2026 Frugal Living Challenge

Prudent

Good morning everyone. Thank you for the tip about the butternut squash seeds as I have been discarding them. Another kind of seed to have in my porridge now. I love 'pimping up' my porridge. This morning I added ground linseed, chai seeds and half a pomegranate. I got four pomegranates in my Lidl veg box, so I will be looking for more ideas to use them.

I am sorry for not commenting much on this thread yet. I had covid and was ill for a month, and the past week or so, I have been busy catching up with housework and people and finishing sewing a holdall that I began making before covid.

I have managed a few reduced bargains, but the shops here seem back to normal again. I got a decent veg box yesterday, which nicely complemented the cheap Christmas veg as it had leeks, peppers, sweet potatoes, celery and broccoli. Last week we picked up two boxes which were all fruit and that worked well as we had hardly any left.  I made a big pot of soup yesterday and will make a curry today. 

I am only just looking at my finances for this year. Just before Christmas, I got a letter in from the tax man saying I had paid too little tax on my savings a few years ago and they had recalculated my tax. I didn't read it fully as I was so unwell at the time. When my pension came in it was for nearly £175 less. My pension is tiny, and everything is quite marginal, so that was a shock. I looked at the letter again and found out the extra deduction is only for this tax year so it will go back to normal in April- phew! 

mumtoomany

Morning all. 

First spend of the year, so far, yesterday. Not including direct debits for bills which I will update at the end of the month. £1.65 for milk. DSiL1 was going into town, so picked it up for us. We are due more snow tomorrow, so i thought it would be prudent to get some more. Schools back open today, may be closed again before the week is out.

Going to start filling all the cracks in walls today, ready for a link of paint everywhere. May sort through the seeds too. See what can be started and if I need to order any more.

Hugs, mumtoomany.xxx 

kimwp

@prudent, butternut squash seeds taste a bit like chicken to me, I personally wouldn't add them to porridge.

Prudent

kimwp said:

@prudent, butternut squash seeds taste a bit like chicken to me, I personally wouldn't add them to porridge.

Thank you. I will try them in a salad.

Cas

Hello everyone and thank you @Frugaldom for setting up this year's thread. I try to keep up with the comments and post if I can. I'm now drawing down a small private pension and whilst DH is still working he hopes to retire in the next couple of years.

We've not done much to our home since we moved in 25 years ago apart from some basic repairs and maintenance so our 2 main areas of focus are clearing our home of 25 years worth of clutter and doing as much DIY as we can ourselves to modernise our home to see us through our old age.

Amongst other things we'll be living out the freezer as much as we can and trying to keep the bills as low as possible to help build up savings which we can then put towards the jobs that need professionals like replacing our very old windows.

Wishing everyone the very best for 2026!

RateTartExtraordinaire

Hello all and a happy frugal new year!

I'm on board again for this year. It's lovely to see all the familiar names. I hadn't posted as much much last year, apart from a few monthly updates and will probably do the same this year. I've set my budget for the year and have been on the forum looking at where to move my easy access savings today. Last year saw a roof repair which was expected but over what I had budgeted for property maintenance for a usual year.

I would love to fill all the cracks in the plaster work in my house @mumtomany and after watching lots of video tutorials I'm feeling a little more confident about the small holes in the ceiling where my lovely partner yanked the curtain pole too hard. However, my old cracking Victorian lathe plaster ceilings might be a bit beyond my confidence to repair DIY. I'd rather repair it than have it ripped down and replaced and I think I may have tracked down someone who can do this sort of job. This year I might bite the bullet and get it done before it falls.

I've finally got through the last of my parsnip and carrot soup batch on the go from the festive veggies haul! I'm looking at a butternut squash right now which I'm about to make into soup for lunches this week. I'd never thought of using the seeds, but will give them a go. I usually buy pumpkin seeds and eat them as a snack.

joedenise

@Prudent - pomegranate seeds freeze really well and can be used from frozen.  I usually use them in couscous when I made a tagine to counteract the spices with that little bit of sweetness.

2Scratters

Hi All,

Happy new year and here we go on yet another journey of our own frugal activities. 

@sheilavw condolences for the loss of your brother


Not sure what we happened to do last year with our monthly payment towards house keeping funds. We have including this month got a balance of over £800. There are just 2 adults and 2 border collies a  9y0 senior and a 7mo pup. Foods aren't likely to ever level out to the same type of food. We allocate £250 month I withdraw £200 cash per month and sometimes it goes over. We haven't been very strict at logging the spends so have probably used our own money  any how this time round we are going to do a lot better. So as it stands this month we have a bumper amount of £600 in an interest bearing account. 

There is a lot of fruit in the freezer from HG efforts. Just need to plan better and get some of that into deserts so to make some space for other meals that will need to be made up and frozen. We are trying to not buy any more takeaways which has been at a rate of 2 a week as I visit on a rota with my siblings seeing to our mum who has mixed dementia. As I am late home each night when it's my turn (twice a week) we have really got into bad habits with this.

Catch up with you later

2 Scratters xx

Frugaldom

Good evening - some more interesting new facts tonight, between roasting squash seeds and short sighted cats. Who knew! We have 1 elderly house cat plus 4 ferals that come to the project for food so I wonder if they got dumped by the roadside at some point and just couldn't find there way home. In saying that, I just read a Facebook post about owners being reunited with their list cat after a full year! 

I've more soup on the go tonight,p using a pack of the £1 cooking bacon. I was going to remove the bacon bits to have with pasta but decided to make meal soup and leave the bacon in it. We had another Olio alert so this week I have managed to rescue some more bits and bobs, including houmous, fish fillets, haggis bon bons, a turnip and some other mixed veg. Winner, winner, freebie dinner.  

Welcome back to those who have just rejoined us, it's always good to see folks returning to jone their frugality skills.

First week of the new challenge now completed. Zero food spends and only the regular direct debits from bank. Zero income towards my 
interest beater, so far, unless I count my premium bonds win. 😁

Gem-gem

Good evening everyone, 
Another cat fact or two.

Cats are pretty good at understanding human words like yes and no and their name. (And in the case of our family cat, Dreamies, Licky and vets!)

Cats are more independent than dogs because they have only been domesticated for 4000 years, whereas dogs have been domesticated for 12000 years.

@Prudent - pomegranate Is very nice in salads too. A family member used to drink pomegranate juice as he was told it would help slow his cancer down.  

Dinner tonight of sausage casserole made in the slow cooker was a successful experiment. Lots of veggies and red kidney beans were also included. We have enough left over for a lunch time meal. (However, I think I prefer toad in the hole). I would do the same sort of dish but with chunks of gammon instead.

This week has turned out more expensive than previously planned. I bought two return train tickets from London to the West Country to see my Dad for his birthday on Friday. I also had a friend ring me, her friend has pulled out, at short notice, of going to see Samuel West at the Barbican  - Twelfth Night. I am paying the person 5/8ths of the ticket price value as I wouldn't have bought top price tickets if I had bought them. I chatted to four people to get an idea what % of the ticket price people have paid them when they have been in this situation. Which was typically just under half the face value. But I have chosen to pay a little more. They didn't ask for the full face value just a little something towards it. All parties are happy with the agreed amount.