Frugal February…

 So there we are then - the end of the month. Were we frugal? Reasonably I think - it was after all far more about intentional spending than “spending nothing” - and it does feel as though we’ve used the month well in terms of refocusing.

The final main food shop of the month is the one above - Lidl again, and that shop earned my next level of the threshold spend coupons too - a free pack of biscuits this time! I made use of some special prices through the app again too - apples at a very advantageous price, and 15% off our favourite butter, plus pate and salad. The bakery item was the freebie from last week’s bakery spin to win thing -  I don’t make a special trip to claim those but if I am in there anyway, then I may as well grab them. 

Total shopping for the month came in at just over £200 so a long way above the previous month’s tally. I expected that though with stocking up various bits and the farmers market trip too, and it still leaves us with a bit of credit left from the months budget, so that is a win. 

Planned spending:

- The electrical works we had anticipated having done have been pushed back a little which is fine, the money is still set aside for those and they will happen early in March.

- my car needed two new tyres ahead of its upcoming MoT Test -  this isn’t a surprise though and again money is budgeted for that. As usual I shopped around, although happily our local independent place turned out to be cheapest.

- both cars needed their tax renewed in February -  both have now increased from the previous zero band to £20 per year, it will be interesting to see how long it stays at that level now! 

- we booked a well priced hotel room for an overnight stop ahead of our planned camping trip in a couple of months. It will give us a free breakfast on the way down which means we’ll be able to just head straight for the campsite and get set up rather than needing to find food when we arrive in Cornwall.

Elsewhere, we had a couple of Thursday evening beers, a Chinese takeaway with visiting friends, and I had a lovely day out in London with another pal, just beers in some cracking pubs and a lunch in Wetherspoons, the company and conversation was the most important thing! A good chunk of my personal spending money for the month remains intact, which is very useful!

Blogging about stuff like a Frugal month certainly keeps you accountable - I’d forgotten quite how much! I don’t intend to continue with a full-on frugal month through March, but I will definitely still be keeping an eye on spends, and the meal plan will be made up from the fridge, cupboards and freezer again. I will continue with keeping an eye on Olio as well as that’s proved a nice bonus. 

Robyn

Frugal February…

 

Food spending was budgeted to be up quite a bit this week as it was our favourite local farmers market, and having not gone last month there were some bits we were low on. 

First up was Peter for lamb - £1.75 for a bag of “bones for stock”, but these as usual have plenty of meat left on them and will make a fantastic stew. Also sausages, a pack of meatballs (I do have some in the freezer still but those are already featured on the meal plan) and his final pack of liver - always popular and it makes a delicious liver, bacon and onion tea!  We had our usual treat of a sourdough loaf from lovely Adrian, then popped back outside to see Catherine on the other meat stall. I made the decision to buy the big 2kg pack of beef mince, plus a smaller pack of pork mince for a change - those have been portioned up before freezing. A piece of haslet for lunches - our weekday rolls frequently feature yellow stickered bargains so this is significantly more spendy than usual but it’s something we absolutely love so we’re very happy to buy it! I grabbed a minute steak too - so good for stir fries. Total spend at the market was £53.10 - and for great quality food, and especially meat where we are happy with the provenance, I’m very happy with that. One of the reasons I can squeeze a lot of meals out of a relatively small amount of meat is that meat this good has so much flavour- so you actually need less of it in a dish. Of course we are aware that we’re fortunate to be able to afford to buy like this, and certainly that’s a privilege that not everyone has, but often simply because you do end up using less, it really isn’t that much more expensive than a standard supermarket budget option.

Elsewhere the main weekly shop cost £24.69 - in Lidl again this week, and I claimed a free bakery item from the spin to win and chose a big punnet of mushrooms as my coupon plus threshold spend reward. Not the best value thing I could have had, I usually opt for the 7.5kg sack of potatoes but we still have enough of those from the Christmas veg wars so the mushrooms were chosen as something which I was going to buy anyway. A separate trip to Aldi for tomatoes saw a spend of £1.38 - and the rarity of having literally just bought the thing I went in there for! 

Spending elsewhere has been mostly guided by necessity- we have both been hit by the nasty lurgy that’s doing the rounds - and various over the counter medications have been purchased as a result. We’ve plans for a project in the garden which will require a fair bit of sanding - so a pack of basic face masks are winging their way to us, and my car has had a tank of fuel - although both MrEH’s diesel and oyster credit have been stretched by him sensibly electing to work from home for much of the week to avoid infecting his colleagues! Well, at least there is some benefit! 

Robyn 

Frugal February…

"Story Telling" - Devon. 

Why when the idea of this couple of months of keeping purchases low, are our freezers currently pretty full again? Batch cooking and free food - that’s why! Batch cooking saves on both time and whatever energy source you use for cooking - even making sufficient for a second meal of a dish you enjoy and popping the spare portion in the freezer works - and the time savings are at both ends too, as it gives you an “easy win” meal for a night when just popping something in the microwave or air fryer to reheat is an absolute bonus! 

How does this translate into reality for us then? Well first up was a big batch of dried chickpeas - the well priced tinned chickpeas I often purchase weren’t available, and they’re something we eat a lot, so I turned to the large bag of dried in the cupboard, half filled the slow cooker with them, soaked for 12 hours or so then slow cooked overnight - this turned into about 8 tubs for the freezer (I freeze them in roughly the same drained weight you get in a standard tin), plus a portion that I turned into humous. The last of the Christmas “veg wars” 5p parsnips and shallots were turned into a batch of soup - 4 portions there. I planned to make cottage pie for an evening in the week, so made double, using lentils and finely chopped mushrooms to make the mince stretch further - and while I was at it cooked sufficient lentils to give 5 tubs of those for the freezer too! 

Free food has come from two different sources. First off, the Olio app - an anti food-waste organisation that takes end of life food from various supermarkets and aims to distribute that to those who will use it, in this area Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Co-op all get involved. A couple of Saturdays ago I spotted some bread going begging just half a mile away so requested it, got the nod and walked up and back - 4 loaves of various sorts stashed away in the freezer saving us from needing to make rolls for lunches for a while, and providing several weekends worth of breakfast toast to boot. Earlier this week we gained some potted supermarket herbs, a couple of sticks of lemongrass, and a pack of Lebanese flatbreads - again, all free, and will all get used!  Then my Mum offered us a couple of packs of “beige buffet” type bits she had bought for Christmas and not used, and now didn’t fancy - so those too got stashed away in the freezer! We’re quite happy to take food other people won’t eat - as long as we know the origin and it’s things we will actually use ourselves it seems to make sense to avoid it going to landfill after all. We’re also not shy about using food past its “best before” date - “use by” is of course a different matter, but best before are ultimately advisory, and if you’re confident to trust your eyes, nose and taste, you soon find out that most things last a lot longer than you expect that they will! We have a local friend who isn't as brave on this front, but she's quite happy to give us a shout and say "can you use..." - and generally, yes we can! 

If you’re interested in saving yourself some pennies and preventing some food waste, then have a look at a couple of apps - Olio I’ve already mentioned, and there is also Too Good To Go -  not free, but much reduced “surprise bags” of reduced food from supermarkets, coffee shops, bakeries and even restaurants. It works particularly well to grab food on the go sometimes - especially around stations or in town centres. You never quite know what you might get, particularly with the supermarket bags, but if you are content to be inventive in the kitchen there are bargains to be had.

Robyn 

ps - I've been really enjoying just using relatively random photos that catch my eye for blog posts, rather than taking something "for the sake of it" - and it's made me think that I may well start a "looking back" series of posts too, with the story behind particular shots that I find in my archives and think deserve an airing! 

It all adds up…

Windows - Manchester

 Trying to refocus on the finances this month has looked a bit like this…

- Opting to terminate a regular saver account a month early in order to re-open the same issue of the account right at the end of its release- this means losing a months interest on the one as closed, but then keeping the 7.5% rate on the reopened one for the 6 months of it’s term AND being able to open the new issue account once that was released.

- Remembering that I was due a £25 Amazon voucher from a bank account switch I did at the end of last year, tracking down the email and claiming it while I remembered!

- Doing the quarterly review of our savings so we can keep track of where we are in relation to our savings goals - we’re fortunate to be able to save and so try to ensure that those savings work hard for us.

- Emailing to cancel a magazine subscription I took a trial on - 5 issues for £5 was a good deal, the main subscription is more than I’m willing to pay though. 

- Renewing my car tax as soon as the reminder came through - my car now costs me £20 a year in tax, but forgetting to renew could work out a lot more expensive! I write a quick note on the reminder confirming when I renewed too in case I need to check it later.

