2022 Frugal Living Challenge

willow_loulou

Hello, what miserable weather! 

I’ve got an olio pick up later as well as tgtg bags. I had some PayPal credit so used that to pay for it. Son is struggling financially this month so a treat is in order. I’ll cook some potatoes and olio tomato’s to go with what ever we get. Hopefully pies and he can take any sandwiches or similar to work tomorrow too. 

RateTartExtraordinaire

Frugal start to the week.

I'm isolating at the moment due to positive test which is helping as I can't leave the house to spend, but it has also meant lost income from my self employed earnings due to cancellations. On a positive note I'll have double work next week. Fingers crossed I feel up to it and it will make up the difference. 

Sold a couple of items on eBay. A couple of books and a tablet holder. I found the tablet holder in the back of a kitchen cupboard following my clear out last week. It was new in the box, unused and got £17.

Made spaghetti bolognese with some dried soya mince from store cupboard last night. 
Online shop coming today is minimum spend £40, hoping everything comes as I can't leave the house for shopping. Fingers crossed.*

*Update: Just missing the cheese Gromit!

mandy47

Yesterday used £20 supermarket voucher. Bill came to £23 so a cheap shop.
Today I picked up 2 jars of mincemeat dated 2023. 45p each. Next xmas sorted already!

balabooberlies

t14cy_t said:

oh my days!!!!! the day has finally comes.... my 31 year old daughter has finally realised you can budget!!!! last year i managed to persuade her to do ys shopping, that opened her eyes. last week she went to her community larder for the first time and was blown away by her haul, and she made new friends there too. yesterday she used a local olio and picked up another haul!!! she is on cloud nine as she has 5 kids and bf was layed off from work at xmas. i am a proud mum. 

You must be thrilled.  Passing down strategies for survival.  

bala

x

balabooberlies

Picked up 2 batons and quite a few pastries from Olio today.  I have eaten 2 already !

However, my 92 year old neighbour has a sweet tooth and I know she would love the rest.

bala

x

Ellie79

bargainbetty said:

Hiya, 

Post-covid/long covid fatigue is genuinely a thing - I tested positive on Dec 1 and am still struggling with tiredness and an ongoing cough. A nurse at the hospital said hers took 9 weeks to lift and it often takes 12 weeks to fully recover if you have it. I asked for advice and she said 'Listen to your body. if it needs to sleep, then you sleep.'

Best wishes for a speedier recovery!

Ah thank you. Yes, the tiredness is weird. I've just swept the downstairs and it made me really dizzy and in need of a sit down! 

I do hope you are on the mend? 

RainbowHippie

I've still not caught up with everyone's posts, very inspired by all the frugal budgets. I'm both nervous and excited about our finances this year. We'll be moving into a new home by the sea, which should give us access to lots of fun and free recreation opportunities, and reduce our transport costs as we'll be in a town. Conversely, we'll be taking on energy bills at a very expensive time, mortgage, council tax, maintenance costs etc when we've not had these for a while. We'll want to save for a couple of changes to the new house as well - not urgent but i know i will be impatient to get them done.

We won't know our likely bills etc costs long-term until we've been in our new house for a while, but i have a few goals for the first six months or so to help me control what i can...

- Stock a pantry and batch cook more.

- Look into local food share things - see what olio is like in the area, see if there's a community larder or other food waste prevention, learn the YS times at local shops, see if the Lidl has veg boxes, etc. Maybe TGTG but my understanding is it's not possible to predict if it'll include meat which we don't eat so i'm not too keen.

- Cook more things from scratch - again i do this now for most things, but want to 1) use more dried beans rather than tinned and 2) make more of our treats - both savoury (crackers, pizza dough!) and sweet. I know it's so much cheaper to make sweet treats than buy them, but we have to be so conscious of space at the moment that i don't like buying bags of ingredients that i won't finish for one recipe and we'll then have to either transport or discard. I'm SO looking forward to having a pantry space again!

