No spend January

[ivykaty44]

anyone up for a no spend January?

just the normal utilities, food shopping and transport costs

then put the purse/wallet away and don't spend till February

a good way to rebalance the balance after xmas

I’m in too! It will be low spend rather than no spend as there a few commitments coming up I have to honour but I would like to be much more mindful about spending this year so we can get our finances into shape so we can look into moving house in 2023.

I’ve started by putting £40 away in cash for Christmas (I’m terrible at raiding this so
Am going to have to be really strict with myself). No non essentials bought yesterday or today.

Minimal spends here, only spend was an Ecoegg at £8, hoping it will be good and save on Washing powder otherwise no other spends.

@littleHen84

Minimal spends here, only spend was an Ecoegg at £8, hoping it will be good and save on Washing powder otherwise no other spends.

This is such a good investment @littleHen84 I haven't bought washing powder for two years since getting ours, have only had to top the pellets up once and the extras were included in the set I bought!

I put the £4.96 for the 1p challenge contributions for the whole of Jan into a savings space yesterday, otherwise no spends here 👍🏼

Someone mentioned lunch boxes;

I’ve warned my kids that for January, instead of an individually wrapped biscuit (club/rocky etc), they’ll be having something like a large piece of shortbread or a few chocolate biscuits in foil or a little tub in their lunch boxes; we have a house full of sweet crap I’d like rid of so it seems daft not to use it here (and will mean I don’t feel I have to give it to them at other times to use it up, as we could all do with fewer occasions of eating sugary snacks)

Towards the end of the month they’ll probably find a few Quality St rattling round instead of a biscuit, but I’m sure they won’t complain. And if they do it won’t be until hours after they’ve eaten it so too late (they’ll also probably get a lecture about being entitled too if they do complain!)

They have refillable water bottles, so the only things that will then be a cost is an apple and a sandwich/roll and pkt of crisps. I buy rolls or bread when they are reduced and make up a load of ham, cheese or peanut butter sandwiches (can’t do PB for primary school DD) there and then for the freezer too which keeps costs down.

[quote Pheebs2021]@specialsauce
Personally I say allowed. Not much more expensive than supermarket and you've got to eat.

I don't think there's a set list of rules it's about making it work individual to your life as no life's are the same[/quote]
Great Pheebs - I'll take that as green light for tarka dhal if I get a hankering!

Tell me about frozen sandwiched please! @siblingrevelryagain
Can a ham sandwich be frozen? This could be a gamechanger for me . .

I'm about to squeeze and freeze the leftover lemons and limes I bought for Christmas drinks - this came to me in a lightbulb moment last night as I looked at them and wondered how I would use 4 limes before they dried up!

Frozen sandwiches/rolls bagels:

The only ‘rules’ are not to put sauces on before freezing (you can butter the bread or spread cream cheese on, but no mayo/chutney etc), and no salad items. Either freeze individually wrapped or in a large bag and take out of there. I take them from freezer when packing lunch in the morning and they are defrosted by lunchtime and not soggy.

When I want to be really organised I lay the lunch boxes open on the counter the night before with everything in except sandwich.

You could take out and defrost in fridge overnight if you prefer, but you’d need to remember a freezer pack if cheese or ham etc. You could do it this way if you then wanted to add tomato, lettuce etc (or send them with some in a tub to put in themselves)

Been doing it for years, it’s a game changer and means you can take advantage of reductions.

I also do this for cheese toastier for breakfast-freeze cheese sandwiches then put in toasts bags in the morning (or any other time)

I've cancelled Amazon Prime, Kindle Unlimited and Audible. That's £23.97 each month saved.
Without Prime I'll order much less stuff, and I have around 300 unread books on my Kindle 😟 so I don't need Unlimited. Several books I haven't listened to on Audible too so I won't sign up again until I've listened to them all.

@TheLeigh you’ve inspired me to reconsider our Amazon and similar. We need some but probably not all!

Electric toothbrush was £7 reduced from £20! So huge frugal win for us.

