I've been on a bit of a jam-making mission lately. First up, starting from the left, was two large jars of gooseberry jam, with gooseberries picked from our own garden. One of these has been eaten already (told you we liked jam). 

Next along is plain blackberry, and then some blackberry and roasted plum - a large jar for us and a small one to give away next time we go round to someone's house for tea. It's always nice to be able to take something home made as a gift for a host. Although I'm not sure what a great gift this will be - I boiled it for far too long and it's set almost entirely solid and needs slicing out of the jar. 

And finally is the result of tonight's efforts - one large and three smaller jars of a rather firey plum and ginger. I did as the recipe suggested and tested the consistency, and it wrinkled nicely, although still seemed far too runny when I poured it into the jars. We'll see. 

I think that's probably it for my jam-making exploits for this year. Everything is sticky, and I sympathise with a friend who was once convinced that her children oozed jam from their pores, as they always seemed to be covered in it, even when they hadn't had any. 

It feels good to be making jam again. It's tasty, and also a nice distraction from house-related things. Today we had a request for some extra documents from the mortgage broker, and a large envelope arrived from the solicitor with lots of forms to fill in. These things are always slightly nerve-wracking, but it does mean that things are moving along as they should be. We'll do what's needed and send things back tomorrow. Fingers crossed... 

Last night I found myself wandering round the local fields again, collecting blackberries. I love foraging, it gives me a great sense of satisfaction (and I like getting something for free, of course). I'm thrilled that, having missed several years of blackberry harvests, I'm making the most of this year. 

I made a decision this year not to grow anything edible in our own garden (apart from the herbs and soft fruit that grows by itself), so we are incredibly grateful to friends who pass on their surplus produce. Just this week we've had an enormous marrow that has contributed to three meals so far, and these beautiful purple beans. 

Today we popped to a friend's house for a cup of tea, and he confessed that his plums were rotting on the tree, and did we want to take any? Yes please! He's eaten his fill, and many of them were turning bad, so we picked the rest and will take him a jar of jam in return. 

​Of course, all this produce needs processing. 

The blackberries were in most danger of rotting, so tonight I'm making a few jars of this roasted plum and blackberry jam. It's not ready yet, but I can tell you that the roasted plums smelled so delicious that I swiped a few to put in a quick rice pudding I just made to use up the last of a tin of coconut milk. I've not roasted plums before but that won't be the last time. 

Tomorrow I'm planning to turn the rest of the plums into this plum and ginger jam. 

It feels good to be making jam again. I'll definitely be planting a plum tree or two once we move. 

No, this was not my lunch on the last day of January (although I did add these sorry looking vegetables to a tasty stew - no food waste on my watch!) Actually we felt remarkably un-deprived during Uber Frugal January. Would you like to see how we did? 

The plan
In this post I outlined what we wanted to achieve: 

• saving as much as we can towards moving expenses so we don't have to add them to the mortgage and pay interest on them
• dropping some spendy habits and cultivating some cheerful non-spendy ones

I planned to eliminate all spending on taxis, clothes, takeaways and books, and to think carefully about what I spent on food and socialising, and to see where else we could make savings. 

The results

Tea and cake (just me and my friends, not Peter)
Spent in December: £44
Average monthly spend over last year: £45
January spend: £24.95

Clothes (just me)
Spent in December: £0
Average monthly spend over last year £27
January spend: £0

Travel (taxis, bus fares, not things that can be claimed back, just me)
Spent in December: £23
Average monthly spend over last year: £21
January spend: £0

'Other' (a dangerous category... this is my personal 'unnecessary' spends)
Spent in December: £52
Average monthly spend over last year £89 (crikey!)
January spend: £9.43

Joint treats budget (covers both of us for takeaways, breakfast at the farm etc)
Spent in December: £71
Average monthly spend over last year £76
January spend: £24.26

That's £199.01 right there over the monthly averages. Goodness me. We spent roughly £120 on food, when we normally spend around £160-180, so altogether Uber Frugal January saved us around £250. Gosh. 

How did we do it? 
Clearly we'd drifted into quite spendy habits, otherwise we wouldn't have been able to save that much. Here are the main things we did differently this month. 

