2026 Frugal Living Challenge

lurkeralongtime

further experiments with yogourt (75% milk reduction this time) have led to the discovery that a dollop of yogourt and a dollop of pesto stirred into hot pasta,veg cooked with the pasta, makes a wonderful creamy sauce. Same thing when cold, for pasta salad.

I keep an old cake cooling rack under my wood burner. It goes on top to dry kindling and logs when necessary.Also citrus peel to use as fire starter. When the fire is low clothes can be aired on it too. Orange juice/milk cartons etc have the top cut off and are filled with coal slack to burn.

PipneyJane

Did anyone else get the email today regarding the Nationwide member bonus? I qualified for it so will get £100 in July. That’ll be £300 earned from them since I opened my current account with them last year. (I got £200 for transferring a current account to them. Not my main account - this one was labelled “sacrifice”, had 2 direct debits set up in it, and transferrred less than a month ofter it was opened.)

• Pip

RateTartExtraordinaire

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82007743#Comment_82007743

Yes! The NW is one of the backs that continues to keep a branch, too. I think I will keep it going for next year. They have a decent reg saver and a fixed-rate saving option, too.

Sallyp2

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82007743#Comment_82007743

yes got it - we get 2 x£100.Mortgage & saving a/c

Prudent

Yes I got it too. I think this is my fourth payment.

Also on a happy note I had a letter from HMRC saying they owe me a tax refund. In November they told me I owed over £500 in relation to interest on savings in the 2024/25 tax year. They took this off me by changing my tax code from January for three months so that I repaid it through tax. My income is marginal and requires careful budgeting so this was a difficult hit, especially with the way costs are rising. It made no sense to me as I would only be due this amount of tax if the interest on my taxable savings had been around £2,500 over my £1,000 allowance. I asked them for breakdown and none was forthcoming. I have been scrambling around to try and locate closed accounts to check the interest. However, this week I got a letter from HMRC saying they had made an error and they had changed my tax code again to rebalance the error. I did not owe any of that amount. This means I will pay less tax this year. I have subsequently found this is a widespread issue (there is an article in the Telegraph about it). If your tax code looks wrong due to taxable savings interest then please check the breakdown is correct.