How are you thrifty and how are you less so?

[confusedandemployed]

Reading the threads on here, it's made me think about how frugal we really are. We have made huge inroads into our 'disposable income' spending, but we still don't consciously do very much to save money. For example:-

Food:
BETTER. I have improved here. I meal plan and shop mainly at Aldi / Lidl. Food bill reduced from £100 per week (DP, me and 20mo DD) to about £40-50, with an extra £10-15 for cleaning stuff, toiletries, loo roll, nappies etc.
HOWEVER - I am fanatical about not running out of anything. It means that I've always got to go to the shops, even when I don't. I reckon I spend probably £20 on things which really could wait for several weeks / months to be bought.

Clothes:
HMM. I almost always buy my clothes from charity shops, or Tesco / Asda at a push. I look out for good names (Boden, White Stuff, Fat Face etc) and will rarely buy anything less (for want of a better word) than Next or M&S. I do online surveys and ask for vouchers for Christmas / birthday. I currently have over £100 in vouchers to spend in John Lewis.
HOWEVER - I can't seem to stop 'bargain hunting' in charity shops. I buy clothes just because of the name / quality, rather than actually needing them.

DD's clothes are mostly hand-me-downs or supermarket bought. Her shoes are Clark's sale bought, and I recently bought her boys' shoes as no girls' shoes in the sale. Felt odd about that, but it was a good decision - they are much harder wearing!

DP almost never buys clothes and when he does it's either charity shop or with a Fat Face voucher he had for Christmas / birthday. His pants come from Sports Direct or Asda!

Gas / electricity:
NOT GOOD. We do not do much to save money other than turn lights out. We tend not to plug in things we don't use, but those we do use are often left on standby.
We have a wood burner, but the radiators in all the other rooms are left on. We don't use the burner enough; we have an inexhaustible supply of free firewood so we have no reason not to use it.
I have recently switched dual fuel providers using MSE so hoping to see a benefit here.

Cars:
OK. We have 2 cars and usually need them both for commuting (shocking public transport). We pay annually for insurance / tax when we can afford to do so.

Luxuries:
SO SO. We don't go out often but do enjoy the odd bottle of wine at home. We've always got something in. We have a takeaway every fortnight-3 weeks. When we do go out it's only to the local pub, but we don't worry about what we spend.
We take DD to the play centre 1 x week (£3.50), to playgroup 2 x week(£3) and occasionally out for cake (about £4) and swimming 1 x week(£4). We take her to the swings, the park, rhyme time, to see GPs, dog walking etc etc i.e. as much free activity as much as possible.

How frugal are you? I'd be interested to know where other people save money and how easy they find it. I know I can do better.

Frugal things:
Meal plan, buy value range, stick to list/budget when shopping
Only buy clothes when absolutely need to
Don't drink
Turn everything off buy plug when not in use
Walk most places (no car)
Utilize loyalty cards

Non frugal things:
Treat my animal baby's (buy treats/toys, buy branded food)
Buy the kids new clothes when needed instead of using hand downs (I do sell on most of the old stuff)
Have a red bull energy drink addiction

Am sure there are more for each category but mind has gone blank

Frugality;

• check I have good deals on phone, gas and electricity

(And try to not have heating on too much/make non-inclusive phone calls)

• weekly shop of about £50 for 4 weeks followed by. Heap shop of £20 5th week. (Just milk, fruit and veg)
• always get discount codes if eating out and only have 1 course
• don't spend much on DIY etc
• cheap UK based holidays
• 8 year old cars
• keen on saving and search out best returns

-over-payed mortgage for 10 years, meaning we finished 9 years early

• buy school uniform second hand in school thrift shop
• buy school shoes in the sale (ready for following year) and will ebay if turn out not to be right size

Sorry realised some of these are not exactly about frugality day-to-day....many are about making longer term savings.

Not Frugal;

• DC go to fee-paying schools
• costly extra curricular activities such as music lessons

In my mind, our frugality in certain areas allows us to both spend on other areas and save too. The big one has been overpaying the mortgage (which if course was spending, not cutting back.....but long term saved thousands and is what allows us to pay school fees)

Generally I am quite tight. I don't like to spend if I ran avoid it.

