• 600g speciality cheese ~ £4.50
• 1/2 french stick ~ £0.40
• bag apples or bananas (about 7) ~ £1.25
• 12 flapjacks / cereal bars ~ £4
• 5 500 ml bottles diet pepsi ~ £5
• 1 bottle concentrated fruit drink ~ £1
• special offers for dinner <£2 per meal (around 6 meals)

The dinners are things like couscous, pizza, soup, ready meals, etc. Not exactly the healthiest diet one has ever seen.

Unsurprisingly I was called out. You can eat much better for a similar amount of money, apparently. I probably shouldn’t have been quite so detailed, now I feel the need to attempt to defend my food purchases.

frugal lunches?

DoingHomework said

When I look at your food budget I see that about half of it is spent on cheese, cereal bars and soda. There is nothing wrong with that if that is what you like. But replacing the ceral bars with bulk whole grain mix, the pepsi with water, and stretching the cheese out would save an enormous amount per year.

Yeah, it looks bad because it’s unhealthy. In reality, cheese, fruit, soda and cereal bars are my breakfast/lunch every day at work. They cost me £2.65 a day (which is about US$4). That’s boring, but I don’t think I can do it cheaper whilst also eating food that I like and having to do no preparation whatsoever.

I’m lazy. I’m too lazy to make sandwiches every day (or even one day a week). I’m too lazy to chop vegetables and make carrot or cucumber sticks. I’m a little bit fussy. I don’t like milk, so don’t eat cereal. I could stretch out the cheese, but what with? If I used half the amount, I’d save 32p on the cheese, which I’d need to replace with something. I can’t think of anything that would be any better from a laziness/money point of view (but I’m not particularly imaginative).

The cereal bars are expensive and I’m paying for the convenience. The only cheaper item I can think of that is equally as convenient is maybe biscuits/cookies? They come in larger packets, I guess. The pepsi is definitely unnecessary. It’s my latte factor. If I could cut it out, I would save around £220 a year. I’m not motivated to do so consistently, but from time to time I stop buying it.

Aside from the soda, I don’t think my lunches are too expensive, although I’ll admit that I should aim for more fruit/veg. I can’t think of ideas that are as cheap and convenient which are actually better for me, and ensure that I cant get through the day without being ridiculously hungry.

I think lunch at work is the hardest to make frugal, healthy and easy. What do you guys do?

frugal dinners

I was less specific about the dinners that I eat. I put convenience and price ahead of healthiness. Whenever I see frugal tips on food, they always involve cooking from scratch. I enjoy cooking from scratch, but only for other people - it feels like a waste of time to spend 30 minutes cooking something just for me, when it’ll take me 10 minutes to eat it.

Otherwise, if you want something quick, usually stirfry is suggested. Although I happily eat stirfry other people make, it’s never something that I choose to have for dinner. But I accept it could be a good way of eating quickly, cheaply and healthily - I’ve never bothered to price it up myself.

Actual ways of eating frugally for dinner when you’re a family of one or two (and willing to cook) include:

• having a small range of staple foods that you use all the time to make a larger number of meals. Normally includes:
  • rice
  • pasta
  • tinned tomatoes
• cooking in batches and freezing the extras for lazy days
• planning meals in advance so that you can use up leftovers
• keeping a reasonably stocked store cupboard so you can wait for sales
• taking advantage of coupons and special offers
• buying produce when it’s in season
• eating primarily vegetarian-ly
• downgrading brands (generic rather than branded, value rather than generic, etc)
• shopping at discount supermarkets
• keep a price book, so that you know when an offer is worthwhile

Many of these ideas are attempts to create economies of scale so that you can take advantage of usually cheaper unit prices on larger quantities. It’s also about gaming supermarkets - they have plenty of loss leaders, so if you can exploit your opportunities you can save money that way.

What they tend to have in common is time. For pretty much anything, you can generally have 2 out of 3 from the following list:

• budget - cheaper food
• quality - healthier / better quality food
• timescale - more convenient food

but the most important is time. It takes time to make decent food, and it takes time to shop cleverly for frugal food. The more time you’re willing to devote, the better luck you’re likely to have in finding good frugal food.

What are your favourite tips for frugal dinners? Bonus points for suggestions that are quick or convenient.

