2022 Frugal Living Challenge

Giftcardproblem

How about wraps or pitta breads filled with lots of shredded salad stuff (lettuce, cabbage, grated carrot or celeriac, spinach - whatever's cheapest) and other salady bits with something like humous or bean dip, or h/m egg mayonnaise?

London_1

Listening to the news on the wireless this morning and it seems that 'squirrelling ' away some surplus cash may be the best you can do to cope with the onset of this coming winter. 

I am at the moment eating from my cupboards and freezer and all the surplus from my montly budget is being put awaay in a seperate account .

I did a cupboard inventory last week and found a good bit of stuff to use up. I too ignore BBF dates and use my nose and common sense when it comes to tins etc. I made a nice mincemeat pie the other week with well out of date mincemeat and it was fine ,the jar hadn't been opened, and it was perfect.

This week I am making some sweet potato and chick pea curry as I seem to have  a surfeit of tinned chickpeas. I snaffled a bag of 6 sweet potatoes last week from M&S reduced to 99p so they along with a few other bits will make me a good few portions of curry for the coming weeks. I'm thinking possibly around 5 portions which with some rice is five extra meals  

I do my food bill accounts and mark down the cost of everything bought, and at the end of three months I know virtually to the penny what I have spent.

My Jan-Mar budget came in very well with about £68 odd left over ,but I had been given lots of bits and pieces not used from Christmas from my two daughters, as they know I will never bin food if I can help it.

April - June will not have much left I think    but I will use up as much as I can from my cupboards, and only buy essentials needed if possible. At the moment I have about £71 odd left in the food budget and 7 more weeks to go until the end of the quarter, so its doable if I can stick to my menus. 

Luckily my freezer is still got a good bit of stuff in it, and my tinned stuff and essentials are in pretty good shape, so fingers crossed I will have a little left over come 30th June  

My budgetting system works well for me ,but then I only have myself to feed, and i'm pretty good at extending meals.
It would obviously be different if I was feeding a family.

When the council energy rebate arrives, that too will be tucked away as its money I didn't expect, so it will not be spent on just anything . It will either go towards my energy bill, or toward restocking my cupboard once they are emptier than they are at the moment  

Its my frugalling policy for the next few months at least  

JackieO xx

P.S. I've just remembered I have a free pub meal voucher to use up before the end of July  so there's another free meal to go into my food budget  

Beshki

Giftcardproblem said:

How about wraps or pitta breads filled with lots of shredded salad stuff (lettuce, cabbage, grated carrot or celeriac, spinach - whatever's cheapest) and other salady bits with something like humous or bean dip, or h/m egg mayonnaise?

Thank you, laughing as I am just eating lunch now - pitta, hummus and salad lol! 

I alternate between this, HM soup, or sandwiches (vegan fillings so expensive!).  We try to stretch dinners to last two nights so have no leftovers for lunches. I’ll soon be bringing home grown salads bulked out with rice but I tire quickly of eating the same things each day

joedenise

I've just had sweet chilli noodles for my lunch which was lovely.  Just cold noodles mixed with chopped veg and salad bits and then add some sweet chilli sauce stirred through.  Uses up bits and pieces from the cupboard and fridge.

Primrose

I enjoy reading what everybody does for their frugal meals.  It,s nice to imagine you all in your own environments rising to the challenge.  Doesn,t make some of our own "bottom of the fridge" meals  seem so quirky !     

Sweetlittledaydreams

Bottom of the fridge meals are great! I sometimes make fake tuna sandwiches with a can of Chickpeas mashed up a bit with chopped onion and Mayo or a vegan alternative. Chickpeas fritters are good cold the next day in a pita bread or with salad, basically I like anything Chickpea but I'm sure you could use a can of mixed beans for a bit more variety. I like cheese and Crackers at home for lunch but it's a bit of a faff to have them at work, I also like the mini fresh Pizzas you get from lidl, 2 for £1 so with a bit of salad thats 2 meals quiet cheaply. Otherwise I just take leftover from tea the night before. I am off on Sunday and want to make a vegetarian roast dinner, it's been so long since I've had one, I'm looking forward to it! Will have a look for some reduced veggies over the next few days.

2Scratters

Did a frugal cheaper laundry wash the other day. As we have flannellete (I've given up trying to spell it just now) sheets (DH needs for his well being - I definitely don't!) washing both the top and bottom sheets in the WM. Then dried free in the solar weather. I took the quilt cover off too and hung it on the line along with other items to freshen it up and de fluff and de haired (dogs) with a traditional clothes brush. As this item is not actually next to the skin it was a nice little cheat and it did not need ironing too.

2Scratters xx

Sweetlittledaydreams

Tried a big coffee chain magic bag last night, for £5 got 2 toasties, a muffin, a cookie and a croissant. Had one of the toasties for my tea last night and it was really bland and stodgy, the cookie was nice though and will have the croissant this morning for breakfast. I think it was ok as an occasional treat and I was lucky there was no meat in there but I don't think I'll bother again. Going to keep an eye on olio this afternoon and see if anything nearby pops up.
I met up with a friend from uni earlier this week and realised I was wearing a dress I used to wear back at uni, so it's somewhere between 6 and 9 years old, which isn't even that old but society has told us that fast fashion and buying things you know won't last long is the norm, crazy really how much that costs both the consumer and the planet.
Had a quick look at the rota yesterday and it's a bit complicated but by my rough calculations I think I should be getting around an extra £400 from overtime this month (before deductions) so I'm very pleased with that. Also have an interview next week so that I could do extra hours at another place too, I dont plan to always work all these extra hours but I think at the moment I'm making a good path to financial stability, so keep going for now! 
 

leftatthetrafficlights

I've had a good look at our budgets and outgoings and made some savings this weekend! 🙌

I had a chat with dh about our massively increased sky/broadband bill and phoned them with a figure in my head that I was willing to pay or I'd cancel all of it - upshot is I've still got everything for £4 less than the figure I had and £23 less than I was paying! 😁 

I've also cancelled one of my charity donations (after discovering the ridiculous salary of the chief executive!) which is another £17 saved. They are the two direct savings this weekend 😁 

Indirect savings - I cleaned my washing line (re-homing the biggest spider I've ever seen outside of a zoo! 😳) and did four loads of washing which were all line dried! First time I've used the line in about 5 years and I intend to keep doing so for everything other than towels and bedding - it will really reduce our electricity costs as the td is usually on at least once a day! 

I've also completed my meal plan for the next week exclusively from things I have in the fridge/freezer/ cupboards so minimal spends this week hopefully! 😁

Primrose

Tumble driers are enormously expensive.  Haven't used mine for ages.  Only keep it really in case of emergency items which simply must be dried quickly.  Using an outdoor line as much as possible is like getting free electricity but  our bathroom radiators run on a separate hot water system to our household radiators for bathroom hot water so in rainy weather we try to time our washing machine use to coincide with bathroom radiators being warm and  drape damp washing over them to take advantage of their heat until they cool down, with a window open a little  to improve ventilation. 

I agree with you on the vast salaries of some charity heads - we now support our local village charities who do equally good work in our community and are supported 100% by unpaid volunteers, but it's a pity we can't adopt the same tactics with the head of some govt departments like passports, driving licences, HMRC  and Office of Public Guardian who are providing a truly awful service at taxpayers expense.  Sadly there's no way we can withhold a part of our tax payments for inadequate service.