2021 Frugal Living Challenge

roblou27

Love the desk Bluegreen

Frugaldom

I, too, love the desk with its copper pipe legs, @Bluegreen143. It's great when you have someone handy about the place to do these things and save from buying new. Well done!

Someone posted a simple lemon marmalade recipe on here so I'm just back to pick it up and try it as I have 10 lemons here, all from Olio a couple of weeks ago. I'd sent some along to a neighbour but she wasn't baking last week and didn't want to keep them, so they've come back to me. Does this qualify as circular economy?

Nonnadiluca

Well, that's January done, another month closer to Spring!
Scores on the doors: shopping and fuel budget is £450, £77 spent on fuel; DH had a slight accident which necessitated 2 round trips of 20+ miles to one hospital and 3 round trips of 60+ miles to another so was a bit more than planned! Shopping came in at £264 so total of £341, pleased with that.
House and contents insurance and car tax paid for the year, £69 dentist, ouch!!!, 2 birthdays, a new set of kitchen scales, (I dropped mine from a great height and they broke), and DH announced that he had ordered 2 pairs of shoes, £110, nearly half the clothing budget for us both for the year 🙁
Good things- £25 win on the premium bonds, £20.44 cashed out from Prolific Academic,  £2 M&S voucher, 6p picked up in the street, DD gave me a £12 off £60 spend in Waitro5e so I stocked up on offers,eg dw tabs, free range sausages for DH, and quite a bit of reduced stuff. Overall, not too bad a month.
I hope everyone's ok, stay safe.

Kerry_Woman

Added up all the totals for each categories that I have. Just slightly over on the food budget by 22p.  January is always an expensive month as I pay full amount of the service charge for the flat for the year, annual prescription card and the home contents insurance.  As I had temp work for the whole of January I had bus fares to pay for.  Did bring my lunch into work.  They do supply tea and coffee.  Got shifts for the whole of February.

Frugaldom

Final financials for January, 1/12 of the way through our 2021 Frugal Living Challenge
Total household spends - £233.66
Groceries for month - £13.20 (living from stores, swaps, trades and Olio 'rescues')
Starting challenge budget - £4,000
Balance c/f to February - £3,766.34
I won't know the exact amount for my supermarket home-delivery order until the day it's scheduled to arrive so will include it then. I'm hoping to hear the sweet tones of Olio updates later tonight as there's usually a Tesco pick-up by our local food waste hero on a Sunday night. Fingers crossed.

6 lemons have now been processed and are soaking in water for making marmalade tomorrow.

Edited in - just been informed that Olio will no longer be available in our area with immediate effect.   

Couldsavemore

On the frugal front... as in living on less than I earn.
£400 more in savings
£659 less in debt (excluding the mortgage)
I've also got £100 in 'spare cash' from using cash envelopes. 
Hoping to under spend on my food budget this month.

Mummy2cheekymonkeys

We've set ourselves a target of £200 a month for food/cleaning/nappies and toiletries. First month has come in at £131.39 so i'm really pleased. It helps that the cupboards and freezers were already pretty full and I can't see that I need to buy any toiletries this year. 
I had a pretty depressing day yesterday but on the plus side it really focused me with regards to our spending and why we need to carry on as we have started this year. 

moneyonmymindsam

Mummy2cheekymonkeys said:

We've set ourselves a target of £200 a month for food/cleaning/nappies and toiletries. First month has come in at £131.39 so i'm really pleased. It helps that the cupboards and freezers were already pretty full and I can't see that I need to buy any toiletries this year. 
I had a pretty depressing day yesterday but on the plus side it really focused me with regards to our spending and why we need to carry on as we have started this year. 

That's a really brilliant outcome well done on such a low spend, that must have taken some work but keep plugging away.
👏👏👏💕💖😘❤️😁

skogar

Wishus - Sorry to hear your sad news. Sending hugs.

Blue-green - love the desk - it looks great.

Willow - I hope that at some point I will visit Frugaldom. It is the only way that my OH will believe I don't have a tree problem.

Frugaldom - Sorry to hear that the Olio source of free food has stopped. It sounded like you have had some good offers previously.

CraftyLittleLisa

That's a very clever desk construction and very stylish. 

In respect of budgets/envelops I just transfer money into one saving account for my "luxury" items (hairdressers/exercise classes etc) and into another savings account  for my "essential" savings (car maintenance/house contents insurance/spectacles) and then keep a notebook listing all the the different categories and the amounts.  I expanded it following on from everyone's talk about using envelopes so I now put my food and clothes budget in there and then will transfer it into my current account when I spend it.  I don't take cash out as such as everywhere I have been since the initial lockdown asks for card payments rather than cash.

On looking at my budget I am pleased to say that my food budget is under so I have £5.90 left.  I am really pleased with that as I thought I may struggle to keep to it.  I have given the fridge a thorough clean and sort today as well.  I have cooked down the last remaining apples from my allotment harvest and made an apple crumble and frozen small portions of stewed apple.  I also identified some jars of things I really ought to use up.  I have miso, tahini and brinjal pickle.  I need to look at some recipes to find some to use these ingredients up without having to buy other different stuff.  I have also done an inventory of my freezer to see what I have and what I need to stock up on.  I think I should be okay for a bit.  Unfortunately Olio has not had anything up on it since before Christmas which is slightly disappointing (although I can't get anywhere at the moment).  Hopefully it will pick up again soon.  I have done a meal plan for the week as well.  That's the food side sorted.

Another frugal success was my TV wasn't really working properly because the remote was malfunctioning (it has been ever since I had it as the TV was given to me second hand).  My brother said he had a spare universal remote controller which he brought up to

me the other day.  I successfully set it up yesterday.  I was so proud of myself as I am a bit of a technophobe.  On the technical side as well I got given a dehumidifier for free (my sister wanted rid of it) so I am hoping that will help me dry my clothes when I have to hang it indoors.

I also made myself a t-shirt out of some remnants of fabric left over from another project and sorted through all my seeds I have for starting growing at the allotment.  I only need to get potatoes now.  Everything else I need I have.  I call all that a bit of a success this week.

I hope everyone's pets, family and friends get well land stay safe.