Meal planning
We made a meal plan and a shopping list every week, and stuck to both. We've never done this before but both quite enjoyed the lack of decision making on week nights. I took lunch and snacks to work every day, and anywhere else I went. I didn't buy a single bar of chocolate, cup of tea or any kind of snack while out and about by myself. We had no takeaways at all. I did a lot of baking. Read more about our food planning here. 

Cycling everywhere
​I started cycling to work, and other places, which I wrote about here. I normally walk to work, so in itself that didn't save anything, but because I already had my bike, I cycled to places I would normally have got the bus to, or a taxi, and even one or two places I would have driven. It already feels easier to get up those hills. The other advantage of cycling is that it's not as easy to wander idly into a shop for a treat or 'something for tea'. I've not bought a single thing on the way to or from work all month. 

Avoiding charity shops
I never thought of myself as a 'leisure shopper' but charity shops are, it seems, the source of a lot of my discretionary spending. We have a lot round here, and I've often just wandered in on the way past, looking for nothing-in-particular, and coming out with a book, or a candle, or a new skirt. Fifty pence here, two pounds there, it all adds up. We went in one that had a 'fill a bag for £5' sale and were sorely tempted, but decided there was nothing that we truly wanted, so left empty handed. 

Making different choices
Sometimes we did spend money. I met friends in cafes, and a pub, and we bought beer and the occasional treat to take to someone's house (although I tried to make treats when possible). I wrote here how I just had tea, rather than tea and cake, or had tea and cake rather than lunch. That made quite a bit of difference too. 

What happens next? 
We were both surprised at just how much we managed to save, and we plan to continue many of our new (or rather old) habits into February. However, we will likely relax a few things. We've missed going to the farm for brunch at the weekend. I hate to admit it, but we've even missed the odd takeaway. And I'm not promising I'll never go in another charity shop (although I'll certainly be more mindful at what I come out with). 

But we'll certainly keep meal planning, and doing one weekly shop rather than endless 'picking something up for tea'. I'll continue taking food and flasks of tea everywhere, and baking our own treats. 

We've enjoyed Uber Frugal January, although it's difficult not to berate myself for just how spendy I've been (and yes, the main culprit is me - Peter barely spends anything). I'm almost inclined to plan to do it every few months just to keep spendy habits in check... 

I've started cycling again. I used to cycle a lot, when I lived somewhere flatter and didn't own a car, but convenience and idleness caught up with me and cycling became mostly something I did for fun, not for transport. 

Not any more though! My bike has been retrieved from the cellar, panniers retrieved from the box they were packed in, and I'm now cycling to work every day, as well as further away places at the weekend. 

All this cycling has prompted me to think more about how I travel around, which fits nicely with the Uber Frugal January theme of questioning all of your expenses. 

Cycling: panniers are the key

Right now, cycling to work feels ridiculous - it's less than two miles away so it takes me ten minutes to get there, and longer to cycle home than to walk as it's so uphill. But I'm hoping I'll be fitter soon, and I'm planning to add more miles to the journey home once the evenings start getting lighter. 

For me, panniers are the key to cycling. Without them, you have to use a rucksack, which makes for hot, sweaty cycling and squashed chocolate brownies (in my experience). With them, you can carry many things in comfort and safety. Mine are lovely, they're enormous, and waterproof, and easily to remove. They weren't cheap (about £50 I think) but so far they've lasted fifteen years and are still going strong. 

This bike folds in half, which is (in my opinion) a useless feature as it then takes up far more space. But the handlebars and pedals fold in too - very useful for storing in a hallway without bits sticking out to trip you up. 

I also have a 'proper' folding bike - a Brompton. This was expensive (about £600 I think, although now the cheapest seem to be £950) but again, it's lasted about seventeen years and I adore it. It folds up so small you can take it on the train without booking in advance, and you can even get it onto a bus. Perfect for my old bike-train-bike commute, and for slinging in the car to take on holidays (we have one each). Peter bought me a pannier to go on the front a couple of years ago and now it is the very pinnacle of bicycling perfection. 

