2026 Frugal Living Challenge

PipneyJane

@Prudent yes. My L!dl voucher was for free vegetables. That was last week.

Fingers crossed for another one.

• Pip

Cherryfudge

@Nelliegrace , thank you for the timely nudges about making cream cheese and cottage cheese! Once again I've more yogurt than I'm likely to eat, and not a lot of freezer space, so I'm going to give cream cheese a try.

Florenceem

Prudent - snap I got a nuts voucher.

MrsCD

Yes, I got a free 7.5kg bag of potatoes from the L!dl app this week. I had one a couple of weeks ago too, but as we'll struggle to use that many potatoes before they go soft, I took the older sack to our coffee morning to share out! I will make some cottage pies for the freezer but I don't have a lot of space right now… I will bake some in the air fryer and wrap in foil to go in the freezer, too. 😊 every little helps as they say.

fionaandphil

You are all making me laugh, my DH is also the same, will eat a fresh fruit salad but will only eat bananas if he has to. DS is a bit better but won't eat individual fruit at all, he ate everything when he was younger. They are such babies!

I got all excited about the mention of the Lidl plus freebies, but sadly nothing for me. I did a shop last week so would normally have got a free bakery item and be well on the way to the free veg but I am going to pop into Aldi today to see what they have instead.

Arrietty

Good morning,

thank you @Prudent, @PipneyJane and @sheilavw for your contributions to the days/hours debate 😊 It's really interesting and encouraging to hear how others manage their time and money.

In my previous job (private sector) I worked 34 hours a week; Monday to Thursday was 8:30 to 5:00 and Friday was 8:30 to 12:30.

HRH was stabled on full livery so I didn't have much to do with his day to day care - I was there for carrots and cuddles and bit of in-hand exercise now and then.

Then I was made redundant so HRH moved yards to become a full time living out in a field horse and I learned that although he's a happier horse, it's A LOT more work as @Frugaldom well knows 😁 I was unemployed for 6 months so once job applications were done in the mornings I had plenty of time to spend at the yard and I began to really enjoy it.

When I started this job (public sector) it was a real shock to have to work 5 full days a week before going to he yard 😕 and as I was 'on the bank' for a year, I didn't get holiday or sick pay. I was, however, enrolled into the pension scheme so have been making/receiving contributions from my employer for 4 years now which is great as I had no pension from previous employment.

Then I got a fixed term contract with holiday and sick pay which was easier on the finances but that was only for a year. When that was coming to an end and a permanent position became available in a different department but at a lower pay grade I took it for the job security!

That position turned out to not be right for me so when I was alerted to an upcoming permanent opportunity at a higher pay grade in my current department I was very happy to apply for and be awarded the position. The team are great and the manager is very accommodating to my desire / HRH's needs to be fed in daylight during winter 😉hence I start at 7:00am and usually finish at 3:00.

Although I'm not earning what I was in my previous job, I will be close to it when I get to the top of my pay grade and with another 9 years to go until I can claim either state or workplace pensions and a hungry HRH whose needs and expenses are likely to increase from now on and for the rest of his lifetime I'm now feeling rather uneasy about voluntarily reducing both my salary and therefore pension contributions (mine & employers) by dropping a day of work each week 😕 The salary I would be losing each year is equivalent to 2 year's worth of livery fees so a considerable amount anyway and over 9 years that really adds up alongside the reduced pension contributions.

fionaandphil

Hi @Arrietty now that you've mentioned being public sector, you may be interested in a FB page called

LGPS Information and Advice

there is a lot of information on there and links to places where you can find out more so it may answer some questions about reducing hours. I think it depends when your service started as some are on defined benefit tied to final salary and some on contributions. I am a mixture of the two having swapped roles and taken a maternity break for a few years.

After all the talk of fruit this morning, I was at the supermarket this afternoon and they were reducing a lot of soft fruits by 75% so I picked up cherries, strawberries, raspberries, pineapple and mango and will be making a fruit salad to please my 2 - thanks for the inspiration!

Prudent

@Arrietty it is well worth looking into what options your pension scheme provides. I worked in the public sector and had I stayed on longer I could have dropped to three days for the last three years and maintained the same employee and employer pension contributions. My salary would have been 60% of full time though. I did lose a big chunk of pension by leaving at 50, but I also had a small private pension that I continued to contribute to at £2880 per annum rate, giving me £3600 including a 'tax rebate', even though my income was too low to pay tax! Sadly the frozen personal allowance means I now pay tax. The thing that gave me the courage to go was healthy savings and being mortgage free. I have years of MSE, especially the comping forum, to thank for that. Sadly single parenthood and my health issues, plus long work hours, made an HRH out of the question. I think that would have had a huge impact on my decision…and my savings pot.

Sallyp2

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81997957#Comment_81997957

an orange is better than orange juice. OJ concentrates the sugar and has minimal dietary gain. Eating the orange flesh gives you vit c as well as fibre

Mollina_Girl

I've heard so much about the Lidl veg boxes so I thought I would see if I could get one. I was lucky enough to get the last one this morning and I'm so pleased with the selection and quality! I'll be trying again next week I think