2023 Frugal Living Challenge

Auti

Not planted seeds yet but started to chit potatoes to go into a tub later. My child has built his greenhouse christmas kit and is waiting til middle of Feb to start off strawberries for his tub and sunflowers. We are waiting to see if any acorns from September grow along with the chestnuts and sycamore seeds. The sycamore from last years experiment still looks alive in its tub and hopefully the chestnut is too ( we have a large courtyard so most is grown in tubs.)

Cas

No seeds started yet either as most of mine are indoors from Feb onwards and here in the west of Scotland the cold and damp means for planting outdoors we tend to be a few weeks behind places like the south of England.  I've got some potatoes that have started to chit so hopefully I can get them outside soon. 

spudsmum

I’m not planting yet - I need to put aside time to clear my raised beds that have been over run with weeds. Not sure what I’ll grow - I’m pretty much whatever the opposite of green fingered is so it’s a bit hit and miss in the past. 

Food shop yesterday came in at £35 so £40 under budget which I’m really happy with. 

Sorted out some more clutter from the spare room threw out a load of stuff and listed some things on a selling site. Already sold something so that’s another £3 to my debt fund 

concentrating on using up stuff out of my cupboards and from my garage stock pile which is massive. This week ive used up a couple of spice blends from the back of the cupboard and a jar of cooking sauce and some tins of ham from my stock pile. I’m going to try to do some sort of meal plan for this week to use up some more stuff but I’m really struggling for inspiration. 

ancientmum

nmaria, I've made an earlier than usual start to seed plantling and have chillies, tomatoes, leeks, rocket, snapdragons and stocks in toilet roll inners on various window sills around the flat covered with a layer of bubble wrap.  Only the rocket has sprouted so far.

Other frugal things this month:

bought a smart pair of suede gloves that looked like new from a charity shop.
water bill was lower than last year,
electricity bill was lower this month,
I've been eating out of the cupboards and freezer and using up food from Christmas and New Year.

It's good to see the evenings getting lighter.

Soontobeoap

@spudsmum have you looked on the grocery challenge site. Lots of inspiration for budget/lecftovers meals on there.

Kitchenbunny

January is nearly done, thankfully. It’s amazing when you start a proper spending diary just where things go and I can see there being a few more things that’ll have to go or get substituted for cheaper. Despite downgrading to different brands, foods, alternatives, everything has gone up in price. It’s another £10 to my usual £40 a week budget for the 2 of us and that was with eating from the cupboards. That’s causing me to rearrange my priorities in my budget and factor in other things. Right now, it isn’t essential - I’m trying to build savings - but things never stay the way I want them to. 

I was over budget for January, and have adjusted my totals for the year again. Clothes have taken the fall for groceries and I’ll be hitting the cheaper charity shops hard when I need something. I have to plan for a hen do in April and have no clue! It’ll be a challenge 🤣

Looking forward to February just for the new start, starting a new page in my notebook. And will now keep getting ready for Monday and it’s looming sense of dread. Have a good evening. 

nmaria

ancientmum said:

nmaria, I've made an earlier than usual start to seed plantling and have chillies, tomatoes, leeks, rocket, snapdragons and stocks in toilet roll inners on various window sills around the flat covered with a layer of bubble wrap.  Only the rocket has sprouted so far.

Other frugal things this month:

bought a smart pair of suede gloves that looked like new from a charity shop.
water bill was lower than last year,
electricity bill was lower this month,
I've been eating out of the cupboards and freezer and using up food from Christmas and New Year.

It's good to see the evenings getting lighter.

Do you not think they will be ready to put out when it’s still a bit to cold? I am aiming for strong plants and thinking of planting seeds in second, maybe even third week of February. Will start off in the house before moving them into the greenhouse. 

I have taken lots of cuttings from fruit bushes and will plant them in pots this week in the greenhouse. They have been in a bucket with water all over the winter.

determined to grow a bumper crop this year of fruit and vegetables. With prices in shop still going up it will be rewarding to grow your own.

ancientmum

I am starting chillies and tomatoes early because the last two years they have taken ages to germinate and have not produced fruit until quite late in the season, so this a trial to see what happens.  I usually keep the chilli plants in pots on windowsills anyway, unless it is warm enough for them to go outside in the courtyard.  The rocket will live in the kitchen.

Glittering_M

Not frugal per say, but I plan to properly have a purge in our house and get rid of lots of random stuff that has built up over the years that we just don't use or duplicates of things from when we moved in together. We've been living together 5 years and this is the second place we've lived together in so this is long overdue! 

Probably going to charity shop it rather than try and sell as I don't think the money back would outweigh the effort.

Need to get focused though as I do declutter and put things in boxes to go to the charity shop but then don't actually take it so it just stays in boxes or emptied if we need the boxes!

No immediate plan of when to do this, maybe on the weekend.
Hopefully less clutter! 

KajiKita

nmaria said:

Anyone started planting seeds yet and if so what are you planting?

Just a few things, all indoors with heat mat or light warmth in the conservatory so protected from frost: Broad beans (as my autumn sown /planted ones were malletted by the snow and cold we had), sweet peas (specific request from Mr KK as he missed them last year  ) and some red and white onions as they take a while to get going.

Already have shallots and garlic growing strongly in the ground. 

I will wait until around Valentine's day to start on my peppers and tomatoes. 

My thoughts are starting to turn to salady type eatings now though, so I will ferret out some of my sprouting seeds (mung beans being my favourite) and start some of those off this week  

KK