As you may have noticed the blog has been light on posts this month as we have worked hard on the new upgrade for the whole Low Cost Living site. The new version is fully mobile optimised so our many phone and tablet readers should find they can navigate more easily and be able to locate what they want with the drop down menus to help with frugal living.
Frugal Living
Even before our spending fast we lived fairly frugally. We’ve always meal planned, used price comparison websites, and generally tried to keep to a set budget each month. However, cutting out luxury spending and sticking to the basics has really helped us reign in our finances these last two months and I am actually looking forward to carrying on for a frugal 2016!
Meal Planning
This for me is pretty crucial if on a budget. Popping to the shops to pick up odd bits every few days will always add more onto your monthly bill than you need spend. By planning the week or month ahead of meals you can work out what you have in, what you need, and avoid the popping to shop for bread and milk that ends up costing £15 in added extras!
We will be needing this month to plan around our heavily stocked freezer. On Christmas Eve we popped to the supermarket just before closing and managed to get so much reduced priced meat and dairy that we are pretty good well into March or April I expect! Christmas Eve, New Years Eve and Easter weekend are fantastic for grabbing reductions if you have the time. If finances are really stretched working out when your local supermarket reduces in an evening can really help out financially.
Cut the Junk Food
After all the over indulgence we are also aiming to cut the junk food that has been appearing over the last month or so. Lots of wholesome meals, less snacking, making sure we all eat together around the table for at least two meals a day as well.
Gabe did get given an awful lot of chocolate for Christmas, but thankfully he can only count to 5 consistently so we have managed to part him from a lot of it and pop it high up where it can’t be found. Gary will use it up in his lunches for work and college over the next few months. Although we don’t mind Gabe having the occasional chocolate or cake, I do feel that there is too much sugar creeping into our diets in general so try to moderate it when I can.
Goodbye Storms
I’m also hoping 2016 sees less wind and rain. The ground here is so saturated that every time it rains it just runs off the fields and pools in the garden or on the road. There has been a lot of flooding locally too with the last two storms, and we really could do with a break from it all to dry out!
This year we want to plan more home grown veg, but with the warm wet weather the pests will no doubt be thriving and this will inevitably lead to problems in the season ahead.
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