A question about : 2015 Frugal Living Challenge
The Frugal Living Challenge 2015
It's that time of year again, the time when we all need to start thinking ahead into the new year and how we are going to tackle any debts, generate extra income and squirrel away some savings.
Please take the time to read this post in full and check out the HANDY LINKS section. If you have any questions, feel free to message me.
This is an adaptation of the 'Living on Ј4,000 for a Year' challenge. It has been running here on MSE for several years, although these particular money challenges began back in the 90's, elsewhere. We have seen many changes over the years, so this version is a catalogue of diaries charting the progress of 'debt free wannabe' money savers.
Your budget is personal to you, it should fit with your personal financial situation.
Some have already achieved their debt free status and now follow frugal lifestyles in order to stay debt free. Others are still tackling their debts and living a frugal life in an attempt to teach their debt-free and/or mortgage-free day. Whichever stage you are at, feel free to join us for 2014 and share your journey.
The following links will take you to previous MSE versions of this challenge:
The 2014 Challenge is at https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/....php?t=4843265 (/for some reason I am unable to link to the text)
The 2013 Challenge
The 2012 Challenge
Part 1 - January to March 2011
Part 2 - April to June 2011
Part 3 - July to December 2011
Introduction to the 2010 Challenge
Part 1 - January to March 2010
Part 2 - April to June 2010
Part 3 - July to September 2010
Part 4 - October to December 2010
Part 1 - January to March 2009
Part 2 - April to June 2009
Part 3 - July to September 2009
Part 4 - October to December 2009
Part 1 - January to March 2008
Part 2 - April to June 2008
Part 3 - July to September 2008
Part 4 - October to December 2008
IMPORTANT
Please respect others' lifestyles and beliefs. We are not here to judge, we are here to support. Thank you
This challenge is about living a frugal lifestyle - establishing your true cost of living, sticking to your budget, clearing any debts and making savings wherever and however you can to enable you to live the life you really want.
Frugal living isn't for everyone, but everyone is welcome to join us. Methods employed by our merry band of frugalers include batch cooking, stockpiling, preserving, foraging, mending, shopping in charity shops, reducing, reusing, recycling, Local Exchange Trading Schemes (LETS), Vegetable and fruit growing, allotments, keeping hens, using cashback sites and earning whatever it takes to become self sufficient in managing the cost of living without incurring debt.
For some it is initially about clearing debt, for others it's about increasing savings, buying property, becoming stay at home mums or paying off the mortgage early. Some choose the lifestyle on ethical grounds. Above all, this is a fun and supportive way to manage your budget so you have control of your own cost of living. It's about NEEDS and not WANTS.
Living on a budget = living within our means.
Frugal = thrifty, living without waste
Ideas to help you achieve and/or maintain debt free living
Recognise the differences between needs from wants
Spend within your means
Set a proper budget
Quit expensive habits
Houseshare
Get a lodger
Shop via cashback sites and always price compare
Buy reduced items in stores only if you need them
Stockpile & bulk buy
Batch cooking
Make the most of charity shops
Join Freecycle or other similar waste awareness and recycling associations
LETS trading - become active members of trading & exchange groups
Bartering
Grow your own herbs, fruit & veg
Preserving & winemaking
Beadmaking & home baking
Card & gift making
Order splitting for better discounts & shared postal costs
Landsharing, allotments & frugal garden systems
Free scratchcards
Matched betting
Free online bingo
eBid and eBay trading
etc, etc, etc...
Monitoring and revising the budget is part of frugal living plan. Gifts & cards could all to be homemade, livestock needs to pay its own keep, anything else needs to be cash neutral.
The bits we need to include to make this work 
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Please read the MSE forum rules and help us to keep this challenge on track, thank you.
If you have any questions about this challenge, feel free to PM me.
The following is taken from the official MSE forum rules section:
KEEPING THREADS ON-TOPIC
Please try not to take threads off-topic. This can be confusing for new users and makes it especially difficult for people ... Where requests from Board Guides for threads to be brought back on track have not been followed off-topic posts may be removed. We encourage community, but not thread derailment.
Please bear in mind the main purpose of the site is to save money. The forum team has therefore been instructed to prioritise its time on the MoneySaving forums.