- Remembering to check my loyalty apps for shopping coupons and offers - the 20p off milk at the co-op is always useful, I made use of reduced prices for a couple of bits in Lidl and will claim a free vegetable item next week. I don't generally specifically plan my shopping around making use of offers, but once I know what I need, I will look to see if there are offers I can use.

- Ensuring I have a reminder set for cancelling a free trial of Apple TV before I get charged for it. We’ve had a 3 month run to enjoy watching some different bits and bobs, and may pay for a month here and there in the future, but right now it’s not a priority.

- Free seeds with a magazine subscription - 10 packs this month, and almost all things we’ll use. There will be some seeds we will buy for the season, but the freebies shape what we choose to grow. Yes, we pay for the subscription, but £35 a year for 12 magazines and lots of seeds is a decent deal.

- Free kindling for the fire - we save almost all our cardboard, and use a combination of that and MrEH’s newspapers (that he would buy anyway) for the base of our fire. On top of that we use twigs and short lengths of stick (always gathered from places to where the council would otherwise clear them up, never from woodland) or pieces of broken down pallet.

- Free fuel for the fire - MrEH’s newspapers again, pulped up then squeezed into a brick shape in a former - they then get placed on metal racking to dry out. We make a big stack of these through the summer, and use 1 or 2 each night the fire is lit - they give off stacks of heat and help to make the logs we pay for last longer. It also means we're re-using the newspaper rather than recycling it. 

- Sorting out a return for the new toaster we had to buy which turned out to be absolutely DREADFUL! Think toast on one side, plain slightly warm bread on the other, then burned edges within a few moments when you try to re-toast to even things up. Were we keeping it? Absolutely not - it will be winging its way back and we're searching for a better option! 

- More goodies from Olio- flatbreads and herbs, this time. 

All these on their own are small things, but it’s those small things, and doing them consistently that makes the difference. A few pounds saved here, finding a way to do something for a bit less cost there, and before you know it that’s money freed up to improve your quality of life in other ways. 

Robyn

Frugal February…

 

A 3-tube day at Leytonstone…

A Friday with no other plans generally means I opt to get the shopping done, freeing up weekend time for far more interesting uses. This week was no exception, as we combined our usual Friday morning walk with a trip to Tesco to top up stocks of our preferred wholewheat couscous and also some branded orzo on offer at £1 a box. I don’t usually buy branded pasta but this price was very competitive indeed - and in the absence of the discount supermarkets stocking it at present it made sense to pounce. 3 packs of each = £6.90 spent, and were stocked up on two staple items that get well used in this house. 2nd stop of the day was the main shop - Lidl this week. An impulse spend of £2.99 of personal money for one of their beautiful miniature roses - a bright yellow one. We have a red one of these bought several years ago and it’s thrived, so I’m hoping this one will do the same. I made use of 2 coupons for free bakery items - one from a Moneysupermarket email gave us a free croissant, and the other was my free item from last week’s shop being over the first spend threshold on the app. That sorts out a nice treat after tea today! £25.75 spend on the shopping, with just a couple of items still to get over the weekend and a fair few bits and bobs stocked up on too. Finally for grocery shopping was Farmfoods - somewhere we visit occasionally mainly to stock up on a few particular items - this time round two big jars of MrEH’s coffee, 12 tins of tuna, 4 bags of sugar (at 2 for £1.60 this is by a long way the cheapest place to buy it, and this will stock us up ready for any preserving we decide to do) and a couple of tins of sweetcorn too, total spend £23.18 there thanks to another voucher for £2 off a £25 spend.

A planned general spend on Friday was a couple of frames needed for various pictures - some more black & white prints of my photos, and a mounted railway poster print from York last weekend (we wanted a souvenir of the weekend and this seemed perfect, and at £10, very reasonably priced too). The frames totalled £9.98. Final spend for the weekend was another £5.12 for the yogurts and tomatoes I didn’t get on Friday, plus a box of seeded oatcakes.

Part of the reason meal planning works for us is that we treat it flexibly. For various reasons the original rough plan for Sunday lunch didn’t work this week - instead I opted to get some turkey chunks and bacon bits out of the freezer along with a lurking roll of puff pastry and made pasties - two of which were eaten on Sunday, with the others getting popped into the fridge for swapping in to the plan on Wednesday evening. A flexible plan - albeit one that takes account of ensuring that food that needs using gets eaten - is far more pleasant and practical than one that is so rigid it’s difficult to stick to.

We did end up with one unplanned spend this week as our poor old toaster finally toasted its last - can’t complain, it was a wedding present nearly 26 years ago so it’s given good service! We’re replacing with a “long slot” version, better to cope with different sizes of bread - our old one dated from a time when bread came in a fairly standard square-ish size, and we’ve often found ourselves having to repeatedly turn slices round to get them evenly toasted. If the replacement lasts as long as the old one we will be very pleased! 

Robyn

Frugal February?

Stunning rainbow over the river - Dartmouth, 2025

Shall we? I've debated about this the past few years but the month has always come along and had lots of plans in it, which involved (budgeted for, and so acceptable) spending, but that in turn feels like it slightly defeats the object of a frugal month! This year there ARE some plans - but nothing particularly major, and  so it feels like a good time to give it another go.

Aims this time are as much about being mindful around spending as around "not spending" as such - there might be beers on a Thursday evening after work, or a trip to the pub on a Friday, but that will be thought through and we'll ensure that we'll get value from it. We've got friends visiting mid month - and that will probably mean a takeaway. I may make a trip to Waddington later in the month to see the Reds training - hoping for more success on ALL counts than the last trip up! As usual the challenge will cover the food spending, general household spending, and my personal spending, but not anything that relates specifically to MrEH only. 

We still have plentiful food stocks, so are aiming to continue the good work of last month's careful shopping and detailed planning. I'm intending to turn my attention to the cupboards as well now - there are lots of odds and ends of things, and bits that have been hanging around for a while and that we either need to use or just to acknowledge that we're not GOING to use them, and to get rid. If it came with us when we moved house, and hasn't yet been used, then we will be taking a hard line! First step on this is going to be a bit of an inventory I think, and from there I'll start planning how we can incorporate various ingredients. The fridge is already looking a little barer than it was, and freezer 1 in particular now has very obvious space in it, maybe by the end of a month we can aim to get freezer 2 empty and turned off - that would be a win! 

Food wise then:

• Use what we have
• Audit cupboards and fridge and target lingering contents for use 
• Aim to get working through last year's home grown fruit and veg from freezer 1
• Remember that we still have kale in the garden to use
• Start gradually moving over stuff from freezer 2 as room appears!
• Continue to be considered and mindful about special offers and bargains
• Make sure that meal planning continues - it's not only cheaper, it's also easier!

If nothing else, I'm aiming to treat this as a bit of a re-set, and a good chance to stop and think before spending. A return to the "money mantra" of "Do we need it, do we have anything else we can use instead, have we checked whether that's a good price". The food account in particular is looking lovely and healthy at the start of this month and it would be nice to continue to build on that. 

Food spending this month has started off with a £20.97 spend in Lidl on Sunday - we opted to stop in and shop on our way home from the weekend in York which was slightly risky as I had no access to the meal plan - I took the approach that I could if needed modify things later though, and it was better to get the shop done rather than having to squeeze it in after work on Monday. It included the purchase of 3 packs of the Deluxe branded West Country butter which is a favourite, and I had the offer of 15% off, making it several pennies a pack less than the regular (not so nice) one - win! Also a pack of an interesting looking Polish (I think) cheese for £1.99, everything else was our standard sort of weekly purchases.  Awful traffic necessitated parking near my office on Monday so a purchase was needed to allow using the supermarket car park - that was one of my usual "defaults" - an 85p pack of noodles. 

Anyone else fancy making this a Frugal kinda February then?

Robyn

Frugal February...

 

I'm viewing this as a week of small wins. Grocery spending was - for us - high, but in our defence it was a farmers market week which always bumps things up. The minced beef, mutton shoulder and sausages we bought though will provide a good many meals between them - I'm fully expecting that we'll get a minimum of 18 meals for the two of us from the £28 spent on those so excellent value really for good quality produce. We also made an unusual additional supermarket visit as Friday evening tea time loomed without any inspiration at all - I'd been considering making curry, but realised too late that I was out of onions (not at all a regular occurance in our house!). There was a brief discussion about a takeaway, but that was nipped in the bud pretty swiftly in favour of "Let's go to the supermarket and get pizza and garlic bread" which was what we did! Then during out main weekly shop I made a conscious effort to buy fish to make fish pie - a meal we both absolutely love and which for some reason I've not made in ages. I spent a fair few minutes in front of the freezer cabinet in store working out which fish would be the best options for this, and ended up settling on a pack of the "budget" white fish fillets, a pack of salmon pieces, and a pack of raw tiger prawns - those last will each be carefully cut in half to make them go a bit further, and each of the packs of fish will do several helpings for both of us. 