Frugal:-

• Regularly shop at Aldi and rough meal planning (I enjoy cooking though)
• Monitor utility bills, insurances, etc
• Overpay the mortgage and have monthly savings
• Shop around and buy cheapish budget short haul flights
• Research holidays to get what I perceive to be the best for our budget
• Avoid full price clothes buying if I can help it and wait for the sales.
• Sewing my own curtains
• Colour matching Farrow & Ball paints
• Holiday at half term is way cheaper than Aug
• Have stayed in a mobile home and considering a campervan holiday!
• Not encouraging DC to play more than one musical instrument each (not that they are desperate to practise the one that they do atm!)

Not Frugal:-

• If we save on flights, we splurge on accommodation!
• Going out to eat for special occasions (we do push the boat out!)
• Sale clothes for expensive brands e.g Toast, Jaegar, etc
• School Fees
• Luxury childfree weekend away (once a year)
• Not into camping!
• Take 2/3 holidays a year excluding weekend breaks

I stick to a £40 pe rweek (£20 for shopping, £40 for allowance) I always have a printed statement from the bank which shows how much I have got. if I want to find an item to buy, I type it into www.shopbot.com to see where I could get it the cheapest.

I haven't bought a new envelope or parcel for years, because I recycle all my old one's.

I like www.moneysavigexpert.co.uk I think Martin Lewis is brilliant. I also save up all my loose change into a pot.

sorry I meant to say www.savingexpert.com also try www.mysupermarket.co.uk before doing food shopping. Give's me a plan of what it might cost. :)

I'm very, very similar to you, OP.
I don't meal plan, I reckon I do better by looking what the best offers are when I get to the shop, and making decision then, and I'm not one for going to the shop unnecessarily, but other than that, very similar.

I do use tumble drier a lot which is often frowned upon on MN, but I have experience of mould growing through damp being created by damp clothes hanging around the living space in a previous flat, so I'm comfortable with my choice.
Our other luxury is I pay people to come and decorate for us (+ other odd jobs). Neither dh or I really have the skills to do as good a job, and mostly, we just never get round to it, and the people we use are very reasonable, so it's something we 'treat' ourselves to.

Food - I've cut down massively from approx. £370 a month to £200 and (other than Xmas) have easily kept to it.

Clothes - We have seriously had to cut back recently - DH says he doesn't need anything and don't think he's bought anything for nearly a year. I bought school uniform, shoes, fleece and two pairs jeans for DD last summer - luckily everything else still fits. Me - I did buy a waterproof coat from Tescos on offer in autumn (as I regretted not buying a similar one the year before). My Mum gave me some money for my birthday and I've just bought two cheap t-shirts as I'm desperate for replacements - still have £15 which I'll put towards clothes. I asked DH for socks for Xmas so that saved me having to buy new ones as others had holes.

Gas/Electric - not quite a good as we used to be - our old two bed house used to work out at £71 a month, for our new house we are paying £59 a month (and as of last week's readings are £152 in credit) - so I know we're using a lot less. I have been taking advantage of this and have temp set higher and leaving it on a bit longer - it sometimes gets up to 20.5c in our living room, whereas our old house was a max of 19c. I can still be good with it though - heating went off at 8am and I won't put it back on until DD comes.

Cars - we have one medium sized car essentially so DH can easily get to work, but obviously as we have it use it for ease, ie food shopping, visiting local friends and family and day trips - if only to a local hill or forest for a walk.

Luxuries - main treat - we do like a bottle of wine, but DH has been making his own and it's not bad - works out about £2.30 a bottle. We've had a lot of worries recently, so we're looking into a holiday - something fairly cheap in this country and we plan to spend very little when we're away, but it will be a holiday. We do like eating out (we've cut back on this though), but on occasions when we want to treat ourselves, we have deals and often skip pudding and have something at home if we're really hungry.

This is a good thread!
I wouldn't consider us frugal but I do like to make savings where we can.