I will say something about hills and traffic, as those are the reasons that people seem to give for not cycling more often. I've used hills as an excuse myself plenty of times but it is just that - an excuse. Yes, I have to get off and push sometimes, but the more I cycle, the fitter I get, and I can now get all the way home from work without getting off, which two weeks ago seemed like it would never happen. Learn how to use those gears and get cycling!

As for traffic, yes, it can be daunting. But the routes I drive are rarely the routes I cycle. I use cycle lanes where I can, quieter roads when I can't, make sure I'm lit up like a Christmas tree (no Stealth Cycling) and most importantly, I remain vigilant. I make eye contact with people turning out of side roads (to make sure they've noticed me) and I am always prepared to slow down if in a car is being unpredictable. 

Walking: sensible shoes and bags at all times

My bicycling enthusiasm has only recently been rekindled, in part because I've been conned into entering a 62 mile bike race in March. Before that, I walked (and drove, but we'll get to that in a minute). I love walking. I'll happily walk from one side of the city to another to meet a friend for a cup of tea (and often do). 

I'll walk to work in whatever shoes I'm wearing, but for longer walks, comfy shoes are best. And for walking, a rucksack (although now I think about it, panniers around the waist might not be a bad idea). Preferably no carrier bags dangling from wrists, and if I'm going to be longer than an hour, I find it best to have a drink and snack as it's very easy to pop into a shop for a bar of chocolate when you're walking. 

Walking is slower than cycling, but I often natter on the phone, listen to a podcast, or take picture of my own feet. You can look around more when you're walking, and I've seen many parts of the city I never would have seen from a car. 

For both cycling and walking you need to plan ahead. Cycling needs a bike pump, spare tyre, a few tools (or someone at home with a car who can rescue you), panniers, lights, reflective jacket. Walking needs less preparation, but for both you need enough time. I've had to run before now, and with a rucksack and walking boots it's not pleasant. You don't want to be cycling in a rush either. 

But I find that there is usually time if you pay attention, it's just a matter of getting into the right habits, and factoring in the benefits of fresh air, exercise and general wellbeing you get alongside. 

Public transport

I live in a large city, so there are plenty of buses. They're great for getting into town and back, but across town usually requires two, and at that point I often either walk or get in the car. Our local bus now charges £1.80 for a single journey to town (just over two miles) so I've usually walked in and got the bus home, although these days I'm cycling both ways which makes it free. We also have trams here, but sadly I rarely need to be anywhere along the route. 

I love trains though, and managed a train commute for nearly six years without too much fussing. 

The main thing I love about trains is that you can do other things while you're travelling - very difficult on a bike or while driving. ​

They're not automatically the frugal option though, but it's always worth checking. It doesn't necessarily follow that because you have a car, it's never worth considering public transport. In my old job, I commuted to another city 60 miles away. Yes, I could have driven - but it was on small, windy roads so would have taken an hour and a half, I would have had to pay for parking, and it would have meant leaving Peter with no car, as we only have one. The train cost £20 a day (I travelled two days a week) but I could read (or sleep, it was quite early) on the train, and walking or cycling to or from the stations at each end (about 2 miles each way in each city) gave me plenty of fresh air and exercise. 

For longer train journeys, I've always managed to get tickets cheaper than the 'standard' price by booking in advance, travelling at odd times, or committing to a specific train. I usually use the Red Spotted Hanky website and always check the fabulously-named Tickety Split site to see if it's worth buying separate tickets for different stages of the journey.

Driving

We have one car between the two of us. It's thirteen years old (although we've only had it for three years) and we found it through Gumtree. It does around 45 miles per gallon, and so far (touch wood) hasn't had anything go too wrong. We deliberately bought one that was (just about) big enough to sleep in the back of. It's a bit cramped with two of us, so I wouldn't want to stay in it for more than one night, but I've been away in it on my own for several days and it's been fine, and it's great for sleeping outside friend's houses after parties, or a cheap night away in another city. 

I've fallen into the habit of hopping into the car for small journeys over the last few years - even to the local shops, which are only ten minutes walk away. I usually justify this because I'm running late, or I'm in the middle of something and don't want to take half an hour out. 