Another "small win" this week was finally getting round to linking my bank cards to the "Airtime rewards" app - this is a clever little app that rewards debit card spending with money off your mobile bills with some providers - and as EE, who I am with, are signed up, I figured I may as well give it a go. My mind was focused on this because of doing the shopping using the debit card for the next little while as some of the supermarkets are part of the scheme - I may well be able to end up getting double rewards! Longer term readers will remember that we have "back in the day" done pretty well out of cashback - notably through credit card spending. We're always fans of being paid to use financial products like this! (But only if we don't end up paying interest, naturally!) 

Also on both the "Small wins" and "cashback" front was the world's smallest TopCashBack payout of £2.40 - well it all helps, no?! This has been transferred straight across to the savings account I have running for expenses related to the "big thing" we're in the middle of trying to get sorted. (I know, sorry, it's annoying - I will tell you eventually, I promise!) I'm a big fan with both cashback and survey earnings of not letting them sit around gathering dust when they can be in one of my accounts earning even a tiny bit of interest!

Finally under the heading of “small wins” comes using what we have, and avoiding waste. The fridge has had a clear out this week with some elderly beetroot being roasted - half eaten at the time and the other half frozen for a future meal.  A couple of carrots were also converted into a salad addition to a meal for me by adding a handful of sultanas and a spoonful of peanut butter let down with lemon juice as a dressing. Then a head of chicory, the last of the carrots, and half a small cabbage were turned into a stir fry which also used the final bit in the jar of Char Sui sauce. Today’s “use up” is likely to be the last of a tub of Greek yogurt which will go into flatbreads to have with tea tonight which will be the delayed curry (I do have onions now!)  There is satisfaction in using things up - knowing that you have had your money’s worth from a purchase and have avoided adding to landfill. With the current shortages of various veggies too it becomes even more important to use every scrap of the things we spend our pennies on, I’m sure you’ll agree! 

Robyn

Frugal February...

 

Hello fellow frugalers - halfway through the month already, goodness! 

 We're now in a position of trying to get things back on a rather more "normal" footing after a difficult few weeks. MrEH sadly lost his Dad fairly unexpectedly at the end of last month, hence this has left him doing a lot of travelling up and down the country to spend time with his Mum and his brothers - and both of us were down there for half the week last week too for the funeral and some family time after. All went very well, FIL would have been extremely impressed with his send off I think. 

The higher than usual diesel spend this month is "one of those things" - I knew when I started the challenge that it was going to be a rather different shape to previous ones I've done! Some of the extra is balanced off against less travel into London for MrEH, and two less commutes for me, too. Other "extra" spending has included some food bought out, and our share of a family meal to celebrate oldest brother in law's birthday at the weekend too - we've never been minded to say "No" to the good, quality time stuff when finances do allow it, and the money for this stuff was all stashed away in our "fun" pot ready for when it was needed in any event, so all good. This is why we budget! Had the joint account not been able to absorb the diesel money there were assorted other pots it could have come from and at a pinch, in the circumstances, our Emergency Fund would have taken the hit.

In terms of general personal spending I'm still keeping things pretty low - I paid for a breakfast for both of us while we were down in Devon - we'd gone to meet friends & family out at the Castle, but annoyingly the cafe there wasn't open so we ended up having a slightly more spendy breakfast when we got back into the town. (MrEH bought lunch one day when we all headed to the beach so this balanced out). My personal spends account is still looking distinctly healthy! 

The mission for this week has been reviewing some more of our savings pots. Another maturing regular saver has been transferred into the highest interest "Limited access" account we have, meaning it's earning fractionally more interest than it would otherwise - and it all helps. I've set up a new monthly Regular Saver account too - as they finish at the moment we're being a bit cautious about how many new ones we set up as if our current plans come to fruition we will before all that long not be as well fixed to continue "feeding" them - this one should fit in with any new budgets that are needed though.  The other thing I've been doing savings wise is giving some thought to whether I should find a new home for our Emergency Fund. It currently sits with a provider where we've had an account for a while - a former "highly recommended best buy" of the likes of one Mr M Lewis, but in recent times said provider has kept up less well with interest rate rises. As a result our funds have been sitting at a rate around 0.5% lower than we could, for the past couple of weeks, have been getting elsewhere for easy access.  The issues around moving this money are several: because it IS our EF, it does need to be easy access. Also because it is our EF it needs to be easily accessible by either of us, when needed, and many of the current "best buy" options don't allow joint accounts. Finally right at the moment it doesn't suit me wonderfully well to risk getting a credit check on my file - and while there are options we could take which wouldn't credit check, a lot might, so this is another negative. In the event, this week has seen a (small, but still) increase to the interest rate in question, so for now at least the money will stay put. Sure, it could earn a bit more elsewhere, but it's still earning an awful lot more than it was last year, even! 

One money saving thing we have started this week is using our debit cards for grocery shopping - to earn the 5% cashback currently being offered by our bank. We usually use the credit card, then just settle up from the grocery budget at the statement date, so using the debit cards will make things a little more complicated, but as there is a decent payback on it we figure it’s well worth it! Now I just need to remember to use the right card when I pay! 

Robyn. 

Frugal February…

 

So the first full week of the challenge started with the most expensive gym visit of the year - once again I intend to keep track of my "per use" cost for this, so last Friday's visit cost me £280! The good news is that for the next few visits, that figure naturally drops at a fine rate. The bad news is that it will be at least another week before I see that happen, as family commitments mean I'm not getting there this week! I knew that was going to happen, though. 

One job for the weekend was to review some savings account rates. Obviously with the Bank of England changing the interest rates again last week, rates have changed - unfortunately neither of the two "homes" for my own personal accessible cash savings have decided to increase things at all since before the LAST rate change, so I reached the conclusion it was time to vote with my feet. For various reasons I didn't want to open an account with a new provider right now, however, we have accounts with various different banks and building societies, meaning I am a "customer" already with them, so I set to checking what various options were available. Eventually settled on one paying fractionally below 3% - close to as god as available for easy access right now, and within literally a couple of hours has set up the new instant access account, and moved money from two different institutions across to it. While I was money shuffling with banking, I also took the chance to set up a new regular saver account from another provider (it's predecessor had matured a couple of weeks earlier) and also set up standing orders to a couple of other regular savers that we have on the go. 

For anyone who's not familiar with the concept of regular savers, it is probably most simply described as an account offering a higher rate of interest than the usual in exchange for a promise from the customer that it will feed it regularly - monthly, as a rule - and not be able to take the money out until the term of the account is complete. If you have an amount of money to save on a monthly basis - so for example "spare" money once bills are paid - which you know you will not need to touch for a full year, you can earn yourself a better rate of interest than you would from most other standard savings accounts. Don't dismiss these because you assume that you won't have enough money to make it worth it, either - some of these type of accounts have maximum monthly funding limits as low as £50 - and you can even put in less than that if you choose! (An example here is Nationwide's Start To Save account which pays 5% interest currently). At the other end of the scale is the FirstDirect Regular Saver attached to it's "1st" Current account - in exchange for a maximum of £350 per month that will deliver a whopping 7% interest - and you could even get an additional £175 by switching your current account to them, too! One word of caution - it's slightly complex to work out how  much interest that these accounts will actually leave you with - but there are specialist Regular Savings interest calculators out there to help you work it out. For someone who wants to add to a savings pot monthly though, and does not have a need to access the money for a while, it can be a god way of earning decent interest.

As predicted there has been some high spending incurred for travel so far this month - MrEH's car has already needed a full tank of fuel, and will need another tankful this weekend. In other (spending) news, we had a planned trip into London on Monday - for a talk run by the London Transport Museum Friends - an organisation we are members of. While the talk was free, we had the cost for travel to and from (on the tube, naturally!) and also as we would not be home until mid evening, we elected to get dinner out as well, opting for a meal and a beer each in a pub belonging to a well known chain for a total cost of under £25. The talk was interesting, the food was tasty enough, and the beer was very pleasant indeed - so we're calling that money well spent. We also got information while at the talk about some other events coming up which may give us some low cost entertainment too - we'll be keeping our eyes open for further details of those.

Hopefully by the next time I write things will have settled down a little bit and we'll have stopped needing to feed the car fuel tank quite so frequently - sometimes though a situation occurs where the cost is quite simply irrelevant(as long as you can afford it, obviously), this is one of those situations.

