Word for 2017 | Frugal

I'm not going to make any resolutions for 2017 as I'm not very good at keeping them. We do have a goal in mind though and that's to save enough £ for a fabulous family holiday in 2018 and to upgrade our car in Spring 2018. Ideally, I would like to save £7000 (yikes!!) and we will be trying different things every month to save as much as I can - I hope you can join me.

How to save £400 in one month

How I'll Save £400 in January 2017

1 - Direct Debits

First of all, I've gone through our direct debits and cancelled a few non-essentials:-

Park Christmas Savings Club - £50 CANCELLED
WWE Network - £10 CANCELLED
Netflix - £8 CANCELLED

Steve also has £12.50 per week allowance to spend at work which we are cutting down to £5 and he's going to take his lunch in more often rather than buying in the canteen. This will save £32.50

TOTAL SAVING | £100.50

2 - No Takeaways

After an indulgent Christmas, I don't feel too bad cutting out our takeaway treat. We normally buy one every fortnight on a Saturday night and it costs £35 for the 5 of us.

TOTAL SAVING | £70

3 - Walk more

Steve has gotten into a bad habit of driving the kids to school and back rather than walking on his days off. He takes the kids to school 2 days per week and I reckon this must cost us around £10 in petrol per month. We also visit Newcastle once a week to stock up on shopping but this usually costs us around £6 per week in petrol and parking. I've sourced a few butchers and fruit and veg shops that are more local (with free parking) so we're switching to this instead.

TOTAL SAVING | £34

4 - Clear Out and Sell on Ebay

The kids' rooms both need a good clear out to make way for all their new Christmas gifts. I'm going to hopefully sell some of their old toys and clothes on Ebay. I am not sure if straight after Christmas is the best time to do this but it's worth a try

MONEY MADE | £50 ish

5 - Meal Planning and No Eating Out

Meal planning really works so I'm going to get back into this rather than just deciding on the day or texting Steve to pick up something from Tesco on the way home from work. Shopping twice weekly really works for us and I am going to try and keep our food shopping bill at around £80 per week to start off with (so £40 per trip) which on paper, seems do-able to me. This will save me around £100 per month on groceries I think. I'm planning on using Aldi, Lidl and local butchers/fruit and veg shops - I'll be heading out with a list and not deviating from it! We have a few vouchers for Waitrose and M&S left over from last year so if we do crave a treat, we'll use these rather than spending actual money.

Steve and I usually head out on a monthly date night and/or head out for lunch at least once a month. I reckon this costs us around £70. There'll be none of this in January! We'll cook some nice lunches at home instead.

TOTAL SAVING | £170


Total we can save in January = £424.50

Wow - that seems like so much when I write it all down! I am determined to do this.

I'm going to write a little update every Friday (hopefully) about how I've saved money that week. Let me know if you have any tips for me and don't forget to follow me on Pinterest where I'll be sharing more money saving tips. 


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How I'm planning on saving £400 in one month

Comments

  1. This is inspiring. I think I'll go through ours and see if we can cut anything too!

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  2. Great suggestions! We need to start saving to as I dropped to no pay in December. Worst timing :)

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  3. Great post. I've just had a look through my online banking and there are a few direct debits I have that I don't even need.

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  4. We use Aldi and Lidl. Food is fab but it saves us money as there is not so much choice / variety as the big supermarkets which means we aren't buying as much stuff that we just don't need x

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  5. That's amazing! I'm on a mission to shop local and save the cost of our car payments this year

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  6. Frugal is my middle name.
    I've done a week / 10 days food shopping for £35 before.
    Farm foods has some decent items (emphasis on some) - chicken is horrible!
    Packed lunch for work sandwich and bag of crisps.
    Cheap bread me and the kids will happily eat the 35p bread while Catherine insists on warbutons in a waxy packet. When it's toasted is it that different?

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  7. I LOVE this! I honestly wish I could get Simon fully on board with being frugal! I LOVE working out new ways to save money but he's pretty reluctant to agree to most of it.

    I ALWAYS take packed lunch to work, every single day! Everyone in my office takes the pee but I don't care. Why on earth do people spend £5 + a day on a sandwich when they can make lunch themselves to take in? I honestly don't get it! Also people that buy Starbucks every day! They must be made of money!

    I always think that I'd save more in the supermarket if I went on my own rather than the two of us going together. Extras that we don't need always end up going in the trolly!

    One thing I've almost managed to convince Simon on is not having to buy all of the brands in the supermarket! He used to fight me on every single item but now even he agrees that some own brand stuff tastes the same and on occasion can taste better!

    We have a hefty amount of £££ to pay off our Honeymoon so we're definitely in for a frugal year! x

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  8. Wow really hope you can do it and can book that fab holiday. I Aldi shop and it does save a fortune.

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  9. Good ideas to save! Hope you get on well with it. :-)

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  10. This is so great. I am going to try and follow your example Samantha. Good luck! May I make a suggestion re food budgeting lentils ... buy the massive packets from an asian store and it lasts so long and very healthy there are loads of recepies you can use too.

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  11. This is a great target but it sounds like it's achievable for you! Good luck with it :)

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  12. We use a budgeting website, you need a budget (ynab) . my brother, who is a chartered accountant, introduced us to it. Its so helpful and makes you very mindful of what you spend and you have to stay in budget. Michaela x

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  13. Some really good ideas on saving money for treats Iceland do some lovely pan pizza for £1.50 each a lot cheaper better than some of the brand name ones. Herions is pretty cheap for brand frozen goods. Like bird eye and carte door. I always a big fan of poundland for some of the detol cleaning products. I don't drive but my impression is always best to shop about rather than relying on shop. Then again, it's just me and partner so we don't mind. All our veg come from a local green grocers. Some great tips.

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