I’ve lived in this city for nearly 10 years and I had no idea there was a foreign language film club. It’s not very well advertised, and talking to a couple of regulars, it seems that they don’t get many people showing up. This makes me wonder what other kinds of frugal entertainment there might be that I hadn’t realised. Thing is, I’m not entirely sure what to look for, I know about museums and art galleries, but what other cheap or free entertainment could there be?

My experience with the film club suggests that a lot of these things aren’t all that well advertised and might need a little work to uncover. What kinds of frugal entertainment is there where you live? Maybe I can get some ideas that way. Let me know in the comments.

how many monthly bills do I have?

I’m sure that I’ve mentioned my bills before, but I’ll just think about them now. In order of importance:

1. council tax
2. mortgage
3. house insurance
4. water
5. electricity
6. gas
7. disability insurance / income protection insurance
8. musical instrument insurance
9. phone
10. internet
11. mobile phone
12. tv licence
13. magazine subscription
14. accident insurance

As a blogger and internet junkie, the ‘net connection is actually more important to me than the landline, it’s just that I can’t get the internet without the phone, which I barely use. I also note that I have quite a bit of insurance going on. And not that much in the way of extra regular costs.

Not all of these are monthly, some are annual but they all recur. The magazine subscription stops me buying ridiculous quantities of glossy house magazines, and so was well worth spending £12 on. And even though I don’t watch very much tv, I’m not quite ready to give it up yet.

could I give up the least important of these?

Actually yes. I probably should cancel the accident insurance because I got suckered into it by the salesperson (yes, we can’t all be sensible all the time). This will have to go on my list of things to do!

what about you?

If you order your bills from most important to least important, could you get rid of the one on the bottom of the list? I defined importance as the consequences of not paying - jail is worse than homelessness for example, so council tax comes at the top of my list. You might want to order your list differently, and you don’t need to worry too much about the top of the list anyway, it’s the bottom that you need to concentrate on.

Let me know in the comments how you get on.

In the middle of the Olympics, I thought it would be a good idea to issue a personal finance challenge, one that I need to take myself. It’s in three parts:

1. Establish how much you actually spend on stuff
2. Look at ways of cutting costs
3. Save and invest the extra money that you find

This, is the second part.

In part 1, we wrote three lists that cover all our expenses (averaged by month). Hopefully you’ve still got these. The first list is expenses that we want to cut e.g. bills, the second are expenses that we would like to stay the same, and the third are expenses we would like to increase e.g. charity donations.

look at ways of cutting costs

Ok, so take your list of expenses that you would like to cut. This shouldn’t take too long, but let’s do the easiest first. You might want a calculator to do some calculations.

It goes without saying that if you are willing to cut back on usage, then that will save you money. I’ve assumed that the amount that you use is fixed and you simply want to pay less for the same service.

debt repayment

Option 1: If you have a credit card that you’re paying off, try calling your credit card company and asking them to reduce their rate. Always worth a try.

Option 2: Look at taking out a balance transfer. Be very careful when considering the fees, and make sure you can work out the interest rate that you’ll be charged on the fee, this is usually not 0%. I approximate the cost by calculating:

(1+balance transfer fee) x (1+interest rate) – 1

Otherwise, if your debt is large-ish (a few thousand and up) and you have a good credit rating, it may be worth taking out a new cheaper loan.

This can also apply to mortgages. If you were on a fixed rate mortgage and it has since reset you might want to look into getting a new mortgage as it could be less than you’re currently paying.

gas and electricity

Key words are *shop around*. The gas and electricity coming down the pipes and wires won’t change if you use a different company. If you haven’t switched supplier for a year, chances are you can save money on these. Don’t sign up with the supplier that knocks on your door, actually look and see which will be the best. If you have your bills handy, you can estimate your usage and put that into the comparison calculators:

• energy helpline
• money supermarket

Money saving expert keeps an eye on the prices and will tell you if now is a good time to switch.

If you’re on a prepay meter, see if you can get the company to switch to a regular meter – this is one of the things that I need to do.

water

There’s only one way to reduce your water bills. Get a water meter fitted and then use as little water as possible. If you have more rooms than people, or everybody is out all day this is likely to work out very nicely. If there are four of you living in a 2-bed house, then not so much.