Robyn

Frugal February underway…

Well, I know we’re only a few days in so there shouldn’t be much to say - truth is though that I decided I may as well think about starting pretty much right away after last week’s post - after all, the sooner you can start with money-saving exploits the better, right?

It started remarkably well - I was due to renew my gym membership - it had expired a week ago but I had  decided to give it a short break before making the renewal to give myself a few weeks grace before making the payment. I’d had a phone call in the week offering me a discount off the full joining fee, and had arranged to go in in early February to sign up, however, I then received another call offering me an additional £20 off if I was able to get in that day to sort it out… that £20 more than covered the difference on re-joining earlier than I’d planned, so obviously I went for it! I’ll be doing the same again this year as I did last - keeping a tally of how many visits I make in the year and then working out the cost per visit - it helps keep motivation high, and also means I can be sure I’m getting value for money. 

Payday has happened for both of us - and the associated money shuffling alongside that has happened. Most of our regular transfers to savings happen automatically, as this avoids the risk of forgetting anything, but there are still odds and ends to do to make sure everything is where it should be. This month this included transferring out the money which would usually go to pay Council Tax and Water rates as op for us February and March are our two months “off” as we pay both over 10 months. It might be useful for some people to be aware that while 10 months has always been the standard for Council tax payment schedules, in England at least everyone is entitled to ask to be changed to making payments over 12 months instead. This can help make budgeting easier and reduce your average monthly bills a little. 

We’ve had to make one financial decision this week too. For a fair while now we’ve been having a fortnightly veg box. It’s been great - means we’ve really increased the range of veggies we’ve been eating, and we’ve got to try some stuff we wouldn’t normally buy too which has been good. It also really meets what we want from a box scheme - we’re not in the least fussed about organic, but this one helps stop food waste, and that we approve of. While it’s been a bit more costly than buying from the supermarket, we like the ethos so have been prepared to pay. Unfortunately now they have informed us of a price increase, plus the addition of a delivery charge - entirely understandable, but from our perspective we’ve had to make the decision that for the time being we’re going to cancel. The increased price just means that right now, for various reasons, it doesn’t fit into our budget. The alternative will likely be a return to shopping at the farm shop once a month or so - something we’ve been considering for a while anyway. At least that way we get to continue to support a business we like - and it will be a relatively local one too.

The other bit of news this week has of course been another increase to the Bank of England rate - up another 0.5%. At the moment for us this mostly means we’ll be hoping for some savings rate increases - but equally we won be holding our breath on that, nice as it would be! 

Right then - until next week, stay frugal! 

Robyn 

(Photo above from a lovely walk at Lea Valley Park with Mum last weekend)

Frugal-ish February, anyone?

 I confess I was gearing up for a full-on Frugal February again - remember those? They’ve got their own tag on here so if you’re interested to know more, or you’re a long time reader who wants to remind yourself what we did before, why not head off and have a read? (After you’ve read this post, obviously!) 

MrEH and I are currently plotting a new adventure - no, not the Hebrides move before anyone asks, yes we still want to do it but the time isn’t quite right for it at the moment. We’re not quite ready to tell all as yet, but it’s exciting, and means we need to fine tune our budgets and tighten our belts a bit where possible, so suddenly the idea of revisiting an old game to see how cheaply we could live for a month seems quite interesting. 

I think we’re all starting to feel the pinch a bit now aren’t we? In between energy prices, (we saw an 8% rise in January, and are gearing up for a further 20% on top of that in April, too) food prices - it still feels like every time you set foot in a shop prices have escalated a little further - and now many of us are facing an upcoming hike of around 14% in our mobile and broadband costs in a few months time, too. All in all, if ever there was a time to really stop and think about what we are spending, this is probably it! 

February is often a fairly decent month to try to do frugally - I mean for a start, we like a bit of alliteration round here! V Then there is the fact that for anyone who pays their Council Tax and Water Rates over 10 months, February and March are the two “free” months - so an easy way of bolstering any savings pots you might be trying to fill. Then of course there is the advantage of it being a remarkably short month - which always helps to make the pennies stretch that little bit further! The winter weather might also mean that you’re less inclined to venture out and about much, and being early in the year, any money-saving motivation is still on a high too! 

I’m planning on doing things pretty much as I used to - normal Direct Debits don’t form part of any declared spending, and I’ll be having my usual personal spends money which will need to pay for anything I need to buy for myself, plus any trips out, etc. We also have commitments to spend on travel - diesel for the cars, and MrEH will need to top up his Oyster card probably a couple of times too. We’re likely to have some essential family-related long distance travel, too, which is unavoidable. I’m planning to meal plan for the month, and shop with a list - then stick to that list! 

This time round it is more about kickstarting ourselves back into a more frugal mindset, than “trying to spend as little as possible” - but I would like to see a decent amount stashed into our new “Exciting things ahead” savings pot by the end of the month, too!  My plan is that spending generally will be considered, thought through,,and made if needed, but only after it’s been established that it IS needed, and we’re getting value for our money. Where we are in our lives right now, that seems like the right way forwards.

Let’s do this! 

Robyn

Frugal February - done!

Well here we are then - that's my planned Frugal month done and dusted! One final week's shopping: Morrisons again and my nifty little points app shows that I now have a £5 voucher waiting for me next time I go in, and am 1680 points towards my next. Shopping came to £21.88 which was spent on the credit card as usual, earning us a tiny amount of cashback in the process of course. This means that over the month we have spent a total of £74.13 on our routine food shopping - plus the meat box I purchased although we've barely touched that as yet. I *could* have cut it down lower than that, but chose not to compromise on the sorts of meals we're enjoying eating at the moment. I did keep a keen eye for special offers - hence the decision to purchase the meat box, and the couscous at the bargain price. I've meal-planned every week, and stuck to my lists, and as a result we've come in well below our monthly food budget. We have as always eaten good food, cooked from scratch, and have had no food-waste in the month either which I'm very pleased with! (We did have to throw away one yogurt from a multi-pack but that was because it had gone off in spite of only being on the final day of its best before).We've had no takeaways at all. (But we're planning fish and chips for tonight!)

Last weekend was, as I predicted, quite high-spend. I did moderate where I could though - choosing the more time consuming walk > Bus > Tube route into Central London rather than walking to the station and getting the train. I popped into Boots and bought a sandwich, crisps and a fruit & nut snack for the train journey so I had lunch to hand, using my advantage card points so that was cash neutral, and took a bottle of water from home which I refilled over the weekend as needed. I used the time on the train to go through the Credit Card bill for last month and do the money shuffling for that so that was time well used too. The accommodation in Derby had been chosen for convenience as it was just a mile and a half from the Festival venue so I walked there to drop my bag, and back to the venue, then my friend and I walked back there at the end of the night. Food at the festival is well priced and good quality as it's done by the students at the catering college - I had an extremely good pie and a pile of fantastic chips for £4.75 - bargain and just the sort of food that's needed at a beer festival! Saturday Tony and I had to travel across to Norwich so we chose to just grab breakfast at the Travelodge which I paid for. It was an all you can eat buffet thing and I like to think we both got our money's worth! Tony then covered the cost of the fuel for the journey. Saturday continued in much the same vein - with the spends all being beer and food - there are worse ways to spend a weekend!  All costs apart from the food were paid in cash - the food went on the CC and will be paid for from my "fun budget" - and that's the key of course, it's budgeted for! The rest of the spending just came from my regular spending money. On Sunday we started the day with a much needed breakfast (Wetherspooons - always a post beer-festival favourite!) paid for in cash, and then MrEH and I came home via one of our favourite RSPB reserves and naturally partook of the tea & cake in their cafe (Delicious caramel shortbreads!).

The rest of the week has been almost spend free - the weather has pretty much seen to that! I did finally get to the gym last night (£7) which was a good thing as I was pretty much suffering from cabin fever by then, and if all has gone to plan I will have gone swimming this morning - but need to check first if the pool will actually be open!

There has been spending this month - on accommodation for various trips away. I've explored Air BnB for the first time and realised that sometimes you can find somewhere on there where there is no availability on the other sites we use, and sometimes you can find somewhere that is a lot better value than the other booking sites too. We'll probably let the first of those bookings happen before we book through there again, but so far we're impressed. I've returned to using the PetrolPrices website for checking local best prices for diesel for the cars, and have topped mine up twice in Lincoln where prices are frequently a few pence lower than at home. MrEH has been making use of Morrisons where possible as they are frequently the cheapest for the areas he fuels up in AND we get "More"  Points each time of course.

