Belinda Moore

I’ve been a member of Simple Savings for a few years now and it’s literally saved us thousands of dollars. It is $47 to join and $17 to renew, per year.

This month is National $21 Challenge Month.

Penny Wise explains, “The challenge originated from a Simple Savings member called Barbara Kane, who managed to feed her family of four for a whole week on just $21 following a dare from her husband! Barbara wrote to tell me how she managed it and I thought it was a great idea so spread the word. More than 50 members took part in the first Challenge to see if they could do the same and the numbers continue to just keeping growing! Members love to take part in the Challenge together, but you can choose to do it whenever you like, at a time that suits you and your family best. It has proved a great way to get through particularly tough times, such as when those nasty unexpected expenses arise, or just to prove to yourself that you can do it! Many of these members who have been doing the challenge have larger families, so the rule of thumb they have been using is to add an extra $5.25 per extra person - it still makes for an incredibly frugal week!”

Since we have most of what we’re eating this week in the house and garden already, I’m finally going to seriously undertake this $21 Challenge. It’s a birthday week, and we’re having a homeschool group meeting here, and they’re the kinds of things which usually push my budget up and over so it’s good timing. Because there are 8 of us, I get to do a $42 challenge, which makes it seem less challenging but still tricky for us comparing it to what we usually spend.

The groceries I need for 1/6 to 7/6 include: cream, tuna, cheese, icing sugar and butter. I’ll also buy milk on Wednesday and Saturday. I’ll keep a tab of what I spend here…

It’s all over the news, and today’s prediction is that food prices are set to double, so it looks like we’ll need to do this fairly regularly from now on!

Sunday 1/6: $6.20 bread

Monday 2/6: $28.69 tuna, cream, cheese, butter, icing sugar

Wednesday 4/6: $4.50 milk

Saturday 7/6: $4.50 milk

Total: $43.89 - almost! And not bad for a birthday and visitors week.

Next week: Organics Supplies, sack of potatoes and supermarket stock-up, but might try this challenge again the following week…