2023 Frugal Living Challenge

Frugaldom

Welcome to the all new 2023 Frugal Living Challenge

Join us here for year 16 of the Frugaldom challenge on MSE

It's that time of year again, the time when we all need to start thinking ahead into the new year and how we are going to organise our frugal lifestyles, be it to tackle debts, generate extra income or squirrel away some savings. Please take the time to read this post in full and if you have any questions, feel free to message me or ask in the forum.

This is an adaptation of the original NYK/Frugaldom 'Living on £4,000 for a Year' challenge. It has been running here on MSE for many years, although these particular money challenges began back in the 1990's, elsewhere. We have seen many changes over the years, none so much as affected us all throughout 2020/21 and the Covid-19 pandemic, followed by Brexit and then 'the cost of living crisis'. so there could be even more people from all walks of life now finding themselves needing to learn traditional methods of moneysaving, debt-busting and budgeting - a penny saved is a penny earned and each is as important as the other. Frugal living, for some, is the only lifestyle available.

Your budget is personal to you, it should fit with your personal financial situation. Some of you have already achieved debt freedom and now follow frugal lifestyles for the love of it. Others are still tackling debts and frugal living in an attempt to reach their debt-free and/or mortgage-free day. Whichever stage you are at, feel free to join us and share your progress.

The following links will take you to previous MSE versions of our challenges:

The 2022 Challenge 
The 2021 Challenge
The 2020 Challenge
The 2019 Challenge
The 2018 Challenge
The 2017 Challenge
The 2016 Challenge
The 2015 Challenge
The 2014 Challenge
The 2013 Challenge
The 2012 Challenge
Part 1 - January to March 2011
Part 2 - April to June 2011
Part 3 - July to December 2011
Introduction to the 2010 Challenge
Part 1 - January to March 2010
Part 2 - April to June 2010
Part 3 - July to September 2010
Part 4 - October to December 2010
Part 1 - January to March 2009
Part 2 - April to June 2009
Part 3 - July to September 2009
Part 4 - October to December 2009
Part 1 - January to March 2008
Part 2 - April to June 2008
Part 3 - July to September 2008
Part 4 - October to December 2008
How it all began - Saving to buy a house without a mortgage 2007 Challenge
The original interest beater challenge
The original £1000 in 100 days challenge
The original free hobbies thread

IMPORTANT - Please respect others' lifestyles and beliefs. We are not here to judge, we are here to support. Thank you

This challenge is about living a frugal, sustainable lifestyle - establishing the true cost of living, sticking to a budget, clearing debts and making savings wherever and however possible to enable you to live the life you really want. Frugal living isn't for everyone, but everyone is welcome to join us.

Methods employed by our merry band of frugalers include: batch cooking, stockpiling, preserving, foraging, mending, shopping in charity shops, reducing, reusing, recycling, Local Exchange Trading Schemes (LETS), vegetable and fruit growing, allotments, keeping hens, using cash back sites and earning whatever it takes to become self sufficient in managing the cost of living without incurring debt.

For some it is initially about clearing debt, for others it's about increasing savings, buying property, becoming stay at home parents or paying off the mortgage early. Some choose the lifestyle on ethical grounds. Above all, this is a fun, fairly traditional and supportive way to manage your budget so you have control of your own cost of living.

It's about NEEDS and not WANTS.

Living on a budget = living within our means
Frugal = thrifty, living without waste

Ideas to help you achieve and/or maintain debt free living

Recognise the differences between needs and wants
Spend within your means
Set a proper budget
Quit expensive bad habits
Houseshare
Get a lodger
Shop via cash-back sites and always price compare
Buy reduced items in stores only if you need them
Stockpile & bulk buy only those bargains that you use
Batch cooking
Make the most of charity shops
Join freebie or waste awareness and recycling associations
LETS trading - become active members of trading & exchange groups
Bartering
Grow your own herbs, fruit & veg
Preserving & winemaking
Breadmaking & home baking
Card & gift making
Order splitting/sharing for better discounts & reduced delivery costs
Landsharing, allotments & frugal garden systems
Food sharing
Online trading - auctions, stores, social media pages etc, etc, etc...

Monitoring and revising your budget is part of a good frugal living plan. Gifts & cards could all to be homemade, livestock should pay for its own keep, anything else needs to be cash neutral.

