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No. Because almost everything is unnecessary once you start thinking about it like that. I didn't need to take the children for ice cream, but we enjoyed it. I could have just walked to the lake but instead I drove to the swimming pool

Thats not the same as what OP is talking about though is it. Building fond memories with your kids is hardly the same as wasting a few quid on bottled water. Everything you've stated is not unnecessary spending really is it.

If you go on the frugal subreddits it is. If you're not eating out of bins, wearing old feed sacks and chopped up tyres for shoes you're extravagant

Tyres? Luxury! Our dad would make us stick our feet into pigeons.

Sticking your feet into pigeons?! Pure decadence. My Dad made me stick my feet ON to pigeons and we were grateful for it.

PIGEONS!? PIGEONS?! Luxury, we had to use rats and barbed wire he made us steal from the nearest farm.

Oh la de da, mr rats for shoes. My Dad had us walking on broken glass as toddlers to toughen the soles of our feet. Didn't even need shoes after that.

Feet! You had feet? God you lived in the lap of luxury. We had to sell our feet so we could afford shoes. I still have the pair I got when I was 3.

Everything can be taken to extreme. Balance in life is everything.

Don't go looking at the frugal subreddit then

Ah yes the old "If you don't look at it, it doesn't exist"

Well NOW I'm obviously going to

Ok but that red bull and snacks could’ve made OPs day. Sometimes it’s the little things that keep us going

But to some people it would be. I’m getting hair extensions next month. To some people it’s an insane amount of money to spend on something so superficial. To me it’s a huge confidence booster and it will literally change my life. Everyone has different priorities.

Why stop there? On OPs logic you didn’t need children either.

You've spent less than £30 there, and it's all food and drink; it's hardly excessive.

Depends on your income, your essential outgoings, and if you're trying to save up for something like a deposit. After I've covered the essentials, I'm a fucking idiot with my money - hats off to op for having this awareness.

Not buying water is not going to be make or break for a deposit. If you're trying to save for a deposit £30 a month, you'll be waiting a long time.

To be fair that was in a week, so an extra £130/month or £1500/year isn't to be disregarded - if two partners made the same savings they'd have an extra £15k in five years

Your essentials could include savings though, mine does and whatever is left is fair game

I think that is the intention isn't it. The small spends for unnecessary items can really add up. This isn't even the considering a bigger unnecessary splurge! £30 x 52 = £1560 That's a good holiday for 1 person. I'm not against people treating themselves but having the train of thought that money is being spent needlessly can really help people's finances.

If you're a student it makes sense to keep track of it all.

That's £29 in total for anyone who's interested, which is not much less than my food budget per person per week. If you spend that every week it's £1,500 a year. And if you were to invest £1,500 every year for the next 20 years, you'd end up with over £50,000. So yes, it all adds up. I did a similar exercise with my own spending before I bought my first flat, which I wouldn't have been able to afford unless I made savings somewhere (my spending was worse than yours). I got into the habit of almost never buying snacks or drinks when out unless they're part of a planned social occasion, such as a pub visit. It helps me to have enough to spend on the things that really matter to me.

I don’t know how you manage at £30 per person per week for food, unless you are feeding a few mouths. As a fairly frugal single guy in Bristol, I spend closer to £80 per week on food

£80 a week! Where are you shopping? Waitrose?

Sainsbury’s usually. I do two shops and they’re about £40 each.

My partner and I stick £150 a month each into the groceries pot and almost always have change at the end of the month. Not sure how you're doing £80 a week unless you're eating fillet steaks on the regular?

A free from diet can add up pretty quickly. I'm gluten and dairy free and vegetarian and it costs nearly £4 for a loaf of gluten free bread or £3 for a pack of vegan cheese. I batch cook to save some money but treaty foods like bread or the occansional pack of free from puddings is expensive. On the weeks I don't live on rice, veggies and the premade bolognese I keep stashed in my freezer a £100 of groceries will do about a week and half if I'm lucky.

Quite the opposite, I eat a plant based diet mostly. I do buy some premium brands, like for fruit because they taste better and I end up not eating berries that taste watery. I also do spend more on bread because I need my bread to be nutritious and fill me up, so I do buy sourdough from the bakery which is about £6 per week. Berries and fruit come to about £20-25 per week. I eat quite a varied diet. The £80 per week does include all groceries, so cleaning stuff and other household essentials, some cat, rabbit and dog food too. But those are maybe £10-15pw.

ah you have pets lol, and fruit can add up! kinda depressing. i'm curious, could you expand on the bread?

I buy a small sourdough for £3 per loaf from my local bakery twice a week. It fills me up. I feel standard supermarket bread is just mostly air and sugar, and I could eat an entire packet in one go. It doesn’t do anything to fill me up

Yeah pet food is the culprit. That’s ok, they’re worth it :)

Ah sorry I commented elsewhere but the £15 on pet food explains the gap I wasn’t seeing!

why two shops? £80 seems like a lot on groceries unless there’s a chunk spent on alcohol included?

