2022 Frugal Living Challenge

Frugaldom

babs_103 said:

Good morning all, and a belated Happy New  Year to you all.  I have been a  lurker for quite  a  while now and have got quite a few good ideas from you all.
However I have a problem that has stumped me for years with regard to doing  a budget. I get paid from various sources at different times of the month, weekly fortnightly and every 28 days, and for the  life of me I cannot figure out when my 'end of month' is. I have DDs due both monthly and every 28 days as well as 'normal' bills.  Can anyone help me please? or am I forever to be chasing my tail  so to speak!  Thank you for any help I may get.

Hi @babs_103 I have been self-employed for many years and haven't had a regular date for my generated income in quite some time. I have a basic minimum that I aim for each calendar month but everything else is dependent on the workload at any given time - some things can take several months. This is what I did in the begining:

Year 1 - I lived on a very, very strict budget and listed every penny I spent on needs (actual needs, not wants) and essential overheads that keep a roof over our heads and food on the table. No luxuries, no extras other than basic TV, telephone and Internet as needed access to all of those things in order to work from home. After a year of doing this I realised that I could easily live on £4,000 for the year so I began saving a set-aside budget of £4,000. This became my household budget amount. (it's actually £5k including council tax, but there's no rent, mortgage or debts of any description to pay.)

By 2008, when I finally moved the challenge over onto MSE forums, I was able to save ahead and rather than use my income to pay the cost of living, I saved my income and lived off the £4,000 saved over the previous year. I always based my figures on minimum wage (UK) so nowadays, if I can earn minimum wage while frugal living on £5k, it leaves quite a bit for saving or investing in future project that will contribute towards retirement. I have a plan for retirement but not a pension plan.

After many years of juggling the mealplans, which were the origins of this challenge in the first place, (The Scottish Pound - Feed a family of 4 on £10 / week was the first challenge I ever published, in 1999)  I am finding that the £1 per person per day for all meals would be very difficult after all the price increases since the Brexit/pandemic combo took us by storm, However, I WILL continue with this as my personal grocery challenge in 2022. It is propped up by the lokes of Olio, homegrowing whatever I can, swapping, trading, bartering and foraging. I think I can succeed at this for another year.

My personal spreadsheets for my spending always begin with the total set at £4,000 and I have included the breakdown of this in post 2, page 1 of this challenge. I deduct my spends from the total and then it's easy for me to reshuffle the allocated budgets for each category if something costs more or less than anticipated.  Hopefully, this all makes sense. I've been doing this for so long now that I tend to forget to explain it. It's now second nature and it is what works for me. Being a year ahead of the game and simply saving ahead means no nasty surprises if income suddenly grinds to a halt, like it has done on several occasions during the on-going pandemic. I've had to diversify my self-employment options but being debt free meant staying afloat was relatively painless, even if it made a temporary dent in the savings and delayed an important part of our project plans.

Main aim in this challenge is to make frugal living fun, means not letting things get out of hand or get too repetitive and boring. Problem is, I'm very passionate about this lifestyle so I may get repetitive and boring. I don't mind being reminded if that happens.

Frugaldom

Good evening frugalers old and new.

The New Year's weekend has passed but we have still a couple of days holiday here (Scotland) before things return to the new normal. Work here went on regardless as our little campervan stopover has been full since Christmas (and still is) plus it takes a few hours each day seeing to all the animals. My paid work will be starting next week as I have secured 2 contracts for 2022 and secured deposits on both. 

Spendingwise - I use one bank account for all direct debits, use a PayPal business account and pay as much as possible on a cashback credit card that gets paid in full each month. I truthfully cannot remember the last time I actually spent cash in a shop. I do know it was at least 2 years ago because it was before Covid and the pandemic has already been with us that long!

My mini challenges for the year are usually based on month to month and as many will know, January is about doing an inventory of everything food-related, justfying every penny spent and attempting to use up everything from the freezer and fridge so I can get it all defrosted then start again.

Justifying January is my first monthly mini-challenge and then is it followed by Get Fitter, Not Fatter in February - it's my flab-buster month. This February is going to be slightly different from revious ones, though, as I have another 28-day, personal mega-challenge to attempt.

Spends so far in 2022 - NIL

[Deleted User]

Spent an enjoyable half hour cutting up Christmas cards to use as gift tags for use in 2022. I used to do card making and still have a cutting mat and ruler style guillotine so the new tags look quite good if I do say so myself.