KEEPING TOPICS RELEVANT TO THE BOARD
There are two boards provided for off-topic chat and discussion. The MoneySavers Arms has been set up for fun, more lighter-hearted chat (although do still remember this is a family forum - keep it clean please). Discussion Time is for discussion of current issues (read Martin's description).
If you post a topic that does not relate to the board it's posted on it will be moved to a more relevant MoneySaving board or to Discussion Time/The MoneySavers Arms.
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This challenge is about paying for needs so we can afford to live debt free and save for wants. It runs from 1st January to 31st December 2015 The links will give you an idea of how previous challenges have gone and these will be updated accordingly.
If you haven't already, join the forum to reply!
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Best answers:
- HANDY LINKS
I am neither endorsing nor recommending any of the links provided here, members of our extended frugal community have simply found them to contain helpful information.
Approved Food - Some amazing bargains if you don't mind short dates or past sell by - save a fortune whilst saving it from landfill!
Bite Card - 20% off food at train stations (ideal for regular travellers)
Budgetbrain - MSE's free to use budget analysis tool - BRILLIANT!
Carrot recipes - loads of ways to use up those carrots
CASHBACK - The official MSE list of sites offering the best cashback deals
Complete (MSE) cooking collection - Loads and loads and loads of recipes
Coupon thread on MSE - For coupons, money off and discounts
Crafting for Christmas - homemade presents
Eggs, eggs, eggs - Frugaldom's '100 things to do with eggs' list
Electricity & Gas savings - monitor your electricity & gas with the MoneySaving Carbon Club
Flannel Cake making - unusual gifts
Food Bargains - Discounted food, short dated and past 'BBE' dates
Foraging & Preserving - free foods, when, where, what to do with them
Free crafts ideas - how to make papier mache banks etc
Freecycle - don't bin it, rehome it
Freegle - Originally Freecycle in UK
FREE Spreadsheet - link to Cheryl's (CW18) budget spreadsheet
Frugaldom - Home of this challenge
Gift Baskets & Hampers - an index to the MSE relevant threads
Gifts in a jar - you don't need a canner for these
Greenfingered money saving - Gardening & growing your own food
Grocery bargains - Supermarket price reduction times
Homemade Rhubarb Champagne - quick, cheap and easy
How to make a sealed pot - saving all your spare change in papier mache banks
Hunger Site - Charity site where every click counts
i-Measure - log your meter readings and try to reduce your carbon footprint
Laundry Gloop and loads of other frugal cleaning related 'recipes'
Leftovers - don't bin them, get creative, make another meal.
LETS - Local Exchange Trading Schemes and alternative currencies within communities
Martin's mad moneysaver ads - a surprising new addition to the site - advertising offers!
Martin's current offers & discount codes - updated daily
Menu Planning - hundreds of options and suggestions
My FREE spreadsheet - where to download from
Nutrition and diet info, an excellent thread - thanks to Weezl74
Old Style indexed collection - Indexed collection of links, hints and tips for anything old style, moneysaving and frugal.
Preparing for winter the frugal way
Recipes part 1 - thanks to Rosieben on the Grocery Challenge
Recipes part 2 - thanks, again, to Rosieben
Remoska discussion - everything you need to know about Remoska ovens
Rural Moneysaving Hunt - official MSE discussion
Selling on eBid - decluttering and recycling for cash with no listing fees
Slow Cooker Recipes - on MSE
Snowman Soup - always a favourite with frugallers during the festive season
Soapnuts - The frugal, eco-friendly alternative to soap powder or detergents (free samples)
Soapnuts thread on MSE - discuss, ask questions here
Spending Diary - excellent free resource for recording your spends
Start a cottage industry - the official MSE discussion
Veg Planner - free printable vegetable planting guide/calendar from the RHS
Weezl74's 50p per person per day eating healthily thread
Weezl74's frugal recipe testing thread - Phase 1
Will Power & Billy Can - part 1, part 2, part 3 - Budgets for 2015
Categories that can't be avoided :-
Council Tax : Ј1212 (Ј909 me, Ј303 DS1)
Gas & Electric : Ј900 (Ј540 me, Ј360 DS1)