Food-approx £300pm for the 4 of us, I shop in Aldi/lidl and get bits I can't get in there from Tesco, usually spend no more than £60pw including cleaning/toiletries.
Utilities-this is our biggest expense. We are on oil in our village and although this has come down I still top up the oil account £150pm to keep ahead and it's pretty much empty now as I've just ordered to fill up again. We can't turn heat off during the day as dh is disabled and can't regulate his temp. Electric is £110pm and we're in debit!! We do live in a large house but still it's off the scale!

Phone/tv etc- we are on a cheap package and have everything we need.
Clothes- I don't buy a lot, hardly ever buy for me. Dd's I get in the sales. I got school shoes for £7 in sports direct this term :)

Our biggest luxury is our animals, cat and dog food and insurance costs £65pm, the ponies keep, food and insurance etc cost us £250pm.
We don't eat out often and days out are saved for.

Gosh it's been a while since I came back to this thread, makes a very interesting read!
I have been trying hard to curb my charity shop addiction, but once in a while it goes tits up. I spent £22.50 last week on a lovely pair of jeans, 4 tops for me and Peppa Pig t- shirt for DD.
I am also not doing very well on making packed lunch. I really need to sort this out. That's £15-20 down the pan each week right there.

Oh meant to say I refuse to scrimp on dog food, but recently I've been making my own using chicken, beef, oily fish, rice / barley / quinoa, crushed eggshells and veg. Works out same price or cheaper than the high quality stuff I was buying but the dogs absolutely love it. It's really helped with their digestion too.

Frugal
I'm a canny shopper. Shop in Lidl, Home Bargains and keep an eye on my spends in Tesco
Very rarely buy clothes for me. Dh is the same
Never buy magazines. I borrow books from friends.
Never buy coffees or lunch out for myself anymore.
Use log burner and only use heating when it's perishing
Dd 2has free school lunches and doesn't get to opt out of them. Dd1 has a paid lunch once a week only
My car is 7 years old. It runs well so I don't need to update.
We live rurally and have friends who sell us meat at good prices for the freezer. Dh cooks well and I'm not bad so we use what we have well.
Socialising tends to be rare or local or with a designated driver ( usually me!)as a taxi wouldn't give us much change from £40.

Not Frugal
When we eat out, we go to good restaurants
When we go on holiday we want peace so we have a villa for privacy.
Dh's car is a high end model.
We like good wine

Frugal

I think we eat really well, I menu plan, make 5 packed lunches every day and know where to buy things in bulk cheaply (Loo rolls...Home bargains)

Getting a little rescue dog saves spending so much on expensive days out, we are all happy taking him to the woods/beach. He is the best value in the world in terms of what he costs v's joy he brings.

Kids hobbies, give up on expensive music lessons if the DC don't really love it (for one of ours music is her life, we felt that the others should be given the same opportunity but they are useless and moan so really no point!!).

Army cadets is the biggest bargain ever, DofE is so much cheaper and easier with them. Also no kit to buy, it is provided and the yearly 2 week holiday with them costs £40. Are you listening Scout association?

WE camp and use youth hostels, not all the time but it is a fun weekend away.

Cars, we need to run 2 for work, but also committed to a lift share to get DC's to school, saving £60 a week on the school bus fares.

Love charity shops and only buy branded clothes if they are reduced in some way.

Topcashback are great for treats, recently had a £50 Cineworld voucher off them.

Not Frugal

Concerts and sporting events. OMG I don't even want begin to estimate how much we have spent on the rugby world cup.

Decent kit, the DC's have good bikes and outdoor equipment, would rather buy good quality stuff second hand than something that looks good but is not functional.

We give everything to charity shops rather than selling on, largely because of laziness

have your world cup spends topped my mates? They are expats and are coming home for the whole thing...he's English, she's Welsh so went into ballots for both countries....£7500!!!!!!!!!!!
However they have huge disposable income (expats, no kids) and nothing to spend it on..Meanwhile back in the real world...

