2022 Frugal Living Challenge

-taff

Kim1965 said:

Lots of tips on here, having read the thread not many people give a total of 21 spending and spending aim for 22.
Its difficult to quantify peoples success at being frugal

The only people who need to quantify their success are the people who are being frugal, not any outside agency. There is no ultimate end prize of being frugal like a Gold Cup for the winner. Everyone has their own reasons for doing it, whether that's an end goal or just to be able to live how they want.

cw18

Bluegreen143 said:

Here in Scotland you get it off your bill, it’s come off my April bill which was reduced to a lovely £7.44!

I had assumed it just meant slightly lower payments every month for the year if a coucil did it that way !!!

And because of that, I had thought that knocking it off the CT bill made sense, as it would free up money each month which could then be paid to your energy company.

If it's simply being knocked off your first payment in one single reduction, then it's effectively the same as giving you the £150 into your bank like many/most of us in England are getting - and in that format does seem to be a more sensible way of doing it, rather than money going from my bank to theirs, and then some coming back from theirs to mine.    Clearly they'd have to put an alternative into play for people who don't pay a CT bill (full discount due to circumstances) or only pay a token amount, as I believe in Scotland they just knocked it off the water part of your bill if that were the case - in England there's no connection between the two.

I'm in a couple of FB groups where there have been a lot of discussions about it, and there have been a few who say they're putting it towards a holiday as they've not had one in a while because of Covid, and holdays have gone up in price more than they could afford without using this money to help cover the increases !!     Whilst I understand that people can mentally benefit from a change of scenery, I have to confess this annoys me as it's not what it's being given to us for - and someone else voiced my concern, in that these will be the people who (come the next increase in October) scream they can't afford their energy bills and the government should be doing more to help us   I wouldn't be able to afford to pay for accommodation for more than a couple of nights, so it doesn't seem worth spending the time (and money) to travel.  I certainly wouldn't dream of using this money to add on another couple of nights.  I have to admit that I'm lucky in that I can still get away - but only because I help an older relative out with a second home that they no longer have the energy or mobility to look after.    My OH and I go up for a week several times each year, pay for the gas and electric we use, and normally spend about half the time doing maintenance around the property or garden.   The rest of our stay is 'our' time, when we go out walking.   We had two weeks last year with very little 'us' time, as one room was unusable until redecorated (water got in due to us not being able to do regular checks with the travel bans!), so we worked pretty flat out to get that done - and repainted 2 other rooms while we were at it, which look much better than they have done for years.


I'm seeing four 'valid' uses for the money (in my eyes - I'm sure others will see things differently).

1 - pay it off a debt that attracts interest and doesn't charge penalties for early overpayment (and I probably wouldn't include a mortgage in this, as those are much lower interest than other types of loans so wouldn't give as fast a payback).    You'll then either have lower monthly payments from now (freeing up money for the one of my other uses), or will finish paying back sooner (which still saves more than the £150).   As you don't pay interest on energy bills (even if you have a debit balance), this seems to a much better option.

2 - use it to purchase item(s) that will reduce your energy usage, or if you were already about to buy/replace something you could look at a more energy efficient version even if it's slightly dearer.    This way you'd be potentially be reducing your energy bills for a much longer period (although probably not by as much each month just now, and it may be more difficult to calculate the payback time period than option 1).

Several people in the FB groups are looking to change to LED lightbulbs, and a number of people are investigating different types of cookers (halogen ovens, ninj@ cookers etc.) so they don't need to use their main ovens.

If I didn't already have, then the things I'd have considered are LED bulbs, heated throw (worth having for me, as living alone means I can use that for a short burst instead of having to boost my central heating round the whole house!), a combi oven (since having one I've rarely used my main over, but I especially love it for doing jacket potatoes in 13-15 minutes using a combi setting), an air-fryer, a slow cooker, or some other kind of energy efficient cooking device.   And if I were still debating what washing machine to get, then it may well have ended up being used towards a more energy efficient machine (as it is I ended up springing a bit extra for a machine rated 'B' instead of picking from slightly cheaper machines which were all 'D or 'E' - but that was mainly because it wasn't as deep which means it will actually push totally under my worktop - the others all stick out by 3 or 4 inches).     I'm pondering alternative appliances at the moment, but haven't made a decision yet as I'm struggling to figure out what they're all capable of - no point in buying if I'm not going to make full use of it.

3 - give it to your energy provider (or put it into a savings account until later in the year, then hand it over).    If mine goes that way now, then I'll keep my payments at what they need to be without it.   That means my account will then have a healthy credit balance come October (especially with the other £200 going onto the account then), which *might* mean I don't have to increase my payments at that point.....

4 - give it back to the council as a lump sum payment towards your CT.   I'm pretty sure that if I were to do that they'd reduce my monthly payments for the rest of the financial year, and as I'll only have 10 payments left to make by the time I get the £150 (and can return it) that would then give me £15/month less going in their direction that could then be used for one of the other options.

fionaandphil

2Scratters said:

What I don't understand about the rebate (pardon me for having some common sense or forbid my cynicism) Why was it not simply knocked off the bill? Would it not be more cost effective the the council to have done this (!!!!!! the staff welfare who have to deal with it) Or are they hoping a very lot of people will fail to claim it back and save some coffers. 

Apparently something to do with the way the government set up the funding and not all Councils have received it yet.  I think I read that Wales and Scotland have a different system and could therefore knock it off the bills, which does seem much more sensible!

basketcase

My Council (also Scotland) subtracted it from the whole bill then divided the remainder into the usual payments.

