2025 Frugal Living Challenge

Gem-gem

Good evening everyone, 
@mumtoomany, congratulations on your baby grand child news. Also, on being a mum to five chicks. £400 in selling surplus, that is fabulous. 

Life has been very busy here, DM has a buyer for her bungalow and I have been dealing with all the paperwork for the solicitors as well as supporting DM with shopping etc. We have also been away for another football weekend. The garden has continued to pull on my time. Which will increase further still as I will soon be spending hours prepping pears and apples for the freezer. 

PB for me £0. £275 for Mum. £50 for Dad.
Had a different sort of luck, I normally have a box of Hotel Choc hot chocolate sachets delivered four times a year, giving me 40 drinks a year which I stretch to one each week by not using a whole pack. I cancelled this quarters subscription as the company had sent me a 20% off voucher, so I went into the store. Whilst I was there, I sampled three chocs, my husband sampled two. The manager also gave me these all for free. 😀 The latte's were hitting their expiration date but the others were well in date. 

Today, I went to an auction house to sell a variety of items. Sadly, I was told that they wouldn't sell. Upon leaving, I spotted a pile of items in the rubbish area. They said that I could take anything that was there. 

These are some of the items that I found: 
Three Wedgwood items - trinket dishes and bud vase - two in mint condition - these will be used as presents. 
Royal Albert trinket dish - fine bone china in mint condition - I've swapped it for one that I had that wasn't as nice.
A Susie Cooper meat serving dish, I was told that I should get at least £10 at a boot fair but I have decided to keep it. 
A 1938 ceramic van that someone is selling on eBay for £40
A named vase selling on eBay for £10
A small decanter. 

There was also more than a dozen of other items that you may get 50p /£1 from at a boot fair. 

I go past there two - three times a week so I will check their rubbish again when I know that they are taking goods in. Another chap was filling his cart up with old tools, he said that he will sell them at a boot fair. 

Gem-gem

Good afternoon everyone, 
Finally had a whole day at home. My DH is a happy man, I have. Even restocking the freezer with homemade pies. Seven dinner plate steak and kidney pies for him, one small two serving steak and mushroom pie for me. I have also stewed two packets of ys stewing steak ready to add Stilton to make steak and Stilton pies and puddings for me. Hopefully, this will keep DH going for six months. We had steak and mushroom pie for today's dinner. I have made DH pastry with lard and butter and mine with butter and beef dripping- I think it tastes better. 

Also, made a blackcurrant and apple crumble and with the left over pastry a jam tart for DH. 
Whilst the dinner was cooking, I made another batch of gooseberry jam to sell. 

Our gas and electricity fixed rate expires on Saturday, it will be going up so I am batch cooking like mad. Last night, I made lamb rogan Josh which has been portioned up and frozen. 

I will also give the oven a clean, we have a self cleaning oven. 

I have used Money Saving Energy Club to check out the energy deals. We will save around  £150 swapping to British G@s. We could save a little more going with Fuse but they are an unknown quantity at the moment. I don't think I have ever been with BG. 
I have done a stock take of frozen fruit: 
10 tubs of strawberries. Most of this will be used to make ice-cream. 

5 tubs of raspberries. A small batch of jam for us, the rest will go with our breakfast - porridge. 

1 tub of gooseberry - make Mum a dessert or two. 

6 tubs of blackberry - will be stewed with the apple or pear for puddings - crumbles. 

5 tubs of blackcurrants - used for fruit puddings either with with apple or on its own. 

2 tubs of stewed rhubarb
4 tubs of stewed apple
There is plenty of space for the pears and apples. Phew! The fruit that we grow / swapped saves us a small fortune every year. 

mumtoomany

Morning all. Great lot of stuff there @Gem-gem, and great lot of cooking for the freezer. I tend to make enough for two or more meals at a time and freeze half. Saves time, and fuel another day. 

Still picking loads from the tunnel, had a very tomato based diet the last few days. Butternut squash now starting to be ready, have picked, and sold, five already. Dozens left. Chicks are growing, they can go out in the next few weeks, once they have all their feathers. Still picking a big tub of raspberries every day, and there are tons of blackberries. 

I've finished reading the 2008 £4000 challenge, now reading the 2009 one. Cheaper than buying a book and easier than trying to get to a library.

Only spent £5.87 so far this month. We now have a morrisons local in the village. Milk is only £1.69 there, £2.70 at the petrol station! So if I only need milk, much cheaper than the 17 mile round trip to town. They seem to have good reductions too. Grapes 50p, yogurts 15p, lots of cakes etc.

Hugs to all, speak soon, mumtoomany.xxx 

Frugaldom

Good afternoon, apologies once again for being MIA.

Last week, I made a bad faux pas with my M0rris0ns orderbu not checking my emails for substitutions and H not noticing when the order got delivered while I was elsewhere.My £1.99 cheap instant coffee got substituted for a £7+ jar of top branded instant! I won't make that mistake again - it was almost 4 times the price of the one ordered!

I keep forgetting to update here but once again, I've been reminded that frugal living isn't familiar to some. For the sake of anyone new who may spot this, frugality is about trying to make the most of every penny without wasting anything. It is also about clearing debts to establish financial freedom and an easy way to squirrel away some rainy day funds. Start your budget with whatever regular income you have coming into the household. Write down every penny you spend and prioritise your spending - keep to absolute essentials like rent/mortgage, council tax, utilities and food, make sure you meet your debt repayments and try to tuck away a few pennies or pounds into an emergency fund. If you have debt threatening to drown you, halt everything and concentrate on getting those bills paid off... Cut up any credit cards, store cards or whatever access you have to money that isn't yours to spend and then hunker down for the tightest budget ride of your life. It's a rollercoaster ride, juggling funds and stretching every penny until it screams but freedom from debt is the biggest reward. Imagine if all your debt repayments were going into your savings? It soon mounts up once your money is your own and nobody else's. 😊

Debsnewbudget

Thats not good for your delivery.  I use Tesc@ and  if they substitute any item you get it for the price of your original request. So with them you would have got the posh coffee for £1.99

joedenise

I think I would contact Morries and complain.  That’s a big difference in price.

gran3

Frugaldom said:

Good afternoon, apologies once again for being MIA.

Last week, I made a bad faux pas with my M0rris0ns orderbu not checking my emails for substitutions and H not noticing when the order got delivered while I was elsewhere.My £1.99 cheap instant coffee got substituted for a £7+ jar of top branded instant! I won't make that mistake again - it was almost 4 times the price of the one ordered!

I keep forgetting to update here but once again, I've been reminded that frugal living isn't familiar to some. For the sake of anyone new who may spot this, frugality is about trying to make the most of every penny without wasting anything. It is also about clearing debts to establish financial freedom and an easy way to squirrel away some rainy day funds. Start your budget with whatever regular income you have coming into the household. Write down every penny you spend and prioritise your spending - keep to absolute essentials like rent/mortgage, council tax, utilities and food, make sure you meet your debt repayments and try to tuck away a few pennies or pounds into an emergency fund. If you have debt threatening to drown you, halt everything and concentrate on getting those bills paid off... Cut up any credit cards, store cards or whatever access you have to money that isn't yours to spend and then hunker down for the tightest budget ride of your life. It's a rollercoaster ride, juggling funds and stretching every penny until it screams but freedom from debt is the biggest reward. Imagine if all your debt repayments were going into your savings? It soon mounts up once your money is your own and nobody else's. 😊

Do they not give it to you at the price of what you ordered?

MrsCD

Popping in to say Asda would also charge the lower price if they substituted a dearer item. I think it's worth asking if that's their policy.