2022 Frugal Living Challenge

Sweetlittledaydreams

Off to work a 13 hour shift, when you add travelling on it makes it into an almost 14.5hr day. And this is day 7 in a row of being there, not all of them have been long days luckily, but they did chuck a night shift in just to mess up my sleep pattern, cheers for that! Its rubbish doing this now while I'm young but really don't still want to be having to do this when I'm getting to retirement age. Such a motivating factor when it comes to saving money, if its a large purchase I tend to think of it in how many hours would I have to work to pay for it and then decide if its still worth it, quite often I can talk myself out of unnecessary spending this way.
Had a little win on premium bonds so adding that to the savings and get paid in 15 days so not too long to wait.
Have a nice weekend everyone 

Rianam

Shopping done. UHT milk gone up 5p a litre since last Monday…. Have bought some more pasta and rice to store away. Wouldn’t be surprised if everything goes up in the next two weeks. 

Seeds ordered. Will have to clean the greenhouse to make it a bumper crop year. Will  put more time in to get most out of it

peony40

I agree with the food prices, I noticed this morning that the bread I bought yesterday has gone up 11p overnight.

What seeds have you bought?  I am going to try container gardening this year, I have health issues so can’t manage a traditional vegetable garden.  

I did try to quote but for some reason it doesn’t work on my iPad.

Rianam

peony40 said:

I agree with the food prices, I noticed this morning that the bread I bought yesterday has gone up 11p overnight.

What seeds have you bought?  I am going to try container gardening this year, I have health issues so can’t manage a traditional vegetable garden.  

I did try to quote but for some reason it doesn’t work on my iPad.

Tomato, lettuce, peppers and cucumbers. 

Will all start them off in the kitchen next weekend. Any surplus tomatoes go in bags in the freezer. 

What will you try to grow in containers?

peony40

I was thinking of potatoes and carrots.  I was also thinking of cherry tomatoes hanging baskets, but we do have a lot of squirrels around us, so they may enjoy them instead?

mumtoomany

Tomatoes and peppers can both be grown from seeds in shop bought fruits. Premium seeds sell cheap seeds, usually 99p for many seeds. Maybe get together with someone else and share. 
Frugal win yesterday. I cut up a dozen old t-shirts for oil rags for OH. Used all his others when replacing DD3's engine. All but two of the t-shirts were second hand when i got them, the two that had been new were at least ten years old. Now i just have some very tatty t-shirt sleeves if anybody wants them.
Hugs to all, mumtoomany.xx

Rowan9

Lovely to read all your posts. So inspirational. 

Anyone heard from @Frugaldom? Maybe I’ve just missed posts. 

RateTartExtraordinaire

Hi Frugals, 

Last weekend I put up a curtain in front of the front door. I draw it in the evenings and it does feel very snug now. My new energy company has asked for meter readings for this month and I am waiting for the first bill on the capped variable tariff. I have planned for the increase, but I'm still not looking forward to seeing it. I was on a cheap tariff and the direct debits have remained the same so for but I'm expecting that will change in March. 

I bit the bullet this week and paid for an NHS Prescription prepayment certificate for 12 months. They cost £108.10 (or £10.81 direct debit for 10 months). The reason being I've started HRT and they charge £18.70 a pop for 8 weeks' worth. Then this week I needed antibiotics and it made sense to get one. I won't have to pay more that £108.10 for prescriptions for the year.

I did see some hopeful news about in October last year about HRT maybe being free after the first prescription a year, but nothing has happened so far. The cogs are moving slowly. There is news about a consultation this week on making some medication for HRT tablets available without prescription. Sorry if I've overshared, but I think it is an important issue.  

mandy47

Popped into A$da yesterday and was shocked by the price increases. 50p on a certain well known branded cheese. Spreadable branded butter almost £6 for 750g. 
The bread was all dated 5th and 6th but still full price.
Nobody was buying the reduced items because the reductions were really poor. Less than 10% on some items.
I know the best mark downs come at the end of the day but because of my shift pattern I can't be there.
I've found that my supermarket shopping list is getting shorter and my list for Aldi and the local outdoor market is getting longer.

Effician

Rianam said:

Will have to clean the greenhouse to make it a bumper crop year. Will  put more time in to get most out of it

Had plans of growing loads of stuff in the polytunnel this year , it's now full of fresh cut logs to season  as the other log stores are full & firewood is of more financial benefit considering what's coming.

Will still grow some veg outside but will have to be more inventive of where to grow it.