But Uber Frugal January is making me question those justifications and see what I can do to get rid of them. Planning ahead always helps - if I know we're running low on milk, I can get some while I'm out anyway, instead of having to make an emergency dash when we run out. If I allow plenty of time to get ready, I can be on time, rather than having to take the car because I'm late. This is working so far this month, and I've barely got in the car except for longer journeys or to ferry large pieces of wood or furniture (I don't yet  have a bike trailer...).

Still, we spend roughly £60 a month on diesel, and even though that includes days out and trips to see family, neither of us drive to work so this still seems quite high. 

Overall

I like being able to get about under my own steam, and I prefer it when I create enough time and space to be able to cycle and walk to places. I've never been reliant on a car to get to work and I'd like to keep it that way if possible although there may be some compromise if we move somewhere rural. We'll see. 

Up til now I've always made decisions about where to live and work as if I didn't have a car, so the addition of one is a bonus to be used for longer trips, rather than a necessity. I've still found it far too easy to hop in for short trips though and that's something I've started to change this month. 

​More bicycling, I say! 

I'I have a confession. Before we even got to the end of the first week of Uber Frugal January, I'd met friends in cafes twice. 

Now, I know what you're thinking. Outrageous! This is not frugal behaviour At All! You're right, of course, and I'm not going to make excuses, but sometimes you have to spend something, and on those occasions I like to make sure I'm getting the best deal I can. 

Good value tea and cake

On my first cafe trip, for example, I could have had a super-duper deluxe parsnip and maple syrup cake, or a giant scone, or an enormous piece of victoria sponge, but instead I chose a 50p oat cookie, and very nice it was too. For lunch my friend and I had the cheapest thing on the menu - Welsh rarebit for £3 each. Our morning out, which lasted well into the afternoon, cost £6.30 for tea, enormous biscuit, lunch, and parking. Not too shabby at all. 

My second cafe trip was to Waitrose, and I have a My Waitrose card which means a free cup of tea when you buy something else in the cafe. I believe that even a 25p banana counts as 'something else' but on this occasion I bought my friend a cup of tea, making mine free (or making both 90p each I suppose). 

Slightly less interesting: household appliances

This week we also had to replace our vacuum cleaner. We've ruined two cheap ones in the last year or so, hoovering up plaster dust and DIY rubbish and goodness knows what else. Peter is confident that he can repair at least one of them, so if he manages we'll keep that for DIY, but in the meantime I wanted a new one. I'm not particularly houseproud, but even I like to vacuum more than once a month. 

After a bit of investigation, thanks to a suggestion from a friend, we looked on Gumtree. We've bought loads of stuff from there, but it just didn't occur to me to look for a vacuum cleaner, so I was delighted when I found a second hand, refurbished Dyson for £30. My floors have never been so clean! And cheaper than our 'cheap' new ones were. Second hand pretty much always wins for me.

Gumtree is my new favourite thing (apart from Freegle, of course - I did check that first...). Our microwave came from Freegle too - always worth a check when something breaks. 

Even less interesting: utilities and insurance (yawn)

This month we've also had to renew the house insurance (yes, it's been a thrilling month). Each year I (reluctantly - it really isn't very interesting) follow these instructions from Money Saving Expert. It usually takes about an hour, including finding last year's paperwork, remembering if we've bought anything expensive (usually not), and entering details in various comparison sites (handily, these usually save your details from one year to the next so you just need to check them). 

The first time I did this, after the insurance had been automatically renewing with the same company for years, we reduced our annual payment by £650. This year I didn't manage to find anything cheaper than our renewal quote but it's always worth checking. We'll do the same for car insurance - I've always found a cheaper deal for that. 

I had to check the gas and electricity deal this month too, as we had a fixed price deal which had come to an end (see, I told you, January has been a hoot from start to finish). There are instructions for comparing suppliers here, which I've done in the past, and you can compare only green electricity suppliers here. 

This year we chose to stay with the same supplier - we have a smart meter, and I don't want to faff about changing that (and risking the gas being shut off - again - by someone who doesn't understand that ancient boilers don't have to meet current safety requirements). We're also very happy with our current supplier, Ovo, who have a 100% green electricity tarrif, and pay 3% interest on credit balances, which is higher than our savings account.