Water : Ј288 (Ј168 me, Ј120 DS1)
House Insurance : Ј270
Groceries : Ј2980 (Ј1720 me, Ј1260 DS1)
Toiletries : Ј180 (Ј168 me, Ј12 DS1)
Cleaning Products : Ј120 (Ј75 me, Ј45 DS1)
Categories that could be ditched if things got desperate, but which I class as essentials :-
Central Heating Cover : Ј240
Landline & Broadband : Ј264
Mobile Phone : Ј150
Window Cleaner : Ј78
Optical Related : Ј300
Dental Related : Ј72
Prescriptions & Flu Jab : Ј48
Over Counter Medications : Ј24
Vitamins : Ј144
Presents : Ј480
Pure luxuries I prefer to try and keep :-
Gym : Ј480
Lottery : Ј372
Diet & Fitness Website Subscription : Ј96
Car Related :-
Car Insurance : Ј480 (Ј360 me, Ј120 DS1)
Petrol : Ј864 (Ј384 me, Ј480 DS1)
Breakdown : Ј78
Road Tax : Ј132
MOT : Ј48
Annual Service : Ј132
Repairs : Ј600
(total costs Ј510 me, Ј480 DS1)
Total figures : Ј11032 (Ј7852 me, Ј3180 DS1)
Zero Budget Categories :-
Books
Magazines
CDs
DVDs
Clothes
Footwear
Fitness
For Children
Garden
Holiday Accommodation
Household Bits
Household Repairs
Public Transport
Days Out
Everything Else
How I fund the Zero Budget Categories from categories with budgets - Full value of any presents (and cards and wrapping paper) I've purchased prior to 01/01/2015
- Full value of any Toiletries and Cleaning products I use from stock that won't be replaced (things I'd not use/miss if I didn't have them)
- All savings from using loyalty cards (don't generally benefit against these categories - but there's a possibility for presents and/or vitamins)
- Half the value of any groceries I use up from stock
- Half the value of any toiletries or cleaning products I use from stock which I'll eventually need to replace
- Half the value of any money off coupons I use (store or manufacturer) - including money off petrol
- Half the savings from any offers (such as a jar of gravy granules on offer for Ј1.50 instead of Ј2)
- Half the savings from multi-buys
- Half the savings from buying Whoopsie (reduced to clear) items
- Half the savings made by using a cashback site
- All "loose change". I'm rounding ALL direct debits up to the next 10p, with the 'change' moving over (easy to make spreadsheet do this). The same for each spend in every shop for each of the other categories (requires a bit of manual work)
- DS1 pays me Ј10/month to do his laundry (over and above costs of water/powder etc) to save him time. This is ALL available.
- Survey sites earnings. ALL available.
- Free Postcode Lottery. Anything I win on here is ALL available.
- Roadkill. Didn't find much in 2014, but ALL such money I pick up is available.
- ALL of any monetary gifts I received.
- Part of the money raised by selling items from around the house
- First Ј10 : 50% of the money
- Next Ј40 (Ј10.01 - Ј50.00) : 25% of the money
- Next Ј50 (Ј50.01 - Ј100.00) : 10% of the money
- Anything above that (Ј100.01 and over) : 5% of the money
- Wow exciting to see the 2015 thread up. I'm really looking forward to my first proper year of joining in.
- Thank you for a lovely shiny new thread Frugaldom. I will be joining the challenge again this year.
- I'm going to be joining in again this year. Had a pretty frugal start to the year but in the last few months have received some funding back for childcare expenses and have been treating us to more takeaways and other bits I shouldn't really, so going to try really hard next year to put the money away as it would be good to get away in 2016 for a week, so if I save hard I should be able to do that!
- I'm ready to have a more frugal outlook for 2015.
I've broken many of my bad spending habits through different MSE challenges over the past couple of years. Toiletries and clothes are now only bought if needed (not wanted) and birthday/Christmas presents are mostly bought with vouchers earned through surveys or loyalty points.
I really want to reduce my weekly shopping bill in 2015. At the moment I allow Ј80 a week for 2 adults and 3 cats to cover food, toiletries, medicines (usually flea treatments!) and entertainment but I want to get this down to Ј50 eventually.
Once our holiday is paid for, I want to create a comfortable emergency fund and then save up to redecorate all of upstairs. - Am joining in for 2015, am hoping that I can finally get on top of my spending habits.
- I would like to join for 2015 too. I want to add to my savings and generally just live a frugal, less consumer based life-style.
