A question about : FRUGAL LIVING CHALLENGE 2010, part 2, April
This is the follow up thread to the 'Living on Ј4,000 for a Year' challenge. It has been renamed and adapted to allow a more diverse range of budgets, depending on individual circumstances. The following links will take you to all the previous challenge threads.
Introduction to 2010 Frugal Living Challenge
Part 1 - January to March 2010
Part 2 - April to June 2010
Part 3 - July to September 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
The 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 & 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
Spend within your means
Set a proper budget
Houseshare
Get a lodger
Shop via cashback sites but 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
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...
Sample Budget
Groceries Ј900.00
Toiletries Ј35.00
Heat & power Ј900.00
Internet Ј216.00
Mobiles Ј20.00
Telephone Ј140.00
Clothing & footwear Ј40.00
Travel Ј240.00
Household Insurance Ј42.50
Council Tax Ј935.00
TOTAL Ј3,468.50
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.
Quote:
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 - 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
Cheryl's FREE spreadsheet - how to download & use it free
Complete (MSE) cooking collection - Loads and loads and loads of recipes
Cookingbynumbers - using up food you have in stock, free to use
Crafting for Christmas - homemade presents
Eggs, eggs, eggs - My '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 2010 OS MSE calendar - download and print
Free crafts ideas - how to make papier mache banks etc
Freecycle - don't bin it, rehome it.
Freegle - Originally Freecycle in UK
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
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
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
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
The bits we need to include to make this work 
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THERE IS NO CHALLENGER LIST, JUST JOIN IN AND ENJOY
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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 2010. The links will give you an idea of how previous challenges have gone.
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- FRUGAL LIVING CHALLENGE 2010
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- Thanks frugaldom - sorry to hear about your powercut, I hope that your chicks are okay.
Lilo - Thanks for the new thread Frugaldom, and sorry to read about the power cut
BLAIRWEECH had Greenflag out n the bloke said my battery was knackered - Thanks for the new thread. Doesn't sound like you're having much fun - powercuts?!?
Just looking thorugh the many "members". Wonder what's happened to aeb she hasn't posted for over a month. I liked to hear from her but I suppose with her brood - maybe it's a taste of things to come for me? I doubt these babies will leave me much time for the internet.
Just re-read the first post and feeling a little better about qualifying for frugalness. I can tick quite a few of those boxes. I need to stop fixating on the size of my budget, as long as we're living sensibly, within our means and I'm in control of my spending and not the other way around! - I've been noticing that I am not alone in loosing messages when I post on this forum is this something peculiar to me/us or the site? I'm just curious.
I'm still trying to be very frugal and have managed to fill my ISA this year because of it and to be honest I'm thoroughly enjoying the challenge but then its nothing new for me as have had to live this way for years. Hurry up spring then I can get on with the garden. I did manage a few days when the weather was good but at the moment its too cold to go outside especially now with the east wind.
I'm going into hospital on the 16th so have been pushing myself to make a difference in the garden beforehand but that idea has gone out of the window for a while.
I keep on saying I must post more and TBH I dont know how some of you manage to do so, it takes all my time to keep up to read it.
Good luck everyone for the 2nd quarter of the challege, my month does not end until the 9th when my new credit card month starts but am managing well so far. - Just catching up with the old thread at the moment. Will post my spend tomorrow it being late. That looks like more frugal links than the last thread or did I not get to post number two on the last one. so much to learn. I'll need to factor in a train ticket for April it being mum's 70th.
- Morning all and welcome to the new thread. Was thrilled to bit to see my name on the list (in fact spammed all my care workers tellling them and my head in the sand chum).
Will be nice not be on 212 or something on the thread again and go back to single figures on pages for a few days....
Hope everyone is well. I got a little on my recovery plan done last night and like umm something else I forget.
grocery monies got spent on ice cream stuff so will have to buy mega bad tobacco if I want to eat for the rest of week (just think I need veggies though).
