2022 Frugal Living Challenge

MazzieD

So sorry to read about the pets, it's such a difficult decision to make and one that I had to make with my last cat.   We always hope and wish they would just slip away peacefully in their sleep after a long and happy life.

Just made some room in the freezer for my next shop, got a bit disorganised due to distractions this week and suddenly realised I'm running out of batch cooked meals so slow cooker is on and defrosting some meat so that I can use the SC each day.  Really hope the car does arrive tomorrow as I really need to get a major grocery shop now.

I'm not going to worry about my March budget, it should be reasonably low.  April is a real concern though, still waiting on some price increases not on monthly payments.  I like to plan ahead but that just isn't realistic at the moment.  Think companies/organisations have to give 2 weeks notice for Direct Debit increases but I'm sure someone on here will correct me if that's wrong!.  Mine are spread out across the month, the last one for this month is on 21 March and just happens to be gas and electricity (still no February bill or notification of new DD and I'm not looking forward to receiving either).

I forgot to mention that I didn't ask for monthly energy bills, it seems to be standard practice for my energy supplier.  Much better for customers, particularly at the moment.

Wicked_Lady

My washing machine, admittedly a German make, weighs the wash load and adjusts the length of wash accordingly. Do other machines do this?

willow_loulou

@cw18 I got a 5kg Electra machine for £159 on AO 3 yrs ago and it’s done better than any I’ve bought over the years. I had an £800 Bosch direct drive that died 4 weeks beyond the 2 yr warranty. I’ve had 7 washing machines in 22 yrs and I refuse to spend more than £200 as they’re all equally poorly made imo. Good luck finding a suitable replacement 

Debsnewbudget

Yes ours will change the time and amount of water according to load weight.
the one thing I have noticed is that there are no really quick washes that also do a good spin speed. Compared to my older machine, the time taken is much longer. Also for the tumble dryer, where I used to be able to do a wash and dry in less than 1 hour 30 its now all afternoon of a job 

willow_loulou

WinterWarrior said:

Also sorry to read of the loss of your beautiful cats @Bluegreen143 and @Hopefuljoy. It never gets any easier. 

@willow_loulou your body may be craving food to help with your recovery. It might be worth a few days of eating all the things if you feel ravenous and giving yourself time to feel 100%

Good point I hadn’t considered, I’ll eat when I’m hungry today. Which is now but I’m too tired to do anything much. Sigh. 

Im hoping I’ll have the energy to start some salad seeds tomorrow. Todays plan is to seed sort from my stores to get organised. I can do that in bed 

luvchocolate

All this talk of washing machines reminded me of my very first Hoover Automatic cost £299 in 1974.
I can remember just sitting on the floor watching it washing...I really loved that machine but how expensive they were back then 

Bluegreen143

@Hopefuljoy I’m so sorry to hear about your cat too, sending love. I also didn’t realise my cat was anywhere near as ill as she was, so also a shock here. 

Well my little 6yo Monkey has Covid, he was pretty ill on Friday but is OK now. But it’s saving us a lot of money as we had quite a lot of social plans this weekend and obviously can’t go anywhere now! Doing lots in the garden to make the most of the nice weather, and I’m about to start a loaf of bread. I so rarely have the time to bake bread now and really miss it. I did make two jars blood orange marmalade yesterday too as we’ve had lots of blood oranges in my fruit box from the greengrocers. Love turning fruit that’s past it’s best into something which sounds like a premium brand product!

poppy811

I had the same luv chocolate.  Health visitor called unexpectedly  to check on new baby and the machine had flooded the floor! Cue me in floods of tears as I was convinced she would take the baby away.  Turned out it was plumbed in wrong by us.  End of drama.

boultdj

@cw18, you said you have Amazon voucher's, look up AO on amazon, it's where I got my dryer from, less cash out of your account if you have not earmarked the vouchers for something else.

RateTartExtraordinaire

Hi All,
Just catching up on all the posts.
So sorry to hear about your cats @Bluegreen143 and @Hopefuljoy. @cw18 Enjoy having your appetite back post-COVID. You probably need to replace the lost calories. Listen to your body.

We are getting ready to celebrate family birthdays this month and thought about going out but some of my family are anxious about eating out in busy restaurant. Instead we have decided to order some extra special things from sm and make a lovely lunch at home. I'm looking forward to it. 

Frugalling is going well and I am sticking to my grocery budget. I needed two more prescriptions this month, so the prepayment certificate is earning its keep. There will be some planned spending this month on eating out, £10 catch up coffee with a friend this week and then £25 meal out with friends later in the month. But I've not seen them for so long it will be worth the cash spent. I'm going to forgive myself this splurge.

I did a bank switch so will have £140 cashback to come in the summer.  

I got my latest bill in from new Energy provider. I've increased by DD for the Gas and Elec by 30% for now due to increase in Gas. Then I noticed they are charging over the capped rate for my Gas, so I've asked them to recalculate the bill. I'll see what happens, but pretty sure they can't charge over the cap if you are on a variable rate.