2021 Frugal Living Challenge

willow_loulou

welcome @Landgirlinthelittlecity
@BelleBaluu perhaps you could have a separate account to put the money in and do a yearly lump sum? Or perhaps ask about new terms at some point.
I’ve heard some fixed term are very inflexible as you’re getting a good deal so they don’t make enough money if you repay to early. 

CRANKY40

Checking in this evening to declare that I have £268.32 left in the budget for the rest of this month. This weeks spends included £20 petrol top up and £33.79 for cat food which had better last a good long time (about 2 months I reckon but we'll see). The cat would rather eat human food but I'm not so keen on that idea. 

The freezer has a few spaces appearing, but nothing that's been used needs replacing yet. I didn't buy much in the way of Christmas extras because I like to have plenty of ordinary food in the house in case of bad weather in January and February (yes, I'm a wimp). Usually I run stocks down during the summer and then restock in autumn ready for winter again. Last year I tried to keep levels fairly constant due to potential shortages. 

Tonight I let my son have one of his favourite cheap teas. Smart price noodles with gravy and a slice of bread and butter. Not nutritionally very sound but filling and he loves it. It's even more of a treat as I don't make him have veg with it. 

BelleBaluu

@willow_loulou, that’s a good idea. I’m half way through a fixed rate, so I could pop the money away and when I remortgage at the end of my deal, I could pop it in then. I’d always just presumed these things were easy to do so it came as a bit of a shock when she said no! 🙈

StrawberrySuze

Hello @Landgirlinthelittlecity 👋

Congratulations on the job @Bluegreen143 hope everything goes well 😊

My mortgage only let's me overpay by £1000 at a time and that isn't happening! 

Did my first grocery shopping for 3 weeks today, had to get dog food. Only spent £14.85 on actual food and coffee but did buy some beer which I fancied after a very stressful work day, frugally I have changed from wine to beer and much less of it! 🍺 Managed to not buy any of the myriad other things that were tempting me, I went in hungry as well but was aware that I had a perfectly good portion of crumble and freezer full of food at home 😋

@CRANKY40 I sometimes have chips and gravy for tea and sometimes, strangely, have these with spring rolls and sweet Thai chilli sauce 🤣 Never tried noodles and gravy, yet...!

Has anyone got lots of snow? There is a little bit forecast for tomorrow here but we don't usually get much. 

Couldsavemore

@StrawberrySuze... we had snow on thursday... just to cause that little extra chaos at work. Our street is now covered in frozen slush! A complete delight... I've got an hours drive to a vaccination site to take Dad for covid jab. Fingers crossed.
Also, on a fixed rate but I can pay in anything over £20 at a time but not more than 10% of what I owe. When I remortgaged My repaument dropped but as I had been 'means' tested for the original higher payment I asked to keep paying the higher amount to cut down the term and the mortgage company agreed. The averpayment is only £17 but its knocked a year off!

On the frugal front..
Now having a free lunch at work so got my shopping in for £21 for the week.
Evening meals for the week will be the batch of homemade soup and bread.
Mr A had bags of wonky peppers... so I bought I bag and will chop and freeze what I don't need this weekend.

roblou27

Morning everyone, we were forecast to have a mixture of snow and rain here in the East this morning, I think it has just started. It is also very windy.

I have defrosted a large pack of mince to halve and bulk out today. Half will be made into chilli and half for a Bolognase sauce. I will put in dried red lentils and with the beans in the chilli and lots of veg I should get a a meal for today and several pack ups for hubs. I do the same for the Bol, less beans. I have a stray low sugar H@%nz tomato soup which I will also add to get rid of it. I love the  original and thought I would try it as it was low Syn when I was on SW. I found it not very pleasant at all. The sweetener is very strong and almost sickly but hoping bunged in a Bol with herbs etc it will be mellow. I don’t want to waste it. I am also going to make some home made soup with some floppy looking veg so a bit of a cook up today. 

Looking good to hit the NSD target that I set for this month. Not in small part to not being able to go anywhere. 😀 Just an ordinary next two days here, hubs is working and is off on Monday so we just class days as working or non working. 

The budget is looking ok. It was a low month as they didn’t pay some extras that they should have done but which should leave a small surplus of £24 😱 so not much wriggle room this month. This is after all the budgetary items allocated so still in credit...that’s why the no spends are so important this month. They are paying it on next pay so next payslip will look better so we will be able hopefully to allocate overs to the Emergency fund and pay extra off the credit card. I am still managing to save on the 1p for 365 days challenge by bank tiding. I decided to use an old savings account that had £10 in to move the p’s into, it’s in the same bank as our other accounts so easy to transfer. 

Not much else on the agenda today but my dippy eggs are calling so I’ll be off. Have a good day all. 

MazzieD

Blah!  Got woken up at 3am by my lovely cat throwing up on the  bedsheet,  Fur ball and partially digested food.  Typical, did washing yesterday after changing the sheets.  Might have to investigate the hand washing machines mentioned on here, it's just not worth running a wash for a sheet.

Had a look at my plant pots. think I also need large ones so will have to be inventive, don't want to spend a lot just in case I ever manage to dig up/get rid of the concrete paving stones!..

@willow_loulou I remember your photo of the lemon plants you grew last year, how are they getting on?.  I thought of you last week, I came across an article on how to grow lemon trees from seed.  Might give it a go..  Sounds like you are well advanced with your seed planting.  I'm going to plant some pepper and chilli seeds in pots over the weekend.  I'm more used to planting straight in to a veg plot so growing in pots/containers is a new experience for me.

Looks like I will come in well under budget this month, just not spending anything.  Still a couple of weeks but planning to transfer whatever is left to savings.  I don't count NSD's, maybe I should count spend days instead as there haven't been many.

I always forget about no Council Tax in Feb/March so thanks to all who have reminded me

StrawberrySuze

Well I talked that up, we now have 2" of snow and it's still snowing 🤣

joedenise

@MazzieD - if you're thinking about the little plastic washing machines I doubt they'd be big enough to do a sheet!  We used to have a twin tub and it was only really big enough to do 2 or 3 t-shirts or a few pairs of pants/knickers!

skint_chick

BelleBaluu said:

Evening all. Had a fairly good week, considering juggling work, home schooling and managed to get out to ride my horse a couple of times, despite the freezing weather! 

Bit deflated today though, as I rang my mortgage company to see how I go about paying extra into my mortgage as and when I can. Only to be told that such payments can’t be used to reduce the term, only my monthly payments. If I want it to reduce the capital, I need to make regular overpayments!? Or ask for my mortgage to be recalculated each time! Anyone else come across this? I was contemplating phoning back at a later time to see if I got someone else on the other end next time 🙈😩

Sounds like your interest is quarterly/annual rather than daily/monthly. Alternatives to calling them every time are saving up the extra funds in a savings account until you have enough of a lump sum to make it worth your while calling them - which might work OK if you get an online savings account that pays an interest rate similar to your mortgage interest rate and it's only a small amount of overpayments you were thinking of. Or ask if they can set your monthly payment at a fixed amount that's the same as your monthly payment rounded up to the next pound/nearest fiver etc, so when you make overpayments they don't reduce your payment because it's already fixed. For example if you're paying £596.89 then ask can you pay a fixed payment of £597 or £600 per month then any extra payments you make will come off the balance and you will still pay £597 or £600. Then the only time you need to change things is if interest rates change or if you have a fixed rate when it comes to an end.