A question about : FRUGAL LIVING CHALLENGE 2010, part 1. (Living on Ј4,000 a year)
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 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:
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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! |
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.
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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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- Here's to a great new year of frugal living
- HAPPY NEW YEAR to all
Thanks Nyk for sorting this out. - Happy New Year All.
I've just subscribed to this thread so I know where to find it lol
I've decided that my challenge will be to keep on top of spending for food, diesel, and gas/electric again.
I won't be including anything else because they are things that I have no control over eg water, c tax, mortgage, debt payments etc.
So my budget this year is Ј3000.
To help myself I've made a fortnightly meal plan so I know exactly what I have to buy and then make.
I have started to make a real effort to drive as carefully as possible to make the most of my diesel, and my car is empty in the boot to cut down on any extra weight.
Lastly my central heating packed up before christmas so I have just been using the gas fire in the living room, and an electric blanket on my bed, a heater in DS1 ( but there's no rad in there anyway) and DS2 likes his hottie bottie and the amount of gas I would normally use has dropped loads. Tbh I have no inclination to get CH fixed, instead I want to save up for a new, more efficient, boiler cos I think this one's about 30 years old lol. - Good Morining, and Happy New Year. Thank you NYKMEDIA for the challenge and the thread!
I think I'm going to keep a desk diary this year so I can try to see everything in the one place. I've come to the conclusion that I need something in front of my nose to remind me I'm meant to be frugal!!! (Got a nice pink one out of the pound shop the other week) I'm also going to use excel spreadsheets for menu planning and keeping track of spending, so hopefully I will have the organisation stuff covered!!! Now on to the spending.....
We have 6 people in the house at the moment as our eldest daughter is back from uni on placement until May. So we're four adults, two children and a hungry labrador for the time being.
I'm still sorting out the budget though. Will post back soon. - Morning all!
Hope everyone had a nice New Year. We had two of our friends round to visit and I made dinner for them instead of phoning for a takeaway - start as you mean to go on! Doing the washing up and tidying today should keep me warm enough not to put the heating on for a while either - Please count me in mommyof4 not sure of budget as yet need to do a bit more tweaking. Also got big car expense soon (old Toyota 8 seater needing new gear box yikes!)
- HAPPY NEW YEAR ALL
Starting out on a firm foot here I am - just writing into my household Year Diary what expenses there will be this year. Got the estimated bills spend in there anyway and am now adding discretionary spending I intend to do and savings. Wishing I had done this last year - so I could see how much progress I made. Just know that this time last year I had debt (4 figure I think) and now I have a 4 figure amount of savings.
Being somewhat of a pessimist/realist - I've even written down what money I would be due if the job vanishes and how much the DWP would deduct from benefit because I'd then have savings over Ј6,000:rolleyes:
All that just in case - as well as my worked-out figures of what I need to live on on the one hand as a bare minimum - and the (somewhat lower) figure I would actually get if it came to it - so as to see what the shortfall between incomings/outgoings would be.
Well - i thought I'd better be thorough and take all possible eventualities into account I'm not even going to try and be half as meticulous as cw18 - my mind goes blank at the thought of it....yikes...but I feel more in control being able to see clearly whats what. - I do like your thoreau quote, Ceridwen.
RP x - Happy New Year to one and all!!!!!
Baby has let me have my first lovely lie in for a long time so I'm starting this one bright eyed and bushy tailed.
Todays plans;
OH and friends having a kick about in the park, need to make some drinks so he doesnt buy them!!!
Cook a lovely mac cheese and use up all our odds and ends of ham etc
Check Freegle for some goodies
Take down the decs while OH and my brother are around, and get them to do the celling decs for me, at 7months I'm not standing on a chair lol
Finish at least half of OH's sock I'm knitting, I finished one last night and would like the pair done by tomo night. Promise to post a piccy.
Good Luck all
x x x x - Happy New Year to you all. In an effort to start as i mean to go on, today i shall be listing all food in freezers and cupboards in preperation for meal planning and non food shopping. I will also be making 1 or 2 loaves banana bread depending how far the brown bananas will stretch! I will stick within my budget and have money left over to clear debts. Good luck to you all on this challenge and new way of life.
- Thanks Nyk for starting the thread, I just hope I am up to the challenge, but with the help of all the people on here I will at least be going in the right direction.
Off out for the day but will try to resist the sales if I can - Please count me in : )
BUDGETEER - Happy New Year Everyone!
We have just finished doing a stocktake for DH's business so buoyed up with success I will do a food in house stocktake after dinner.
Hope the hangovers are all under control. - Good morning frunchkins
Today will be spent baking to use up the last of my bargain bananas, making a loaf, using up yesterday's hot pot leftovers for dinner tonight, trying to sort and store some of my approved food order, working on my 2010 budget,menu planning the next week or so, and clearing at least one of the raised beds ready for adding fertiliser/compost.
Coffee with the neighbour will be in there somewhere too got to find time for the little stuff - Morning! Happy new year and here's to 2010!
- Happy New Year fellow frugalites
- My budget is Ј6,766.20. 4 of us - youngest is 16 and still a dependent. other 2 are non-dependent sons - 1 not working (hope that changes soon) and one a student living on Ј30 a week adult learner grant. Hoping I will finish on less than that though. Biggest expenses for me are groceries and leccie/gas - will try hard to lower them.
Aim to pay off credit card by the summer. Then maybe put by for an emergency fund, and then start regular saving.
We have plenty of clothes and "stuff". It would be nice if we can get away without buying any more clothes and stuff this year (but son NEEDS a new coat, and will probably need a few tshirts and bottoms in the summer, and we'll both probably want new underwear, so have set a Ј100 (generous I think) budget for clothing)
Will start a spending diary, and watch my energy consumption closely, to see that I stay on track week to week, month to month, and will try to get a little more money in from selling online and clicks etc. Fingers crossed too that I will get a job asap
I'll report in each month as to how well I'm managing to stick to the budget.
budget: Ј
gas/leccie .. 1212
water ........ 500 (exact cost to be confirmed)
groceries .... 2600
tv licence ....142.50
satellite ...... 222 (may cancel this)
broadband .. 293.40 (will try to get a cheaper deal when contract ends this year)
phone ........ 210
son lunch ... 202.50
clothes ...... 100
fares .......... 358.80 (unlikely to be this much but only reflects 1 or 2 bus journeys each week - job interviews etc)
xmas/bdays .. 400.00
CC ............. 525
total: Ј6766.20
will adjust the figures if/when things like water, tv licence change price.
This list will no longer be updated but please feel free to take part, lurk, post or just practice small steps at pursuing a frugal lifestyle. The current list is in alphabetical order, numbers will remain unchanged from now until this year's challenge ends.
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