Frugal February Challenge Results – How Much Money I Saved In 28 Days

I challenged myself to save £250 during the month of February. In this post, I share the Frugal February challenge results and reveal how much money I saved in 28 days. 

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Frugal February Challenge Results – How Much Money I Saved In 28 Days

At the end of January, I set myself a money-saving challenge for the month of February. I called the challenge Frugal February. My goal was to save £250 during the short month, by eliminating all unnecessary spending and trying different money saving ideas.

I wrote a mid-challenge post to update you on how the challenge was going, read it here. In this post, I’ll reveal the final Frugal February challenge results. Was I able to meet the £250 savings goal? Read on to find out the answer. Also, discover what I learned from the challenge and what my next steps will be.

Goal 1 – Renegotiate Mobile Phone Contract

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I’ve been a loyal EE customer for well over a decade. You can imagine my dismay when I called their customer services line to request a loyalty discount on my new SIM only contract, only to be refused a discount! The SIM only contract I found cost £20 and I was requesting a £5 loyalty discount which I thought was very reasonable.

My husband found a Vodaphone deal offering five times more data at the same price as EE’s SIM only contract. Needless to say, after all these years, I’ve switched mobile phone service providers.

Although my new contract is still £20, I’m getting a lot more for my money and it’s still cheaper than the contract that I previously had with EE (previous contract monthly price was £36).

Target Savings Amount: £20
Amount Saved: £16

Goal 2 – No More Breakfast On The Go

In order to avoid repeating myself, you can read how the first 3 weeks of how this goal went in my previous post  here.

In week four I was able to resist the temptation of buying breakfast on the go two out of the three days that I worked. As mentioned in previous posts, I work part-time so my working week is only Monday-Wednesday. This was only because I worked from home on those two days! For some reason, the motivation to save really started to dwindle as I approached the last few days of the month. I found it a lot more difficult to fight the temptation of the coffee shops’ fresh pastries.

Target Savings Amount: £40.80
Amount Saved: £34

Goal 3 – Reduce Weekly Food Spend By 35%

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In order to avoid repeating myself, you can read how the first 3 weeks of how this goal went in my previous post  here.

The plan each week was to reduce our weekly food spend from £70 to £45 and save the £25 difference. The final week of February was by far the hardest! Our food cupboards and freezer were literally bare. In order to avoid the children going hungry, I spent a lot more of the food budget. However, I was determined to save money somehow. I’m happy to announce I was able to reduce the food spend by a whopping £5! Where there’s a will there is always a way.

Target Savings Amount: £100
Amount Saved: £70

Goal 4 – Apply The 72 Hour Rule

In order to avoid repeating myself, you can read how the first 3 weeks of how this goal went in my previous post  here.

The 72-hour principle is, instead of purchasing something that you see straight away, wait 72 hours and if you still need it buy it.

I was able to apply the 72 hour rule effectively throughout the month of February and didn’t make any unnecessary impulse purchases. I think being 7 months pregnant and the time really helped with achieving this goal. I’m pleased to report that I was successfully able to achieve my savings target for this goal of £40!

Target Savings Amount: £40
Amount Saved: £40

Goal 5 – Sell Things From Around The Home

In order to avoid repeating myself, you can read how the first 3 weeks of how this goal went in my previous post  here.

We all have a lot of belongings around our homes that we don’t need or use that would be of value to someone else. With that in mind, I figured that this goal would be my best bet at saving an extra £100 in February.

At the start of the last week of February, I listed a number of items for sale on Shpock. I was able to make sales of £37.50 by selling 3 of the listed items. It goes to show that if I had started to list items as planned at the start of February I would have more likely reached my £100 target. The lesson here is DO NOT procrastinate!

I plan to sell a lot more items once I’ve given birth and have time to give my house a good clear-out as I know I have a lot of things that I could sell and make a few extra pounds from.

Target Savings Amount: £100
Current Savings Amount: £37.50

Bonus Money!

In the last week of February, I worked from home two out of my three working days. I decided to save the £20.20 that I would have spent on travelling to work.

Target Savings Amount: £0
Current Savings Amount: £70.70

Summary

I’m pleased to report that I smashed my savings target for February and finished the month with £268.20 saved! The table below breaks down how each goal contributed to the total figure saved.

In the end, it was the bonus money that helped push me over the target which I’m still really pleased about. If I hadn’t intentionally saved that money I would have easily spent it elsewhere without even giving it an extra thought.

Lessons Learned

• Breaking down a goal into smaller bite-sized goals makes it much easier to reach the target
• Setting SMART goals keep you accountable and are really the best way of ensuring a goal is achieved. You can read all about setting SMART goals in a previous post here
• I can achieve anything that I set my mind to, it just takes hard work focus and commitment
• Do not procrastinate! I would have easily saved over £300 if I listed more items for sale on Shpock at the start of February as planned
• I have a lot more disposable money than I thought I had. When I was more mindful of how and where I spent my money, I was able to save over £250! This was outside of our regular monthly family savings and the 1p money saving challenge that I’m currently doing

Next Steps

I’ve been doing a lot of research into investing as this is something that I want to start doing this year. We all know the interest banks pay on savings is pitiful so I need to make my money work me. I’ve read a lot about investment ISA’s and micro investing and I’m considering starting with one of these methods. However I need to do further research before I commit to any service provider.

For now, I’ll keep the money I’ve saved in a separate savings account until I decide what to do. Do you have any investment experience or advice/resources that you could share? I know £250 isn’t exactly a life-changing amount of money but we all have to start somewhere, right?

More Like This: 

If you enjoyed this post, ‘Frugal February Challenge Results – How Much Money I Saved In 28 Days’, then you will also enjoy my other blog posts on similar topics, check them out below:

8 Ways To Motivate Yourself To Save Money 

Frugal February Challenge – Save £250 In 28 Days!

Frugal February Savings Challenge – How Much Have I Saved So Far?

External Resources:

As well as drawing on personal experience for my blog posts, I also get inspiration from other amazing bloggers. Here are a few blogs that inspired this post.

12 Money Challenges To Help You Save More Money This Year

8 Different Money Saving Challenges to Try