perlmonger and I have decided that we’re going to try to live frugally for a while. We don’t spend much on going out but we do seem to get through a lot of cash, and I’m not entirely sure where it goes. So I have started recording what we spend on food, cutting out eating out, books, dvds, clothes, and so forth. I also have two demijohns of home made wine glooping away in he kitchen, but I hadn’t realised that fruit wines take about *six months* before you can drink the wretched things, so that’s not going to be an instant saving.
We started this on Tuesday, and already it’s a huge success. Not. We blew 40 quid on a pair of tickets to see the incomparable Richard Thompson in January (well, we had to, didn’t we?) and yesterday, despite our very best attempts, we spent 3.70 on two lamb burgers innabun from the very good butchers on Gloucester Road.
And i really want to go and get some plants for the hanging baskets. I don’t think I’m going to be very good at this …
Still, I’m going to sort out stuff to be eBayed and Freecycled, so we might be clutter-free, at least.
Well, it’s bound to take time – first you have to see where the money is leaking out, and only then can you change your lifestyles to fix it.
Good luck with the eBaying; sometimes I think I’m the only person buying there…
Nonono! I eBuy all the time. It’s my first port of call nowadays.
Food shopping is my problem. Going into the farm shop just for apple juice and coming out with Everything Else is a regular occurrence. Thank heaven paid for it all yesterday!
I try really hard not to do that now.
Not easy though is it? I get ambushed by squash and fruit, generally.
I try to keep out of the farm shop now. I still go there for chicken, although it’s getting easier to find organic chicken in supermarkets nowadays, but on the whole I probably only go there once every couple of months now.
We try to economise by buying good beef from Costco, where we also buy our coffee, but we have to be very careful not to be seduced by croissants and Danish pastries and other lovely things.
Lidl have quite a lot of reasonably nice stuff for very cheap prices, and things like their chocolate and biscuits must be the cheapest on the planet.
I don’t have a Costco near me, and I know that I would spend way too much in there if I did go. I love Lidl! There frozen beefburgers are the nicest i have ever come across.
I’ve never tried Lidl’s burgers as I usually make my own, but I shall get some to keep for emergencies in the freezer and see what the burger-eaters amongst us think.
I have two very fussy people in this house, and even they like them! If it’s good enough for them, as they say.
I don’t think Costco’s beef is all that good, but then I’m spoilt with beef,as I have been buying it direct from a farmer friend for years, 1/4 cow at a time.
Lidl is marvellous – I love it, but other than that I rarely set foot in supermarkets. I hate them. We buy from local shops where possible.
We usually buy Costco’s Aberdeen Angus if we can get it, otherwise their Scottish beef. The thing I like about it is that it’s a decent dark red which means it’s been properly hung and it’s always tender, which is more than I could say from the farmhouse beef I used to buy before it became too expensive, although I have to admit that the farmhouse beef has a marginally better taste.
I hate supermarkets too, but I find there’s a lot of stuff I can’t get from local shops. I suppose it depends where you live, but I live in the West End of Newcastle, where the local shops are great for pulses, spices and Asian vegetables, but where I have to go to a supermarket to find pasta, decent bacon, cleaning materials and quite a few other things. I also don’t like the idea of hala meat. That’s why I like Lidl; having that fairly near means I can put off my supermarket visits to once every three weeks or so.
the typical way to do it is (pointy end grandma!) the journal you’re doing to see what you spend on, and then the budget of what’s coming in, what has to be spent and what you want to spend (mandatory and discretionary spending, fixed costs, variable costs and frivolous costs). And then you make lists before you go shopping and stick to them – or only take a certain amount of money when shopping and stick to that. And you take cheaper options like planting seeds and swapping cuttings rather than costlier instant gratification (pre-grown bedding plants). it’s dieting for money!
Likewise, to an extent at least. If nothing else, taking a packed lunch to work instead of buying stuff every day seems to be saving a reasonable amount. I’ve swapped phone and broadband plans around too so another little bit goes there, although with a few other little odds and ends. I also have a pile of stuff to stick on eBay, main problem there is stuff to ship it in…
Well, we used to do this for two months of the year (February and September); this year, experimentally, we’ve done it, sort of, all year, and have saved a packet. Of course, we now have expensive holiday booked, computers packing in left, right and centre, and so on. But the principle has still worked I think.