If you haven’t already done so, join the MSE forums and share your frugal lifestyle hints, tips and achievements here, where you are among like-minded friends and supporters

GOOD LUCK IN 2023

Frugaldom

The following is my personasl frugal living challenge budget for 2023. It excluded council tax, as that is non-negotiable. It excluded rent/mortgage as these things are usually non-negotiable. Aside from that, we don't have a mortgage or pay rent.

Groceries - £800
Toiletries, laundry & cleaning products - £50
Heat & light - £1200
Telephone & broadband - £600
Mobile & Internet - £360
TV Licence - £160 
Insurances - £250
Clothing & footware - £100
Gifts - £250
Christmas splurge - £100 (guilt free spending treat)
Everything else - £130

Total - £4000.00

Council Tax of around £1,200 is non-negotiable so I don't count it in here - it needs to be paid, it's that simple. We don't have rent, mortgage or debts to pay, thanks to years of frugal living. Car running costs account for about £1,000 per year. The car is a luxury I can't really do without as we are in a rural location with no public transport. The above is my frugal living household budget but it does include some business-related expenses such as mobile internet, as I spend so much time outdoors and off-grid. The budget will be juggled accordingly to allow for unexpected expenses. 

Things I do to help cut costs:

A very challenging grocery budget attempting £1 per person per day for all food
Needs not wants
Make do and mend
Reduce, reuse, recycle, upcycle
Collect firewood
Watch the Olio app and ask friends to do likewise
Grow fruit, veg & herbs
Swap and barter
Only drive when it's essential
Socialise with friends at Frugaldom, mostly outdoors
No shopping trips
Online shopping via cashback sites
Pay using a cashback credit card
Play the free postcode lottery
Savings get put into Premium Bonds, 'just in case'
Use portable solar whenever possible, usb lights, phone charging
Harvest rainwater (not difficult in Scotland)
Composting (I've also got a wormery)
Log burner for heat - make paper and cardboard sticks for kindling
Fleeces and hot water bottles - if the logburner is lit then water for bottles gets warmed
Cook from scratch
Love homemade soup
Only make what costs less than buying or it's false economy
Quit smoking (years ago - challenge is on MSE somewhere)
Daily exercise to try and keep relatively fit and healthy
Make the most of offers, cashback and money off coupons only when they are needed

[Deleted User]

@Frugaldom thank you so much for this.

You inspired me to completely change my life two years ago and we are now firmly living the Frugal life, and are much richer in many ways for it. 

My budget will be posted today: I’ve spent a lot of time fine tuning it in recent weeks due to increased costs of animal feed in particular having a huge impact. 

I don’t post much anymore as I can’t keep up with the chat, but I’ll be popping my budget on for all to see. Take care everyone xxx 

Nonnadiluca

Thanks from me too; I also was inspired by you a few years ago and really took a hold of our finances, which enabled DH to retire very early and give us both the life we dreamed of. Compared to most people we know we're living in abject poverty (we live in a very affluent area), but we are truly happy with our lifestyle - quite literally "living the dream". We have a secure home, good food, a small but close family, dogs and, mostly, the good health to enjoy life. All the things we haven't got are just things and really aren't important. I'm so grateful that I found this forum!

mumtoomany

Hello all, here i am back again for the, no idea how many,th year. Thank you for keeping these threads going for so long @Frugaldom. Like @Deleted_User above, I too was inspired to leave the rat race and live the frugal life nine years ago, at least in part by reading and participating in these threads. I will post my budget for next year in a couple of weeks. OH has a couple more, very small, pensions due from January. So once i know their value I'll have a better idea of the amount we'll have. The following year his state pension will be payable, then we will be "rich". Hugs, mumtoomany.xxx

leftatthetrafficlights

I'm back in for 2023 - I'll post my budget in a few weeks 

Glittering_M

Thanks for starting this.
There is no way at the moment I could spend just £4k a year. Our rent alone is £10,800 a year! We are hoping to buy our first place next year although we would have a mortgage to pay, hopefully it would be less.

I wish I liked goats milk or cheese as we've got the space for goats and that would be a good way of cutting down on our milk costs as my partner's cereal is swimming. Unfortunately we really can't tolerate it though! We'd like chickens but family members (our landlords and neighbours) won't let us have them. We'd like to get bees too but a bit put off by the cost of the bees themselves.

We'd like to get a log burner but whilst renting we don't want to. We do have an open fire but don't use it as much as we should. 