Water companies should fit meters for free, unless it’s impossible for them to do so, and you can change back within a year – but that’s a one shot deal.

phone, internet and tv

More shopping around is required here, but with slight differences. This depends a lot on your usage and requirements.

You can’t save money on your tv licence unless you’re blind, over 75 or willing to watch in black and white. It’s hard to save more on basic phone line costs as well.

You can save money on phone calls. Understand your current and anticipated usage, and pick a package that suits. Additionally, consider using an override package especially if you make international calls or calls to mobiles.

Saving money on broadband means picking the best package for your usage. This is often a bundled with phone calls and/or tv so work out what’s best as combined and stand alone packages. Orange offer a deal bundled with their mobile phone package – but work out whether Orange are cheaper for your mobile first.

The cheapest digital tv needs a set-top box. Otherwise it’s a straight competition between Virgin Broadband and Sky. Both have combined packages with broadband so consider whether that would offer better value for money.

For mobile phones, consider your actual usage, and use a comparison site for a new deal. Then phone your existing provider to see if they will match it. If you’re a heavy data user then you can’t compare this easily. Fortunately they vary mostly between networks, but not really between packages, so in your comparison add on your data usage costs when picking the cheapest.

My best deal works out to be T-Mobile Combi £15 plus Web and Walk which has a total monthly cost of £22.50, saving me £2.50 per month. And I’m getting a shiny new phone, and I’ll sell the old one via envirofone.

insurance

Two key concepts. Work out how much you need, and then shop around. For home and car insurance, it’s always cheaper to pay upfront rather than monthly, so you should be saving year round for these expenses.

I’ve recently renewed my home insurance, and saved money doing so without altering my cover, so I know that this works.

Whilst in the United States of America, this period might have been the beginning of the golden age, the same can’t really be said of the UK. Rationing didn’t end until the early and things like bread were rationed, even though they hadn’t been during the war. And, whilst we were manufacturing things like fridges and washing machines, they were predominantly for overseas export in an attempt to pay off our war debt and rebuild all the houses etc that had been bombed out.

So, it was a little more of a struggle for the average housewife / domestic goddess than things are today. Lots of things are still applicable to the modern homemaker (which is everyone who runs a household, not just those who do it rather than paid work).

For example, to get the best bargains when grocery shopping, you should plan your meals in advance, but allow flexibility to see what looks good when you get to the shop. Well, this is still true. You might be able to get anything and everything regardless of season in the supermarket, but you never know what might be reduced or particularly good value when you get there.

It’s also suggested that you get to know your local shops and consider the number that you want to visit and the effort that will take compared to the potential bargains you might find. This works now. After all, there’s no point in saving money by shopping at Lidl, Aldi and Netto if you then spend a fortune in fuel getting there, is there.

My personal favourite, is when Kay advises that if you’re having guests over you shouldn’t use too many points (used for luxury goods) and so avoid making your guests uncomfortable. Which basically means, don’t show off and don’t spend more than you can afford trying to impress people. Very, very sensible advice.

If you have any interest in what domestic life was like in Britain in the post war years you should take a look at this book. It would make a truly splendid gift for a woman with a sense of humour. It’s not quite as funny as the legendaryinstructions to WWII GIs on deployment in Britain, but it’s a little more practical.

1. take out travel insurance

You need insurance for travel abroad. You might be covered by your own home insurance and medical insurance if you have it, but you’re more likely not to be. Travel insurance is relatively inexpensive, you can use a comparator service for single trips, or take out an annual multi-trip policy if you’ll be away several times in a year.

Insurance needs to cover the likely risks of your holiday. Some trips will need adventure sports cover, others might need cover for medical evacuation by air. If you’re travelling to the USA get very comprehensive medical cover as it’s more expensive to be hospitalised there than anywhere else in the world. Cover for your luggage and tickets is also good, especially if any of your travel tickets are non-refundable.

If you’re an EU resident travelling within the EU don’t forget that the form E111 is no longer valid. You need to get an EHIC card which will entitle you to the same medical treatment that locals get (not necessarily as free or as comprehensive as the NHS). This is one of the reasons that travel insurance is much cheaper within Europe, as insurance companies expect you to have one if you are entitled to.