OP- regarding clothes, if you have a good eye for spotting a bargain then you could turn that into a way of making money. Good label clothes sell really well on ebay- as long as you can buy them cheaply. Jumble sales are the cheapest.

I sell over 5000 second hand items a year on ebay and Amazon, this supplements our family income by £900 a month or so.

£60 a week on packed lunches? How many people?

bigbluestars I have been planning to do this for ages. I have a stack of stuff ready to go on eBay (Boden, White Stuff etc) just haven't got round to it. Glad to hear that it can be lucrative though!

Just do it- start off with just a couple of items first- take the photos or find stock photos and list. I have made around £150 000 in the past 12 years selling second hand stuff online.

Food: Well hectic lifestyle means I do use a certain amount of convenience foods but I also cook from scratch a lot. Last week, I did a batch of tomato sauce and froze 5 portions for other days. Yesterday we had roasted veggies with a M&S chicken dinner (dine in - got a chicken worth over €11 on the meal for €14 deal) - there are 2 more bags of the leftovers frozen too. I grow a certain amount of our own veg in summer (only leeks in the ground at the moment). I buy yellow stickers, deals I use anyway, and slow cooking cheaper cuts a reasonable amount. But I do spend on good quality food, and having things like spices and seasonings - so we do buy fish from the fish monger, some meat and other bits at the farmers market when we go "down home", nice bread at the weekend. I probably spend more on baked goods than I should as I buy ingredients and bake myself rather than buying the cheap cakes.

Clothes - I buy a fair amount but have to look professional. I buy a lot of very good quality in sales, so it lasts years. I buy online a reasonable amount. I buy some in charity shops. I could do better here though. But I do look after my clothes.

Energy - we're not the worst. We have insulated the house a lot more since we bought it, and intend insulating the last big problem area we can easily tackle (need a professional though) this spring. We use low energy appliances and bulbs, we do turn off lights etc, we have heating on timers, and we use the wood burning stove for heating as well (we sometimes get some wood on walks).

Cars - we dropped back from 2 to 1 last April, as aDH was away so much. He cycles to work most days (12 km each way). I get public transport a lot now, but do drive occasionally. It is a pretty fuel efficient car too, and we do need one for journeys locally and a big one for journeys "down home". Sometimes even I will cycle locally, and I tend to walk to the shops more often than drive when it's for a few small bits.

We save a lot - properly put away in the bank. But we do spend on luxuries as well. But then we get more books from the library than we buy, we watch Netflix a lot for movies and only go to the cinema as a treat, things like that. We have just changed my gym (€672/yr) for an annual membership for all 3 of us locally (€1000) but we'll get to swim, DH's office is moving 3 minutes away, and I will use it more often as commuting patterns have changed so I'm not getting to my own anymore.

Really impressed with bigbluestars eBay selling.

I've done this a little bit as we are surrounded by very good charity shops but it can be a bit hit and miss. Things I expect to sell for quite a bit of money don't do so well and vice versa.

How do you sell, auction or buy it now? How do you decide on price? Do you have a shop? Do you spend a lot of time on it?

A few years ago when I worked p/t but also had nursery fees to pay I had to be very frugal in every respect and a lot of those habits are still with me. I meal plan, never waste food, research prices before purchasing, run a very economical car etc.

This is usually undermined by my "thank God we're not skint anymore" thinking when I say "ah, what's the point of working so hard if we can't go out for a meal/treat ourselves/get a nice haircut/stop off for a latte".

We're also now trying to catch up on 10 years of maintenance now we have the money to do it, but I won't buy "make do" furniture, thinking you may as well spend more for what you really want rather than spending out twice when you realise the wardrobes you bought were actually rubbish.

I need to strike a balance now though as we have no savings at all which is reckless & inexcusable given our income.

We are now in a multi generational household. It saves us over £1000 pcm.

When we were paying rent we had to borrow every month to pay the bills, now even though we are on a very low income we can make a dent into paying off debts and can give the DCs a decent standard of living.

Not having to count the pennies all the time really makes life so much less stressful. It's definitely been worth it.

bigbluestars you're right. I will pull my finger out and get going.