Five Frugal Things for the New Year!

Happy New Year, everyone! As you may have read in this post, I am on a No Spend January, so everything I do this month needs to be super frugal. So, here are five frugal things for the new year.

Getting fitter for free

Like many of you I am sure, one of my resolutions for the new year is to get fitter. I walk a lot with the dog, but we do tend to amble. Archie stops to sniff and wee, I stop to chat with other dog owners. This is all very well, but actually a bit of brisk walking would be much more beneficial for building fitness and stamina.

To help motivate me to speed up, I downloaded the NHS Active 10 app. It aims to get you walking briskly for at least 10 minutes a day, although my target is 30 minutes. So far today, I have done 28 minutes, so will easily crack the rest during our afternoon walk.

Another free app I have been exploring is FitOn. So far I have been very impressed with the range and quality of the classes offered. I have done yoga and pilates, but if you want something a bit faster you can choose  dance, kickboxing, cardio or strength sessions.

Tracking my spending

The family Secret Santa came up with the perfect present for a frugal person – a new budget book! I have just finished recording all of December’s bills, spending and saving and have begun to track my income, outgoings and spending for January.

I really like the spending tracker in this book, as it makes me hyper aware of what I am buying. This month, there shouldn’t be much going out, hopefully! However, I will still be buying groceries, and want to keep my shopping costs as low as possible, so this should help.

This is the book I have*, which came from Amazon.

Publicising my book

Regular readers will know that I finally published my first book, Extreme Frugality: Save Money Like Your Grandma*, at the end of last year. 

Well, there is no point publishing a book and then just expecting people to find it, so I pushed myself to make contact with the media. I managed to get featured in several newspapers, including the Express, and was asked by BBC Radio Essex to appear on their breakfast show a couple of times too.

This last thing terrified me! I had to really push myself to do it, as I am quite shy and thought I would clam up. In the event, it was nowhere near as scary in reality as it was in my head. I am glad I plucked up the courage.

Working through my death pile

I used to do quite well selling on eBay. However, I really let it go last year. There were so many other things to do with work and a house move. 

Now that things are settling down and Christmas is out of the way, I have been sorting through some piles of bits and bobs that need listing. Justin found a big box of Bosson chalkware heads that a friend gave him, which are a bit of a niche item, but do sell for about a tenner each. So I have been working my way through those.

I also have some clothing and other nicknacks that I have sorted through and will try to list in the next few weeks as well. Hopefully, I can get it all done and start making some money from eBay again!

Eating from the stores

As one of my frugal things for the new year, alongside my no spend month, I am aiming to keep my grocery bill as low as possible. We still have food in the freezer from Christmas, as well as quite a few yellow sticker things I have picked up over time. The larder is also quite full.

January seems like a good time to start working through some of this food. This means I will only need to buy bread, milk, cheese, fruit and vegetables, although I will still pick up a yellow sticker bargain if I see one. I also intend to make some bread, as we have quite a lot of bread flour that is going out of date.

I have done a rough meal plan of meals that can be made over the course of the next month, and hopefully our grocery bill will be very small as a result.

So these are five frugal things for the new year to kick it off. How has yours been? Are you on a no spend month, or aiming to try to reduce your grocery spend in some way?

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