My Frugal Home Forum

This is the final week-end for 2018. It has been a challenging and interesting year. Spent on things I had not planned on but were necessary so it was ok. I will be taking an $81.00 a month pay cut in January 2019 so it will be interesting to see how things go. I should be ok but there is little wiggle room. I did use some extra money that I had to buy some food items ahead that are on sale this time of year. I was lucky that my brother paid half of my property taxes so that gave me a little bit of a break. My current plans for the next several days is to do a pantry, fridge, and fridge freezer inventory and then to make menu plans accordingly.

I am hoping to only buy fresh produce in January to save grocery money towards other things. I want to expand my deck garden but have to come up with some cages to keep my resident squirrel, Dennis the Menace, out of the pots and earth boxes. He ate everything last year including the actual plants. I have hinges, nails, tools etc that I inherited from my Dad. Also scrap wood left from projects from my contractor. The big problem was this year I did not have the extra money to buy chicken wire. I recently had a bit of a, I wonder if you can buy it on Amazon moment? Yes you can! It is much cheaper than the local farm stores and they will deliver it right to my door. I need smaller bundles instead of what farmers usually buy and according to other people who have bought from their site it is good quality and cheaper than going to a brick and mortar store. So I will be using grocery money to buy the chicken wire since it involves food..

My new apple trees did not make it this year. We had such a weird cold spring. Snow on Easter and then right in to a super hot summer. I am thinking of replacing them. You have to do that some times with trees. Some of my peach trees were replanted and my pear tree was killed but I am nursing along the volunteer pear tree that sprouted from the side of the trunk and it produced about 6 pears. It always amazes me how farmers managed to grow and produce things in the past and still survived. I know a lot of them did not and there were very lean times. The weather can wipe you out in an hour with a storm or a season. You just keep plugging along. My three peach trees are doing well now but it has taken me 8 to 10 years to get such wonderful crops. My one apple tree that has survived, after about 10 years, is doing better each year. However the others died or did not thrive and had to be removed.

Looking forward to the challenge of growing more of my own food and being able to freeze or can it. I do have a dehydrator I inherited from my Mom and I need to see if it still works. So 2019 should be an interesting year..

Good luck to all of you who are also working on being frugal and may 2019 be your best frugal year ever.
Janet Alliesmama

This is it! The end of my 2018 No Spend Challenge! As I stated previously it was not a bad year. I did have to spend on unexpected things but the good thing is I had the money to meet the extra expenses. I gave up using my credit cards in 2015 so I have to rely on what I have. Although I did have a blessing from my brother. He paid half of my property taxes which was $1800.00. I could have paid them but the extra money saved went towards a minor food and household supply stock up. A bit of a hedge against possible price increases in 2019. Also I am having to take an $81.00 a month pay cut in my Social Security. Even with the cut I will be able to make my bills but no wiggle room and the only savings will have to come out of what I can shave off of a few bills that are slightly flexible. I am looking forward to 2019 and another No Spend Challenge. Not sure if anyone else is interested but I am excited to get started. I cannot do anything on my computer until after Midnight tonight but I have my budget arranged and after examining the monthly and yearly end report on my Money program I will enter the new budget that I have come up with on paper. So 2018 goes down as a good year.
Janet Alliesmama

Glad it went down as a good year and good luck in 2019

Dgflorida wrote: ↑

Mon Dec 31, 2018 5:46 pm

Glad it went down as a good year and good luck in 2019

Dg thank you and may your 2019 be a happy one to. Good luck with all of your projects. You always amaze me with what you are doing.

Janet Alliesmama

Janet, like you I am glad for the No Spend Challenge and look forward to continuing on for 2019. I think it would be more appropriate to call mine a No New Spend Challenge as I did buy several things from my wish list, but all except the new bed, area rug for the living room, and the small vacuum to keep it clean, most everything else was from thrift stores (which I love). I did replace several kitchen items that needed replacing, some furniture which needed to be bought (new to me sofa-$17.00; dining table-$5.00; two chairs that match the table and have the same design as the free to me breakfast stools- $15.00 each; entertainment center- $7.50; recliner-$7.50). RM was kind enough to assist with looking for items and paying for a few of them. I was ready for my home to be more of a home than just where I kept my stuff. I love being a teacher, but there has to be a balance between work and relaxing, so having a home where I really love being and relaxing became a priority this past year.

I cut my food spending and still have way too much food in the house, so will cut my food budget even more this coming year. RM is now at his tech-school, so all the food in the house will last a long time with just me eating it. That too has been an adjustment. He is my best friend, but I did not realize how much I would miss him being around until he was gone. And his leaving really made me miss my own kids more- I think I missed the empty nest syndrome due to RM being around, so experienced that once he left.

By doing the challenge, I was able to go to my son’s wedding and go to RM’s graduation from boot-camp without incurring any debt from the expenses. This coming year I hope to go visit my daughter in California and make a couple of small trips to visit RM. I also have a couple of bills that I want to pay off this coming year and save a little more than in the past.

I have spent some time getting my 2019 budget ready and look forward to another low/no spend challenge. I am starting the coming year off with a pantry challenge that I am going to refer to as “my style pantry challenge.” By that I mean I will allow myself to use my grocery budget for items to assist with using what I have on hand- to make it more pleasant instead of just making do with what is on hand. I am setting my food budget at $25.00 a week for the first 6 months (that is $12.00 less than the USDA Thrifty Plan and $22.00 less that the Low-Cost plan). I plan on staying less than $40.00 a week for the last 6 months of the year.

I have more fresh food in the fridge that needs using soon or it will go bad than I would like to begin the year with, but that is far better than not having food. I just do not want to start the year off with wasting food. I did well for the most part with wasting very little food this year, and I would like to do as well or better this coming year.

I do have a few items on my 2019 Wish List, but the only one that I am willing to buy new is a new bedroom comforter set. I will wait until I find one that I really like and that is not overly expensive.

Anyway, here is to a productive and thrifty 2019.

Good luck Momof2. And Happy New Year.