I’ve done my first draft of next weeks shop online (we do click and collect) and it came to £49! I want to try and get it down to £45

I only ever use the amazon prime trial for free and then cancel, I set an alarm on my phone to cancel. They always seem to send me the promotions and let me use them. mine just ended 31/12

2nd Jan = £0 spend and not going out again now so Toal for year £0 zero spend

I went for a. bike ride this morning, that kept me out the shops and online shopping

Been for a long walk on the beach. Glorious sunshine (though breezy). Not spent anything (despite wanting a take out latte from a cafe I passed).

Feeling smug.

for packed lunches when mine were at school, id roast 10 chicken drumsticks, add rice cakes, chop up a melon into 5 and slice careful through but not quite to the edge and chop into it - imagine big smiles with teeth, then add an apple and a penguin bar. Sometimes it would be a pasta salad and yogurt to change it about. but all the food was ok for a week in the fridge and easy to prep on a Sunday night. There are lots of meal preps for lunches about on youtube

all would be ready in the fridge and it was just grab the bags and go in the mornings

Weekly food shop done. I budget £100 a week (3 adults and one teen at home) but it came to £70.
Lidl had run out of most things on my list so had to go to Morrisons which made it more expensive. I do get 10% off there though.

@siblingrevelryagain - thank you! Top tips.

I'm going to do these sandwiches now and freeze so I'm super prepared for going back to school.

Also going to make a load of flapjacks for the sweet part of the lunches as I seem to have a ton of porridge oats and golden syrup

No spend for us since 30th December. We have covid so are isolating (but otherwise fine!) so no opportunity for temptation 😂. Loads of food and wine in the house so feeling pretty lucky! We rarely have take away food as we like to cook, never buy coffees out etc but I do love to browse the charity shops and am determined not to buy anything this month!

£90 food shop. But we needed that.

@Gemster19 i am excited too give it a whirl!

Food shop done -£57, should see us through to Friday.

We did a weekly shop today, but some of the stuff will last us 2 weeks, it was just cheaper in the supermarket we went to which we don't often go to as it's more hassle with 2 small DC (and a lot of other things are more expensive there!). Total was £39.73, so apart from bread and milk (they actually had no bread!), we should be ok until next weekend, as we have a lot in the freezer.

Also a pork joint in the freezer which we are going to have next weekend.

We normally spend between £120-150 a week on shopping so I am determined to cut this down massively, not just in january, but throughout most of the year.

I also just don't know when food got SO expensive!

@specialsauce. you can spend but you just list it as a spend unless its for supermarket or travel/fuel, food and fuel don't count. or any direct debits standing orders. Its just about not spending and making it a bit of a game or challenge to see how little you can spend through January

Have you thought about make a batch of parka dash and freezing it for those nights when nothing else will do?

Spent £17 at Tesco yesterday, £45 filling my car up and no spends today. Spent the day sorting the house out, found a game I bought for Christmas that we didn't open; can hopefully find the receipt and take it back 🤞🏻
I've also got other stuff I'm sending back to Amazon etc, and have got stuff to sell so that should help boost my budget this month. Planning on no spends now until I next have to shop which should be end of week.

Spent £60 in aldi today and it was a no spend day yesterday. I don't plan on going to the shops until next weekend now , this will be tough as I'm so used to popping in on the way back from work. However, I am determined so will not be taking any cards or money with me.

Jan Spend total - £0.00

Okay I did spend £60 but that was for a parents for my gran's 90th birthday so it was an allowed and pre-planned spend.

Currently isolating so hoping that makes the no spend easier until the 10th.

Spent £5 in trampoline park cafe on drinks. That's it.

I'll join. Just to watch myself really.
Have enough food pretty much until end of Jan[long story].
But if inflation really takes off this year, things like energy bills, car bills and heating bills will really become super important. I had already started to look at them, but if I am on this thread, it will help to concentrate my mind.
I do think women concentrate on food, but other bills can be the ones to scupper family finances in reality.