2025 Frugal Living Challenge

Viking_mfw

Well as it turns out, my neighbour loves them and took all the remaining ones, so no experimentation for me!

Gem-gem

Good afternoon everyone, 
Another day, another boot fair! I only went with two boxes, I went to help a friend. She paid for the pitch. I provided three tables and a ground sheet. She made over £200 profit. I made another £56 profit. 

Poor Mum had nearly a £200 vet bill last night, if an investigation needs to happen £2000 will be needed. 

Tonight's dinner will be h/made pizza, salad and coleslaw - much cheaper than a takeaway. 

Have started to crochet my BIL Christmas present - a blanket. The wool was free - balls from my Mum's stash. He will also receive a quarter of h/made Christmas cake laced in sherry this year. Last year it was soaked in brandy. 

Gem-gem

Good evening everyone, 
Sunday was a quiet day in the Gem-gem household. DH and I stewed another batch of apples from one of our trees. Followed by taking advantage of the warmer weather - gardening - pruning and tidying. Dinner was ys shoulder of pork (£2). I found a simple recipe online - Good food. Followed by apple crumble. In the evening, I continued with the blankets. 

Today, I started with the housework then the gym. Whilst in town we hand delivered my postal vote form, saving a stamp. We bought a few bits in Lid!, earning us a free veg. Then popped into Sainsbobs and picked up ys lambs liver, reduced chapatti flour (I'm going to have a go at making our own chapattis) and a few other bits. Used my £5 off voucher. This afternoon, was spent stewing apples (again!) and sorting out three birthday presents. All three have cost no more than £12 due to regifting, hand making and swapping trades. Wrapping paper was second hand, saved from presents gifted earlier in the year and the gift tags was homemade - cut up from old birthday cards. Three birthday cards were handmade from DM card stash. 

Dinner was pulled pork (bbq) from the leftover ys pork in ys brioche buns, homemade coleslaw (using up left over cabbage, onion and carrot) and salad. 

Nelliegrace

Refunds on chiropody, NHS dental fees for DH, and optician from the Hospital Saturday Fund. 
Unfortunately they don’t refund on monthly dental plans.
Very good NHS hearing aids for DH now, but no improvement on the bit in between them. 

Frugaldom

Welcome to October!

@fionaandphil, the weather here is dire at the moment so I'm well jealous of friends in the far northeast who are enjoying sights of the aurora.

@Viking_mfw, well done with the Olio rescues and food prepping. I now need to go look up chayote. No Olio for us this week, unfortunately.

@Prudent, I'm glad you got away for your trip. Under the circumstances, eating out was definitely a luxury well worth saving for and enjoying. Call it a rainy day. 😊 Hope you are feeling more like your old self again.

@retireby35, Welcome back and good luck with the tightening of the frugal belt. I hadn't thought of asking AI to find me use-it-up recipes! Thank you for that tip.

@Gem-gem, £1.50 in savings definitely isn't to be scoffed at when prices are going up so much. Food inflation is absolutely ridiculous. If the Government did a basic living inflation then I reckon for we frugalers, it would be closer to 50% that 5%

All is quiet here, just daily routine stuff. My one frugal change was to incorporate an off-grid fridge into the cabin... Basically, it's an old, broken down one with the cable cut off and kept cool using containers of frozen water that becomes drinking water once melted. It also means the freezer at home is constantly filled as there are now 2 x 5 litre containers of water taking up the empty space. So far, it is working well and the fridge is staying cool for the entire weekend.

Friend has now also got her bus pass so we will soon start planning some trips away once we get winter out of the way and I find a reliable volunteer to keep an eye on the animals while I'm gone. H also has his bus pass but, after 3 years, he still hasn't used it. 🤣

GOOD LUCK to all our Premium Bonds holders, I can confirm that I was NOT the Scotland based winner of the £million so I'm hoping for at least a £25 consolation to be announced tomorrow when I check.

Works at the tiny cottage have been completed and artist tenant is absolutely delighted with her new studio space. It has taken us 8 years to complete all the work needed, having it done little by little as finances allowed, but it should be well worth it over the long term. There are still a few in-house improvements that need to be done but they will need to wait a while longer.

Frugaldom

Nelliegrace said:

Very good NHS hearing aids for DH now, but no improvement on the bit in between them. 

This made me laugh! 😄

Not so funny is the prospect of a £2,000 vet bill for your mum, @Gem-gem but well done with your bootsale takings.

fionaandphil

I was thinking of you this morning in L1dl this morning Frugaldom when I picked up my free 'vegetable' this morning which was 7.5kg of potatoes.  The last bag was early September and we finished it this week so I am hoping that this one will take us into November.  It would be too far for you to travel I suspect but I am using the L1dl plus a bit more after having one nearby while we were on holiday in the summer and trying out some new things.  All the little extras feel like a good bonus - especially when its cake!  I also nipped to Sainsbobs to collect something and discovered a whole loads of bonus point things on the app for the things I was buying so that is going towards the 'free' January we usually have using up the points, I collected 750 points this morning and spent about £9.

Fires are on here now in the evening and it is cooling down quickly and getting dark early. I hope all is well at Frugaldom and you manage to make use of that bus pass.

Frugaldom

@fionaandphil There is a Lidl store but it's about 50 miles round trip so not really worth going all the way there. I'm currently using Morrisons or Asda home deliveries, despite there being neither of those stores nearby. I did download the Morrisons app and registered a More card, plus I have a Nectar card that I really must get back to using. It's about 20 miles round trip there but there's an Aldi next door to it. I've just got out of the way of driving and this time of year is a nightmare in the single track roads with logging lorries running back and forth constantly. Home deliveries, I always grab a £1.50 delivery slot so even if I do 2 a month, it's less expense than the cost of a gallon if petrol in the car.

Frugaldom

We are now 75% of the way through our budgeting year so as we enter this final quarter, I checked all my accounts and transactions to total up spends to date. Previously, I stuck to an annual budget if £4,000 excluding stuff like my car, mobile phones and council tax, as it's impossible to make any savings on that. This year, however, I included everything and gave us a budget of £7,000 to include council tax, all broadband and phone contracts plus car costs. I'm self-employed so a percentage of the spends are deductable for tax purposes but I'm not factoring that into my equation for a reason.

Anyhow, I've just totted up all household and living expenses to assess whether we can live within the £7,000 and am happy to say that doenfs, year to date, are £4,326.67 and that equates to just under 62% of the annual budget. Bring challenge driven, I have now removed £500 from my challenge budget, making the percentage spend - year to date - just over 66%

I now have £500 going into rainy day funds and £2,173.33 left for the remainder of the year. I am sorely tempted to shave another £500 off the total but I think I like the idea of splashing out a bit over the festive period, sending gifts to immediate family. With 5 grandchildren now, it's becoming quite expensive! 

How is everyone else's budget looking?

fionaandphil

That looks fantastic, so impressive. I haven't checked ours so will do it over the next few days. A few unexpected expenses this year so hopefully they haven't spoiled everything