2. avoid emergencies

Lots of people are the victims of theft whilst travelling. You can avoid the risk a little by using the safe in your accommodation if there is one, carrying around no more cash than you would at home and using a money belt.

The other big emergency that you can avoid is health related. Know the risks of your destination before you go.

If the tap water isn’t safe to drink, don’t brush your teeth in it either and avoid ice in your drinks. In some places - parts of Morocco spring to mind - the tap water is generally safe to drink but the differences in the minerals mean that you are likely to be ill when you first start drinking it. In this case you drink (cheap) bottled water, but it’s ok to brush your teeth and use ice made from tap water.

If there is malaria, then you should probably be using some kind of prescribed anti-malarial drug. But it’s actually much more important to avoid being bitten, so cover up and use malaria nets.

If you have ever lived in the British Isles you probably associate travelling with better and warmer weather. The downside of course is that you’re at risk of sunburn and sunstroke. Use sunscreen even if it’s cloudy, cover up, keep cool, wear a hat, drink plenty of liquids. Basically do all the things that your mother probably told you to do in the heat.

If like me you are afflicted blessed with very fair skin, then just decide that the bronzed look is not cool because you will never achieve it on vacation, and any attempt will leave you red, peeling and in the worst case blistered (yes people, I’ve been sunburnt so badly it’s blistered ).

3. make any emergency easier to deal with

Nothing is foolproof, so try and ensure you have a little spare money in a different location to your main stash, and keep a note of all your important details like insurance claim number, passport number, and relevant phone numbers somewhere. One idea is to email then all to yourself, I’m planning on doing this as well as writing some of them in my travel notebook.

On some trips I have also left photocopies of key pages of my passport at home, and copies of my intinerary. I normally only do this if it is a particularly long or complicated trip. If it’s somewhere that my dad thinks is dangerous - which apparently is anywhere where he doesn’t know someone in the same or a neighbouring country - I might try and appease him by telling him my plans.

Important reference numbers:

Contact details:

4. pay less for foreign money

Folks this is a personal finance blog. Over here we don’t believe in overpaying for no good reason, so shop around if you’re getting any currency in advance. Often the charging structure can be complicated (I wonder if they do it on purpose ) so the key question to ask is how many shekels / dinar / taka / lira / etc that you get for your £100 (or $100).

How you take money abroad will depend on the countries that you’re visiting - you’re choices are typically cash (local, £ sterling, US $, €), travellers cheques (Visa, Mastercard or Amex), credit cards and debit cards. Generally credit cards will be cheapest for purchases, but more expensive for withdrawing cash, where debit cards win. I haven’t used travellers cheques for about seven years now, but whether they’re a good idea depends a lot on your destination (I haven’t strayed very far off the beaten track). A guest post I had a while back from brip blap should give you some more ideas about money abroad.

PS In the UK, there are two good credit cards (Nationwide and the Post Office) and one debit card (Nationwide) which charge less for overseas usage than anyone else.

5. take less with you

I know, I’ve written about this before, but for most people you will have a better time if you take less stuff than you think. If you’re going away for 1 or 2 weeks for a standard holiday then you shouldn’t need any more than would fit into a medium suitcase and a small carry on bag. You are not moving there, if you didn’t pack it and you can’t buy it whilst you’re there, you probably don’t need it.

Taking less saves money because it leaves you more flexible about transport options whilst you’re away. It means that you’re less likely to suffer a serious back injury trying to carry things. It might stop you being targeted by a thief, although you should still be vigilant.

6. home is still there

You can be burgled if you’re away. I’ve come back from a business trip before to find that someone tried to break into my house (fortunately the best word to describe these particular people was incompetent). The same thing can happen on a fun trip.

Consider cancelling the mail, milk and newspaper deliveries. Set up a timer to switch your lights on and off (cost about a tenner for two). I leave the curtains and blinds half open, plus you can no longer see into my house from the front. If you have nice neighbours you might want to ask them to keep an eye out on the house for you.

7. have a great time

Take more than the minimum amount of money. Yes, you should still be frugal whilst you’re away, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t spend money on experiences.

It’s usually cheaper and much, much more fun to try and eat and drink what the locals do. Especially street food from busy stalls and local beer, wine or spirits.