- Be really conscious of energy use. Luckily (?!) it looks like we'll not be moving in until spring so heating won't be a worry for a while. We like our house quite cool anyway as OH really struggles in the heat. It looks like some of the current light fittings may not take LEDs so we'll consider changing them if we can do so cheaply. Check all the walls that can easily be insulated are.

- Try to source as much as possible for the house for free. We'll need furniture, curtains, light fittings, storage, lamps... I've been keeping an eye on fb marketplace, and there seems to be a constant selection of free beds, bookshelves, sofas etc that people just want out of their way.  We might need to hire a van to pick up a sofa (or just be picky and wait for an ikea one!), but most items should fit in the car or on the roof rack so just cost us petrol. I'll make sure to check free listings anywhere we're likely to visit too (if we come back to visit family, or go on a day trip etc) - i've got some decent stuff over the years by doing this.

- Make space in my budget for some costs to enjoy our new area. There seems to be a lot going on in our new town, and we'll want to be able to get involved, meet new people and explore the area. We'll also be close to the Lake District and even just going there to walk generally means expensive parking (or a bus/train journey). There will be loads of free things we can do, but being able to go out for a pint or participate in the local music scene will be important to us, to help get to know the local community, so i want to make sure we allocate a sensible amount of money so that it's planned spends. We do already know a couple of people in the area from house-sits and a friend who moved there years ago, so that will give us somewhere to start! And my parents have kindly given us a couple of OS maps of the area and a book on local walks for christmas so that will help us with some free exploring

- Linked to the above - find a flexible and very part-time local job. This will help me get to know people and also fund other social activities. I will look into life drawing classes in the area as i used to model for a few in our home town, met some lovely arty folk and the small amount of income was my 'pocket money' for going out. It was also really flexible time wise, and my main job is so up and down in terms of time demand. OH is planning to get a part-time bar job to help him meet people but i wouldn't want to commit to regular hours. I'd welcome any suggestions of other similarly low-commitment work if you have any ideas! smile: 

Wow that was a bit of an essay! Those are my goals for now - i'm sure there will be more to add. We have started using a free 'tasking' app/website called Asana which lets you set up tasks, sub-tasks, to-do lists etc and assign a person, deadline, notes, information and so on to each task. So i will set myself up a list for 'new house frugal living' and see how i get on.

Best of luck everyone with your frugal goals for 2022! xx

never_too_old

RateTartExtraodinaire said:

Frugal start to the week.

I'm isolating at the moment due to positive test which is helping as I can't leave the house to spend, but it has also meant lost income from my self employed earnings due to cancellations. On a positive note I'll have double work next week. Fingers crossed I feel up to it and it will make up the difference. 

Sold a couple of items on eBay. A couple of books and a tablet holder. I found the tablet holder in the back of a kitchen cupboard following my clear out last week. It was new in the box, unused and got £17.

Made spaghetti bolognese with some dried soya mince from store cupboard last night. 
Online shop coming today is minimum spend £40, hoping everything comes as I can't leave the house for shopping. Fingers crossed.*

*Update: Just missing the cheese Gromit!

wishing you a speedy recovery.Have you looked at the payment your local council can offer you when you are isolating,?  I never got contacted but when my husband was isolating he got a daily phonecall from our council telling him it was on offer.(You have to have below a certain limit in savings.) 

RateTartExtraordinaire

Hi @never_too_old, 
I can't complain. My symptoms are fairly mild so far. 

Thanks for the heads up about local council support. I am looking now on the council website. I don't think I will qualify for financial support as I have savings though, but it is always good to know what is on offer.

willow_loulou

Wow had to share my olio luck, I saw another listing as I was on my way home and collected more food than we can eat! She was just glad to move it on as she had another 2 cases of the same things. So tomorrow is cooking and freezing day - anything left will go to my daughter and partner for them and their animals. My chickens will be feasting this week! 

Best of all I’ve now got my partner into the process and on tgtg. He’s also searched out his community larder. He is in UC and will struggle with bills as the prices go up. This way he’s in the mindset snd able to protect himself a bit. I’m always taking him stuff when I go (different county) so he knows it’s all usually good stuff. Also good training for when he eventually moved in!