So I am away to work out my annual budget for 2015... this could take some time. - Yeahhy new thread thankyou frugaldom
Im in please and raring to go ... my budget is Ј8000 (this is for a family of 4)
Not including rent or council tax but does include everything else .. also Christmas is to be covered by "extra money" ie selling on ebay etc
Thanks again .. looking forward to a more possitive and structured financial year and future hopefully - Please count me in this year, I will base my budget on this year's totals minus some, I'm due to retire at the beginning of March and would like to be able to live on my oap, (I haven't any private pension) but I won't be giving work up then as I want to up my emergency fund and get a few more jobs done in the house with my wages.
Nannyg - I am definitely in for 2015.
As I said a couple of weeks ago I am planning to work out my budget during my holiday over the next couple of weeks.
Looking forward to the challenge and good luck everyone
Lx - Hi
I would like to join this year and stick with it. I am now debt free but I still fritter money which I want to stop and to set up an emergency fund. I'm not sure of my budget for the year but I will back with it in a bit - Frugaldom, thanks for setting up this year's challenge.
I am joining in this year as well. Good luck to everyone. - Thanks for the new thread, I know it's a bit late for this year but I just CANNOT find a link to make the flannel slices of cake so wonder if anyone has an up to date link or can send some instructions. Have found reindeers and Easter bunnies.
Have a great Christmas one and all. - May I join the challenge please?
- All welcome
- Hi All
Had a good result at work today. Ј3.60 in tips which I used to buy food so a NSD. Plus got 2 huge loaves to bring home as they are not fresh enough to sell. But fine for us. We had some with dinner & it's hardly stale.
So a good day all round.
Bob - morning all,
haven't set any budgets, but as usual, trying to live as frugally as possible.
At the moment apart from feeling guilty for a VERY frugal Christmas this year.. I am thinking of extra things we can do to bring money in... We own our own business, and its getting harder and harder, pus its physically getting harder for us ( well hubby) as we get older.. so we really should be trying to sort things out, and look to the future more, re- income.
we got one or do two crap apple trees on our land, so going to get some mistletoe and see if we can get the mistletoe berries to take on it, so a possible income of a few pennies in future years, in the run up to Christmas..
Going to work out a financial 'senario' if we strip everything right back, no loans or credit cards etc... and see how much we would need to cover the basics then.. so when the day comes we give up/close our business I know exactly how much income we need..
So for now.. its get Christmas over with, and start planning for the day we close our business..
I have finally convinced hubby to sell some of his taxidermy, his old classic rock Lp's ( when we were at a local general auction boxes of classic rock lp's and old singles were fetching over Ј100+ a box.. so even if we get Ј20 - Ј30 for a box full I will be happy lol... - I would like to join for 2015 please.
I need to work out budgets, as I did it the other day and need about Ј10,000 more than I get to pay everything out and pay off a chunk of debt like I plan to! That's not going to happen so it's time to strip everything back to basics. My aim is to spend less than Ј12k in 2015 This has to include everything except rent and council tax and should leave me with the Ј5k I have challenged myself to pay off debts!
I will be gradually decluttering and getting rid of as much as I can hopefully earning a few pennies in the meantime. And I'll be starting childminding a few months into the year so that should bring some money in but I have to pay out for courses and equipment first so as long as I break even by the end of the year (though mid year would be better!) I will be happy.
Other money used to fund the Zero Budget Categories
And the complicated one……
The money available for splitting is the amount someone pays for the item, less any charges for selling it (such as eB@y and P@ypal fees) and postage charges. Once those are deducted the amount available is split as follows on a 'per item' basis.
So if an item makes Ј10 I can spend Ј10 * 50% = Ј5
If an items sells for Ј40 I can spend (Ј10 * 50%) + (Ј30 * 25%) = Ј5 + Ј7.50 = Ј12.50
If an items sells for Ј80 I can spend (Ј10 * 50%) + (Ј40 * 25%) + (Ј30 * 10%) = Ј5 + Ј10 + Ј3 = Ј18
And if an items sells for Ј250 I can spend (Ј10 * 50%) + (Ј40 * 25%) + (Ј50 * 10%) + (Ј150 * 5%) = Ј5 + Ј10 + Ј5 + Ј7.50 = Ј27.50
I'm hoping this will encourage me to declutter as it'll give me money to spend, but not to reclutter as I can't spend all the money I make.
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