread I tend to read then forgot to comment will try harder for 2022. 
January to be a no spend month apart from food and diesel my main challenge has got to be lose weight and get fitter more healthy in 2022.
plan to walk daily at least 5 K need to find my old fibit to start to plan routes

willow_loulou

I’ve just been looking at the Amazon offers. I qualify for the £6 but honestly I don’t think I’d spend £56 on Amazon next year. Not sure if I’m tempting unnecessary spends if I do it. 

ancientmum

I like the idea of monthly challenges.   I will be spending in January as I intend to get what I need in the sales to save money on birthday and Christmas presents later in the year. Five birthdays in January, I have bought for three of them already and have got DG1's present for May.
I'm also having some necessary work on the flat done next week, and want to get new bookcases, but these will be frugally sourced from a lovely charity shop near me.  I bought a sofa from them last month which looks hardly used and cost a fraction of the new price. I passed on my old sofa to son who moved into his first flat that is not a student let.

On the grocery front I'm hoping to get away with just buying milk, bread, fruit and cheese in January. Happy New Year and see you on the 2022 thread.
 

 

nannygladys

Today I have been thinking about what I want from next year and one word to describe it and it is KINDNESS, I want to show more kindness to the world and population and be more kind to myself, so now I have to think of frugal ways to do that. I don't do resolutions as I tend to fail pretty quickly.
Nannyg

nannygladys

Oh it goes without saying that it includes all animals as well.