We've also got a wedding to start planning at some point which is exciting but terrifying in equal measure! 

I keep a spreadsheet of my personal in and outgoings and joint ones too so I'll have a proper look in the next few days and think about where we can cut down. I could quite happily cut down our food bill a lot more but my partner would not! 

Frugaldom

Glittering_M said:

Thanks for starting this.
There is no way at the moment I could spend just £4k a year. Our rent alone is £10,800 a year! We are hoping to buy our first place next year although we would have a mortgage to pay, hopefully it would be less.

I wish I liked goats milk or cheese as we've got the space for goats and that would be a good way of cutting down on our milk costs as my partner's cereal is swimming. Unfortunately we really can't tolerate it though! We'd like chickens but family members (our landlords and neighbours) won't let us have them. We'd like to get bees too but a bit put off by the cost of the bees themselves.

We'd like to get a log burner but whilst renting we don't want to. We do have an open fire but don't use it as much as we should. 

We've also got a wedding to start planning at some point which is exciting but terrifying in equal measure! 

I keep a spreadsheet of my personal in and outgoings and joint ones too so I'll have a proper look in the next few days and think about where we can cut down. I could quite happily cut down our food bill a lot more but my partner would not! 

Congratulations on the impending wedding and good luck saving for your house (hopefully with a logburner). My previous house-buying challenge is included in the links in post 1. I think you maybe missed the explanation of what my challenge budget covers - I don't just spend £4k a year and the amount excludes rent/mortgage or council tax. It's about driving down costs wherever possible, affording a better lifestyle by spending less.

The costs of keeping goats for milk and chickens for eggs far outweigh the cost of buying what you need when you need it from a supermarket, trust me on that. The time, the energy, health and welfare, legislation etc, etc, etc plus what to do with all the extra goats and chickens you'd need to breed just to keep your supply going indefinitely makes the idyllic dream of self-sufficiency a bit of a joke. I'll stand corrected if anyone can show me longterm proof of otherwise.

Bluegreen143

I would agree re chickens, which we keep, we definitely spend more on them than we would on eggs. But you also get free chicken poo for fertiliser!

We keep our chickens as pets so I see the eggs as a freebie bonus. Compared to cats or dogs they are cheap pets to keep and so cute and funny to watch! And you don’t get eggs back from your cat in return for your love 😜 

Glittering_M

Frugaldom said:

Congratulations on the impending wedding and good lick saving for your house (hopefully with a logburner). My previous house-buying challenge is included in the links in post 1. I think you maybe missed the explanation of what my challenge budget covers - I don't just spend £4k a year and the amount excliudes rent/mortgage or council tax. It's about driving down costs wherever possible, affording a better lifestyle by spending less.

The costs of keeping goats for milk and chickens for eggs far outweigh the cost of buying what you need when you need it from a supermarket, trust me on that. The time, the energy, health and welfare, legislation etc, etc, etc plus what to do with all the extra goats and chickens you'd need to breed just to keep your supply going indefinitely makes the idyllic dream of self-sufficiency a bit of a joke. I'll stand corrected if anyone can show me longterm proof of otherwise.

Thank you! Neither of us had any idea quite how many decisions and things there were and we've barely done any planning! 

Yes, I wasn't engaging my brain yesterday, I'm blaming a long day at work! We've got horses in the family and whilst goats and chickens are  cheaper, I do understand it wouldn't be cheaper than the supermarket. I like the idea of reducing dependency on the supermarket. I went through a typical shop and tried to consider if we needed each item and if we did, could we make/get it from home and the vast majority of things were no. Unless desperate, we'd not grow animals for meat as we'd see them as pets with benefits. I'd love a small holding but quite a lot of the animals I would want eg donkeys, pigs, alpacas don't really contribute much unless you dispatch them. Alpacas I know you can get wool from but I imagine that would be very faffy with collecting, cleaning and processing. I appreciate I've gone slightly off topic here! 

Thank you for explaining the 4k bit, I did see you post re not including council tax and housing, I just didn't engage brain that you were the opening poster and just thought you were someone getting in early with their budget- Sorry! ☺️

This has all given me lots to think about (on the weekend when I've got more thinking capacity).
Have a lovely Friday everyone.

Betharooni

Can I join in for 2023? Prob won’t post much but will read along. Need to sit down and plan my budget for next year, will prob do that over the next few days.

B x