How I Saved £240 This Week | Frugal 2017 - Week One


Last week I posted about how we have plans to live as frugally as possible in 2017 so we can save enough cash to buy a new car in 2018. Here's my first update: 

Money Saving Tips & How to save money | How I saved £240 this week | Frugal 2017


1 - Cancel Direct Debits

I've went through all of our Direct Debits and cancelled any non-essentials. I am VERY sad to say goodbye to Amazon Prime as it was just so convenient being able to order groceries through my phone and have them delivered within 2 hours. The £20 minimum spend wasn't very frugal though so it had to go! These are the direct debits we've cancelled:

Park Savings           £50
Crowdfire                £6
Amazon Prime        £8
WWE Network       £10
Netflix                     £8

Steve has also reduced his weekly allowance from £12.50 to £5 per week (used for food/drinks at work) which is a saving of £32 per month.

Total monthly saving = £120

If you multiply this across the year it is £1440 per year! Wow! I am quite shocked by that figure.


2 - Freezer and Cupboard Inventory

I've went through my cupboard and freezer and made a list of everything that's in there. Considering I thought my cupboards were quite bare, I was impressed with what I found. This was a fab base to plan my meals and every meal we cooked this week used up something from our cupboard meaning that we spent less.


3 - Meal Planning

  • Monday | Pesto Pasta  - We used the dry pasta and a jar of pesto we already had in our cupboard. We would have normally bought chicken too but missed it out as Monday's are now meat-free for us.  Cost = FREE
  • Tuesday |  Lemon and Rosemary Fish & Couscous for us | Fish, Chips and Peas for the kids. Again we used up freezer ingredients in this meal - I did have to buy some garden peas from Aldi though as we'd ran out. Cost = £1.00
  • Wednesday | we were lucky to receive a last minute invite to a restaurant for review so dinner tonight didn't cost us any cash (perks of the job).
  • Thursday |  Teriyaki Chicken - Again, we had a sachet of Teriyaki sauce in our cupboard already and plenty of rice. I bought chicken thighs and a pack of mixed peppers from Aldi (used the rest on Friday). Cost = £3.50
  • Friday | Chicken Fajitas - I realised I had fajita seasoning mix in the cupboard plus wraps in our freezer so all I needed to buy was the chicken and peppers. I used thighs again which I think go further and cost less. Cost = £3.50


Total cost of dinner for 5 days = £8 for the 5 of us. I think this is really good. I know it won't always be as cheap as this as I start to use things up from my cupboard but it's a good start. I think this has honestly saved us at least £40.

I will be shopping/meal planning in 5 day cycles as that's going to work best for us but I would highly recommend you check what you already have in your freezer and cupboards and plan your meals around that.


4 - Not Going Out

Normally, the kids going back to school would mean Steve and I would go out for a child-free lunch at the first opportunity. We have resisted this week so a gold star for us and it saved us around £30.


5 - Enjoying a FREE Day Out

On the last day of the holidays we took a flask of coffee to Plessey Woods and enjoyed their free trail and a cuppa whilst the kids played in the park. Normally on the last day of the holidays we would have probably went to the cinema or bowling and lunch and spent at least £50 so this was a good saving.


Total Saving in Week One = £240

I am really pleased with this. It's amazing what you can do when you put your mind to it. If you're interested in following my money saving journey, please give SamanthaRickelton.com 's Facebook page a like. Let me know if you have any ideas for me to try next week. I really want to keep the momentum going.

Pin Me For Later
Money Saving Tips & How to save money | How I saved £240 this week | Frugal 2017

Comments

  1. Good work! You are going to have that car in no time!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Really interesting read. Look forward to following your future posts

    ReplyDelete
  3. Wow that's a brilliant saving. I think I need to think a bit more like this!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Love this Sam going to use some tips from here to help us out while we balance paying nursery fees.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Ah what a fab start! It's amazing how the little changes can add up 😊

    ReplyDelete
  6. It's incredible how such small changes can save you so much. I'm trying to save for my trip for Vegas in March, I never realised how much money I wasted until I started looking into where i could make savings - about £70 a month on ebay - and half the stuff i get doesn't even fit and goes to charity!

    ReplyDelete
  7. This is a great start to the year. Using up ingredients in your cupboards is a good idea, as is meal planning in general (something I'm terrible at!)

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment