2022 Frugal Living Challenge

Viking_mfw

Back a few pages in the discussion, picked 2.4kg of blackberries with my mum and 4 year old son today. Would have been more but the boy had one of the bowls and emptied it out at one point 

dollypeeps

RateTartExtraodinaire said:

I did a trade swap once with the local retired plumber who needed help with setting up something online. He fixed my tap and I talked him through his technical questions and helped him set up what he needed.

brilliant!! 

That’s how we get things done. Dh is a plumber and heating engineer but v clever in other ways too. When we need things done, which he cannot do, he usually has a few ‘favours’ up his sleeve he can call in.
Bartering and kindness is the way to go 

YORKSHIRELASS

Morning all

Just read Frugaldom's post about what is your biggest challenge.  For me it will always always be feeling like its OK to not keep up with the Joneses and to let go of that need to have the right "stuff" to fit in.  Deep rooted issues from my childhood and early adult days will always make this a battle, but I wonder if its going to become easier as others start to reevaluate their spending?

Just been doing our spreadsheets for August.  Food shopping was over budget at £310 but I took advantage of a £20 off voucher from Mr Ms so we are really well stocked up.  We need to get some heating oil soon, prices are fluctuating greatly but I have a little bit put away for that.  Our electricity use remains at around 10 units a day at the moment but we are trying to keep it down.

Yesterday was our annual village fair which was really good fun.  It was very hard to go and not spend money but we dont socialise much so it was worth it.  We did come home for something to eat and go back though rather than eat there.  I feel the need to get out and walk or cycle today, we will try not to drive any further than necessary though.

Primrose

I think earlier life experiences often frame the way you spend your money later in life.

i recall my first holiday job at the age of 26 - a miserable six weeks working in greenhouses on a tomato smallholding ide shooting tomato plant and coming home every day clothes smothered in yellow  stains and stiinking of the,.  My vision had been to save up or my first professional perms but the miney was so hard earned I settled for a much cheaper "home perm lotion" and banked the rest!

Learning at an early stage where your values are and having the courage to stick with them is a valuable asset. And I,ve  learnt over the years that most of the Jones one would aspire to keep up with may look outwardly rich but behind the scenes they,re all maxed out on their credit cards.

London_1

My first 'foreign 'holiday' in fact my first holiday ever when I was young that didn't involve going on three coaches to family in Scotland.
Back then it was almost from leaving home in a London suburb with my parents around 4.00.p.m. on a Sunday afternoon, and travelling by train to Victoria then an SMT coach to Edinburgh, then another coach to Montrose, and then another bus trip to Brechin where our family lived.arriving around 4.00p.m. on Monday.

So in 1961 I , having grown up going on holiday by coach, decided to go 'abroad' This involved careful saving from the year before and doing without a great deal to have every penny saved by myself to pay for it.
 I remember it cost 35 guineas. The coach went again from Victoria coach station ,down to Dover, then a very worn out ferry with wooden slatted seats to France, where we were driven by coach to Brussels. A night in an hotel ther (first time I had ever stayed in one) it was so exciting and I saw my first ever tea bag which was given in a glass of hot water in a metal holder (I was far too young and broke to even consider wine ). I also saw colour TV for the first time ,wasn't impressed as it was more asort of blue/green colour,couldn't see the point to be honest  

Next day off through Belgium and into France again and lunch at Luxembourg ( tray of frites as it was the cheapest on offer), then on to Germany to stay the night there. Better hotel than Belgiumm but seems to be an abundance of sausge type evening meals. The next day onwards agin to Switzerland where we syaed for a week returning the same way in reverse. I learned an awful lot about things,mainly that I wasn't keen on tea without a tea pot and the ideaof going to bed with a huge pillow to keep warm under (a continental quilt) seemed very odd. 
I remember that my British Visitors passport cost 7/6d (36p) and you were only allowed to take £25 in foreign currancy with you out of the UK at that time. I actually came home with around £4.00 odd in currancy and was chocked that a lot of it couldn't be exchanged back into english currancy.in those days you had to have separate currancy for each country so Belgian Francs,French Francs, German Marks and Swiss Francs had to be taken with you, and each country would only taken their own money.But I was a young teenager and it was an experience I never forgot. 

When I look back on how I scraped together every penny of that holiday it was probably what made me realise to value of saving for things .Obviously no credit cards or 'tick' when you went on holiday ,everything was paid for in cash.

At the time I was working in an office in London and my wages were £5.4s.00 (£5.40p) a week and after paying for my 'keep' which everyone did in those days to your Mum, and fares there wasn't a great deal left over .but somehow I did it. No cinema's or clothes for almost a year and when you are young its what you want to spend you wages on,especially at the beginning of the 1960s. I used to walk two stations closer to work to save an extra two shillings a day in fares. No nights out at the local dance hall with my friends and a coke had to last all night in the local coffee bar. 

Makes you appreciate the value of a pound that's for sure, and instills into you a steely determination that if you want something hard enough you can get it.
 