 As I said at the start of the month it was never going to be the "to the bone" frugality of previous occasions, but I'd say that it certainly has served its purpose. It's made me think, and swap back to using cash far more and contactless far less. I've bought no clothes this month and have taken the time to come up with a far more structured list of the things I do still need. I've set up a new savings account to put money aside monthly for necessary clothing purchases and will add to that each month. It's made us use up things we have, and stop to think before routinely replacing items. It's re-focused us on stopping to think about whether a deal is REALLY a good deal, and worth using, or not. I've batch cooked, doubled up on quantities, made good use of the oven when I've switched it on and made sure every scrap of food we've bought has found a use. Spending has been considered rather than habitual or mindless. And the result is that we've ended the month with a very healthy surplus in the joint account, and I've finished up with a small but significant surplus in my personal account too. There's no question in my mind as to the value of a month every now and again when we just back the truck up a bit and reinforce the good habits. All in all - mission accomplished!

Robyn

Frugal Friday

Three full weeks down and another half to go - and sorry to disappoint anyone who is waiting for me to trip up here but nope, still going to plan!

Shopping last week was done as a spur of the moment decision in Morrisons after MrEH came home from putting fuel in his car with a voucher for 2000 extra "Morrisons More" points on a £20 shop. This is worth £2 so is a decent saving on a shop of that level - it's nice to find a supermarket that are happy to reward those of us who don't spend £40 - £50 every week! As I think I've mentioned before I'm quite a fan of Morrisons and would very much like to have one more locally to us - their quality is good, I like their ethics regarding stocking British meat, and also the less popular cuts. They also make a point of trying to sell off as many parts of the animals as they can with things like Pork Cheeks and lamb bones that you don't always find the other mainstream supermarkets offering. The sustainability of this really appeals to me.  Our shopping list and meal plan was all in place and the shopping came to £20.38. The usual weekly visit to Aldi was also made - £2.54 in there, and unusually a second visit there the following day when I remembered that we needed bread flour - well worth making a special trip as they sell for 65p a bag while ThaT supermarkeT want £1 a bag for the same amount! So an additional £1.95 for the three bags I bought, making our full weekly shopping bill £24.87 - not bad at all! I suspect we will be using Morrisons next week also as I got given a till-spit for a further 2000 extra points so am keen to use that!

The weekend was a quiet and low-spend one for us aside from the shopping. I went for a run on Saturday afternoon but then spent the rest of the day at home, and after a delicious roast dinner on Sunday we headed out on foot for a walk across country to a local pub for just a couple of beers each. it was a lovely if slightly muddy walk exploring a few places locally that we'd heard about but never seen on the way, and we walked back round the road as it was dark by the time we left the pub! It was really nice to have a day where we didn't use either car at all!

I mentioned the roast dinner - this used the Pork Loin Joint from the "Heartier" meat box I bought a few weeks ago. I'm happy to recommend Heartier to anyone - so far the stuff we've had from them has always been great quality and a not at all unreasonable price for the products too. The loin also gave us enough leftovers that we had a tasty stir-fry from it on Wednesday evening - I just tear the cold meat into chunks or strips and then cook off lightly in a wok before adding the veggies and some cooked noodles. The other really tasty meal we had over the weekend was home made pizzas - and these are incredibly frugal as well! I use the bread machine for the dough as it does a far better job of kneading than I ever will. For variation this time I used garlic infused rapeseed oil in the mix and also threw in some dried basil as well - the small as it was rising was heavenly! I then flipped the risen dough out, knocked it back lightly and divided it into two, then each piece into 2 again. 2 portions were popped into bags to go into the freezer and the other two were pressed out to form nice thin bases which crisp up beautifully. For the sauce I use a mixture of 50% ketchup with 50% tomato puree which gives a nice mix of sweetness and tomatoeyness (is that a word?) and also spreads easily onto the uncooked bases. From there it's as simple as choosing your toppings - this time we went for a few thinly sliced mushrooms, the remains of a pack of bacon from the freezer and also from the freezer some of the slices of pepperoni that were given to me when we had toasties for lunch in the office a few weeks back. I then scattered the tops with a ripped up ball of T's value mozzarella (always rip, never slice, as that way you get a great variation in thickness on the pieces and it goes far further across your pizza too!) The pizzas were then popped into a moderately hot oven along with a pack of Aldi Garlic butter doughballs (I *think* I paid 69p for these and they were every bit as tasty as the more premium brands!) and taken out when the bases were crisp on the edges and the cheese had started to bubble and brown. Gorgeous!

Spending review for this week then:
Planned:
- Accommodation booked for a planned few days away later in the year. We weighed up a holiday-let -v- a budget hotel and in the end found a holiday let for the same price - this will save us money as it's got its own parking (Hotel would have meant another £22 in parking costs) AND will mean that we can prepare our own breakfasts and packed lunches for the days we're there rather than having to rely on eating out for all our meals.
- £7 for the gym for me on Wednesday
- I topped up my car with fuel when I saw it at a good price in Lincoln last Friday
Unplanned:
The beers on Sunday afternoon

I mentioned that trip away above - and this has been the main thrust of our financial planning this week, in fact. We have a bit of a plan to try to visit as many RSPB reserves across the country as we can manage, and there were a couple up north that have been fixtures on our "to do" list for a while now - Bempton Cliffs and Blacktoft Sands. We've found accommodation a short drive from both reserves, and are planning to loop in catching up with a friend while up there as well as visiting a favourite pub which I've used a lot but MrEH has not yet made it to, on the way. We're fans of having our own space when we're away for more than a couple of nights, as we've found that often it costs little more than a budget hotel while giving us a lot more freedom, and saving us money as mentioned above as we're not forced into cafe breakfasts every day of a stay and also have easy options to throw together packed lunches to take out, and to bring back a takeaway or cook something tasty and local that we've bought on our travels rather than eating out each evening. It also means that in the event of a day where the weather is simply too poor to do much we can more comfortably decide to just stay in, and more easily dry wet clothes if we decide to brave it and go out! We're RSPB Members so entry to & parking at the reserves will be free to us, and we also plan to do some exploring around the market town that we're staying in, including the market itself which apparently happens every Saturday. There's also some lovely (and some very cheesy!) seaside within a short distance that we'll try to get to. Food will be our main spend and we're planning to eat out in the evenings in some of the town's excellent pubs - this will be budgeted from our personal spending money, and our "fun" budget while the cost of the accommodation is covered by the money that doesn't get spent in March on Council Tax & Water rates. Diesel will come from our regular monthly fuel budget. I will set aside any Morrisons vouchers we acquire ahead of the trip to cover some of the spend for breakfast goods and lunches. There will no doubt be some tea & cake incidents...again from our personal spending money. It won't be a cheap weekend, but it will be planned for and within a budget, and thanks to the work we put in in years gone by on clearing our mortgage and paying off all debt, the ability to do stuff like this is there for us. It's one of the good things when life becomes more about "experiences" than "stuff"!  

Robyn

Frugal Friday

Frugal February - end of week 2...

Half way through the challenge and still ticking along. Gone are the sweeping financial sacrifices of years gone by - we're not in that place any more and this was never the purpose of this challenge. The name of the game this time round is to stop and think, to re-train ourselves to return to the habit of "yes but is it actually needed? Is it of value to us?" before spending. And so far, it's working!

Our shopping spend this week ended up precisely where I hoped - with the arrival of the meat box expected for Tuesday we were keen to see what stuff we could use from the freezer before the spoils from the box needed squeezing in there. The meal plan reflected this, and I pulled out a couple of "ends of loaf" ready for weekend breakfast toast. (Sometimes if MrEH doesn't get time to make rolls we make a loaf for our weekday lunchtime sandwiches - and when this happens there is always a bit of loaf left over past the point when it's fresh enough to use for sandwiches - he's taken to slicing this ready for use and popping into a bag in the freezer ready to take out a slice at a time and toast). Last Friday night's dinner of "home-made Indian takeaway" used up a couple of naan breads that had been waiting for just such an occasion. A chunk of shin of beef was taken out for defrosting ready for a massive pot of beef stew that fed us on Sunday and again on Tuesday, some liver and bacon came out ready for Monday night's meal, and the second half of a pack of pork was used to make a "use up the veggies" stir fry yesterday. As a result of this the shopping list veered towards the minimal and spends were £17.48 total spend which we were happy with. I took out £10 food money and the Aldi spend came from this with that balance being on the Pay+ app again. Unusually for me there was a second supermarket visit yesterday when I popped in to grab a sandwich to take with me to Scampton today - wanting to avoid the "meal deal" option I picked up a sandwich then wandered to the crisps and snacks aisle and grabbed a multipack of crisps well below our "target price" of 10p per packet at £2.49 for 30 packs. While in store I also noticed a deal on for the wholewheat couscous we use - 2 packs for £1 rather than the standard 70p a pack is a good saving and I decided it was well worth purchasing a couple of packs. If the offer is still on at the weekend I will be stocking up on a few more as well - it's not an offer I've seen before and on a product we use a lot of it's a deal worth having. Total of £5.99 spent.