Phew, need a cuppa now

I confess that I do find price comparison, particularly of insurance, extraordinarily tedious, and I was most vexed this year when it didn't even yield a saving. But really, what else would I have been doing with that hour? Poking around the internet looking at nothing-in-particular, I imagine. Well worth a bit of concentration, I reckon. 

Uber frugal January is off to a good start, and today I thought I'd talk about food. 

I like food, but I'm not any kind of gourmet chef. I'm not even a particularly good cook. I'm enthusiastic though, and capable of knocking together an edible meal from whatever's at hand, which comes in handy. Recently we've fallen into bad habits of buying a (supermarket) pizza on the way home from work, eating porridge for tea, and ordering a takeaway once a week - and these are all things I want to tackle this month. 

But there's nothing to eat!

Like many people I imagine, we fall into the trap of having cupboards full of food, but wailing 'we have nothing to eat!' What we mean, of course, is that we have nothing that we can stuff into our mouths right now without having to cook or prepare it in any way, but that's not the same as not having any food, so one of our tasks for Uber Frugal January is to inventory our food stash and make some inroads into, you know, eating it. 

Our cupboards could be described as 'higgledy piggledy' at best (and I don't intend to sort them out any time soon), but this is what we currently have: 

Plenty of ingredients, but no snacks. We don't tend to buy ready-prepared stuff in our weekly shop, which means that if we're tired and lacking in inspiration, there's nothing 'easy' to eat - everything has to be made from scratch. Which is why we all-too-often end up with a pizza. 

Being organised is the key to frugal eating

The trick, of course, is to be more organised. While I've been off this week I've made soup for lunch, and put a portion of each of them in the freezer for work lunches next week. 

We also made a meal plan for the first time this week, and went shopping with a list. We never do this, and it's been quite a relief to not have to think creatively about every meal - we have a list of meals and I know we have the ingredients for them all.  

We kept it simple to start with, although maybe we'll be more adventurous later. 
​

• Breakfast: porridge with sultanas
• Dinner: soup, omelette​
• Tea: mushroom risotto | baked potato and dhal | broth and dumplings | sausage, mash and green beans | home made pizza | stir fry and rice | gardeners pie (I've been informed this is what you call the vegetarian version of shepherds pie but I'm not sure it's going to stick in this house!)

Frugal snacks

​We do struggle with snacks, so I'm currently experimenting with biscuits and baking. If anyone knows a failsafe way not immediately eat every single biscuit you just baked please do let me know. This week I made those squirrel biscuits you see above (simple, cheap recipe here) and these surprisingly tasty chocolate biscuits, which were meant to be a present for my dad (after we ate his original Christmas present), but I'm not seeing him until tomorrow, so there may have to be some more experimental baking before then. 

This biscuits are my new favourite recipe - quick, only four ingredients, and you don't have to roll them out (so no cleaning flour from all the surfaces), you just blob them onto the tray and squash them with a fork. They came with the added bonus of using up some 15-year-old cocoa powder I found at the back of the cupboard in a tin (from before packaging had to have Best Before Dates printed on it). 

We're also experimenting with making our own popcorn, and I've discovered that it's a brilliant snack to take on a journey or for a day out. I did try just sprinkling spices (or parmesan) on it but I think it needs a little melted butter or oil first to help the flavours stick - just shake it all round in the bag. Some good flavouring selections in the comments of this post. 

What we spend (and where we spend it)

We do our main shopping at Aldi, and I was pleased to see this week that they are now the highest paying supermarket in the UK. They also sell a lot of British food, which I prefer to buy where possible. Smaller shopping trips tend to be in local convenience-style supermarkets, which are expensive (although they do reduce their fruit and veg at night so we sometimes snag a bargain). I would like to shop at the local greengrocers more this year though. 

We usually spend roughly £120 a month for our weekly 'big' shop, and then another £80 or so buying bits and pieces on the way home from work. Not completely outrageous for two of us, I would like to get back to doing more of our own cooking, and since our meals tend to be based around lentils and beans, we could knock a bit off that total at least. 

Our shopping this week cost just under £25, and we've topped up with milk twice since then (we drink a lot of tea). We'll probably shop again on Monday night, and in next week's meal plan we'll make a conscious effort to use some of those stored things that have been hanging around for a while. 