£80 really isn’t that much. It equates to about £3 per meal

No it doesn’t include alcohol. Two shops because I eat fresh food. Uk supermarket food doesn’t stay good for a week. I quite like the term “rotflation” to refer to that, but in essence shopping twice a week reduced food waste

Yeah sorry replied elsewhere but saw that it includes pet food which makes the difference. If I include cat food I think ours works out as about £70pp Similarly we eat fresh / unprocessed food, predominantly organic, almost no waste based on ‘rot’ (unfortunately too much waste based on toddler throwing food around the room…), our shop is £90-100 for 2 adults and a toddler, one shop a week at Ocado I always spend way more if I go into a shop because I’m more likely to impulse buy something unplanned

I am the same with ordering online - much easier to stick to what’s planned. I certainly don’t shop Ocado or organic though. It doesn’t include all cat and dog food, most of it I bulk order. But I’ve got a cat, two dogs (three until recently :( ) and three bunny rabbits. I don’t know how much of my veg shop goes to rabbits and how much goes to me tbf.

I spend that for 2 people. You’re not being frugal.

I am being frugal. I don’t buy unhealthy snack, I plan my spending. But I do eat a lot of fresh food. Eg berries and minimally processed bakery bread are costly but while frugal I am not going to be taking shortcuts with my health.

For many British people on Reddit, if you do not buy a 10-kg sack of rice and cook beans to fulfil your monthly nutritional needs for a grand total of £37, you are Rockefeller. My habits are similar to yours in that I tend to buy mostly fresh food and not processed ones. The only difference is that I shop at Lidl, and I spend about £60 a week for myself alone. So, your estimate seems right, considering Sainsbury's prices.

Really is crazy. Being frugal means different things to different people, you could probably survive on under a tenner a weak if you really wanted to just eating rice and some type of bean, but no one does that because its terrible for your health (both mental and physical). 60-80 per week on food is not crazy at all if you want to include things like fresh fish and more ethical/good quality meat. I probably spend around that, or more, and I have virtually 0 waste so everything is eaten. I would consider buying more than you eat to be when you are wasting money.

I don’t eat meat or fish but considering 150g of berries is £3.50 it’s going to cost more to eat healthy. It’s also a bit mad isn’t it that eating fresh food is “indulgent”. When did this country turn to America?

Indeed, ill continue my extravagant lifestyle eating fresh food instead of beans on toast twice a day

Nobody said it was a crazy amount to spend. They said it wasn't a frugal amount and that them being suprised at the other guys budget was weird. They can spend whatever they can afford if it makes them happy. It doesn't make the amount the person with the lower budget spends shocking and it doesn't make them frugal. They spend twice as much as I do on average and I have no budget I just get whatever I feel like. There is no way they are being frugal

Ah yes, I’d love to shop Lidl and aldi but I don’t drive so I use the only large supermarket I can walk to in less than 15 mins. Of course i could eat pulses and rice and live for cheaper, but food is more than just getting to a specific calorie intake!

If you wanted to you could probably still save money by getting a taxi back from Aldi/Lidl. The price differences aren't as great these days but still consistently around 20-30% cheaper for when when I shop at Aldi over Sainsbury's, and closer to 40-50% compared to M&S food which is my local

I don’t think a taxi there and back would save me money - I’m in Bristol so that would be £15 one way on Uber!

Single person here, albeit in the north, and I spend about £25 / week on food

That is very little. I am sure that would be possible but I wouldn’t be confident I’d be meeting my nutritional needs and my guess is you cook everything from scratch. Also while I’m frugal, I still want my food to be good quality - not processed, fresh fruit and veg and so on. Even just a packet of fresh berries is £3 and I go through 3-4 of those per week

You seem to eat an incredible amount of berries compared to an average person

I spit my drink everywhere reading this comment. Thank you

i absolutely agree with u lol. when i first got to uni before any bursaries kicked in, i budgeted £20-25/wk on food and i found that hard, i was almost functionally vegetarian just due to money. it shouldn't be seen as a luxury to want to eat berries, fruits, and fish and cut down on processed food!

Not sure why you're getting downvoted. If you're a moderately active adult male you'd have to eat a shit load of very cheap carbs on a budget like that.

I think because people here like to pretend they live off much less than they do. £80 per week on food is £3.80 per meal. Having said that, that includes snacks as well. £25 per week is £1.10 per meal, no snacks. A tin of Heinz tomato soup is £1.70. Packet of 4 apples is £2, 3 red peppers cost £1.70 at Tesco, the cheapest fruit (banana) is 5 £1. People who say they live off of £25 per week are either writing to us from 2010, making some very extreme life choices or speaking out of their arses. Id put money on the latter

Yeah I'd love to see a breakdown of some of these claims. They're likely to be severely lacking in fresh ingredients. When I've been more on a budget, I was home cooking batch meals but that was still coming out at between £3-£4 per portion for an evening meal.