I've just spent the morning chatting to one of my grandsons Ben, who starts his new job this Thursday and he was saying its a big increase in wages for him, and as his lease is up in his flat in Camden in Novmber he is going to try and move closer to his new job, and with being closer his fares and rent will drop a good bit as well. he is quite excited and said he will actually be able to start to save a bit now ,even with higher fuel bills as he's been surviving on buttons since he left uni . I'm really pleased and bless him I hope he will be able to. he's even talking about being closer he will be able to cycle to work more easily which means an extra £150 a month he will save on commuting on buses and tube fares. He luckilyhas no credit cards or debt ,apart from his student loan so he says he is going to keep it like that  He is definitely a 'Frugal Fred' and still cooks from the student cookbook I got for him when he first went to Uni. A chip of his Nan's block he said He's still using my elderly Iphone which he has had for the past three years after I bought a new one.He says it does what he needs, and he's not fussed to get a fancy new one. Sensible lad 

I too agree more folk will struggle if they are living beyond their means now, so the less you have in debt the better it is 

JackieO xx

Bluegreen143

I can relate to the keeping up with the Joneses thing @YORKSHIRELASS. Most of my friends, especially the other mums I’ve met since having kids, have very good incomes and lovely big homes. I struggled a bit when DS was tiny as I’d get sucked into going out for lunch etc with the other mums and toddlers - but I was the only one who was a SAHM, the rest had very good careers and we really couldn’t afford that lifestyle. 

Now I am working and we are fortunate, our income has doubled since my SAHM days as DH has also had pay rises. But I’m wiser now and don’t want to spend on keeping up with other people. 

Many of my other, pre baby friends are in the early stages of starting a family and moving from flats to houses. One thing I’ve noticed is that the trend is very much “stretch yourself to buy the best house you can afford”. I hope it’ll work out well for everyone but when I decided to leave work and stay at home for 3.5 years I was so thankful that DH and I hadn’t stretched ourselves to the top of our budget. Before I had DS I had assumed I’d go back to work full time but it goes to show you never know what life holds. We could get a much bigger mortgage now as I’m back at work (they’d lend us almost double what ours is) and upgrade our house but it would make our budget feel really pinched. Plus the lower mortgage is peace of mind we could scrape by on one income again if there was a job loss.

Sweetlittledaydreams

Woke up this afternoon with the post night shift hunger, looked online and a local pub menu and thought of texting a friend to go out for tea but then I resisted temptation and made an omlette with eggs from the garden and bread rolls which were free from olio, healthier and a free meal! Started making scrambled eggs and omlettes in the microwave, quick cooking means less on the energy bills. Also got a free burger on Thursday so that was good too. 
Meeting a friend for a walk this evening and will take a box incase we come across blackberries. Does anyone know if nettles freeze well? I was thinking of picking some now while they are still ok before they go too tough. 

Primrose

Bluegreen143 said:

I can relate to the keeping up with the Joneses thing @YORKSHIRELASS. Most of my friends, especially the other mums I’ve met since having kids, have very good incomes and lovely big homes. I struggled a bit when DS was tiny as I’d get sucked into going out for lunch etc with the other mums and toddlers - but I was the only one who was a SAHM, the rest had very good careers and we really couldn’t afford that lifestyle. 

Now I am working and we are fortunate, our income has doubled since my SAHM days as DH has also had pay rises. But I’m wiser now and don’t want to spend on keeping up with other people. 

Many of my other, pre baby friends are in the early stages of starting a family and moving from flats to houses. One thing I’ve noticed is that the trend is very much “stretch yourself to buy the best house you can afford”. I hope it’ll work out well for everyone but when I decided to leave work and stay at home for 3.5 years I was so thankful that DH and I hadn’t stretched ourselves to the top of our budget. Before I had DS I had assumed I’d go back to work full time but it goes to show you never know what life holds. We could get a much bigger mortgage now as I’m back at work (they’d lend us almost double what ours is) and upgrade our house but it would make our budget feel really pinched. Plus the lower mortgage is peace of mind we could scrape by on one income again if there was a job loss.

I think that's a very sensible attitude and over the coming twelve months or so you may very well live to thank your lucky stars you've built some wiggle room into your budget.   Many people may end up losing what they imagined were secure  jobs.   After my OH's first redundancy, we saved surplus money like crazy and whenever high mortgage rates lowered again, we kept paying at the higher rate.  When redundancy hit us a second time in later years , the mortgage had been paid off and that saved our sanity. Planning for the worst and building in financial wiggle room can save a lot of anxiety and stress at difficult times, even if it means tightening one's belt along the way. 

florianatwobob

We’re fortunate as our mortgage is under £500 p/m and about 6 years left until it’s paid off totally. We’re currently overpaying into the account the mortgage payment comes from to build an emergency slush fund. 

Money wise I tend to run a tight ship (Mum taught me well) but I did have a little wibble when I saw the projected monthly energy payments under the revised price cap. More socks and wooly jumoers! 

Primrose

Sweetlittledaydreams said:

 Does anyone know if nettles freeze well? I was thinking of picking some now while they are still ok before they go too tough. 

Only tried them once fresh and that was in spring when the leaves were very young.  They cook down to almost nothing so even a huge bag of raw leaves reduces to almost nothing but they're a good substitute for spinach or Swiss chard .   I would think any leaves currently picked might be a little tough  given the lack of moisture most plants have suffered  this summer (depending on where you live of course).

Do report back if you try and freeze them.  This sort of soft leafy mixture works  well in a cheesy egg omelette.