I've just finished reading my latest library book - The Christmas Bookshop by Jenny Colgan. Set in Edinburgh. I really enjoyed this one, easy reading and a wee feel good book, just what I needed. 

Jobs for Monday
I have two early January birthdays. Gifts bought but need wrapped and cards written. Already have a stash of gift wrap but I will need to buy cards. I usually buy all my cards for the year in January so I have them on hand. 

Lunch and board games afternoon with my nieces. They want to do some cooking so they can help me make a chicken pie (which will be me and OHs dinner) and then we'll do cookies that they can take home. 

Clothing wash plus ironing.

Nothing vey major but it's nice to be back to normal and a routine.

Jellytotts

We've been lucky with Olio this past week and I now have almost more food than I know what to do with!One local olio lady had over 30 sacks of parsnips to get rid of, another had tons of spuds....we ended up with 15kilos of each amongst many other things...  I've been roasting and mashing and souping all weekend.  If anyone has any ideas on how to use up 5 kilos of sprouts then let me know! I've used some in a bubble and squeak style mash, some of which I've frozen as mash, some I've made into burger size patties and flash frozen, they're always nice oven baked with a bit of cheese on top.  

Spends so far have been a jar of decaf coffee and a sack on onions (to make the most of the free veg).  

IntoTheForest

We had parsnip and carrot soup last night to use up the final 19p bags. @Jellytotts as for the sprouts have you tried them raw shredded as a salad or in stirfries?  

Jellytotts

IntoTheForest said:

We had parsnip and carrot soup last night to use up the final 19p bags. @Jellytotts as for the sprouts have you tried them raw shredded as a salad or in stirfries?  

Oh shredded in some salad sounds fab, I can use a few in tonight's salad, thanks.  

I did blanch a pan full last night and got them in the freezer, I think I'll have to do a pan a day and fill all those little nooks and crannies in the freezer.  

MazzieD

Major success this morning, popped out to buy yet another cat food pouch selection variety (more expensive brand - big sigh).  Peace and harmony have been restored in my kitchen, no temper tantrum, fussy moggy loves it and asked for more!.  I can see I'm going to be tweaking the budget again, hopefully he might stop turning his nose up for a few days/weeks!..  

Think it's going to be a major challenge being frugal this year, didn't buy anything else but had a wander round whilst in the supermarket, now noticeable price increases in T*sco, perhaps they have been waiting to get Christmas out of the way so my next shop could be interesting.  Only use them for top up shops for bits that L*dl or Ald* don't sell.  Haven't been to either for a couple of weeks so not sure if they are also putting up prices.  

Slow cooker is bubbling away, making a stew today and using up the last of the 19p bags of seasonal veg.  Think this afternoon's  activity will be going through food stocks in fridge, freezer and cupboards.  I normally keep a list of everything but sometimes forget to add or cross the odd item off. so it's more of a double check and shouldn't take long  Meal planning has always been essential for me and so is batch cooking.  I quite often work long hours even though I wfh so cooking from scratch every day would be a nightmare.

Know I've got some baking ingredients that need using up, need to have a baking/savoury food session in the oven before my fixed rate ends.  Don't use my oven much so it will be planned to use every bit of space in there.  Just need to use up some food in the freezer first!. 

RateTartExtraordinaire

This morning I did some researching on batch cooking and found a couple of great threads on MSE forum for meat-free options. I've edited my shop for tomorrow putting double ingredients so I can make a double batch of my weekly favourties as a start.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/1956915/the-complete-vegetarian-collection
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6321992/2022-vegan-storecupboard-challenge#latest

Also, I did a store cupboard audit today. I needed to see what was lurking at the back or needs using up.
Last time I did this was 2020 when there was nothing in the supermarket due to panic buying!
I've found some extra fine flour and coco butter. Not a clue why I brought them or what to do with them. Any ideas?

AnimalTribe

fionaandphil said:

@AnimalTribe there is a reverse meal planning which uses what you have in https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/78865816#Comment_78865816

Thanks fionaandphil I'm always interested in new links so I'll have a look, but somewhere on the forum is a challenge where people just post what they've managed to empty out of their freezer, and as I'm trying to get to the bottom of mine I need the motivation. I found it once, but didn't subscribe and I've been unable to find it again. I'm sure I'll find it eventually though. 

joedenise

@AnimalTribe - is it this thread you mean:  https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4798135/eating-out-of-the-freezer-and-cupboards-challenge-part-two#latest