2026 Frugal Living Challenge

Prudent

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81937724#Comment_81937724

That means I have managed to live within the £4,000 challenge for the last two years. Good news, like you I am looking forward to the 'untold wealth' of the state pension. Seven years to go for me as I am 60 next month.

I like to do a 'mini' budget at the start of April to take into account bills that increase at this time, such as the council tax and internet/ phone. I also then add on estimated inflation for things like food that increase over the year. I then can set a rough annual budget. I own the house we live in and all the bills come out of my accounts. OH transfers his share to me weekly. To help him budget too I usually gave him a new weekly figure in April (he like weekly) so that he can adjust his direct debit to me. It works well for us as our pensions get their annual increase too. Any big spends such as home repairs we split 50/50 and we also contribute to a savings pot for that. If OH does a rare venture into a food shop, I reimburse him for that spend. The remaining money in our accounts is for our personal spends and running our own cars. This year I am struggling to calculate the weekly figure for OH as it looks like some things might get much more expensive if the global situation remains volatile. I think I might just have to make it an interim budget. At least our gas and electricity are fixed until the start of December.

Arrietty

I'm still pondering how much money I would need to live comfortably and I really don't know the answer!

I'm not too bothered by going on annual holidays as long as I have HRH 🐴 in my life and likewise having new cars because mine looks like a farm vehicle most of the time 😂 so those aren't things I would spend money on even if I did have endless pots.

I tend to regularly weigh up costs vs conveniences with my spending but either way the prices keep going up and up and up.

Yesterday I went to the feed shop and spent £115.70 which was a bit frightening but that was buying 2 of each item rather than just one and means I don't have to drive over there again for a few months. Looking back at my speeding diary, it seems we last went in November and the exact same items then cost £105 05. That's an increase of £10. 65!

Today I ordered a new tub of the allergy supplement which cost me £51.49, I last bought it on the 9th March and it was £48.70. An increase of £2.49 in just 3 weeks!

I tend to buy what I want when I do my grocery shopping without to much worrying but I am only buying for me and don't often buy meat or fish so that probably saves a bit. I do now buy the lowest own-brand for items like Cheddar and Red Leicester cheese because I mainly use it for cooking or packed lunches. On the other hand I buy more expensive branded milk because I like the stuff that lasts a long time in the fridge once opened so I guess there I'm paying for the convenience.

Sometimes I focus on saving money eg I went to Sainsbugs earlier and wanted a couple of quiches to put in the freezer and they were £4.50 each 😮 … but if I bought 3, they were only £3 each. So I now have 3 quiches in my freezer 😄

I'm not sure if I would change those habits even if I did have buckets of cash because they're so ingrained now and I still hate waste.

PipneyJane

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81937827#Comment_81937827

@Prudent I may have a source for you for bargain sewing thread. I’m on the mailing list of a haberdashers in Hackney, William Gee And they’re having a thread sale at the moment. They do mail order.

HTH

• Pip

Frugaldom

Good morning, we have some sunshine here today! Yeah! 😁

My Asda order arrived with only a couple of things missing so they have been added onto a weekend's Morrisons delivery. I've doubled up on some items and took advantage of an 8 items for £10 deal - although it doesn't seem any time since the items listed were around £1 each! Anyhow, keeping in mind the current topic of how much is enough to forego frugality, I thought I'd look at the price of a steak and was flabbergasted. I haven't bought steak in many, many years so seeing the £50 per kilo price tag definitely shocked me. I would be terrified to cook one (average £10 each) in case I ruined it. 😱 I've not added up my grocery spends yet as final amount won't be available until delivery on Sunday but I shouldn't need much in April other than milk.

Jemma01

While I was targeting my mortgage for roughly 1.5yrs

• I didn't buy any new clothes, have enough
• Stopped international holidays, opted for camping 2 nights, twice since
• I incorporated lots of beans into my food and reduced meat, never thought I could have no meat and still find it filling.
• I batch cook + freeze so that I could share ingredients between food and reduce expiry and waste (like buying a pack of onion and using it on 3 meals, or sharing a can of tomato)
• Reduced snack purchases to sometimes none, my food was scheduled, you eat at a specific time and nothing else. I also opted for dark chocolate as I don't crave sweets, and one cube is enough. Other chocolate disappears in a minute 🤔
• Stopped all subscriptions I don't need to only bills. I only watch YouTube on my phone.
• No more town visits, or random purchases of anything, I have a list of what I need and exit. Reduced my b&m visits 😆
• Reduced socialising where I need to spend money, to cook in my house with friends or go for walks
• Only furnished my house for necessities, my living room had no furniture, no sofa until this month, still no TV, no dining tables, empty

As I'm still in debt for other things (made large furniture purchases, taxes to pay), so I'll continue doing this until my tax bill is paid in July.