I mentioned the other week I was considering joining in with FrugalWoods' uber frugal month in January. Well, the decision has been made, and we're getting ready for a shake up in our spending habits and financial routines. If you fancy joining in too, pop over there and sign up (you don't have to sign up, but you'll get daily encouraging emails if you do).

Mrs FrugalWoods has posted some homework for us, and since I am diligent and always do my homework with plenty of time to spare (ahem), here's my start at working through the steps. If you're intending on reading all of this you might want to grab yourself a cuppa, I don't half waffle on... 

Step 1: establish your goals
We want to move to a detached house with a lovely big garden. I want to have the option of working less. Right now, we are in a position where we could have one of those things, but not both. In ten years, I want the mortgage on our new house paid off, and to be in a position where I can choose to work (very) part time if I want to.

What I'd like to achieve from uber frugal January is: 

• saving as much as we can towards moving expenses so we don't have to add them to the mortgage and pay interest on them
• dropping some spendy habits and cultivating some cheerful non-spendy ones

Step 2: review last month's spending
Hmm. (Un)fortunately for me, I can do this very accurately, as I use the YNAB budget software (which in itself is not free... although if you do decide to sign up after using that link you'll get a discount, and I'll get a referral fee ). This tells me that in total this year, I have spent £16772.81. Crikey. 

(A quick word about our household finances. We own this house outright, after Peter spent 25 years working and paying off the mortgage, some of that while I was messing around doing a PhD. I am now the main earner - my wages are paid into our joint account, and I keep track of this and what we spend from it obsessively. We consider all money shared, but as Peter's income is mostly cash, and he is (by choice) in charge of food shopping, this mainly comes from his income, which I don't keep track of. Which is why I can be deadly accurate about most of our spending, but not food shopping, and not his personal spending, which he does very little of).

Anyway. That annual total breaks down as follows (I'm going to round up to the nearest £10 and use my existing, slightly odd, categorisation for ease). I've noted the monthly average as well as spending for November, as I think the average is slightly more revealing as not everything comes up each month. 

True expenses - £5170 (average of £430 a month, £112 in November)
This is the category I use for things that I know will happen at some point in the future - birthdays, Christmas, car maintenance, dentist etc. It's also where all the DIY spending is being logged, which is why it's so huge.

Monthly direct debits - £3480 (£290 a month, £313 in November)  
Council tax, water, gas and electric, internet, home and mobile phones etc

Everyday household expenses - £1880 (£167 a month, £50 in November)
Diesel for the car, odd bits of food (definitely a category that can be reduced!), household stuff

Quality of life goals - £1840 (£153 a month, £550 in November)
This includes holidays and weekends away.

Annual bills - £780 (£65 a month, £72 in November)
Car tax and insurance, house insurance, tv licence

Jenni fun spends - £2200 (£183, £250 in November)
Oh dear. This category holds my tea and cake spends, plus clothes, odd bits of fun travelling for me, and any other little bits of nonsense I care to waste my hard earned dosh on. 

Well, that was interesting, but as Mrs FrugalWoods tells us 'do not berate yourself and do not get discouraged... you're participating in this challenge because you want to improve...'. So, I'll move swiftly on. I realise I've lumped a lot of things in together here but I'll expand on various bits as we go through January, this is just an overview.

Step 3: Categorise your expenses
Now we're going to categorise into fixed mandatory expenses and discretionary expenses, and rather than rely on last month's figures, I'll use the monthly average that YNAB gives me as this will be more accurate. This doesn't cover absolutely every single little category as we'd be here all day, it's just the main stuff (but I will be tackling the small things too!)

Another quick note, this time about what I've categorised as 'fixed mandatory' - these are things that either can't change (like council tax and the water bill), or that are annual bills already paid for this year, or that I've already spent considerable time trying to reduce over the years, and I'm happy with current level of spending, and therefore they're not being covered by this challenge this time round.

