Frugal Ways * Surviving January Starts Now
For more great Instant Pot recipes, please visit InstantPotEasy.com
Getting paid around 18th December is great before Christmas, but means a loooong wait until January’s pay day at the end of the month. To make this less …
Great practical tips, Tess. Here in the states I get paid bi-weekly and my husband gets paid on the 15th and last working day of the month. We use YNAB and budget for the month ahead with money we made the month prior. This way we can stay on top of things.
Wonderful advice here Tess. I have already started buying food for my Christmas festivities and have been putting it in the back of the pantry ready. I actually buy my Christmas pudding on boxing day and use it for the following Christmas and it is perfect and cheaper than half the price. My presents I buy throughout the year too. I hope you are having a lovely week.
I use my Sainsbury’s card for Xmas/jan. I get my petrol at Sainsbury’s so that helps with points as well. I am picking up extra points for scan and shop regularly and also the extra points products on the nectar card app. The Christmas bonus points are also handy. I have bought my Christmas/ new year wine this morning with the 25% off. I also get paid before Xmas which has its good and bad points!
Hi tess I've just come over from frugal Jo's channel. I think I'm going to enjoy watching your videos and hopefully pick up some ideas to save some cash ☺
Well,I Start a Couple a months before too. Also buying Things for Christmas. So That Christmas is not so expensive.
Hi Tess, don't know if in the UK you have the ability to do this but I pay a little extra on my utilities so when I have lean months the utilities are covered or pretty close. It really is a stress relief for me 😊. I also have one light on at night and picked up a couple of solar lights, the kind you put in the yard, and bring them in at night to light up the bathroom and hall and they are bright!! In the morning I put them out to recharge. Any way of saving money especially now I try. Good luck!!
👍👍👍
Hi. I also use my supermarket loyalty points and have nearly £50 which I hope to.use in January. With my bank they do a Save the Change thing so when you pay for something on your debit card they round it up and that amount is put into an account I have £120 so far this year and have not missed those little bits of money and it's a nice surprise. I only hope I do not use it for Christmas things!! Thank you for your suggestions.
Your advice is great Tess Thank you. .. We are paid fortnightly and it’s a fixed amount but at Christmas we are paid early and what I do is transfer that payment into another account and not use it till the actual pay date.
Secondly I bank my loyalty points and use them in December. I have always pre paid fortnightly my electricity,water,phone and land tax and health insurance.i set aside savings fortnightly And I write everything down in a book. I am thinking of setting up a Christmas savings plan next year in January. It’s disciplined but it works for me.
January is a six week month. We always made sure the freezer was full and we checked any expenses that were coming up and we had money aside for petrol, the kids and so on. I save my le clerc loyalty money on our card for Christmas especially. I buy my Christmas meat.
Hi Tess
Yes I love a bit of spare money in a jar I saved only 10 pence a week I know it sounds silly but I read someone else was doing it and they said that’s a box of chocolates at Christmas how right they were
Good advice as always take care xx🧡💛🧡💛
When I get paid early in December I just ignore the early payment. I don’t touch my wages until January 1st. It takes some discipline but I have practised over the years and find that it is the best way to stop the long 6 week month xx
Ours is exactly the same – get paid earlier in December and then January seems long 🤪 I’ve been buying a few extra bits for the stockpile recently as I have noticed it’s getting a bit more difficult to get some of the basics.
Yes ,one of our major supermarkets has loyalty cards .I live in Newfoundland,Canada.
When I was teaching and in this situation I had a Christmas savings fund at my local bank. That way the holiday was paid ahead of time. Finding the funds to go for New Years though could be monetarily tight. I tried not to charge Christmas and I kept good records so that the January bills were covered. We bought so much food at the end of December that groceries in the first two weeks of January were often a low spend grocery shop. A big ham can last through so many meals. It was a relieve to get to February.
Here in my part of the USA, we have loyalty cards for the stores too. They work a bit differently though, they keep tract of your spending and reward you with various amounts off your purchases. They will vary as to when the reward has to be redeemed by, they usually don’t carry over more than 3 months.
The gas stations here also have reward cards that you can earn points towards gift cards for gas or merchandise or for something like $.10 off per gallon of gasoline (usually a maximum of 20 gallons for fill up discount).
I try to do ano spend January. Its quite nice to cut back after all the xmas excess. I like the idea of keeping your supermarket savings coupons for january
I'm really loving your videos! My family has a good laugh at me when I use our Canadian Tire 'money' to buy toilet paper at the end of the year lol. Whilst I'm cooking for the holidays I make a point of making extra dishes to freeze so I dont get meal burn out in the new year. I'm going to try some more 'No spend' months this coming year.
I put £10 away each week for Christmas. So I find this sees us through to the January pay day .
In Norway we pay tax 10,5 months of the year, that means that June is taxfree, and 1/2 tax in December. It also means we pay a lot of tax the other months of the year. But it is nice to have a little extra for Christmas. 😊 I get paid once a month too, the last working day of the month. That means I get 1/2 tax the last day of November. I do have a small savings for Christmas, for things you dont think of. Going out with friends, a little extra shopping and so on.
For me the challenge is December because of not only Christmas but I need to register my car license plates and this year pay to renew my license (happens every 5 years) but I also have my big car insurance bill. I do save throughout the year for these but I also save up my points on my grocery apps, similar to what yu described for store loyalty, using Ibotta and Fetch (these may be U.S. companies) but over the year I have about $50 saved up already that I will cash ut to supplement that month. Great video, thanks (just recently discovered your channel through the recent Christmas collab you did with other channels I watch)
Great ideas! It's a bit worrying that you weren't able to find pasta 😮
I always take £200 cash out of my December wage and keep it for end of January spending. My family don't really celebrate Christmas together as we all live so far apart, so we dont buy tons of food or presents. I usually work christmas day as it pays more and just catch up with my family by facetime. I always go to midnihht mass and just cook what I fancy for dinner after work. Putting money aside means I dont have the stress of making do til jan rolls around. Buying gifts through the year avoids the Christmas rush and Christmas food is on the shelf at the start of October so buy the shelf stable stuff early if you buy a lot of food. Some people pay in a club all year for a Christmas food hamper but when you cost it out, it is always more expensive than buying it yourself and its all shelf stable,which you can buy earlier in the year.
I know the feeling all so well about getting only paid once a month and trying to stretch out my money. When I get paid I have an envelope called extra weeks groceries that really helps out when those months are longer
You are so right Tess, January is such a long month for us all. Thanks for sharing your tips
It's me and my sister in our household. We start in August what we call squirreling away extra for the winter months. Buying only sale items and pet food . We try to save the money for heating bills for January and Febuary that way. Thanks for the advice and blessings to all
I have gone to a no spend November!???
Nice video:) I love the point cards as well and try and use them for anything I buy 🙂 I think seen Tesco is doing a special Christmas saver card as well, if you top up your card You get a bonus ( for £25 you get £.1.50 but for £200 you get an extra £12) that might be helpful as well for January 🙂
Hi Tess, new subscriber. You mentioned freezers – I'm thinking of looking out for a second one – do you find having a second freezer helps frugal living?
Hi I do very similar to you, but extra but with grocery shop for Christmas starting September/October and stash extra for stock up for January and like you a few pounds here and there stashed away, oh and I can’t forget the points cards, always a blessing x