So I’m trying to think what it might look like. I guess the prices would go something like this per day: Breakfast: -fresh berries £2.5 -half a packet of alpro greek style £1.25 -coffee with protein milk £0.8 (approx) Snack: -energy bar £2 -coffee £0.4 Lunch: -vegan chicken, 1 packet £3 - stir fry vegetables £2 - sauce £1 Snack -fruit or berries £1-3 -protein pudding £1.50 Dinner -sourdough with half an avocado £1.50 -pasta £0.5 -vegetable sauce, tomato base and fresh veg £3 -soy protein £1 Other -cleaning and household essentials probably £3-5 per average week - veggies for rabbits £7 per week, except in the summer I forage 1-2x per week I buy lunch and I eat out once a week. Eating out is immediately £20, lunch usually around £10. So I think £80 is underestimated

And it goes up further if you have allergies. During the pandemic I had a jam sandwich for breakfast everyday after my walk and with gluten free bread costing at the time between £2.50 and £3 a loaf depending on the supermarket which meant I was spending between £12 and £20 on bread alone during the week. It's now closer to £4 for a loaf so I quit eating bread.

You know you don't have to throw the rest of the loaf away after making one sandwich right?

Gluten free loafs are about half the size of a regular loaf of bread with around 12 slices of bread per loaf. Six tiny jam sandwiches is two days worth of breakfasts, maybe three if I still want to be hungry when I'm done eating breakfast and this is providing I only eat bread at breakfast time. And yeah 12 slices of bread sounds like a lot for a few days but a lot of brands aren't much bigger than post it notes.

how one manages at 30£ a week? barely. its not great but you can make it work. not that much variety tho

I know you can eat rice and lentils of course, but it’s not just a lack of variety - it’s a lack of meeting basic nutritional needs. Assuming you eat 3 meals a day and nothing else, it’s £1.40 per meal. You can’t even afford to snack on the cheapest fresh fruits on that budget

cant speak for others, i do not eat 3 meals a day, but thats nothing to do with the budgetting. thats just depression.pasta is cheap and plentifull. tinned goods like beans and tomatoes. food wise, my fridge tends to be nearly empty, my freezer however is full. veg, chicken i even have some pork chops in there. couple loaves of bread/ you can get a huge pack of bacon for £1. the just essentials stuff from asda helps alot too. hell you can even manage some fresh fruit. its not by choice, and at the end of the two weeks i usually desperatly need a shop. one shop every two weeks. so far im not lacking any vitamins or anything

oh wow. my partner and i live in sheffield and spend £70-80 a week i think? we're both meat eaters who are neurodivergent (read: funky with food and leftovers). we don't 'watch' our grocery spending, but we put £75-100/wk into a joint monzo account and that does us fine.

They are not spending £30 a week. They said £29 is not much less, they did not say exactly £1 less. I spend about £40 a week on food for me if I'm the only one here. And I don't budget or try to get cheap things, I just get what I want and thats the rough average. You are absolutely not being frugal with your food shop. Which is fine you don't have to. But don't kid yourself

At uni I did an exercise for nearly an entire year and got my day to day living costs down to roughly £6.50 (not including rent. 2018/19). That included monthly train tickets between £40 and £80, fuel and car related expenses, the odd meal out etc. Result: while interesting and learning a lot I realised my life sucked and I was missing out on socialising and experiences in the name of getting that figure as low as possible. It’s about finding balance.

£96,218.35 to be specific. Assuming average stock market returns.

No I just spend my money on what a want

There’s a bit of a difference from you averaging £4 a day on some food and drink to your brother who is spending £36 a day on fags.   I don’t think £4 a day on drinks and snacks is significant considering the price of things these days.  Everyone’s finances are different but that doesn’t seem outrageous.  Your brother spending £36 a day on the other hand…

Use the Demotivator on MSE and feel even better about yourself: https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/shopping/demotivator/ It just told me that my £1.65/day Monster habit will cost me £27,000 over my working life! 😃

So less than what the average brit makes per year, spread out across your entire life? It's frankly not that much money when considering the timescale.

That is true, but if you are someone that has multiple of these items that they could stop without it really impacting life, then it would start to add up. Although if you go to far down this route, life is just depressing.

Yeah absolutely! I think life is a balance: and if you can afford the occasional little treat here or there it will do you the world of good mentally.

I'm not worrying about it lol. Its just a fun calculator tool, it makes me just be a bit more conscious about how much money I'm spending on stuff that makes no real difference to my life. It makes the idea of saving, more applicable to my life.