A chance discussion in the office in the week made me realise how different our shopping habits probably are to a lot of other folk's - the question arose as to whether we were planning pancakes for Tuesday night, to which my response was that we weren't, and in fact we'd not even got any eggs in so we definitely wouldn't be. A chorus of "how can you not have eggs?!" followed - well, quite simply as there were no meals requiring eggs on the plan, and the last of the previous box had been used, so there was no requirement to buy more currently! Generally speaking the only things we buy routinely so we "always have in" are storecupboard and freezer goods. Fresh stuff gets bought on an "when needed" basis as I find that this minimises waste. So if I put omelettes on the meal plan I'll buy a box of 15 Free Range eggs as this is the best value way of buying them, for me, and I'll then factor in meals the following week that involve the rest of the eggs too. So we tend to go "feast to famine" on the egg front - a couple of weeks with lots of eggs and then a couple of weeks without any at all. (And of course now I've thought about it next time we DO have eggs I might well use some of them to make pancakes!)

Spends this week then: Not too many.
Planned:
- Some accommodation has been booked for airshow trips for me for later in the year. I've shopped around, studied a few of the booking sites AND double checked that I can't get a cheaper price by going direct to the properties themselves rather than through a booking site. It's all budgeted and saved for ready and cashback has been earned where possible.
- MrEH needed to put money on his smartcard for his work travel.
- £20 to tax MrEH's car for another year. (Yes - and that yearly tax price is one reason why we're in no hurry to replace it!)
- Beers at the rugby club while we watched the match on Saturday - £10 from me for a round and MrEH and others bought rounds too. 
- On Wednesday night we had a meal out. We budget to eat out once a month but do't always do this - on this occasion though we decided to do so as I was taking part in a 5k race at the Olympic Park after work and I knew it would be late to eat by the time we got home. We shared starters and had a main course each at a nice pub locally to where I work and it cost just over £30 which was paid on the credit card.
Unplanned:
- Sunday we had intended to get ice creams at the RSPB reserve we visited but got back to the shop too late to allow it so instead stopped and got a bar of chocolate each as a treat. 
- MrEH also treated me to a cup of tea and a piece of cake at parkrun - it felt richly deserved after a freezing cold and very icy run and was in aid of a good cause too with donations going to MIND.

Our monthly takeaway budget remains untouched for a second month - and will stay that way for another week also as I've a quick but tasty meal planned for tonight.

The rugby club is forming a key part of our social life these days - with the club having moved to its new location last year it now has the advantage of being a short walking distance from home so we're tending to spend more time there than we used to at the old club. The bar prices are good and it's really nice to socialise with friends a bit more than we used to particularly without having either a long walk or needing to think about getting a cab home. From my perspective I can tend to "hibernate" a bit during the winter months and it's been god for me to be out and about a bit more than usual too.

Next week's main plan on the financial front is to work out what we intend to do for a long weekend we have coming up and plan ahead for that, making any bookings that are needed at the best prices we can find and planning things to do while we're away. If there is anywhere in particular that we want to visit that is chargeable this will give us time to get Clubcard vouchers changed if this will help, or to look for any discount codes that might come in handy. Also to have a proper discussion of where we see things going from here in relation to our cars - currently we both drive diesels and with the changes coming in on the MOT Test shortly this may have to change. Finally I want to take a look at our electricity costs and pay any outstanding balance we have there as winter starts (hopefully!) to draw to a close and we will be discussing whether an increase in the Direct Debit amount would be sensible. Sitting down on an occasional basis to have a "summit meeting" on all things financial means that we're both singing from the same hymn sheet and we both know where we stand. Although I look after our household finances on a day to day basis we both keep infiormed on everything as should anything happen to take me out of the loop this means no nasty surprises for MrEH.

Finally - fancy the chance of some "Free money"? Who doesn't! For those of you not already in the know the Free Postcode Lottery basically does what it says on the tin - it's free to join, you just register a single postcode (can be work, home, anywhere you like!) and then check the site daily to see if you've won. They guarantee not to generate you any spam, and don't sell your details on to third parties. I already know of one person who's won the main daily prize and it's absolutely genuine - so why not sign up and have a go for yourself? (For transparency the link in this post is a referral link which will add to my "bonus" on the site although not generate me any actual money unless I do win one of the draws at any stage.).

Until next week!

Robyn

Frugal Friday

Frugal February - end of week 1.

1 down, three to go and so far, so good. Shopping last week went to plan - Meal plan & list, albeit I did make some considered changes while actually shopping but for the best reasons I think.
Started at Lidl - leeks. 2 x 69p for good sized packs.
ThaT supermarkeT saw our main shop although I had in mind what I had on my list for Aldi also.  We grabbed MrEH's pears in T's as they looked like decent ones for only 4p more than Aldi's price. My list for Aldi included Blueberries and plums from the Super Six offer, and my list for T's had a pack of their fresh pomegranate seeds - I buy those regularly for £1 and we use them in couscous. I'd noticed a few weeks back that T's do a pack of frozen pomegranate seeds for £2 - 300g as opposed to the 80g Packs of fresh, so we decided to try those instead as better value - then realised when we got there that they were part of a "3 for £5 offer". I quite often buy packs of frozen fruit to have with yogurt or porridge so decided this was worthy of altering the list for! That also meant that I abandoned the plums & blueberries from Aldi, just using S6 for the citrus "Easy Peelers" and buying my planned Greek Yogurt & butter.
£25.79 spent in total.
£7.50 was food money which was stashed at home, and the balance was spent on the Credit card via T's Pay+ app.

Also on the food side of things - a "sort of unplanned" spend as we got a very good offer from a meat supplier we have used before - their stuff is great quality, with good provenance, and is all high welfare, grass fed rare breed animals - the deal we got means that I have ordered what I reckon will produce at least 35 portions and that will include several Sunday roasts which I always budget a bit extra for, for a spend of £50.40 - I ordered extra items to avoid paying postage as it seemed to me that spending £5 on delivery when I could spend it on food instead would be a bit silly. I'll count 50% of that as part of this month's food spend as obviously it will last well past this month. Having ordered this means that my meal plan for the upcoming week will need to really focus on using up items from the freezer as if at all possible I'd like to avoid turning the second freezer on to store this order. It also means we won't go to the Farmers Market this month.

Having started well on the shopping front I need to continue that, but my next focus is to think about how mindfulness can help with spending and most of all with not frittering! It's one of those silly habits that you can just slide into without realising - popping into a charity shop because there's one nearby and emerging with a handful of paperbacks. Going into Poundland for a single item that's needed but coming out with a fiver's worth of bits and bobs. Or going to the supermarket for milk and ending up with stuff that will either go to waste or throw your meal plan off track entirely - whichever it is (or maybe all of them!) it's easy to end up "losing" hard earned money buying things you never planned for or even needed. I started thinking more about this last month - trying to get back into the habit of stopping to think before I spent, and already it's made a difference - the end of January saw a surplus in our joint bank account after the credit card bill was settled. A great feeling and I have the feeling we can do even better this month.

As I mentioned previously I've had no choice but to do a fair amount of clothes-buying over the past few months - having gone from a size 16 (bottom) 18 (top) to a 10 (bottom) 12/14 (top) not a lot of my old stuff is even close to fitting! I've kept what I can - some shirts that were on the right side before I can still just about get away with now. I've also got a few t-shirt style tops from before which are still OK for wearing under other layers. Beyond that though, it pretty much all had to be replaced, and the same will have to happen all over again when summer comes along. So for the past few months as well as buying what I've needed to set myself up again, I've also been keeping an eye open for summer clothes at a good price - which seemed sensible. There are still things I need but I intend to use this month as "thinking space" - time to really work out where the gaps in my wardrobe now are and what my priority is for further purchases - so to initially whittle it back to the things I need rather than getting bogged down with wants. As I think of items I'll add them to a list so I can keep my eyes out for the items I need at a good price. The good thing about being smaller is that there is a lot more chance of me finding bits available in charity shops - I already have a pair of summer trousers set aside that I paid about £2.50 for a couple of months ago.