Fixed mandatory expenses
Council tax | water | internet | mobile phones (we both have cheap, monthly, sim-only deals) | my union | tv licence | Peter's national insurance contributions | web hosting | car tax | breakdown cover (paid annually in May) | car insurance (paid annually in March) | 

Discretionary expenses (with average montly spending over the last year)

• My tea and cake - £45
• My clothes - £30
• My travel - £20
• My 'other' category - £100 (gosh)
• Diesel - £60 (outlandish considering neither of us use the car for commuting, but this will also include days out/weekends away)
• Food and household - £81 (again, outlandish since the main food shopping comes from a different budget!)
• Joint treats budget - £76 (takeaways, tea and cake together etc)
• Birthdays - £25
• Weekends away - £120 (gosh)
• Gym membership/races - £37

These are the things I'll be starting to tackle in January. The house insurance is also up for renewal, and our fixed energy deal is coming to an end so I'll shop around for a cheaper option for both of those too. 

Step 4: What can I eliminate entirely? 
Taxis, definitely. Clothes, for January at least - I have plenty, and most of mine are acquired through idle charity shop browsing which I reckon I can forego for a few weeks. Takeaways. 

After that it gets a bit harder. We've had a discussion, and decided that if we invite friends out, we'll suggest our house, or a picnic, rather than a cafe. However, if we're invited to something that's already happening (a birthday in a restaurant, for example) then we'll go along. We'll see how it goes. 

Step 5: Embrace the art of substitution
What can we substitute? Diesel perhaps? We do a LOT of just nipping to the shops in the car. I'm going to get walking again, and dig my bike out of the cellar. My gym membership is due for renewal in January, it's £180 (£15 a month) and I use it a bit, but not much. I'm going to hold off renewing until after January, and instead run outside, do yoga at home, and explore the world of youtube exercise videos. 

Step 6: Reduce spending on discretionary expenses
I have a terrible habit of nipping into the shop for milk on the way home, and coming out with a bag full of food. This is why Peter is in charge of food shopping, but somehow we've drifted away from cooking and into buying pizzas and the like. Food is a big area we can make improvements in. I've already written about my work lunches, but there's more we can do too. 

A big thing for me is roaming the charity shops at the weekend. We have a lot near us and it's something we really enjoy. We won't stop, as we're still looking for things for the house (nice excuse...) but I won't be buying clothes, books or anything unnecessary for January. It's only one month after all! 

Step 7: Empower yourself to insource
I don't think this is a step I'll have a problem with - we've already decorated most of the house ourselves after all, and I have had precisely ONE haircut in the last year (which cost £7). We certainly don't use a cleaner, or a car cleaning service (you'd laugh at the thought if you saw either our house or our car). Easy peasy. 

Step 8: Examine your habits
Buying food on the way home from work. Nipping out for breakfast at the weekend. Leaving the shower running for ten minutes before getting in it. Putting the heating on in the morning and just leaving it on for the rest of the day. I'm sure there are more...

Step 9: Plan ahead
This is definitely an area with room for improvement. I'm rubbish at planning ahead, and it definitely costs me money. For January I'll be taking lunch to work, bulk cooking at the weekend and freezing meals for after-work dinners, taking snacks with me when we go out, packing a flask of tea for a picnic.

Step 10: If you do buy stuff, get it used (or cheap)
Another one we won't have a problem with. Peter is fantastic at sourcing DIY-related things (doors, floorboards etc) on Freegle and Gumtree. We rarely buy anything new. I'll keep an eye on it to make sure, but I think we'll be fine here. 

Step 11: Banish excuses
Oops. I can already see a few excuses that have crept in to this post... 

So there are - off to a good start with thinking and preparing. I'll write about individual things as they come up, but at least we've got a benchmark to move from. 
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I spotted these festive baubles while I was running through the woods this morning, aren't they pretty? A few trees were decorated along my route, and it did make my eight mile plod rather more cheerful. 

It was a good job someone had added festive frippery, as the woods themselves were rather brown. 

Autumnal, yes, but not awfully colourful, and I do like a bit of colour. 

I was having a good ponder as I plodded along. Mostly about the fact that my half marathon is just four short weeks away, and (as usual) I haven't quite done enough training. Also, that the half marathon is next year, which means that next year is quite soon, which in turn means that Christmas is very soon.

When I wasn't running through my Christmas present list in my head, I was pondering the new year, and specifically two (related) things: finances, and moving house.  