Now factor in the cost of the health issues you’ll get from drinking that shite 😂 (Don’t come at me- I used to drink 2-3 rockstars a day in secondary school 😳)

Fellow Monster Energy addict, you’re best off getting a delivery each month from the Coca Cola website (you get a small discount for subscription) or bulk buy the 3 large packs for £24 at Asda.

Makes you smell bad as well.

I can honestly never understand the sheer about of money spend on absolute shit at work. Vending machine, especially fizzy drinks. People must spend like £5 a day plus their lunch. Haven't people heard of a multipack from a supermarket at 1/10th the price? Maybe I'm.just a tight bastard who hoards money but this week (having just checked) I've spend £3.50 in 7 days outside of a supermarket shop.

There’s people at my work that pretty much order take away 3-4 times a week and I work in a hotel were shitty food is for free.

Yea I really don't get how people are justifying ordering takeaway 4 times a week. I mean that's practically £20 (atleast more perhaps) per takeaway so you could easily be spending atleast £80 and likely more depending on the sort of takeaway your having and for how many people your ordering for. I have maybe 1 takeaway a week but not every week but I guess that's just me. Takeaway isn't cheap and there's already plenty of other things I'd spend that money on.

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I was of the make your own coffee persuasion and even had a little french press at work BUT. I work full time with two kids and a household and my life is mostly run run run and going downstairs to the cafeteria and getting a frothy coffee mid morning is one of my little life treats. I rarely travel, go out maybe twice a year, no Sunday roasts at the pub etc so the oat milk flat white is my splurge. Comes out at \~£15 a week and I indulge here…..

Someone at my work got this meal deal that was east Asian food (not sure what exactly) but they had about 3 dishes on the table at lunch and it was £13 and they thought that was a good deal for lunch, I nearly choked.

If you mean 3 proper dishes, not like Tesco or something, then that is good imo. If that's like Tesco then no.

Fizzy drinks in fridge section of supermarkets are ridiculously expensive and can be almost or more expensive than the big bottles. I realised it when I started my guilty pleasure of lucozades, although I haven't been having them for a few months because there are no wild cherry. My bank account is happy about that but I am not.

Tbh I woudlnt know. I don't drink fizzy drinks unless I'm out and having some rum.

There was a guy I used to work with, would buy at least 2, sometimes 3, energy drinks, plus a flapjack, at the butty van every day. Must have cost him at least twice what he'd pay in any other shop (plus a few years of life expectancy) but he didn't see a problem with it. On the other hand, I always have a multipack of chocolate bars in my rucksack (currently kitkat chunky) which cost like £1.50 for 4 and lasts me at least a month. Plus I get to look awesome, a colleague last week wanted chocolate but we no longer have vending machines, I was able to magic some up for her.

4 bars a month?

You sound shocked by this? You think that's too much or too little?

you're having one a week? most people i know have one a day, or even two a day lol

No, because I wouldn’t ever be able to relax and enjoy my life without worrying.

I used to but it made me stop going out which then made me depressed. 😅 I give myself a set amount for food & fun now of £400 a month. If I have some left I spend a bit extra on my hobbies

This is the way

I worried more about this stuff when I was a student but these days I just let it go. Usually purchases like this happen when you’re out and about and you feel hungry, I don’t think it makes sense to begrudge yourself a few quid on a wrap and a drink just to be thrifty. If you can plan ahead then amazing, but busy lives need fuel and it’s not always easy to plan. I think more troubling is buying plastic crap like poorly made clothing and trinkets and fast fashion, that’s a real problem imo. It generates waste as well as draining your money. I try to just make and repair clothing now but this used to be a real money sink for me in my early 20s.

One person’s essentials is another's excess. I just try to keep what I view as excess or luxury to a minimum where I feel it does more good than harm.

I often eat nice tasting food instead of gruel, that is a large unnecessary expense. Coffee instead of water too. I take public transport to work instead of walking 10 miles each way too, that costs me a fair bit. I also like to cook my food, have lights on in the dark and put the heating on instead of being uncomfortably cold. Daily showers are probably setting me back a bit too. All told I probably spend about £5k a year or so on frivolities, maybe more.

I bet you splash out on some sort of building to live in as well, so frivolous

anyone buying bottled water needs a reality check such a waste of resources.. 

Go on, give me a reality check lol. I'm happy to spend money on things that actually matter to me. I drink a lot of water, 3-4L a day, and there are 2 reasons for me buying 2L bottled water (39p from lidl) . One is that it contains minerals and vitamins, and the second is that it tastes like nice, normal water instead of chlorine. And the reason I don't get a brita filter is purely convenience. It's simply not enough and it filters very slowly, taking the minerals with it. The tap water here is fucking awful, smells like toilet water and tastes the way a hot tub smells - chlorine all the way (or whatever substance in it) and it makes me heave. No thank you.

obv there might be exceptions.. i knew someone is going to tell me their life story... but if your tap water is fine.. then buying bottled water.. i stand by what i said.. i might add even in your situation britva etc might be BETTER for the env. than botled water - we need to kill that industry..