RateTartExtraordinaire

I'm following the council tax £150 payment with interest. Nothing received so far. The direct debit went out today from my back account. 

This month I had unexpected expenses for property maintenance. Both the TV aerial and some roof tiles needed repair which put me back £500. This has come from saving. I did consider doing away with the TV aerial and television license altogether and only watching things through the apps on catch up. But I decided I still want the option of live TV. We have freeview and a subscription to NFx. 

I did a free month trial with Azn this month to get some things delivered, but I won't continue it. It isn't worth it for me. Also I was unimpressed that the delivery person didn't ring the bell, just left parcels on the doorstep    

Anyway the thermos flask was delivered safely. We are now making coffees throughout the day without needing to synchronize our coffee intake I'm actually cutting back on my coffee drinking after I was told I drink way too much and it stops the body absorbing magnesium. I'm down to 3 cups a day. That is probably too much still, but I didn't want to go cold turkey

Some Olio collections this month helped to keep the grocery bill down. Also I'm still saving money on prescriptions with the annual prepayment certificate. Thank goodness I managed to get my HRT, I know there are some shortages in supply of some products so was a bit worried but they had mine in stock.

Some splurges: We went to the cinema this week on the 2 for 1 deal courtesy of insurance comparison website with meercats. So far we have been once a month, saving about £9 each month. We don't go out much otherwise. Saving up for holidaying in June/July. We have not had any takeaways this month. My partner normally pays anyway but I want to loose some weight. 

Cashflow has picked up this month as extra work has resulted in an extra £50 a week. That will help offsets the increase in bills!
I feel very lucky that I can afford to pay them. I heard a survey today that one in four people were worried about covering this bills this month.

otb666

@cw18 `I were still debating what washing machine to get, then it may well have ended up being used towards a more energy efficient machine (as it is I ended up springing a bit extra for a machine rated 'B' instead of picking from slightly cheaper machines which were all 'D or 'E' - but that was mainly because it wasn't as deep which means it will actually push totally under my worktop - the others all stick out by 3 or 4 inches).     I'm pondering alternative appliances at the moment, but haven't made a decision yet as I'm struggling to figure out what they're all capable of - no point in buying if I'm not going to make full use of it.`

The energy efficiency rating is based on how much energy the appliance looses and not necessarily cheaper to run an A rated appliance against a B rated appliance.  The wattage is the thing to go on.  Although is obviously better if appliance doesn't waste energy But does not mean its cheaper necessarily.

i did not realise we had to state our challenge.  Mine is to lie within my means going forward (not managed that for last 30 years with kids) and this thread has been very good for tips

Kim1965

-taff said:

Kim1965 said:

Lots of tips on here, having read the thread not many people give a total of 21 spending and spending aim for 22.
Its difficult to quantify peoples success at being frugal

The only people who need to quantify their success are the people who are being frugal, not any outside agency. There is no ultimate end prize of being frugal like a Gold Cup for the winner. Everyone has their own reasons for doing it, whether that's an end goal or just to be able to live how they want.

Surely its not about "living how they want", if money was no object there would be no need to be frugal? I would have thought being frugal is bourne out of necessity rather than want. Me included. 

-taff

I probably didn't phrase it right. Living how they want within the confines of their income would have been better maybe.

Frugaldom does it so they can live where they want with their animals on their land and extend a helping hand to other frugallers who happen by. I don't live massively frugally, but my income dropped by more than fifty percent after I stopped working. I don't have to live frugally, it;s our choice, OH does it because he just isn't that way inclined except for the odd bit of plastic crack [40k warhammer stuff] money is not no object but the money we do have is going to be spent elsewhere to improve our lives so I am frugal in other areas to stretch our future spending more [I am the one who does the budgeting and buying]

cw18

otb666 said:

The energy efficiency rating is based on how much energy the appliance looses and not necessarily cheaper to run an A rated appliance against a B rated appliance.  The wattage is the thing to go on.  Although is obviously better if appliance doesn't waste energy But does not mean its cheaper necessarily.

The ones I was looking at all seemed to be lower kWh usage if they had a better rating (though I had to really dig to find that information, as websites don't seem to give comparable figures throughout the site!).    I know they also include water usage, how well the spin works, and noise levels in the grading though.   The one I went for costs about 0.5p extra per washload for water (on average figures), which amounts to less than 50p/year to me.   But given I started by looking at 7kg machines (because I was replacing a 6kg one) and ended up with a 9kg, I'll probably use less over the year as I'll be doing fewer loads - I can now do my bedding in one instead of having to split into two......

Bluegreen143

A couple of years ago I was much more frugal which I did so I could afford to be a stay at home mum while the children were tiny (I ended up taking 3.5 years off work from my eldest being 22 months old til he was just over 5 and my youngest was 2).

Now technically being frugal wasn’t out of necessity. I had had a good, well paying job at the time. I chose to be frugal so I could have the luxury of time instead. 

Now we aren’t as frugal as we were (we have two incomes now) but we still live well, well within our means, again through choice so that one day we can buy our freedom from work early! 

On our income we could buy a house twice the value of our, rather modest, three bed. But why would we spend for the sake of it when our current house does us fine? Yet I do choose to spend quite a bit on my health and fitness just now. To me that’s what frugality is - using your money with intention, not wasting it, not frittering it away, but it’s fine to spend on your priorities in life (if you can afford them without going into debt). Of course for many people it is sheer necessity but for others frugality is an empowering way to afford the life you really want (not the life that advertising & the Joneses tell you to have).