I’m 15 days into my uber frugal month and I’m going to be honest, I’m failing. I suppose I’m not just failing, as my last update showed, I’m failing hard. I’ve taken Ubers, I’ve bought clothes, I’ve bought lunch and takeaway repeatedly. I bought an awesome pair of yellow sneakers that I totally adore but given that it’s been raining  a lot, they might not have been the most practical purchase. Essentially I’m pretty sucky at being frugal.

What does sucky frugal look like?

The good

• I started by tracking my spending, something that I’ve done since August and which revealed plenty of leaks in my spending. Massive
• I started a loose budgeting system that allowed me to throw around 40% of my salary towards debt while keeping joyful things like Spotify, giving and socialising affordable.
• Having read an article on the Thinking thrifty website about piggy-banking, I split out my money into different “envelopes” using a network of current and savings accounts.
• I’ve started cooking 75-80% of my meals and socialising at my home or others’ more. I now try new recipes and cuisines as well as make my favourite restaurant meals at home.
• I’ve done 2-3 side hustles including getting paid to clean my own home
• I changed jobs  – higher base salary, lower effective pay due to having gone up to 40 hours a week from 37 and a half. But I’ll be able to take my career to the next level so that seems to be a frugal thing (setting myself up for higher pay).
• I’ve got investments (stocks, shares & bonds), currency and regular savings albeit in very small amounts.
• I set out some financial goals at the start of this year and created a proper (data-led) budget that I intend to review by the end of 2017.

The bad

• I still buy lunch. Last week it was for 3 of 5 days. There were reasonable justifications in my mind but ultimately it’s because I was lazy
• I still get takeaway food. Sometimes it’s to give my girlfriend and I a wee treat at the end of a shitty period, shitty news, or a shitty situation. Sometimes it’s because I just did not have enough food, pack a snack.
• I’ve got some pretty long Uber trips. Once when I forgot my jacket at a mate’s and on the evening of the strike when we had to cross from North to south to stay at my girlfriend’s.

The (super) ugly

• I bought coffee three times last week. When there was free coffee. With lemon drizzle cake. For £3.32 each time. This is particularly rubbish.

How does sucky frugal trump natural spendthrift?

Whilst I followed my routines and nothing extraordinary happened, I was OK. I wasn’t the most frugal, but I was doing well enough not to be discouraged. Then I had a month of birthdays and one where I couldn’t exercise my frugal muscles and then Christmas and felt like everything collapsed. I’ve written about how I felt I was failing at my attempted frugality and how October through to now really prove I still indulge in entitled spending.

• Savings: As it stands though, there’s some progress. I might not  have got the month to month savings rate up at the level that I want to get it to but I do have savings.
• Investments: I genuinely thought investments were for boring people and Iw as a free spirit. More like quite an idiot. I got the Moneybox app since I’d definitely be like a kid playing dress up if I had gone straight into buying stocks directly. I set it at £5 a week which I’ve now upped to £10 a week. I also got some bonds – £100 worth. And hope to do that every month. And I’m putting aside £250 a month that I’ll hopefully be able to put into low index mutual funds at the start of 2018.
• Socialising: I’ve not figured out how to tell people I don’t want to subsidise their more expensive food choices when we have meals in a group – mainly because I don’t want to stand out as a frugal weirdo. However, I’ve gone from spending £400-500 a month on this essential joy giver to £200-250 prior to Christmas. This is because I have people come to mine. Or I go to theirs. This month I gave up alcohol too.
• Side hustles: I used to do my theatre job when I needed some additional income. I’d say I averaged about £100-150 a month in previous years. The last 6 months, I’ve had around £250-400 a month on average in additional income. Which is only a good thing.

I suppose that’s why it’s a journey

I need to get better. I need to align my spending with my priorities and my goals. I need to get the right balance between having a good time everyday and having a good time in 2023. So, the struggle continues.

• I still want to cut back my socialising. I’d like to spend £100 or less a month
• I want to make a bit more money. I put some items up for sale but I don’t seem to have done it correctly. I’ll need to change platforms or give in and put them on eBay (I have boycotted them for years following a shocking incident)
• I want to take lunch to work 19-20 times a month (with an allowance of 1-3 social lunches with ex colleagues, current colleagues or friends).
• I want to cycle 85% of the time and keep my transport budget at £40-50 a month instead of the current £140+

My biggest barriers remain laziness, convenience and not wanting to be the frugal weirdo. I need get some tactics in to reduce the resistance and work my frugal muscles better. I’ve just submitted a request for the cycle-to-work scheme. Hopefully a new bike, protective gear and freedom from the tyranny of road-bike posture will take me one step closer to my luxuriously thrifty dream (destination).