Planned spending this week:
Saturday - beers at the Rugby club while we watched one of the 6 Nations matches - MrEH paid from his weekly spends.
Sunday - Bird Food from the RSPB Shop = £14.50
Monday - I was out doing some photography stuff for the day. I took a flask with me and some food, but still needed to spend for a few bits. = £3.90 (Cash from purse)
Tuesday - Entry for a 5k race I'm taking part in. = £18 - not cheap but it's at a venue I really want to run at, and it forms part of my goals list for this year so to me, that's value. (CC as paid online)
Thursday - My usual weekly gym session = £7 (Cash from purse). 
"Personal" spends for me - £3
Unplanned spending this week: 
- Tea & Cake at the RSPB Reserve cafe - MrEH's treat and from his weekly spends.
- £25.20 - 50% value of the meat I ordered.
Spending prevented this week:
- Fancied stopping at the services on the way home on Monday to grab a bar of chocolate but instead told myself just to head straight home.
- From habit planned a visit to the Turkish Supermarket for flatbreads on Tuesday then decided that I'd do home made ones instead. 

Although the Cafe visit was not planned ahead we did make a conscious decision to do that rather than it just being an impulse or habit thing. The reserve is one we visit from time to time - we went there because they have a shop so we could get the bird food that we needed, and as RSPB members we got a lovely walk round the reserve absolutely free of charge so £7 on tea & cake seemed fair enough.  On Monday I also saved some money by choosing to fill the car up with diesel in Lincoln rather than at home - saving of 4p a litre on a full tank.  I've also stepped right away from using the contactless option via my phone for payments at the moment. And strangely enough I've got back out of the habit just as quickly as I slipped into it in the first place! It's made me uncomfortable realising just how fast you can slip into bad financial habits like that - there is no question that handing cash over makes you think more than paying by card, but even the act of physically getting the card out and entering your pin number still provokes more of a thought process than paying by contactless does.I don'[t consider myself to be someone who routinely spends without thinking, or impulse buys, but even I found myself getting sucked into spending more because of the ease of it.

There is a great article on the Clearscore Website about mindful spending which touches on many of the same points I've mentioned above and is worth a read. It's amazing how even when you think of yourself as living a quite frugal lifestyle you slip into odd habits that you'd rather avoid - but I'm already finding that this is relatively easily countered too with a bit of thought.

If you're having a frugal month how are you getting on with it and have you learned anything about your spending habits so far this month?

Robyn

Frugal Friday

My intention is that for the duration of #FrugalFebruary I will do a Friday update each week focusing on a particular aspect of the stuff I'm looking at along with some more general notes on the challenge as a whole. Now regular readers will be fully aware that my intentions on the blogging front do not always meet my achievements so we'll have to wait and see how this goes - but for now, let's assume that's the way it will go!

I reckon that my very first task for this month needs to be to sort out the food aspect of things. As you probably know for meal planning purposes I work on the basis of planning evening meals and having an established set of foods that cover lunches and breakfasts. For us, that works - breakfasts are generally a piece of fruit or cereal in the week,and toast or porridge at weekends. Lunches on working days are either a filled roll or a sandwich and some pieces of fruit, MrEH also takes a bag of crisps most days. Non working days are often soup, but sometimes vary depending on what I have that needs using. Having those guidelines in place means that it's one aspect less of planning things out that needs to be considered, and knowing that we have the right stuff lined up saves on the risk of "needing to nip out for a sandwich". MrEH sorts out lunches, I sort out main meals, on weekdays, as a general rule. We budget for one takeaway a month but for this month (and last, as it happens!) we're not necessarily going to have that. My aim for the month is to thin down the freezer, use up some stuff that's been languishing in there for a while, and make use of what we have as far as possible.

Meal planning and good shopping habits is in my view one of the most important subjects for anyone wanting to live life more carefully from both a food waste and a financial point of view to master. Once you have the hang of it, your bills drop considerably. Cooking from scratch is undoubtedly another - kudos to all you parents out there passing the message on to the next generation - being able to feed yourself on a fraction of what others can manage? That's a super-cool skill-set! (Not least as it frees up more money for beer which I believe is a key consideration for your average student!)  Whether you've emerged from Christmas feeling as though your bank account has been plundered or the New Year has provoked a lightbulb moment on wanting shot of credit card debt, then tackling the grocery spend can be a fabulous way of boosting your finances and uncovering money you never realised you could have spare.

First job is to work out what you have - so grab a notebook and a pen. Initially your aim is to discover what you have in your fridge, freezer, cupboards and any larder, pantry or storecupboard you might use. Storecupboard space is a fantastic thing to have by the way, as it allows for the possibility of buying foodstuffs in bulk where this will save money. Once you have your list, then the next priority is to make a further list (or use a highlighter on the first one) of anything that needs using up - veg in the bottom of the fridge starting to go a bit bendy? Half a packet of bacon that's only got a day to go on its use-by date? A packet of bread bought for toast with only a couple of slices gone? The last few eggs in the box? All that stuff needs to get dealt with as a priority as otherwise it ends up in the bin, and that is like rolling up £10 notes and feeding them through a shredder. That bread - freeze it, then you can just take out a slice or two as needed. The bacon might also work to freeze - separate it into the number of rashers you'd use together and interleave with greaseproof or plastic film. While eggs and veg can be frozen I'm always a fan of just getting on and using them - so think about whether they will work together for a frittata for the next meal you have to cook? Otherwise there is always the soup option for the veg of course - home made soup is one of the quickest and easiest things imaginable, honestly!  Get into the habit of each week, before you shop, evaluating the stuff you have that needs using and incorporating that into your plan and you'll quickly find that both your rubbish bin and your food spend will slim down dramatically. Remember - "Best before" means that it's still safe to eat after that date but may change in taste, colour or smell. "Use by" needs a far more careful assessment and if you are in ANY doubt then bin it - I'm not getting too far into here but let's leave it that you have eyes and a nose - use both and if either say they're not sure then don't risk eating, please! (This applies to stuff that's within date too - don't just blindly assume!)

OK - got your full list and your "use me up" one as well? Next steps then is to start thinking about meals that you can make using entirely - or mostly - the ingredients you already have. Obviously prioritise the things that are in urgent need of using.  I've made a start on ours for the next month already, with my aim being to spend as little possible in the supermarkets, and so far it looks a little like this:
- "All day breakfast" to use remaining eggs, plus some bits from the freezer that have been there a while
- Batch-cook bolognese sauce - each pack of mince will make 2 x double portions and this will use up some onions and some carrots needing attention, plus the final 2 peppers
- Stew - I have diced beef in the freezer.
- Pasta bakes using veg to bulk out the dish and incorporating bacon and cheese for an extra pop of flavour. (A really good way of using up veg too!)
- liver and onions with mash (yum!)
- Hearty salads made more "wintery" by adding cooked mushrooms or peppers and with the centrepiece being some rather tasty smoked mackerel we got at the Good Food Show in December and froze when we got home
- a pasta dish with smoked chicken - again from the GFS and frozen, and just a single breast left so this dish will help it stretch to feed two of us.
- sausage and bean casserole
- Couscous salads with chickpeas, veggies and usually something like Halloumi as the star of the show

Initially it's best to just try to plan a week ahead - anything more gets more challenging. Cross items off your "what I have" list as you use  them, and make sure you revisit those "need using" items weekly. Your shopping list is of course those items that you will need to complete your chosen meals, storecupboard items that you will use up (we usually replace rice, pasta, couscous etc when we open the previous bag) and of course your routine bread, fruit etc.  For vegetables as far as possible plan around what is seasonal and thus generally cheapest. If you live alone frozen veg might work better for you than needing to eat - for example, cauliflower for a week. Personally I LOVE frozen sliced peppers and frozen sweetcorn to have in the freezer as it means I can just add a handful to a dish without needing to have fresh in or open a tin. If you have a discount supermarket nearby then look out for their "Super 6" and "Pick of the Week" offers as those can be brilliant building blocks for your week's meals too - this week Aldi will be dictating some of our fruit - I'll be buying apples elsewhere and these will be British, but it's tricky to get a lot of home-grown fruit at this time of year so my citrus will come from Aldi, along with almost certainly plums (crumble - yum!) and blueberries (to have with yogurt or in porridge at the weekend). MrEH may well put in a request for pears too. Lidl meanwhile will offer me British Leeks at a great price - and as I will be in the area anyway I'll almost certainly grab a pack or two of those. I also have a quick scout about online to see what is particularly good value and this influences where I shop each week to a degree. Write your shopping list, and shop according to it - try not to stray even if an offer looks tempting - oddly enough all the really good offers tend to come around again and again, and regardless of how cheap something is, if you won't use it then it's no bargain at all!

