2025 Frugal Living Challenge

MissRikkiC

Congratulations on your wins @Prudent they’re lovely little perks! 

Not much from a frugal perspective today other than a few YS items (which I wasn’t going to buy but then did sI not sure if it counts). I did buy a couple of bags of white flour as we were totally out with the intention to make bread so watch this space. 

I had my usual big bowl of porridge but later than planned so then only eggs on toast for lunch. Med Veg pasta for dinner, which was actually delicious so maybe I’ll go back for some more later

Frugaldom

Well done with your wins, @Prudent and I love the sound of your frugal breaks travelling by bus.

Weather here is very icy and frosty but still lively when the sun broke through. I guess we can thank age for keeping us warm while working outdoors. 😆 DD and DGD1 visited at lunchtime so had a catch-up. DGD lives quite far away for Uni so I've not seen her for a while. 

Hot water bottles, bed socks and extra blankets needed for night-time as once the fire goes out that's it until morning. I'm trying keeping it smouldering using night briquettes but they are rather expensive to see them go up in smoke without giving off much heat. Glad the temps arepredicted to rise again soon. I've run extra containers of water in case the taps freeze overnight again. No fridge needed when staying at the hut at this time of year, that's for sure. 😆

mandy47

Got a few bargains this week. 
Large jar of mincemeat half price ready for next Christmas. 
3 boxes of mince pies reduced to 10p each. Split bagged and frozen to use up when we fancy something sweet.
2 large turkey crowns. One will be for next Xmas. £7 each
1 medium whole turkey we'll use that for easter weekend because its got the shortest date.£5.50. 
Freezer is rammed again. Still working through it. 

MayDogsandCoffee

For the first time in a very long time I have come under budget (£7) for food. Hopefully I can keep that up over the months. I think the cold has helped as I don't want to go out after work to shop and have made do with what I already have in.  Haven't starved or been deprived at all, made two vats of soup and taken some around to Mum.  

Gem-gem

Well done with your wins, @Prudent. The idea of your frugal breaks travelling by bus sounds great. A few years ago my DH and I went to Guernsey and travelled by bus all round the island. At the time each journey was a £1 each.
Also earlier this year, we travelled all round Cornwall by bus £2 per journey, free for my DH. 

@Bluegreen143 what you are describing is what my Mum will have at her new place.

 @FrugaldomThis assisted living place - communal areas are like a hotel. I would like there if I could. 

 @Frugaldom in August we were up in Whitby for a few days. We met a German couple who were heading up to Scotland to tour the country with their tent. I told them about your place and showed them your website (it could have been your you tube channel). I hope they managed to find you. 

@MayDogsandCoffee, well done on coming in under budget. 

Over the past two days, I have done 2.5 hrs of pilates and yoga and 45 minutes cycling. DH and I have also cashed in £380 of 20ps.  This money we have used to go towards a holiday. 

Have been reading various articles about microscopic bits of plastic that have been found in people. One of the worst offenders are plastic chopping boards. So we have binned our old board. We have two good quality wooden boards that we can use. 

Bought two books in a charity shop £1.25 each. One is a biography about Agatha Christie written by Lucy Worsley. Second is a murder mystery by Tom Hindle. Both were on my wish list.  

Duchess2

Well done @Prudent on your wins. I do love a freebie. Great bargains @mandy47. Sounds like you’re on the road to a very frugal Xmas 2025. @MayDogsandCoffee well done on sticking to your budget. We have a huge pot of soup on the stove too.  Should last us three days and still using up 8p veg from Xmas. We were supposed to be buying fresh salad today but decided to stay put as paths and roads were treacherous and use up what we already had. Stay warm and safe everyone.

Siebrie

Our bakery too good to go (tgtg) was excellent again! For €3.29 we received:
3 white baguettes
2 brown baguettes
1 small brown round bread (we will make 2 small pizzas with this)
2 differently shaped small loaves of white bread
1 white plait bread
1 bruschetta loaf
3 half size eclairs (made with proper chocolate on top!)
a pain au chocolat, raisin swirl, and cream triangle 

The eclairs were last night’s dessert, the croissanty items were breakfast, 1 white loaf was in 4 lunch boxes. Most of the rest is in the freezer.

Frugaldom

I'm glad to read of so many of you making the most of yellow stickers, Olio and TGTG, it's great that we are all in rescue mode to save perfectly good food from waste and save previous funds at the same time. 

@Gem-gem Thank you for passing on the details. 😀 I've not encountered any German campers. We don't get many visitors, definitely no tents, as we don't have anywhere to pitch them but there's a really good campsite nearby.

I've been looking at my numbers again. Electricity was almost £100 for December and the worst of the winter weather hasn't arrived. We are ploughing through logs and also use calor gas cylinder heaters and have a dehumidifier running mist days. The Calor gas cylinders are now £56 for 15kg. I cook with gas and on the stovetop at the hut/cabin as it's off-grid but it's electric oven, microwave and slow cooker at home. Still no central heating or double glazing and we still have an open fire & back boiler, immersion heater plus small log burner. The combined costs all mount up but we've quit buying coal. I totally lost track of all the costs last year so am going to try harder to keep tabs on what is being spent where. It's difficult being between 2 locations constantly.

kayannie

Siebrie said:

Our bakery too good to go (tgtg) was excellent again! For €3.29 we received:
3 white baguettes
2 brown baguettes
1 small brown round bread (we will make 2 small pizzas with this)
2 differently shaped small loaves of white bread
1 white plait bread
1 bruschetta loaf
3 half size eclairs (made with proper chocolate on top!)
a pain au chocolat, raisin swirl, and cream triangle 

The eclairs were last night’s dessert, the croissanty items were breakfast, 1 white loaf was in 4 lunch boxes. Most of the rest is in the freezer.

Although a great bargain, I don't try to get a TGTG as the only time I ordered one, it was mainly ready meals full of meat & I am vegetarian & make everything from scratch avoiding UPF as much as possible. I was able to pass this on to a friend who was very grateful. Some of them seem full of bread which is great for a family but not for a single person. I find the L!dl £1.50 boxes ideal for me if & when I can get one. 
KA

SparFuchs

Hi all, I'm a bit late to the party, hope it's ok to join in. I have been a long time MSE member (occasional poster in the 2010s), but wanted to start afresh as my old account shared a lot about my 'previous life'. I've never been a massive spender but had old ponies for years who gradually died off and left me with the one oldest lady who cost me a fortune to feed (she died early last year). As such I've ended up with around £2000 on a credit card. This coincided with me leaving a long term relationship, buying a van and self converting it. I now live in my van in the UK 2/3 of the time, with the other 1/3 being spent in Germany with my boyfriend.

I'm self employed with a variable income, and have never properly budgeted. I finally did some research in December and realised that it is in fact possible to budget with a variable income. I also have started a spending diary and am going to start using cash envelopes alongside my budget.

I'm very lucky that because of my lifestyle I have very low outgoings, but I REALLY want to get rid of this credit card once and for all. Thanks for reading