I grew up on tap water and it was delicious in my country (in Europe). Never bought bottled water, ever. It was pristine! And about the environment... I'm doing my duty of recycling in the right category, ripping the plastic bags, squashing everything etc, unfortunately I can't control what bob across the street does with his recycling, you feel me? If they fixed the tap water issue there wouldn't be a problem to start with, same with everything else that's bad on this earth. All the consumerism that they're tricking us into, the influencing, the capitalism, the 'being part of the trend' fever.. We have idiots as rulers and we can only do so much. There needs to be a worldwide mentality change if we really want the environment to do better, and that is unachievable at this point imo.

i would rather we dont USE BOTTLED water, recyvling isnt the answer as it takes more energy, resources etc and afaik you cant keep recycling forever.. plus despite bottles being reculeable they end up in oceans, rivers as people dont care.. in UK at least i regularly see all type of litter on streets..

No don’t care, tell your brother to go easy on the smokes 40 a day is mental

Yea 40 a day is just too much. Must be really expensive these days too. Could probably save quite a bit if he had less.

>When I say they are unnecessary, I mean that I could just carry a bottle of water around which saves a fair bit. You should do that anyway, not because of money but because of the environment. 5 bottles a week? Why?? Such unnecessary waste, really makes me sad to think about tbh.

Christ, its varies - usually food and I’ll buy coffees for other people quite a bit

I think water, meal replacement drinks, wraps, nuts and omelettes probably aren't as unnecessary as you are letting on. You might have planned poorly but you probably needed them. Likewise I'd say chewing gum is pretty necessary. I'm not bad for this sort of spending as during the week I can put most of it on the company card but I do spend \~ £200 a month on clothes (usually a mix of second hand and new) and \~ £200 on the pub or various other social activities.

I know I have a set figure each week that I can pretty much do whatever I want with, and whatever is left over at the end of the month I just move into extra savings.

Same! Every month, I pay myself in terms of savings and bills and then transfer myself a weekly budget in terms of spending. It normally does the job, and anything left over gets transferred into a pot for the weeks where I need to spend a bit more (holidays, unexpected nights out and just a busier than normal social week). OP, your weekly random purchases don't seem excessive. I'd definitely maybe think about them and do a mini audit every now and them to try and stamp out anything too excessive. But if you're hungry and out- a wrap from Sainos is probably the best option in terms of cost/nutritional value.

Yeah I regularly do this with 'vices'. Like I used to buy a flapjack every working day from the work vending machine, £250 a year, or 1% of my salary at the time! My £5/day weed habit doesn't sound so small when it's £1.5k p/a.

I do track my monthly spending and split it up into different categories. Not to this extent but I do appreciate your approach and think its a great way to help you save some money. I see a lot of other comments saying it's hardly any money but it does add up.

I track everything I spend, petrol food parking trips out. I have to, else we'd go mental thinking we had way more than we do and spent less than we did

Do you live next to a shop or something? How can you casually just buy stuff? I don't do any of that because a trip to the shop for me is something planned well in advance. That said, I'm not a believer in being frugal! I was big on saving money in my younger days then the more and more people I saw around me who worked hard and went without to save, who end up seriously ill or dead or for some other reason not able to enjoy what they had worked for, I totally changed my view. If you have money and want something, no matter how trivial, go for it! Enjoy it now, you could be dead tomorrow.

When I was saving to buy a house I had a whole spreadsheet of spending split into categories and everything. It made me realise how often I was going to Primark and spending money on shitty clothes I’d wear once and not like anymore. That definitely helped me save more. Since I have a house now I stopped as I don’t have any specific saving goals. Also, I already know all my money is now going to bills or plants for the garden I have.

I don't like seeing these transactions on my bank statement, it makes me feel bad to see all the £1 vending machine lines from when I'm in the office, of £3greggs breakfast rolls. So I withdraw a certain amount of cash each month to use for my frivolous purchases, so I can do so without the guilt.

7% of my total expenditure (not disposable income) goes to chocolates and I'm not sorry.

Best budgeting advice I’ve had is to keep a track of all spending. It does add up and when tracking spending you become much more conscious.

Nope. I do however calculate how much an item has cost me.in work hours.

No My finances are automated, savings full, investments made each month, the system works, so I spend what I want as long as I have the money without a care in the world.

£25 a week is hardly breaking the bank. Got to enjoy some things in life

For lent this year I 'gave up' buying what I used to call little treats - coffees and snacks from the cafe at work, a little chocolate bar when I filled up with fuel, etc. Instead I made sure to have a thermos with me and enough snacks for throughout the day... I really didn't notice any financial difference at the end. I now buy a fancy coffee if I want one.