PipneyJane

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81939199#Comment_81939199

If you want a good steak, @Frugaldom buy it from your local butcher. Rump is cheaper than sirloin, as is rib-eye. £10 will get you a decent sized steak in the 250g range. (Our “Meat Fund” is £40/month, but it doesn’t get spent every month. We only go to the butcher every 2-3 months, which makes spending £25 on steak for two an affordable treat.)

I’ve just reworked my personal budget for the next financial year, figuring out how much money I’ll need to live off versus how much I want to save/invest. The massive increase in prices is taking its toll - several budget categories have had to be increased, e.g. the money I set aside for my glasses. Additionally, last October, I increased my pension contributions from 10% to 20% of my pretax salary and it’s taken me a while to work through the impact of the decrease in my take-home pay.

I don’t want to, but I’ve had to decrease my general savings. This hurts because I spent much of 2024 on statutory sick pay (£102/week), and relied on my savings to keep me afloat. My savings still haven’t recovered completely. (My DH got made redundant while I was sick, which didn’t help.).

• Pip

Arrietty

Good morning,

hurray for sunshine where it is happening - not here though, we have grey blanket skies today!

I would also be terrified of trying to cook a steak!

I'm not used to my own budgeting system yet and forgot the 25th was the end of my month 🤣 I still had £42.67 left which is quite remarkable. Had to pop to Waitrows yesterday to pick up a cake for a colleague's birthday and they had my favourite coffee on offer which was too tempting. It is usually £8.50 a tin and I cannot bring myself to pay that but it was only £6 a tin so I bought 3, would have bought 4 but £24 on coffee in one trip seemed outrageous. Haven't paid full price in over a year - just keep snapping up offers when I see them!

I"m fine for quiches and coffee for the forseeable 😂

Paid £200 into my Four Day Fund from my salary on payday and that will be the maximum regular contribution I can make each month so relying on Premium Bond wins and daily scoops for the remaining £236 I need each month to hit my target 🤞

Have a lovely day

x

Frugaldom

Good afternoon to all from a very wet and windy Frugaldom.

@PipneyJane I've no intentions of buying steak, I was just making price observations. We don't have any shops around us - nearest village store is a few miles and nearest butcher around 20 miles round trip so I've not been there in a very long time. Maybe once I'm retired and found a place nearer town then I'll push the boat out now and again, as I'll feel rich once I'm in receipt of old age / state pension. 😊 We do, however, have supermarket deliveries, despite not being near the supermarkets.

@Jemma01 Well done with your list, it looks like you are well and truly one of the frugal gang here. Hopefully, you can get rid of your remaining pesky debts quickly and can soon enter into the joyous realms of debt freedom. Exciting times ahead so keep up the good work.

Rant alert... I'd been discussing how so many food items have changed over the years, in both taste and texture, not to mention size and price. I'd attributed it to fluctuations in the ratios of things like sugar, milk, butter, cocoa etc, but the more I look, the more I'm seeing palm oil listed in the ingredients. I try to avoid soya, I was annoyed that vegetable oil was now mostly rapeseed oil, and now palm oil seems to be absolutely everywhere. Isn't this what we campaigned against while trying to help save the rain forests and save the orang utans and other ecotic species' natural habitats? We've been discussing palm for a while, more do since some of the big brand name oatcakes contain it. 'Traditional Scottish...' they are no longer! Anyhow, as an extreme frugal lifer, I'm mostly at the mercy of the price tag so how surprised was I to discover basic butter is now cheaper than many brands of the oily spreads! Real butter is now back on the menu in the Frugaldom household and that feels rather decadent. 😆 Sadly, I'm still finding it impossible to avoid palm derivatives.

MadamMim2013

@Frugaldom rant away.. Its definitely proving exceedingly hard to avoid palm oil, it really does seem to be in bloomin everything! 🤬

MrsCD

Yes, it's even in the posher chocolates! 😡 not that I would pay for them! 😂