2021 Frugal Living Challenge

Frugaldom

willow_loulou said:

... @Frugaldom I feel your weather pain, my garden is a bog right now so I can’t even start on anything. How many trees are in now? 

@willow_loulou In total, since buying the land in 2014, we've planted well over 6,000 as new woodland, orchard, foraging / edible hedgerow, windbreaks and wildlife habitat. Most were tiny saplings, the first of which are now just beginning to reach a height that we can see. (Apart from the willows - some of those are several metres tall and are already being coppiced) I think tree planting is something you do as a lifetime 'dream' - always better started 10 or 20 years earlier.   I hope I'm around long enough to see them all grow into what I imagine they will look like. Thank you for asking.    I'm now pursuing my long-awaited plan to build an off-grid cabin/hut, and still live in hope of finding like-minded others interested in doing likewise to share the project.

Frugaldom

@cuddlymarm I think your goals are admirable considering everything that's going on and has gone on over the past year. It's an absolute juggling act trying to get from one month to the next when income is interrupted, sporadic or not guaranteed. Self-employment can be fabulous in some ways but does have its pitfalls when it comes to things like days off for any reason. Well done for having goals in the first place

DawnW

@fiwen30 sorry to hear that your dog needs a cruciate op. Some years ago I spent lots of time in vets' practices watching surgical operations (research for my PhD, not being weird!) and saw lots of these ops. The prognosis is / was apparently really good for both dogs and cats, and the vet who did them, who was a specialist in orthopaedic surgery, said that although it looked pretty drastic and there was a recovery time of 3 or 4 months, the vast majority of his patients would go on to live perfectly normal lives afterwards with no further treatment, unless the other one needs doing of course!

Viking_mfw

DawnW said:

@fiwen30 sorry to hear that your dog needs a cruciate op. Some years ago I spent lots of time in vets' practices watching surgical operations (research for my PhD, not being weird!) and saw lots of these ops. The prognosis is / was apparently really good for both dogs and cats, and the vet who did them, who was a specialist in orthopaedic surgery, said that although it looked pretty drastic and there was a recovery time of 3 or 4 months, the vast majority of his patients would go on to live perfectly normal lives afterwards with no further treatment, unless the other one needs doing of course!

Agreed - vet's daughter here and also have had my own cruciate repaired! There is a higher risk for the second one to then go but it's by no means a foregone conclusion. 

ldee2111

roblou27 said:

ldee2111 said:

OLaney said:

 
@ldee2111 Now this is very interesting! I have wondered if I could do this in the past... have multiple accounts...do all banks do this? Can I set them up online do you think? And you have separate instant access accounts for each one? I truly love this idea and think this will help me enormously as I will be able to see exactly what I have each time in each account. 
Thankyou so much for telling me about this!! I am going to go online now and see if I can do it through my bank.
I will let you know how I got on x 

I don’t know if all banks do it - definitely worth checking with your current bank. 
 Yes, I’ve got separate accounts for all the categories. I can open an instant access savings account with £1 via their app and it takes about 24 hours to appear. 👍🏻 But I need to rename the accounts on their actual website.
The digital envelope system really works for me and one of my close friends, who regularly used her cc to get through the month, started doing it about a year ago after I told her how I manage our budget. She’s not had to use her cc to get her to the end of the month since. 
The other thing I like about it is that I can see exactly what’s left in each category at the end of the month. I save any leftover money either into emergency or as an OP on our mortgage - no matter how little it is. I do not carry money over to the next month because my goal is to live within the budget I’ve set and using the extra from the previous month feels like I’m cheating the budget. 😂

Idee2111 this is what we do to, sounds like we have the same bank. We have the old reward account 
, then two current accounts and a couple of saving accounts. We renamed them to our requirements. Hubs pay goes into the reward then we divvy it all up straight away into those other accounts . We also don’t carry over, anything left over gets transferred into the EF and off credit card and then start afresh with the same budget from next pay day. I find it very satisfying seeing these little pots grow and love it when I have it sat ready when needed. 

The little pots bring me peace of mind too. I know that if the washing machine dies, it’s annoying but it’s not going to cause me more stress than needed.

House_Elf_2

Hi Frugalistas 👋

Trying to read back, but too much!

Frugal January has used up freezer stocks, cut the food bill by about 25% and built up stocks of toiletries using loyalty points not money. 

Last payment from work...... One Pension confirmed........need to do some sums to work out the best way forward........pay down mortgage, buy an annuity, get another job? 😱

Frugalling onward 🙂

Couldsavemore

@fiwen30
So sorry to here about doggy. 
For the slippy floor can I suggest those bigger rubber mats that jigsaw together. They'd cover a nice large area, comfy (ish) to lie on and a more insulated than a hard wood/laminate floor.
You could also put plastic sheeting underneath incase of err... accidents! Just to make it easier to clean / protect your floor.

Couldsavemore

On the frugalling front.
I did 5 weeks worth of food shopping from my jan £200 food budget. I had £25 left over to put in the treats tin for caravanning and fun.
I have £200 food budget for feb, which covers 4 weeks but 1 is half term so bit more food needed.
Its been interesting reading all tge different ways we try to keep a grip on our money.
I do..
pay my savings on the 1st of the month
take out food budget in cash for the month and keep it in a seperate purse.
put 200 into a seperate account for big bills. 

MazzieD

I'm also finding it really interesting reading about the different ways we deal with money, particularly the envelope system, I hadn't come across this before.  I also use cash for groceries, it seems to be seeing actual money disappearing rather than card receipts that makes me think about what I'm buying.

Already transferred the Council Tax to savings, February should be much easier and I'm hoping to come in well under budget (famous last words).  No spends before Monday so I have come in 54p under budget as predicted for January so that has been transferred to savings as well..  Bit disappointed as was hoping for more but January is a long month and had to buy a couple of unplanned items.  

Weather is awful at the moment, heavy rain so going through the freezer later to make sure my list of contents tallies with what is actually in there as I sometimes forget to cross items off when I take them out!.  Got some cooked turkey out for a stir fry today, one of my favourite meals and using up some veg.   Meal planning already done, might need to buy a bit of veg to do batch cooking but very little else as plenty of  YS meat/fish and cooked turkey already in freezer.

wishus

Thanks for the kind words everybody.