2025 Frugal Living Challenge

dND

Well, I've made a start to the year with a detailed analysis of January's spends 😱 Still more going out than I get in pension but I'm still buying stuff to renovate the house and garden.  I have reined in a lot though.  I've filled the freezer since getting it a couple of months ago and am currently rebuilding my pantry - I moved back from France so have had to start again from scratch.  
I find that by logging the outgoings and totalling them each month I can see where I'm getting carried away. 😁
Currently I have 20 categories and everything I buy goes into one or other, including bills which take half my pension.
To Good To Go has been very useful for me, my Ald1 does a reasonable box, but I find I need the backup of my freezer as quite often there's far too much UPF than I want to eat in a week, but I love the challenge of deciding how I'm going to use it all. This week I have some creme fraiche and I think I'll use some raspberries that I froze to make some raspberry ice-cream 😋 

I love reading what everyone is doing, it's so inspirational but I think I have a long way to go to being truly frugal but as they say, every journey starts with the first step. 😁 Dx

Frugaldom

Good evening and welcome to our newcomers. As always, I can highly recommend reading back through the previous years of challenges, most of which are listed and linked in post 1. Good luck with any debt busting and/or money saving and I hope you grow to love the freedom that frugal living can afford anyone who takes up the lifestyle.

SPENDING
End of month spending summary came in at £218.54 for electricity, 2 mobile phones, landline & internet plus some extras that I treated myself to, including a rechargeable lantern for keeping at the cabin. The latter was £17.99 - a hefty price for me to pay - but it's bright enough to read by, has a usb charger and is rechargeable by standard mains, solar power and wind-up handle. All eventualities covered and ideal for after dark board games with the grandkids when they're here. I also ordered a usb adapter that hooks straight onto the leisure battery, allowing up to 3 devices to charge. Total cost of that was approx. £8.50 but purchase was made via TopCashBack as they were offering a £2 bonus. Again, I always pay using a cashback credit card so a triple whammy on that. The bonus was in the account almost immediately, meaning my cashback balance was enough to cover the entire cost. Quadruple whammy!

No money was spent on groceries as the cupboards were still full from Christmas, friends and family brought milk and we had several 'wins' on the food rescue Olio app. I can recommend vegetarian haggis! We have had plenty of soup with bread rolls, croissants for breakfast, bananas galore and I'm still using up the aftermath of the freezer contents after it defrosted during the power cut.

FEBRUARY AIMS
Friend saw garden chips reduced to £3.50 for a 25kg bag in Homebase but I have quite a large area needing done to sort out a slippery, muddy area between the yard and the cabin. Carting that number of bags in a car wasn't an option and nor was delivery. I've allocated a budget of £100 to improve and landscape this little area - my frugal micro challenge for February.

sams247

 I have recently moved my cc that had charges on it to one with 0%, first time I’ve been accepted so am well pleased.  I have 21 months to get that amount paid off, or as much as I can. 

I use TGTG on occasion, it can be hit and miss, but when it’s a hit its well worth it.

Use Olio, but as I live in a village there’s not much local, and I have to decide if the drive is worth it to get other goods, managed to get some great clothes last week for my grandbabies so thats good.

I’m going to attempt to make butter.  I don’t have a freezer so I tend to make food that I can use up in a couple of days.  I also use Community Food.

Gem-gem

Good evening everyone and welcome to the newbies. 

January - we managed our target of eating from the freezer. 31st Jan before we bought anything to add to it.
Personal finance - I need to baton down the hatches for February after an expensive ( but enjoyable start to the year - it was planned). I am going to be very busy helping my DM clear out and move.

A NSD today. I have asked HMRC for a rebate on personal tax that I have overpaid. I didn't have a choice they based it on my last year's figures so I just had to pay and sit it out. 

Dinner today was h/made meat pie for DH and leftover meatloaf for me. Vegetables were all sourced from the freezer - either from the garden or cheap veg from Christmas. Potatoes were bought reduced (yellow sticker).
Tea was a slice of apple / cinnamon cake I found at the back of a freezer. 😀
Dug out a bag of large beef tomatoes from the freezer and made a big batch of tomato and basil soup. Most will be frozen. (Onion, tomato, potato, garlic, stock cube and water - Dehlia's recipe).
This afternoon, I did a 500 piece jigsaw puzzle and have finished crocheting another pouch. 

sams247

I have a NSD today, meal tonight is paid for by work, breakfast and lunch catered for from fridge n cupboards.

