2022 Frugal Living Challenge

Sweetlittledaydreams

Bluegreen143 said:

@missymoo81 could you do a lasagne one night for dinner, pop a few potatoes in to bake too for lunches and put the cake on the bottom shelf? I know lots of people do batch oven use in this way (I’m not very good at being that organised myself 🤦‍♀️)

This is such a good tip. I need to get into the habit of having a cooking day once a week and doing this, it would help with the energy usage and just save time really. 
22p for 5 bagels, had one for tea tonight with hummus and made another one up for lunch at work tomorrow, cheap and should keep me going on a 13 hour shift 😴 it's great to get stuff reduced but quite often it seems to be carb heavy food, so I need to be careful otherwise I can see myself eating a lot of bread based meals, I'd be happy but my jeans wouldn't fit 😅 
My friend had nice stuff in her too good to go bags yesterday and today, I just wish you could opt for only vegetarian bags, I don't use it now because of this but now I know someone else who is using them and trying to save money I'm thinking I could pass on any meat/dairy items to her (hopefully she might swap me some fruit and veg). 
Gave friends a lift today rather than spending £9 each on the train, one of them paid for parking and I thought the other would by me a drink but she didn't 🙄 but it still saved us all a bit anyway. 
Working all day tomorrow so no chance to spend money, and hopefully next week will be a cheap week again. I've seen a house I really like the look of but it would mean extending my mortgage by around £35k and I'm not sure if it's worth doing or not. The dream of being mortgage free is almost within reach so to then extend it instead seems a bit of a crazy idea.

nannygladys

Back in the day when I worked, I started to give a lift to a work colleague as she didn't drive, who was supposed to give me an arranged amount to help pay for fuel. She gave me the amount for a couple of weeks and then said I would be getting it when we got paid and when it wasn't still forth coming a couple of weeks after that I made excuses not to give her a lift anymore and it came to an end. I don't like being taken for a mug and I didn't actually work in the same office just the same firm.

missmoneywatch

Bluegreen143 said:

@missymoo81 could you do a lasagne one night for dinner, pop a few potatoes in to bake too for lunches and put the cake on the bottom shelf? I know lots of people do batch oven use in this way (I’m not very good at being that organised myself 🤦‍♀️)

This is what I do so oven goes on maybe 2/3 times a week but I have two or three meals in there. So Sunday I made roast ham so first hour had gammon in top and jacket spuds underneath and cakes on bottom shelf, second hour I had gammon on top with roasties in same time, and a tray of homemade chips underneath to cook and freeze instead of using frozen chips.  

nmaria

If you manage to save any money those days what do you do with it?
The home growing have started so the food shop bill will go down a bit. Just can’t make my mind up if I should invest the savings or leave it in the current account account for a rainy day. 

Floss

nmaria said:

If you manage to save any money those days what do you do with it?
The home growing have started so the food shop bill will go down a bit. Just can’t make my mind up if I should invest the savings or leave it in the current account account for a rainy day. 

Savings I make are put away, as due to NI & fuel & energy increases I no longer have any money left from my monthly salary payment to put by for house / car maintenance. Mine go into an everyday saver until there is £100 which then goes into NS&I so I can easily access it.

cuddlymarm

Hi guys
My meals tend to merge into each other these days. I cooked extras potatoes yesterday for today and now have pasta sauce and a big pack of chicken defrosting in the fridge for tomorrow. It will keep the fridge cooler and so cut electric cost and then cook the chicken when I do the pasta bake tomorrow.
We’re all electric and our meter starts at 70p each day which I take it is the standing charge and the fridge/freezer and bits on standby. We average about £2.50 a day without heat or using the tumble drier much which in winter will be needed as we live in a flat. As I have work uniform I need regularly  I spread the rest of the washing out on a medium size 15 minute wash. So any saving now will help later.
Also I’ve looked at our food usage. We are both doing SW but find some yoghurt and salads get wasted so instead of buying then automatically every week I’m going to just pick up as needed. The cost isn’t that much but it just feels so wrong to throw any food away and there’s only so much odds and ends soup can fit in the freezer.
It looks absolutely lovely out today but unfortunately I’m working today so I better get on 
Have a lovely day guys

Primrose

nmaria said:

If you manage to save any money those days what do you do with it?
The home growing have started so the food shop bill will go down a bit. Just can’t make my mind up if I should invest the savings or leave it in the current account account for a rainy day. 

Always a dilemma.  With the rate at which food& household necessities are rising in cost it may be better value longer term to spend some of your  surplus savings on items which have a long life which you are definitely going to have to buy sooner or later.   Unfortunately any surplus money in current or savings accounts these days is nowhere keeping up with the rate of inflation despite the reality that most people feel nervous and uncomfortable without any "emergency" cash put by.
Maybe  opt for  50/50 solution so you get a little benefit from both options?

in my early days of home growing and budgeting I always used "to pay myself" for my crops as I picked them so I had money for more the next batch of seeds and compost. 

Floss

Primrose said:

in my early days of home growing and budgeting I always used "to pay myself" for my crops as I picked them so I had money for more the next batch of seeds and compost. 

I used to do this when I had my allotment, but the ex-h would "pay" in wine made from the fruit 😁 his rhubarb and strawberry wines were delicious.

Bluegreen143

nmaria said:

If you manage to save any money those days what do you do with it?
The home growing have started so the food shop bill will go down a bit. Just can’t make my mind up if I should invest the savings or leave it in the current account account for a rainy day. 

I always have a “target” amount to keep in an emergency fund (used to be £1k, then £2k but I’m now aiming to build up £5k) so as I have far less than that in there, any savings go there (just a savings account but instant access). 

Once I hit my target amount I think I’ll split any leftover money between overpaying my mortgage and investing. I want to build up a freedom fund so I can retire early or keep working part time when I’m older. But it’ll be a few months til I hit my emergency fund target even if we don’t have any emergencies in the interim.

Primrose

The freedom fund for paying off your mortgage earlier is always an excellent idea.  Life is so uncertain these days very few people  can guarantee being able to keep their job until their planned retirement date. Life's misfortunes or ill health can so often wreck one's plans so securing the roof over your head as early as possible is probably one of the best ways of ensuring peace of mind in difficult times.