I stopped, almost entirely, spending money at work. You might not have this expense anyway, but I was dripping money throughout the week, on lunches, coffees, newspapers, magazines, the odd chocolate bar, and so on. Now I allow myself to buy coffee from the canteen (54p, and I take exactly 54p with me so I’m not tempted by the buns), and contribute to collections and so forth, and take fabulous lunches of leftovers and fruit and nibbles from home. This was definitely the biggest saving.
This extended so that if I’m going out for the day, I often take a packed lunch then as well. On several occasions, we’ve done this as a family; not that often but it’s easily a £20 saving every time four of us don’t fetch up hungry in some tourist destination. And before going on a long drive, we make a pot of coffee and tip it into the thermos flasks, which keeps us out of Costa, and sometimes bundle sandwiches and fruit into the car for that as well.
I try very hard to carry water with me whenever I think I might need water, to avoid buying bottled water.
I’ve done two chunks of eBay this year, making several hundred pounds each time. Last time I mentioned this someone said “well, you must have better junk than me” and it might be true, but the killer sort of junk, which I bet you have too, is Gadgets We Don’t Use Any More. And to some extent, Useless Peripherals for Gadgets We Do Use. The best ever example of the latter was that I have a stereo camera made from two Sony digital cameras. I never use the USB lead that comes with these digital cameras; the Sony one is proprietary and has an integral video lead. I never use that either. Those two leads made £30 *each* on eBay. Steven had a crate of old film camera equipment, lenses and filters and so on; several of those things sold well. Someone else said “it’s a lot of work to make money on eBay” and it is, but the money you make is absolutely tax free (provided you’re selling your own household goods) which makes a big difference in terms of the effort/reward ratio.
I went through my bank account looking for direct debits for inessential things, and cancelled several of them. I’ve acquired a few more over the course of the year so I think I might repeat this exercise between Christmas and New Year as a regular thing.
We’ve been pretty ‘make do and mend’ with household items as well, helped by some judicious borrowing. One of the big traditional leaks from our budget is ‘buying things we think we need but don’t really’. And we still do it, but a little less.
We’re eating out less, and buying fewer takeaways (though we did have one last night). The theory says that you enjoy takeaways and so on more if you have fewer of them, and we find that to be true. We continue to buy our groceries online, and shop with a clear list. We “stretch” our weekly shop to last a couple of extra days with meals like risotto, soup, tuna bagels, that sort of thing. I use Menu Mailer, but her menus are a bit meat-heavy for me. So every so often we do Frugal Week, and eat broadly vegetarian food with the odd bit of bacon, mince or chicken thighs. Freezer Week is also a good bet.
I discovered that I enjoy myself just as much at the folk club if I drink two pints instead of three.
We still buy our coffee from one of the finest coffee shops in England, and drink several pots a day. There are limits.
Very interesting. We work at home, so we don’t drip spend money during the day. Lunch is generally home made soup, cheese and crackers. Or I buy a big gammon from Costco, cut it into quarters, and freeze it, cooking 1 bit at a time. That works out really cheap for cold meat.
We have about 5 digital cameras we can sell, and all sorts of other gumpf. We hardly ever eat takeaways – I like to cook, and am fanatic about not wasting food, hence the Reactive Cooking blog.
We aren’t veggie, but we eat more meat-free meals than meaty ones, and meat ones are normally bulked out with far more veg than the recipe says, and I generally add beans too. We eat well, because I’m fussy about ingredients, and I never buy any sort of ready meal, or jarred sauce, but I know I’m very lucky because I don’t have any sort of commute.
I took the clever step of writing a web site for our local folk club, so we don’t pay for tickets, and we usually get bought drinks!
regarding DVDs, i stopped buying them a few years back when i discovered that Bristol librarys do DVD rental – most they lend for a week at a time and most cost £1-£2 a go!