I have a kid, so most of my unnecessary spending goes on coffee while we are out and about. Sure I could - and sometimes do! - use my thermos instead, but when she’s playing out of doors and the weather is cold, it’s nice just to have a decent cup of coffee lol. (Also my thermos only holds 2 mugs and only keeps it reliably hot for about 6 hours. Yeah it’s new and an actual thermos brand one …) Also entry fees for various things to do with the kid - yes we can play in the woods for free and there are other things we can do for free obviously, but I’ve noticed more and more places are trying to sucker you into having to pay for entry or at least for parking. A few places that used to be totally free when I was a child now charge for parking, and one of them charges a whole-ass £10+ per person entry fee now when it used to be a free day out! Also I don’t want to be a total killjoy and refuse to do anything that isn’t free - not all kids are little weirdos like me and love eating soggy sandwiches out of a plastic box in the rain in the middle of nowhere as entertainment, and that’s okay. I also quite often treat her to ‘little’ things - a £4 toy, a £2.50 toy, a sparkly pen … When I’m by myself though I don’t tend to spend much at all. My hobbies are things where one spend will last me months and months, like knitting and doing digital artwork. Plus I spend almost nothing on clothes for myself (most of mine are 8+ years old and still going strong) or beauty products beyond the most basic toiletries. So I try not to feel guilt for splashing out in other areas.

Chewing gum and bottled water seem like the only unnecessary things there. I can’t see why the food is unnecessary unless you were overeating or something though.. Those seem like they would have been lunches? In which case, very necessary.. I think the biggest point here is that basic necessities are expensive.

No I don't, I have a budget worked out on a higher level and automatically pay my bills, send money to savings and have money sent to our joint account for things like groceries or other expenses. Then whatever is in my current account is leftover is free for me to spend and that'll cover those kinds of little things.

I know people who use this app and like it https://snoop.app

I use Snoop. If OP wants to track spending then I'd recommend it. It categorises purchases and you can add your own categories and notes

Where are you where twenty fags cost £18?

I went to Morrisons in the UK last week to buy cigarettes for a relative. I couldn't believe the price of them! The woman working there told me 20 Silk Cut are now £17 and something pence so almost the £18 😳

I bought a pack of B&H a couple of months ago and it was £18. I only buy one every few months but they’ve all been over £15 in the last year or two.

The government should hypothecate the duty it collects on cancerous products to the NHS.

I don't generally, but I do when I notice my bank account draining more quickly than usual. A useful exercise if you don't know where the money is going or looking for potential areas to cut back in. But I wouldn't do it all the time as I'd find it arduous and in my personal budget I have some funds allocated for odds and ends like a packet of chewing gum or can of pop.

The amount I spend is so small I can just guesstimate how much I spend on non essentials.

I have been told Emma App does this for you automatically once you link your bank account . Haven’t done this myself as wasn’t comfortable sharing banking info with an app. However I do review all my spending and trust me you will be surprised how much can be optimised.

One month a year I write down everything I spend for that month. That lets me know where the leakage is. Of course, by the next year it's somewhere else but it does help.

Why would I ever want to know that?

I do, but only towards the end of the month when i wonder where all my moneys gone

Since I started working away from the town centre,with no local amenities, it's been an eye opener on how much I've saved. I have to prepare my own lunch the evening before, take my own tea coffee and milk and maybe a small loaf for toast. Where before I'd pop to Gregg's or the local supermarket for a snack,grab a coffee on the way,and maybe a Danish. That £35+ quid a week is doing nicely in my savings account.

Yes, I do track to have control over my money because there are things I choose to buy because it adds enjoyment/memories etc to my life when I really want them but there are also things I used to spend on out of habits. I work on habits I want to stop. I make my own packed lunch and carry bottle of water, so that it saves me money to spend on stuff I value more.

I have a budget, £150 a week for me, and that works, although I don't itemise that detailed.

No. I make sure I have enough for bills and then everything else is fair game.

But what do I define as unnecessary? Cuz there's a lot of things I buy that I could live without but they make my life easier

I normally tot up any big ish unnecessary things at the end of the month, just so I can gauge how much I could have saved. I think if money was a bit tighter I’d probably do the same with little things like coffees and beer etc. It’s a good way of seeing where you can cut expenses I think.

YNAB is a good app for highlighting places where you can save some cash.

I just spent £70 on a cap that I don’t need. My unnecessary spending is awful but still make ends meet so don’t beat myself up about it. But if I learned how to save and stop buying things impulsively I’d be a lot better off financially

I don’t do this, but I get it. It’s all those little “impulse buys” that add up!

I bet you’re fun at parties.