For so many people cracking overspending on groceries can make a HUGE difference to your budget - it's one area where you can see an immediate saving too of course. Why not establish what you've spent previously and then set yourself a budget to come in at a certain level less, to start with? And then any savings you make could be paid off a credit card perhaps, or stashed aside as the start of an "emergency fund". And if you have any great tips for cutting your food spend or planning meals, please do pop them in as a comment below!

Robyn.

Frugal February

Well well - here we are again! Seems like ages since I last did this and sure enough, looking at the tag on my blog it looks like the last time was 2014 - so more than time to give myself a kick up the backside and take another month-long look at the small stuff on the Frugal Home Front.

In all honesty we're still pretty good on the bigger stuff. I keep an eye on things like the cost of our electricity and gas - we still use electricals overnight where possible to make the most of the lower electricity cost. We don't sit around in short sleeves with the heating turned up higher than it needs to be in midwinter. Sky get a phone call when the cost goes up to bring it back down to a level that we feel means we're getting decent value. We still shop with a keen eye to prices and know what we expect to pay for particular items. We use the credit card for purchases where it's sensible to do so, collect a small amount of cashback on those purchases, and pay off IN FULL (channeling my inner Martin Lewis there!) every month without fail. We save for planned expenditure, and shop around for the best prices on things. We meal plan and shop to a list. BUT...I'm pretty sure there are bad habits that have crept in *almost* unnoticed, and that is where I'm looking to make savings.

We agreed when the mortgage was paid off that we would increase things a little. The flat is now kept slightly warmer than it used to be, we've increased food spending a little. We're signing up for slightly more pure "fun" stuff - albeit we're planning carefully how that will be financed. For me personally, necessity has played a part - with a substantial weightloss over the course of the past year I've had no choice but to replace most of my clothes - pretty much the only stuff from older than a year ago that I'm still wearing are shoes and socks! There *are* things I still need too - so I have a list of items that I need to purchase as and when I find the right thing at the right price. One of my plans for this year is to set myself up a savings account which will get fed with a small sum monthly to budget for clothes purchases.  All of the above is stuff that we're aware of, and conscious about - the things I want to target are the unconscious habits and frittering - things like the tendancy to pop into a charity shop or two because I'm nearby, not finding anything useful (clothes) but leaving with another couple of books; the purchasing of bargains that are excess to the level I/we need purely because they ARE bargains; going to Aldi for yogurt and items from the Super-6 and leaving with a few other odds and ends that tempted me. This month will be about retraining myself to not just routinely use ApplePay on my phone to pay for something because it's easy - but to think about whether I'd be better using cash for that transaction, and about returning to being more mindful about spending.

I'm not intending to set any hard and fast budgets this time round - it's more about thinking about keeping spends down and not spending unnecessarily. As we no longer have our ClubCardPlus account we're less tied to ThaT supermarkeT than we used to be (hurrah!) and I've been making the most of that by shopping about more and keeping my eyes on offers. I've got £12.50 sitting in my Nectar account ready to use which I will probably spend this month. Clubcard points will as ever get saved towards converting to deals - our railcard will need renewing later in the year, and we usually use points for the Good Food Show tickets too. We don't currently have enough Morrisons points to do anything with. Should I need anything in the toiletries line, my Advantage Card has £11.54 on it to spend. I want to return to keeping an eye on the Aldi & Lidl "Super 6" and "Pick of the week" fruit and veg deals and then think about planning meals around what is best value - however we will still be keeping to our principles of where possible buying British produce, and keeping meat British and high welfare. As I have done before I'll post weekly with spends, thoughts and any confessions - I'm sure there will be a few!  On a personal level this will apply as well - I intend to return to my old habit of starting the week with a set amount in my purse, retaining notes of £10 or above value from the previous week but feeding anything smaller into my Airshow Savings tin. (Change below £1 coins will continue to get fed to the pigs - and the sheep - as ever.) I'll also be going back to paying cash for the gym each week to see if it suits me better than using ApplePay.

Planned Spendiness: 
- We have a weekend away later in the month - spread over 2 locations, Derby & Norwich, for me and one (just Norwich) for MrEH. Travel for me to the first is booked, travel between that and the second is being covered by a lovely friend who will be driving between the two places and is giving me a lift. Accommodation for both is already booked - including a superb £19.50 bargain for me on my overnight in Derby - but there will be spends at both locations on food and drink...possibly mostly drink! MrEH will in turn be taking our car to Norwich - there will be a £4 spend for parking there plus obviously the cost of the diesel.
- I intend to travel to Scampton to photograph those Little Red Jets at least once during the month, possibly twice. Diesel and food costs will be involved - but I will price check fuel at home and up there and fill my tank there if as is so often the case there is a good saving to be made.
- There may be some Airshow tickets and/or hotel bookings to make - anything on these lines will come from my "Airshow Savings Account" though as usual.

As ever if anyone wants to join me on this I'd be utterly delighted!

So - only one thing left to say then....LET'S GO!

Robyn.

Frugal Friday

I'm technically jumping a bit ahead of myself here - but I'm already thinking ahead to my second monthly challenge of the year - it's going to see the return of Frugal February! The eagle-eyed and sound of memory will recall that I said in my list of goals for the year that we were aiming to re-focus on some of the frugal stuff again - just try to get our eyes back on the ball a bit if that makes sense.

It's odd - one of the things that just about everyone I know who's had a period of time where they have been voluntarily frugal to pay off debt, or a mortgage, says once they've achieved their aim is that it's quite difficult to get out of the mindset where you feel guilty, or uncomfortable, about spending money. The good side of this is of course that you're never likely to massively overspend again - the habit of saving up, of seeing what else you have that will do the job instead, is too deeply ingrained for that. What does happen a bit over time I think though is that small things start to creep in, little frittering habits sneak back up on you. Never much - just a pound here or there, but the result is that you end up with "stuff" that you hadn't planned, and don't really need. The Credit card bill can still perfectly easily get paid when due, but there's just that little bit more on it than really, you would have liked...and THAT is the side of things we want to address a bit.

There are things that we won't be doing - we have some trips out and about planned, and those will still be happening. MrEH's car needs a service & MoT. We will still be heating the house, and still be eating well. Stuff that we NEED will still be purchased, but stuff that we just WANT may well get put on hold, thought about, and only bought after a short review, if at all.

Some of this will continue through the year as well, and some of it is starting sooner than February - for example:
- I have plenty of assorted toiletries stashed, and will be aiming not to buy more until I actually need to.
- We currently once again have an absolutely jam-packed freezer and one thing I intend to do this weekend is to do a full audit of that freezer and then meal plan ahead using the contents.
- Similarly we have a well stocked store cupboard - once the freezer gains a little more wiggle-room I want to batch-cook some pulses ready for incorporating into meals
- Books - I got a number for Christmas and also bought myself a handful of charity shop paperbacks just before the festive season so I have plenty to read going forwards. No more to be purchased until I've read those I have!

Clothes - now this is a trickier one. There IS still things I need, I'm still wearing a number of tops that are far too big for me, for example.  Some things can be purchased from charity shops - it's amazing quite how often I find a pretty much unworn fitted M&S scoop-neck top hanging there just waiting for me, for example. I will also keep my eyes on trousers and skirts that will do as work-wear. Other things do need purchasing new either for hygiene reasons (underwear, nightwear, shoes - do not get me STARTED on charity shop shoes - and Exercise kit - I refuse to wear an item that somebody else's crotch has sweated into before mine), or because generally by the time they hit the charity shop they look more "past it" than I'm comfortable with - pretty much anything light-coloured falls into this heading, as does anything with a fleecey finish. I freely admit I'm a terribly fussy charity-shop shopper - but I do like the idea of it, so will persevere for those items where it works for me to do so. I'll be reviewing my list though, and also doing some more decluttering of cupboards and the wardrobe.

One thing I DO want to really look at is how easy the whole "contactless revolution" has made things. I used Apple Pay a lot, and I think there is no question that it does make you think less about spending than handing over a crisp fiver would. I want to focus back on using cash a lot more for the first part of this year - it will also make my monthly credit-card statement reconciliation far easier too of course! I keep saying the same thing about it - that the ease of just tapping a phone on a reader to pay for something is going to get a lot of folk in a lot of trouble - and I honestly think that's dangerously true. I don't think I'm likely to be one of them, but even I have to admit that it genuinely doesn't feel like "spending money" in the same way.

There might be other things that will occur to me ahead of really starting the challenge on 1st February, if so I'll note those and incorporate them - both otherwise I'll be back on the first Friday in Feb with my framework and intentions for the month!

Robyn