2024 Frugal Living Challenge

Elisheba

Hi all,
I'm signing up to do this challenge again this year.  

Budget for the year for me, my dog and cat, is - 

Discretionary Spends
Food and household - £1200
Personal spends - £1200
Christmas - £300 (includes diesel to Scotland and back)
Presents - £100 (mainly niece's birthdays)
Clothes - £200
Housekeeping - £300 (bits that I need for the new place, or things that need replaced, also some paint to upcycle some furniture, and maybe some gardening stuff)
Other bits - £196.96 (Netflix, National Trust, Google storage and a society membership)
Holidays - anything left over!

Fixed costs (or as good as - will go up in April)
Rent - £8700
Pet food - £486
Pet insurance - £755.40 (might go up in March when my dog's policy is renewed)
Pet vaccinations - £85
Car (MOT, service, insurance, tax and anything else that needs done) - £1780
Diesel - £1800 (not sure about this one as just moved to a new area.  Doesn't include Scotland trips or holidays)
Oil - £1000 (I'm hoping I use so little oil I won't need all this, but as its a new house I'm not sure and best to budget for it just in case)
Wood - £300 (might be able to get wood for free for next year but will then use some of this money to buy saw, axe etc)
Bills (water, broadband, council tax, electricity, TV licence, mobile phone) - £3151.32 (water and council tax might change in April, and everything will go up a bit)
Debt - £7086.36 (car loan, tail end of old credit card debt, and interest free credit card I needed to use to move house)

So my spreadsheet says that's £28,599.04 for the year which will go up slightly in April with the rise in bills for the new financial year. I'll also get a pay rise then though, so whenever its actually awarded hopefully it will cover the increase. 

I think I've budgeted too little for presents, but any extra will have to come out of personal spends.  There may also be money left over from the oil, wood, car fund, and possibly electricity but if there is I can decide what to do about it then.  

Black_Saturn

Today has been productive. Despite the rain, I took the little one to the park to run off some steam, and work up an appetite. For lunch, I made butter bean and chick pea patties, and tonight we will have mushroom biryani - all ingredients were in stock, so no need to purchase anything. I have two NSDs, and haven’t looked at any online stores, so feeling positive.

London_1

I had the luxury hot chocolate this morning at coffee morning instead of just coffee and it was so delicious and filling that at lunchtime I adjust a Mushroom cuppa soup from the cupboard with a soft roll defrosted from the freezer and the left over half tin of rice pudding that I decanted to a bowl last night and put in the fridge with a banana brought back from my trip away.
 Now and again I have a tin of rice pudding from my tinned stock but half a tin is more than enough for me, so the other half always fills up a smaller lunch
 So nothing needed to buying today, its been absolute stair rods all day today so I'm glad I only went to Dobbies and back for coffee morning.

 Tonight I have a veggie cottage pie from the freezer with some ice cream from the freezer for pudding. Tomorrow I will dig something out of the freezer for dinner possibly a fish pie, and will add some of the frozen green beans from stock

I also have an M&S steak slice in there that will do me for lunch. I made a jelly with some tinned fruit today so that will do for several days for puddings with perhaps some ice cream or even on its own. I'm aiming for as few shopping trips as I can this month and using up stuff from the freezer.

The weather is due to be pretty awful so I'm quite happy to stay indoors in the warm rather than trailing round a supermarket. On Thursday afternoon I have a valuer coming to value my house as I want to move this year, so I will probably be trying to sort some of the clutter in one of my bedrooms so it looks a bit tidier :0 

This month is definitely a use-it-up from stocks month, still have my Januaryfood  budget intact  

JackieO xx

Florenceem

Weather forecast for tomorrow here is better so hope to get some stuff down to the charity shop.
Dgd came round today with - a pressie - more biscuits - never had so many goodies in stock.
We are on duty to go round to SA tonight for a waste food delivery at 9 - hope it is not raining.

Siebrie

RavenRover said:

I'm in again.  My budget for the year is 20k which I feel is way to0 high but I do have a long drive to work everyday-120 mile round trip- so have to make savings elsewhere.  Scary that my feul bill is around quarter of my salary before rent and council tax!!