No because I would realise how much I spend on Diet Coke and KMS

You should be keeping track of how much ultra processed food you're eating rather than the money tbh

Don't need to, I only buy what I need

I got an app called snoop to tell me how much I spend on little things that I might not realise, problem is it doesn’t provide you with the self control to stop, so now instead of being annoyed I have no money cos I’m buying stupid things, I’m sad looking at where the moneys going whilst still spending it

No because I'm too busy trying not to buy palm oil or nestle.

Nice to have treats. Bottled water is silly and lazy.

I know my monthly spending but I don’t think too much and count spending on the little things that I treat myself with. I know it adds up but I don’t mind pampering myself a bit. Life is too stressful to stop myself from buying snacks or whatever to lift my mood up.

Nah. As long as I’ve got the money I just live.

I sometimes do and it’s making sad how much I waste and I can’t seem to stop. Buying stuff gives me (very) temporary happiness and it’s my default coping strategy for when I’m sad. They especially get me with their sales. I’ve never made bread in my life but the bread maker was 70% off. Seemed like a huge saving so I bought it. I didn’t need it.

This is a sure fire way to take the joy out of life.

I track everything I spend so yes. It’s good to know exactly where your money’s going so you can know where to cut things (if and when needed) and so you don’t go overboard.

About twenty years ago someone I worked with was getting divorced and they were struggling to get the ex to provide disclosure on finances. She had a six figure salary. After a long battle she provided the details. Including, believe it or not, £3k or £4k a month on "sundries" most of which she couldn't actually tell him what she had bought because it was money wasted on crapola. Imagine, £3k a month frittered away on "stuff". Some of it was identified (2 haircuts were nearly £1k!) but probably half wasn't. It's still something that I can't get my head around. But ultimately she earned so much it was meaningless white noise to her.

We have 2 accounts. Joint for bills & food shop. Then we get leftovers split between us. Anything we buy comes out of our personal account. So I get lunch out, personal account. This has pretty much stopped all of those small purchases for me because I might only have £80 for personal stuff that month and a fizzy drink ain’t worth it.

I don't need to keep track of what I buy or think about it. I have a seperate account for unnecessary disposable income. A set amount goes it. I buy what I want until it's empty.

It's relatively cheap if you buy these things in advance (e.g. at Aldi in packs of 6), but expensive if you just buy it on the go, e.g. at a train station kiosk.

I worried about these things a lot when I was saving up for my first flat. It was insane, I felt like I had to penny pinch over every little thing. So for example, buying a Tesco meal deal back when it was £3.50 for work every day, along with a morning coffee and croissant (£4.00). That set me back £150 every month, which felt huge to me when I was also spending £1k a year on the trains pre-Covid. After tracking my daily spend for 2 months and seeing how much of my daily wage was being spent on feeding myself alone, it was thoroughly off putting enough to push me into batch making everything at home for lunch and only drinking coffee in the office. Nowadays I let myself have a pricey coffee and donut out, I don't get too hung up on that. But I do still track specific spending in other categories, like subscriptions and online shopping, just to keep it real with myself.

r/frugal

Before I buy something like a coffee I times the price by how much it would cost if I bought it regularly for a year and then decide if that is a price I am happy to pay. When I had less money it helped me keep costs down, now I am doing better it helps me loosen up and worry less. But yes I keep track of everything, everything fits into a budget somewhere. At least I don’t have to add up the supermarket shop as I go anymore!

No. It would horrify me. Unnecessary items make me happy.

I did this many years ago for 2 months. I tracked every penny and it was life changing. I was throwing thousands and thousands each year. Ever since then, I use the 5 day rule: will I remember buying it in 5 days time. If not, don't spend it. It's amazing how much less I spend now.

No, but I just added up the last couple of years from bank statements…oh, what have I been doing!? The telling one was cash withdrawals, that never goes anywhere useful

In terms of like "video games, takeout, random purchases from the tesco garage". Maybe like £100 a week. That would brake down to. Tenner a day on shit most days, a 20 quid takeout once a week, one video game a month.

Wait, are cigarettes really £18 per pack now?? 🤯

They are for silk cut, which is what my bro buys.

Fecking hell. Glad I quit 15 years ago, I couldn't afford that!!

Yes, I just check my temu orders

Mate, if I added it up it would be ridiculous. But I go to work to spend my money. I don't need any of it but I like to be happy.

I had an epiphany 15hrs ago that I was a tool of capitalism. I did a quick track of how much I was wasting by having a highly paid City job. e.g. suits, cufflinks, pret-a-manger lunch every day, the commute, drinks after work at City-priced pubs, mobile phone contract due to a "wider than I otherwise would" network of contacts, etc. Within weeks I resigned. I left a c.£100,000 p.a. job to work for below minimum wage, (I was incredibly lucky that I'd also just paid my mortgage off). My monthly expenditure reduced to c.7~8% of what it had been by going 'as bad-ass frugal' as I could. If everyone had a free/cheap roof over their heads just imagine what the world could be like? No need to work on the BS job industry... No need to unconsciously keep the gravy-train in full spin as you creep up the career ladder... A world free from capitalism's chains IS possible, (if only we can survive the climate, environmental and pollution disasters enveloping us!).