Anyhow must go and do some crochet before shower...and I slept and am awake at a reasonable hour (just pray I stay awake). Did anyone else hear the wee sound bite on keeping chickens in the garden on Farming Today this am? I guess it'd be available to download on the Radio 4 website....
E - Morning all, thanks for the new thread frugaldom. Sorry to hear about the power etc, I hope things get back to normal quickly for you x
Well I'm now officially 'back on the wagon' with you all but I have to start with lots of DDs coming out of the bank (typical!)
However, end of year has seen some interesting things happen to some of the finances. My rent has gone down . Not entirely sure why but it's gone down by Ј1.08 per month. Not a lot over the year but I'd allowed for an increase of approx Ј13 per month (which is what it went up by last time, plus a little more to allow for inflation). So in reality I'm Ј14 per month better off on paper. That will be going straight into the decorating fund .
House insurance is down from Ј21 per month to Ј11 per month. Did a bit of jiggling with figures and sums insured/excesses and managed to shave a tenner a month off for a similar amount of cover . No cashback despite the want of trying but the saving more than made up for it. Again extra will be going in decorating fund.
Council Tax has increased by Ј3 per month and I allowed Ј1600 for the year so another Ј40 found - I think that might have to go into the grocery budget though as I know we're going to be over with this. That's one of my aims for the next few months - to get the grocery budget on target each month and eat healthily and keep up the weight loss at the same time - no mean feat !
Pet insurance is exactly the same, I had allowed for a small increase but it's nominal.
So, finances are looking ok. I have a feeling my cooker is going to need replacing soon so I'll have to 'save up' for that whilst popping money away for decorating.
The bathroom is now finished (total cost was Ј67 for new floor, furniture, blind, paint) so not too bad.
Kitchen is getting a freshen up (just painting) - walls tend to get a bit grubby with the dog so while we're saving to do my 'office' (need to change guest room into this for Guides) we thought we'd quickly do the walls in kitchen. Total cost = Ј30 (DH managed to get a big pot of magnolia from his recent office decoration at work for free ) . The Ј30 was spent on plaster (took some tiles off and half the wall came away with them , now I know why the walls are artexed ), a new bit of skirting which had holes in it where they replaced the central heating, and a skimming tool for DH.
Right, packed lunches calling to be done. Sorry for the 'epic' . Have a good day everyone - Hi guys, I've just updated the challenger list but suspect many, many of those names have vanished. Leaving it as is, just in case, but I won't have much time for updates, changes and posting on here.
Hope nobody falls foul (or fowl? ) of any jokes today.
We now have blue sky, sunshine and a temp of about 1 degree. Bread's baking and washing's going out even if it freezes! I have now transfered the last scrapings from the money barrel and have managed to fill my 2009/10 ISA! and I believe that all is not lost for the eggs in the incubator, despite 16 hours without heat. I'll know for sure on Tuesday and if there's any hint of a pip or a squeak, chickcam will resume. - Fingers crossed very firmly for the eggs.......
I can't imagine coping without my electricity for 16 hours DS2 goes nuts/stir crazy after about 20 mins, at which point he heads back to bed due to not being able to play his RPGs - Glad to hear your back with us frugaldom, sun is out here too but I haven't got time to be out in the garden which has made me cross.
Well done on filling the ISA
Fingers crossed for the little chickies ! - Erme - Farming Today is available as a podcast - I subscribe to the RSS Feed, so I get it every morning. It's great
Frugaldom - Well done on filling your ISA, I managed Ј1500 in mine. Would have done more, but Alliance and Leicester have been particularly slow in setting up the account, and I still have not got the details I need for Internet Banking - Thanks Frugaldom for the new thread its great when you get a good look at post 1.
Its a massive list and helps everyone who pops on here and it is all down to you and this group. What an achievement.