Been collecting recipes and making food plan. 

MayDogsandCoffee

I've been MIA, so about 7 pages to ready through, managed to be under budget for food for the first time in an age but have just been diagnosed Coeliac so steep learning curve. I am far too tight to buy any of the free from over processed stuff so will be lots more veg for me now.  One thing that is irritating me is the 'may contain' on dried / tinned beans and pulses .  @Katiehound we had a terrier who had a bad stroke, vet sent her home for the night and said bring her in next day, not expecting her to get through the night.  We had her another 3 years, she was very wobbly to start with but we continued walks short to start, she used to run and then fall over due to lack of balance, I would roll the ball towards her to start then played catch as she improved.  About 6 months afterwards she was back to almost normal, so I think trying to keep things as normal as possible does help recovery.

Prudent

@sams247 I decided I would only drive within my village for Olio as the petrol costs outweigh the benefits as most local distributors seem to only have a small amount of items. I wish I had more energy in the evenings as I am often too tired to go out and collect things. Listings here tend to be between 9 and 10.30pm. I did manage to get some veg and salad though over the weekend and even a small houseplant. 

@Katiehound, lovely to hear you dog is recovering. The Scottish government is discussing a ban on cats going out in conservation sensitive areas to protect birds. I understand the thinking behind it, but my poor girl will be distraught if the ban effects her. She loves going out and about. She is a mouser, but I keep a bell on her to alert wildlife. She is a happy girl today though as I had several free samples of pet treats arrive.

January flew past for me. I am hoping to be able to find a bit more time in February to do some sewing and walking. We have bought in some seed potatoes for the allotment with a gift card. I still have some money to spend on gift cards so I want to buy some compost for potting and bringing on plants in the poly tunnel. 

Frugaldom

@Prudent I read the article about the cats and saw mention of protecting the purity of the Scottish Wild Cat population. Mandatory microchipping of pets has made little difference and once again, we come to the unregulated breeding of animals of any description. I don't know what the answer is but if Wild Cats are so precious (this is going to be contentious) but will readily cross breed with domestic cats, then perhaps the genuine wild cats need better and more secure protection. In my opinion, releasing them into areas where clear felling is carried out along with the possibility of windfarm construction, just seems at odds with genuine concern for wildlife conservation. I can't see Government legislating on cat containment anytime soon other than, possibly, within the Scottish Wild Cat breeding territories. (Can't get into that on here though as it could be a rather litigious thing to do.)

Electricity for January amounted to £66.09 so those few days without any really helped keep the bill down. At some point, there should be some compensation credited but I'm not sure how long that will take. Still waiting for the refund from BT fir the week without a phone line and fortnight without internet after the lightning storm apparently took out the local exchange.

Bluegreen143

When I was much younger I used to have a cat who was a house cat when we lived in a flat, but my opinion has changed now. I reckon as a society we ought to have far fewer pets, but if you do have a pet you should ideally give them as natural a life as possible, including as unprocessed food as you can and lots of time outdoors. It doesn’t seem right to mandate that cats ought to be kept indoors in all circumstances. I know some cats are afraid to go out or it’s not safe.

My cat ended up with diabetes etc and no wonder as she didn’t get enough exercise and would only eat a certain brand of cheap food (I tried to switch her to more natural food as I became more informed but she wouldn’t eat it!). If we stayed indoors all day and ate only junk food our health would suffer and it’s the same for animals… I do appreciate the need to protect wildlife so I know it’s a tricky question. 

Auti

I have an indoor cat (big house and walled courtyard) he is happy, has plenty of play and a raw food diet. Others have cats - my wooden gate posts are used as clawing/scratching posts and are shredded and my front garden (as are others) a cats toilet because I have a garden not paved - they also put off birds coming to my hedge as they wait to pounce. There are for and against for both ways of life but I do think there are too many cats left to their own devices. 

No disrespect meant