2021 Frugal Living Challenge

fiwen30

Couldsavemore said:

@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.

Great minds - I was able to get a few packs of jigsaw mats designed for babies, to pad out his hospital corner of the living room. With a couple of memory foam bath mats on top, a large, snuggly piece of vet bed, and a new, lower profile bed; he’s happy as a clam. The baby mats can go on to our local free fb page when we’re done with them, the bath mats will swap out our oldest ones, and the vet bed & dog bed will always find a place in our house! We also rigged up his pen using the wire panels I have for temporary rabbit housing, rather than going out and buying a whole new crate/dog pen, which has saved a fair bit. Just some ice packs and a warming pad to buy, and then I think we’re as prepared as we’re going to be! Saving yourself money by buying cheaper alternatives which do the same job counts as frugal, doesn’t it? 🙃

Food cost might be higher this week, with needing to buy in extra yummy stuff to tempt his appetite/hide tablets in. Going to put all the extras in a sealed box in the fridge so that partner doesn’t help himself! Partner is still getting fed vast quantities of everything-curry, and being very gracious about it.

I read a lot about the envelope system, before coming across ‘The Budget Mom’. I don’t want to sound too preachy, but I’d recommend anyone having difficulty with learning about/sticking to budgeting methods to look up her videos & blog posts. Our ‘envelopes’ are online savings accounts with M*nzo and N*tionwide, and parcelling out our income to a zero pound budget has been very helpful. We also track all of our spending across the month, into different categories, so we can see exactly where our money goes. Right now, it’s mostly going on the dog!

Thrifty_Taylor

Morning All, I'm really pleased how this month has gone. Managed to shave £103 off our food spend, have moved over to a cheaper mobile provider & managed 20 NSD. Yesterday I had a go at making marmalade, using up oranges from a L1dl veg box.  This is the first time I've made it. Unfortunately it boiled over the pan! With what stayed in the pan, I filled a jar & a small jar too. Very sticky hob to clean afterwards! Using up tomatoes from the box today in a soup, with some leftover tinned tomatoes & other veg.

YORKSHIRELASS

@RainbowHippie DH is self employed and earns most of his money during the summer, last month he worked 38 hours for the whole month!  I know that his average net profit after tax is £14k so I divide this by 12, which is £1166.  DH gets £100 a month transferred into an account for his own spending, £1000 goes into the joint account, and the rest stays in the business account as a bit of an emergency fund.  It took me ages to be disciplined enough to do it but I have done this for the last couple of years and it makes a huge difference.  My wages also go into the joint account and all the bills get paid from there.

I need to do a mealplan and a list to see if we need a grocery shop.  We have a lot in the cupboards and freezer so need to be creative.  I need to get out of the house today as well but it definitely wont involve spending money!  Have a good Sunday all x

Frugaldom

@RainbowHippie our income is variable as I write and H is an artist and sports writer,; we are both self-employed /freelance. I base my budget on absolute minimum guaranteed income,. We run Frugaldom on a voluntary basis so have to fundraise constantly towards costs of the rescue ponies and when a larger payment comes in from anywhere it gets set aside towards saving for the next stage of developing the project. Covid has badly affected our plans but we each qualified for the Govt. Self Employment grant (taxable).

willow_loulou

@RainbowHippie
I used to have this problem with self employment. I did exactly as you suggested and had an account for bills that we both paid into. I at that time used cash only for everything else so carried as little as possible for food shops so I wasn’t tempted. It’s very difficult to manage indeed especially if you’re both varied!
I would put the maximum in that account to cover the highest variable bills and leave it in there if it’s not spent. After say 3 paydays you could transfer some to savings but leaving yourself a buffer so you don’t need to worry as much. Perhaps the method of envelopes mentioned before might help too? 

Bluegreen143

It’s taken me ages to catch-up on here - lovely to see the thread so chatty! Lots of love and hugs to @wishus and sorry to hear about your loss.

I’ve lost track of budget a bit but we’ve ended the month with no debt and the emergency fund has a bit more in it than before so that’s fine. We had some (minimal) unexpected costs since I took the new job as had to set up a home working space in our room - Red will be looking after the kids downstairs so working at the kitchen table is out as it’s all open plan and we haven’t got a huge house by any means.

Red made me a lovely (teeny tiny) desk mainly from a plank of driftwood he’d picked up a while ago and using copper pipe for the leg which he also got for free. He spent £20 on wax, wood filler etc but has a lot of that left and it was going to be £40 for Ikea’s smallest desk otherwise which is made of white painted chipboard so no comparison to Red’s handiwork! He’s wall mounted the computer monitor behind it to maximise the desk space too and got me a wee lamp which clips onto the side. 

We’ve set up our new monthly budget and I’m aiming to be much stricter at updating YNAB as since we got debt free I’m not so good at keeping on track. I’ll get paid mid-month, Red will get paid last day of the month and we get child benefit every four weeks so I’ve devised the following budget:

Red’s pay - £1,900-2,000 (will go up a bit once he stops being furloughed too)

- Home bills £800 (rounded up so keep the extra in there for any small bits of maintenance needed - big projects we will need to save for separately)
- Car bills + replacement £200 we have never had car finance and want to keep it that way so need to start saving now as our car is 12 years old 😬
- Housekeeping £500 aim to spend a good bit less and sweep into savings 
- Gifts/Christmas £150 
- Red will then keep £250/300 (he’s promised to quit vaping and that would knock off £50-60 🤞🏼) and any extra left will be added to our “wants” savings

My salary - £1,250-1,350 
- Childcare £350-£450 haven’t sorted this yet as Red mainly on furlough and nurseries are closed here so a bit of a ??? re the amount - will use tax free childcare and MIL one day a week to reduce costs (I’m working 4 days but finishing at 3pm)
- My spends £125 inc my phone bill which I’m hoping to slash in June when contract ends 
- Holiday savings £100
- Other wants £150 + extra from Red first up replacement greenhouse panels 
- Help to save + Lifetime ISA £150
- Emergency fund - everything that’s left, £250 minimum but hopefully lots more! And after it’s at £2k we are going to overpay the mortgage with this money (switching to paying back the emergency fund whenever we use it)

Child benefit - keeping this separate for kids’ pocket money, clothes and activities - each month I’ll leave any excess in there to build up to school trips and extracurriculars etc when they are older.

I’m hoping YNAB will be easier to keep up with with broad categories - I know some people like more in-depth categories but I like to keep it simple! So YNAB categories for now are:

Spending
Housekeeping (food, petrol, household items)
Kids
Me
As for Red, I don’t track this in YNAB, I just ask him not to go overdrawn

Bills (includes saving for annual bills)
Home
Car 
Childcare

Short term savings 
Gifts
Holiday
Other wants

Long term savings 
Help to save 
Lifetime ISA
Emergency fund 
(Workplace pensions not included as come direct from pay)

I love the idea of actual cash envelopes as others have described but we buy most things online (including ordering groceries just now due to Covid) so using the pots in Monzo + YNAB works much better for us.

Viking_mfw

Ooh desk looks lovely @Bluegreen143

Mrs_Salad_Dodger

what a lovely desk!

Rowan9

Love the desk!

Frugaldom

House_Elf_2 said:

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 🙂

Good luck with everything! I hope frugal living allows you the freedom to enjoy your pension without having to worry about finding work. Time to live a little, even if it is mainly at the planning stages during lockdown