Have you looked into fuel efficient drivng? It boils down to 'don't touch the brake pedal!', and it really saves on fuel. By anticipating you can just ease off the gas pedal, but try to move that one as little as possible, too.

dND

I spotted a cheap(!) frozen duck, £7.99 at Mr L on NYE so we had that for New Year supper.  Today I've stripped the remains from it and it may squeeze out another duck mini wraps meal for the 3 of us.  If not, there's more than enough to make a good risotto or pasta meal. 

The bones, skin, giblets etc., are currently coming up to temperature in the  pressure cooker. Once they've had about 30 mins, I'll drain off that stock, add more water and boil again, then mix the two together along with the left over gravy and juices and reduce into what I hope will be a lovely rich stock. 

I'll also be scraping off the duck fat and cleaning that for future roast potatoes.  I'm aiming to get my monies-worth out of this duck. 🤣

Cas

It's been a good day despite the miserable weather  

Eating from the cupboards today so breakfast was a warm mince pie with a dollop of Greek yogurt and some slivered almonds.  Lunch was porridge done overnight in the slow cooker with some dried fruit and nuts.  I’ve peeled and cored some windfall apples and they're stewing in the slow cooker along with some cinnamon.  It makes a nice addition to porridge or yogurt. Just had a cuppa using some posh loose tea that’s been lurking in the cupboard plus some fudge leftover from making Christmas presents.  Tonight's meal is a treat, half a steak pie from the butchers, with leftover fancy potatoes (Markies yellow label bargain) and brussels sprouts fried in bacon.  The other half of the steak pie will be tomorrow’s evening meal along with some of the potatoes I grew last year and frozen veg from the freezer.  

Spent about half an hour before breakfast doing some cardio and strength exercises from a 30 day exercise book that I bought last year for a fiver (but didn’t open!) and I’ve clocked up just over 5 miles with the dog today.  I need to improve my physical health as I’ve had some issues recently including tennis elbow, struggling to put weight on my left hip and hurting my lower back so this me trying to do something about it without spending money on a gym membership or personal trainer subscription.  

Christmas decorations inside the house are down and packed away, just got the string of lights outside plus the wreath from the front door to do which I’ll deal with tomorrow when the weather is a bit better.  We got a fresh wreath this time so I’m going to carefully take it apart, ditch the foliage and keep the rest (pinecones, ribbons, etc) so that  next year I can make my own using foraged greenery.  We didn’t send many Christmas cards this year and received even fewer so next Christmas I’ll be sending even less and I’ve put a note in the diary to remind me.  

It’s been another NSD and I even managed to get some windfall apples whilst out with the dog!    

Have a lovely evening everyone!

ladyholly

Siebrie said:

RavenRover said:

I'm in again.  My budget for the year is 20k which I feel is way to0 high but I do have a long drive to work everyday-120 mile round trip- so have to make savings elsewhere.  Scary that my feul bill is around quarter of my salary before rent and council tax!!

Have you looked into fuel efficient drivng? It boils down to 'don't touch the brake pedal!', and it really saves on fuel. By anticipating you can just ease off the gas pedal, but try to move that one as little as possible, too.

If I could de lurk for a minute. The best tip I had for economical driving was drive to the furthest distance you can see so you have plent of time to anticipate changing traffic speed. Obviously you also have to keep an eye on the near distance as well but most of the time distance is best. I could drive from my town to the big city (approx 25miles) without touching the the brakes unless someone ahead did something unexpected.

patentgirl

I'm in again this year - I've not posted much last year but will aim to be more active in 2024. 

Budget not worked out yet but will add to this post soon really need to tighten belts this year DH finally retiring in May so we will only have his Gov pension from June with couple of small private pensions will be tight but doable trying for low spend month on food front to pay off the credit bill this month normally I put set amount each month to cover Xmas but stopped mid year did cut down on presents so will be able to pay off without digging into savings by using food budget allowance and by not saving this month. Lesson learnt there make sure to put away all year in 2024.
Thanks Jackie 0 on info about Chase will definitely look into that account, fingers crossed for premium bonds win tomorrow would make nice start to 2024.

nannygladys

Cas - your breakfast sounds like something I would have 🤣🤣
I only send by post one Xmas card and I made some more cards for the dgc that come out every year with another little message in and the date, I'm hoping they may appreciate them when they get old enough and I'm dead and gone 🤣🤣 I do donate money to charity though what I what I would normally spend on cards, but each year I have to explain the lack of cards to neighbours incase they think I'm a grumpy old woman 🤣Nannyg