I am quite pleased with how things have gone this first quarter definitely saving in most areas never be anything like some of you but it is working for us. Have saved almost Ј1,000 this quarter towards our big holiday and have now made the first booking so will go in Oct 2011 when OH retires.
Thanks for everyone's input it all helps.
Glenda - Thanks frugaldom for new thread
sorry to hear about your powercut
I hope that your chicks are okay.
Looking forward to next quarter hope i manage to do just as well come in bang on target each month so far, managed to save alot more than ever had before so nice to watch that growing each month instead of dipping into! wouldnnt have done that without this thread so thanks everyone - Frugaldom thanks for the new thread - dunno where you found the time from - are the eggs from the incubators ok? Fingers crossed.
Sorry about the battery candygirl - big expense you don't need !
CW
Hi micron - nice to meet you
rozeepozee - re milk - try soya milk or goats milk instead of cows milk might be better for you? I find I'm ok on hard cheeses but can't tolerate soft cheese/cottage cheese.
enjoyfinancialchallenges - hope all goes well for your hospital stay.
Still waiting for rent increase - think (hope) that's going to be last one this year. Things haven't been too bad lately due to lots of enforced NSD's, am using up whats in cupboard/freezer before buying anything else. Will have to get some crockery, after my stuntwoman escapade last week - will try & match it to set I've got, but being an old one, not sure if still available. Will check on internet first. - A shiny new thread! Thank you frugaldom! Hope the eggs are ok!
Scraped through March (I forgot it was a 5 week month!) spending Ј287.18 and overspent on food by Ј15.83 Still well within the Ј350 a month budget though!
That was mainly us being tempted by the local farmers market and giggly pig sausages! They are lovely though! Still have plenty in the freezers and larder. Another order from approved foods so I could get the huge tin of celeriac for 1p so lots of sosmix, vege burger mix, tofu, pataks curry sauce, basmati rice, tissues and face wipes!
I've made all my Easter cards this year for the first time, so saved there. The free seeds from the BBC have turned up as well!
Right off to warm up with a cuppa after walking my friends dog as well as our own in the pouring rain! - Frugaldom - Thanks for the new thread. I'm still around. I've been reading but not posting.
I haven't updated my spreadsheet but i'm fairly sure i'm under a quarter of the way to my target. The dentist appointment that got cancelled is due in april so that will be rather expensive. I might be able to get it cheaper but i prefer to go the the dentist i know and am willing to pay a little more for that. - OK, I've now caught up, I think Found 2 names I didn't have a note of, so Winchelsea and Micron about to be added but PLEASE either send me a private message or else mark it in BIG BOLD COLOURED LETTERS for me to see when skim reading, thanks, otherwise I'll miss it.
End of quarter 1 has seen me spend Ј994.60 in total for the household. Ј267.33 of this went on groceries (including toiletries and cleaning products) and Ј75.21 on hen feeding. The bulk of it, a whopping great Ј480 has been swallowed up in electricity alone! Judging by the weather, it doesn't look like this will be reducing anytime soon unless I get a log burner installed. To date, I'm having no luck whatsoever finding someone who will fit one for me! What's happened to all the handymen? (We have different legislation from England, I am fully aware of this.)
Frugal washing now hanging out, made a cheap loaf this morning and I have chicken drumsticks to be made into something for dinner tonight after not getting them cooked yesterday. (No electricity)
My 'EEK' fund is almost balancing out with a spend of Ј541.69 and extra, residual income of Ј483.06 and a deficit of only Ј58.63 that will be made up as soon as my cashback becomes payable. C0-0p insurance takes a heck of a long time to pay out, that's for sure! 5 months is ridiculous, in my book! I should also note that I'm paying my life assurance, savings bond and National Trust membership from my 'EEK' fund, so any small deficit is temporary, as some of what has been spent is due payable until the CC bill arrives at end of the month, when it will be paid in full.
Feel free to take part, lurk, post or just practice small steps at pursuing a frugal lifestyle. The current list is in alphabetical order, we have no challenger numbers.
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