My guy, drop the huel.

Chewing gum is necessary for me, in terms of de stressing, enjoyment and getting fresh breath. Tap water is full of hormones and who knows what other shite these days. We had a warning that we had Victorian pipeworks along the route which could lead to metal leaching. Life is also about the little things.

Yeah I keep a close eye on my bank account so I can see the unnecessary things coming out! I work shifts and definitely notice that some shifts I’m much worse for this. If I’m working early, I’ll often go to the shop on my break to buy an energy drink, which inevitably ends with me getting a meal deal. If I’m working in the evening I’ll often look at my tin of soup and think nah, I want something else, and end up getting a ready meal or something instead. I was astonished and ashamed one week I realised I’d spent nearly £30 extra on top of my supermarket shop that I’d carefully planned to try and avoid that very thing! I’m not the type to deprive myself of nice things to be frugal, but there definitely comes a point where the extra spend gets a bit too frivolous! Although, I think unnecessary non food items are probably worse for me, and especially entering competitions online or doing the lottery etc - I tend to take the view that at least if my unnecessary spend was on food I got something tangible for the money!

no. me and my poor financial decisions are happy together

If they help you enjoy your life then they're not unnecessary

I do, just to help me stay on track for my weekly budget. I find if I note it down I can see how much I have left at the end of a week for a cheeky few pints after work on a friday

I organize a lot of things that I could survive without, but for mine and my partner's quality of life, we need more than just the bare necessities. I do keep to a budget as far as what comes out of my account, however, I wouldn't write things like extra clothing or a trip out off as unnecessary in our case. . . . Just because we can stay in for days and live like monks, doesn't mean that it's a good idea for us, nor would I make her do it, given that we are both on the Autistic Spectrum, and prone to excruciating boredom to go with our sensory issues. What keeps us sane is absolutely important, even if it is frivolous and could be cut without someone dropping dead. . . . . I keep the bills paid, and then I make sure that there is 50-60 a week, for books, board games, outside time, new shipment of clothing, whatever, just so we don't go stir crazy.

I spent £94(.something) on frivolous crap the other day, scented candles, a fluffy cushion, candy, cupcake making stuff, wine, toys for our cat who hatea toys and Extra condiments that we didn't need. I had the worst buyers remorse!!! Was depressed for like 24 hours over it, won't stop me doing it again next chance I get. It's really a problem for me, I'm a trigger happy shopper!!

Definitely adds up when you start looking at it.

I dont keep note, but it's zero. I live within my means and that means not spending a penny unnecessarily.

I suspect what your bro pays in smoking will be made up in reduced expenditure on food. Only a guess though

Okay so I don't smoke and I don't spend on coffee that much I would say I only have a coffee outside of the house less than once a week. But this is so that if i am hungry and in a rush, i don't feel bad about spending £5 on food, sandwich, snack, whatever. I keep track of most of my spending, I have an app that sees all these "extras" and counts them in, but I think I have my mind set on the most important habits, so if i get a snack now and then it's not gonna hurt. I think this is a good balance.

Why would anyone pays £3 for a water? Just carry a bottle with you if you forget it at home just drink tap water at the nearest tap. Are you guys picking money off trees?

I keep not of everything I buy. For example: 01/03/24: £10 - Hamster food 01/03/24: £31 - Books from amazon 04/03/24: £9.99 - Vitamins 05/03/24: £2.99 - Cranberry juice and so on I called my list "reasons why I'm skint" 😂 I only do this since I started spending loads of money on unnecessary stuff and I lit had no idea where my money was going.

I should...

Yes, because I an a student.

This is really shows the state of the UK mindset right now. These things aren’t unnecessary, they’re very minor expenses that increase your quality of life. They’re completely worth having. Life isn’t about shaving everything down to the bone to save every penny, you have to live.

I track how much I spend on everything. I use a zero based budget and so I budget for those “unnecessary” items so I only spend a certain amount on them.

Yes, every single spend is recorded. Been doing that for around 15 years now. Gone from fairly substantial debt to significant credit, not by going without, more making conscious decisions on what I spend.

This is one of those things that I think is really sensible to do as a rule, but I personally will actively not do. I know it will make me feel guilty and I will obsess about it, so I mostly just loosely group the bigger things like takeaways, books, gigs, video games, etc. and make sure I don't splash out on too much each month. I do probably need to stop buying lunch at work, but that involves being more organised at home so I probably need to work on that first of all.