Maybe buy some souvenirs, if they’re things that you would actually like - I’m still hankering after a djellaba, but I didn’t need the little wooden camels from the same trip.

This step is good, because a lazy procrastinator like me knows what to do but struggles with actually completing it. And really, it wasn’t that time consuming maybe 15 minutes or so, plus I ended up calling the company as the online payment didn’t work. Now the house and stuff is insured for the next year.

The plan in general is to try to do things the more cost-effective way. After all, I couldn’t care less who insured my house as long as it’s done so I may as well do it as cheaply as possible.

So I challenge all my readers to do something to make their financial system more organised. After all, something is an awful lot better than nothing, and once you’ve started inertia often takes you the rest of the way anyway.

Slight technical hitch is that this could work out pretty expensive. In locations where water is most wanted in the summer - hot, dry, dusty places - it’s also scarce. If you have a water meter fitted (as I do), then you are literally paying more for every single additional drop, and anything that uses a lot of water, is going to cost you more. From BWH Water:

We require customers using sprinklers or with swimming pools to have a meter. Garden sprinklers can use as much water in an hour as a family of four does in two days.

This is a fairly typical restriction. So, run your sprinkler overnight for 8 hours twice a week over the hottest summer months and you’ll be adding in the region of an extra 50% onto your annual water bill. Now, I do like a nice green lawn myself, but the thing is, it’ll grow back green again in the autumn - and lets not forget that if you live in an area with water supply issues then if people keep using hosepipes and sprinklers, there’s a good chance of severe water shortages. Which will work out expensive in the long run.

In the short-term, get a watering can for the garden, let the kids have a bucket of water and some sponges to play with and let the grass grow brown. If you want to make things better in the long term use plants in your garden which are adapted for drought, consider a smaller lawn, and promise the kids a trip to the nearest beach or lake for their water fun.

Sounds stupid, but it’s true. If you stop buying things, you’ll save money. Not only the money that you spend on purchases, but the money that you spend because you need to store all the things that you’ve bought.

I’m sitting writing this post in my library/office/dining room (honestly, not a big space at all) looking at the hi-fi system that I have, which I bought whilst I was at university. It’s quite a few years old, and it doesn’t work very well, but I haven’t bought another one yet because, well it’s good enough. Eventually I’ll get a new one, but not yet.

Similarly, the laptop that I use at home was bought in 2005. It’s not a very good one, certainly it’s a no name brand. The trackpad is broken so I use a mouse now. The dvd writer has never worked (reader is fine). It can be a little slow at times, and requires a separate wireless card as wireless wasn’t big back in the day. The battery is shot, and I can’t use it for very long without a mains connection. Still, I only really use it for blogging and surfing the internet. I suspect I’ll be able to keep going till it packs up entirely. Maybe that’ll be in another 3 years or more. Not buying a new computer this year (even though I can afford to) is saving me money.

For me, better than the money that I still have in my savings account earning compounded interest, is the lack of mental clutter that I get from too much stuff. If I bought a new stereo or laptop, I’d have to work out how to get rid of the old one - not straightforward when you want to be decluttered, environmentally friendly, and don’t have a car.

Secret money saving trick.

Don’t buy stuff.

Image by garethjmsaunders

The key things to be as flexible as you can be, on are probably your destination, and the dates you travel. If it doesn’t matter exactly where or when you go then it becomes much easier to pick up a bargain.

The more constraints that you have on your trip, the more important it becomes to book in advance to get any semblance of a good deal. On the other hand, if it doesn’t matter which week in September you go away, or the exact Mediterranean country that you go to, there’s no need to book in advance to get a deal, you can use the even better last minute offers.

This is particularly true of package deals - flights and accommodation booked together through the same company - but is also true of flights on scheduled airlines. Basically, the rooms have been booked by the tour agent, and the plane will be taking off, so any money that the companies can get is better than nothing.

Of course, there are bound to be some constraints on where you travel, and you might not be able to take advantage of the best deals but think outside the box. Does it need to be a Greek archipelago that you travel to if there’s a better deal to be had in the equally historic and beautiful Croatian Adriatic islands. Can you travel from another airport, or on a Sunday instead of a Saturday? Is British Columbia really that much more beautiful than Washington state if the exchange rate is not in your favour?

Think flexible and save money.