My Frugal Setup

What is Frugality

Everywhere I will talk about frugality, I will base it on the following three principles -

• Minimising expenses (in business or life), that do not directly produce proportional returns. For example, if I have a small team then working out of a spare bedroom or kitchen table is much more time saving (in commute) and money saving (in rent) than paying a fancy office space.

• Finding solutions that you save on at least one or more of your most valuable resources. For example, if I can easily and quickly create content, I can save both time and money by doing it myself. However, if I do not understand design, then spending 5 days on a logo would be waste of my time resource vs the expense of hiring a specialist.

• Never cutting corners on the aspects of business that actually have a direct impact on growth and longevity. For example, if taking a client to lunch strengthens your relationship with them), then even if it isn't directly revenue generating, it must be done.

The space

Our spare box room - once room to my eldest, this is now my work space. In the course of last 6 years I have moved through 3 different rooms of our house, and have now settled on the smallest box room as it is plenty and enough to run my B2B business. Trestle table - lugged at market stands in a previous life, this fit perfectly into the box room to give me large enough space for working on my laptop or packing samples for customers.Plastic cover - this was my dad's addition, he didn't like the idea of a naked table, have to agree makes cleaning much easier.

Pink Chair - borrowed from my daughter's room, I use it while she is at school, she uses it in the evenings.Shelves - Painful to make, but a cheap sturdy buys from Amazon.Wall hangings - The ones of me were a gift from my husband in the businesses first years, the rest are our degrees, paintings from the children and their many school photographs.

The tech

Laptop - This is my 8 year old robust Mac Book that has sufficed all business requirements so far. I have just ordered a new Samsung however as I need to work more and more on latest version Excel files for customers.Phone - My 3 year old smashed screen Samsung (because which mom has an intact phone). While the screen is smashed, it still takes good photos for when I need.

Printer - Wifi connected with Scanner - a must and recently updated.Shredder - I strongly believe all businesses should have one. It is more important than we think to destroy signed documents that have no further use.

Subscriptions

I tend to subscribe to some softwares on monthly and some annual basis:Canva - A must for anyone who wants to quickly whip up some designs using current design assets. We asked our design agency to create us some templates in png that I can now use to create social media posts. Subscribed monthly as and when needed.Xero - My accounting software and an absolute life and time saver. I did my first 2 accounts through excel (where is my medal), then switched to Freeagent but am now very happy with my Xero subscription. Subscribed annually with monthly payments

Emails - My entire business runs through emails, so a considerable but essential annual expense.Subscribed annually with annual payments

Website - When I paused my shopify based retail business, I let go of my website. Like completely - for 8 months. Suprisingly they were also 8 months of tremendous growth when Cheeky Food barely had any web presence. It was only once I discovered the basic market-fit for the business, did I invest in building a new website. The work was outsourced to an agency in India - https://www.thegotoguy.co/ and created a website that I am so proud of (so obviously you must check it out) - www.cheekyfoodcompany.com

Mailchimp - I was initially using Klaviyo for our retail email marketing but with new smaller numbers in B2B, have switched to Mailchimp that I currently use for free.I think businesses shouldn't be worried of moving around cloud softwares to save on subscription fees. Most softwares offer easy imports to take your lists with you.

New Products

A lot of our business relies on steady and innovative NPD. We develop new products in a lean manner ->

1) Create 3 versions of an innovative product in our category2) Send to our handful of trusted customers3) get feedback4) tweak and improve5) support if their interest grows6) take to production once they use them in upcoming recipes7) In case of no interest, create smaller samples of the favourite and add to sample bags going to new customers

As such NPD is one of the strong pillars for Cheeky Food. It is critical to continue good NPD, but also to keep costs low.Breakdown of NPD costs -

NPD specialist ~ £150 for 3 versions and further tweaks.Ingredients - Free (strong relationship with our suppliers mean they are willing to offer free sample ingredients in reasonable quantities) Cost of packaging - £3 (see more below)Cost of despatch - £7 (I only send Special Delivery - more reliable and less heartache)

So in under £170 I have the means to trial 3 versions of a new innovative product idea with my customers who are already experts in their cuisines and customer bases. Results are often unexpected and what we assume to work often bombs, and equally what we create at a whim sometimes gets listed within months (more on this in another blog).

Packaging

• Sachets - FREE Saved from previous retail days of the business

• Envelopes - £1/bag I love our shiny envelopes. Every 2nd customer tells me how they love our shiny envelopes - makes a great impression while also making the samples easy to locate in a big bundle of post

• Stickers - 10p Stickers and more Stickers. An easy and cheap way of personalising envelops, boxes, samples.

• Compliment Slips - £50p Agree these are a pretty addition but I love them. Plus I always love a handwritten note with our samples, so they come in very handy.

• Reused boxes and Amazon packaging - FREE

Other expenses

Well there are obviously many other expenses - travel, client meetings, marketing banners etc. But at all times, I go back to my three principles of frugality to check if the expense is required or not. It helps me keep it tight.

So that's my frugal setup. If you have any tips, ideas or additions to improve the setup, please do let me know. If you want to continue following my journey here, please subscribe. with love,Swati

To read more about my business, read my who, what and why.