Having waffled on about finances a couple of weeks ago, a friend pointed me towards the Frugalwoods blog, which I'd not come across before. Because I can get a bit obsessive about such things, I am currently reading back through the archives - I'm proper nosey and I do so love reading about other people's lives and how they manage their finances. 

Mr and Mrs Frugalwoods are, it turns out, very frugal, and are hosting an 'uber frugal month' in January. Now, we consider ourselves to be pretty frugal by nature, but as we're about to commit to a mortgage which will likely take up what feels like a vast proportion of our income, there's no harm in seeing if we can do more. 

We've already decided that DIY spending won't be included in the challenge. January will be our final decorating month (yay!) and we will be buying anything we need to get the house ready, whether that be paint or flooring or odd bits of furniture. Fortunately, being naturally thrifty, we will scavenge and buy used when we can, and do most of the work ourselves. 

There's still plenty to examine in the budget, and I'll delve in more detail nearer the time. One thing I reckon we do pretty well on is breakfast - we mostly eat porridge, made with water. 

Before you start telling me that sounds like something you'd be forced to eat in prison, I should tell you that I do add salt, sugar and cinnamon, and also various other things if we have them - usually either apples or sultanas. At the minute, I weigh most of my food, in an attempt to fit back into the half of my wardrobe that is currently too small (kind of frugal, if you think about it...).

So I can tell you that I eat 40g of oats for breakfast, and as I bought 1kg for 75p at Aldi the other day, I can tell you that those 40g cost approximately 3p. At the minute we have (not particularly frugal) Sainsbury's sultanas (£1.50 for 500g), and I have 30g which (I think!) works out at another 9p. Add in a pinch of salt, a couple of teaspoons of sugar, a bit of cinnamon, and enough electricity to power the microwave for exactly two minutes, and, even if we include the cup of tea (teabag, gas to boil kettle, dash of milk) we're probably looking at under 15p for my breakfast (Peter I can't vouch for - he doesn't weigh his so might eat as much as 25p worth, gosh!)
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My lunches don't fare so well (Peter is often near home, so can cook, forage, or eat porridge again). I went through a phase of taking leftovers, but we're not cooking as much as we'd like at the minute, so that isn't working. What also doesn't work is having a selection of sandwich-making items in the house (they get eaten too quickly). Instead, I stock up on the way to work on a Monday, which means my dinners often end up looking like this.

Sophisticated, yes? In case you can't quite tell, it's a couple of seeded flatbreads topped with cheese triangles, salad, and cheesy Wotsits. As I said, sophisticated. 

I'd not actually worked out the cost per day, but I'll do it now as I'm looking things up anyway. Flatbreads are 14p each, so that's 28p per day. Two cheese triangles is 34p. Salad is roughly 18p a portion, so that makes 80p a day. If I do have cheesy Wotsits (and most of the time I try not to, much as I love them), that adds another 25p. I also stock up on yogurt (50p per day), satsumas (33p per day), and some kind of snack biscuit type thing (roughly 24p a day). That's £1.87 a day (£2.12 if I add in the Wotsits). 

While that's cheaper than buying lunch at the work cafe, it's still around £10 a week. I'm at work roughly 44 weeks of the year, which means I'm spending approximately £440 a year on work lunches (obviously this isn't exact - some days I meet a friend for a cafe lunch (even worse!) or get a free lunch (yay!) - but it'll do as a rough calculation). Is that a lot? It feels like a lot - the perfect target for an uber frugal month!

When Mr and Mrs Frugalwoods were at work every day, they batch cooked rice and beans at the weekend for work lunches, which they calculated at the equivalent of approximately 31p a day (which would work out at £68 a year). Even if that only replaces the bread/cheese/salad, it's still a saving of £108 a year, and I bet I could find or make cheaper alternatives for the other things too. I was going to say 'I wouldn't want to eat the same thing every day' - but in fact I've been eating EXACTLY the same thing for lunch at work every day for months, and I haven't minded one bit!

So there we are - we've commited ourselves to examining all of our spending and having an uber frugal month in January. If you fancy joining in, you can sign up here (you don't have to sign up, but if you do you'll get some tips by email I believe). 

In the meantime, any suggestions for frugal and tasty lunches to take to work would be most welcome!