2017 Frugal Living Challenge

determined_new_ms · 28 January 2017 at 10:47AM

Morning frugaliers

no posts for 2 days?! Annoyed as already we are over on our energy bill for the year! I changed suppliers and it ended up I paid 2 payments this month (one to each supplier) and my final bill is £17.94. So that takes me £84 over budget

but as I changed bb suppliers we should recoup this loss over the year. sometimes wonder if it's worth changing suppliers!

Have been doing really well on the GC budget. So far this year I have spent £126 I've done a meal plan for the next week and only need to get 9 items :money: so will come well under our £180 budget :j still have masses of food in the freezer but not a lot of quick munch!

someone mentioned on another thread about getting 50 Mr T points if you register with an app every time you buy things x 10 (I hope that makes sense!) so need to investigate.

I've been on the wombling challenge and have managed to get 350 Mr T points in Jan just by picking up receipts and then having the points added to my card! :j Have also wombled over £200 over the month :T

I have a night out in a couple of weeks that is fancy dress (70s disco) and I've borrowed my outfit from a friend :money:

I had been planning to save £600 to contribute to a home sauna - extravagant I know but we love saunas and it's something oh really wants so we will get one at some point - but when we've looked into it it won't be possible this year as it's too expensive and as our long terms we plan to make some adaptions to our house it makes a lot more sense to have a conservatory and an indoor sauna than an outside one. so that will be put on the back burner for a few years.

It's my oh's birthday on the 15th & our anniversary on the 16th so I really need to work out what I want to get him. It's also my godson's birthday on the 4th so need to work out what to get him as well!

Those are my frugal highlights!

Jazee · 28 January 2017 at 11:57AM

Morning frugaliers. Not really living frugally here yet. The gas and electric DD's have gone up so I've had to adjust for that, although I'll be changing tariff but not supplier soon so may be able to recoup some.

Add to that we're eating out tonight and having takeaway tomorrow as we're fed up eating microwave meals while our new kitchen is being fitted.

It will be interesting at the end of the month to see if there are any categories where we've actually come in under our budgets.

SkintTeacher · 28 January 2017 at 10:52PM

My first ever frugal month this month. Highlights:
£10 clothes spend (Inc 5 in charity shop)
Free trip to the rugby (friend won tickets and couldn't use them)
£850 put into savings
20 NSDs (I count any spending at all, but not dds from my bank account)
No money spent on toys (my weakness)
A happier, healthier me as also no money spent on chocolate
Looking forward to an even frugal-er February... Not sure quite where I can cut back even more but if I can, I will!

Frizzlef · 29 January 2017 at 9:51AM

Determined- how have you Wombled £200?
Jazee- you are allowed a takeaway when you are having the kitchen refitted!

Fairly good day yesterday. Friday was a NSD. Saturday did the weekly shop £49.-and some more painting and decorating stuff. Went to a kids party at a soft play area and didn't buy myself anything! Today need to buy petrol and hubby needs an electrical cable so nothing too major!!

Frizzlef · 29 January 2017 at 11:36PM

So this is the end of my second week and my spends look like this
Groceries- £55
Decorating stuff- £113
Hen do- £62

No petrol or diesel this week but hubby's car needs filling up tomorrow. House is fairly well stocked with food and a couple of bits slipped in the trolley that weren't on the meal plan but I know they will get used in the next few weeks!
Not really been anywhere so that helps the spending!! Lol!

determined_new_ms · 30 January 2017 at 7:44AM

Frizzlef wrote: »

Determined- how have you Wombled £200?

most of it is money saved through ys items. So in Jan I've spent £130 on groceries for a family of 3 - 1 shop for store cupboard items and for most other food I've gone to the sm's and picked up ys items. I had 2 days where mil looked after madam instead of our childminder when I did overtime so that was a saving of £35 pd. I counted this as it's unusual occurrence. I've counted the food value if I've done a ms assignment but not the fee earnt for doing it. Yesterday we saved £25 on doing a joint membership to a swimming pool and sauna instead of single memberships and the woman made a mistake and charged us £10 less than she should have.

I've just been adding up as I've gone along any money saved etc, for a lot of items I've done a very conservative estimate. So last week I picked up a fruit salad at M&S for 30p I estimated I saved 70p, yesterday I was in there and saw they are actually £3 per pot :eek:

surprising how quickly it adds up!

Frizzlef · 31 January 2017 at 1:48AM

Oh that's interesting. I would never have thought of that. Will see if I can be a little more aware of full priced items!

determined_new_ms · 31 January 2017 at 9:23AM

determined_new_ms wrote: »

super impressed with my wombling today :money:

I went into town to get my godson a birthday gift and got:

gs a ted baker t-shirt for £18 down to £10.80
1 pair of french frost pjs £30 down to £9
1 black pj top £14 down to £7
pack of 5 pairs socks £6 down to £1.80
a necklace for my bff's birthday (was £16.50 paid £3 :money:)
a pair of earings for my 70s night in a couple of weeks £10 down to £2

total before discounts £94.50, I paid £5.64 because I had £28 vouchers from my cashback cc :money:

Also got free McD latte £1.99 & 30 sachets of sweetner - hahahahaha trying to hold of buying any until next month!

Womabling total for the day £91.15 :T

fizzlef sharing my post from the wombling thread yesterday. The figure is a bit misleading I think because the reality is due to financial situation I wouldn't buy these things at full price. But all of the things were things I had on my list of things to get so I have made savings.

Frizzlef · 31 January 2017 at 11:49PM

nSD day today and just £20!petrol yesterday. tonight we had left over casserole out of the freezer. Pulled out two separate portions that had been in there a while!!!

cw18 · 1 February 2017 at 12:12AM

Need to finish updating my gorcery spends for the month, but all looks good.

I've been sent out to different offices that many days this month that my mileage payments have covered all my parking AND petrol costs - and I'm substantially in credit as well :T February will be starting well as I'm getting mileage for 4 days of this week.....

But I need to update my spreadsheet as I forgot to cater for mileage contributions from DS1 when he borrows the car - and he's borrowed it for 2 days last week, and will be using it again on my day off this week. So I'll be even further in credit once I work that into the figures

2017 Frugal Living Challenge

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