2008 - Live on £4000 for a full year.

catshark88 · 29 January 2008 at 5:22PM

FBThree wrote: »

OOH now you've scared me! I thought that if you were trading - i.e. buying in to sell at a profit, then you'd have to report it, but this implies that if you sell your own possessions or things you'd been given that you might have to report it! Mind you, I guess there's no way I could sell £300 of my possessions...unless I wanted no furniture left! :rotfl:

I am pretty sure that you pay no tax for selling your own items as long as they were not bought to sell on. Buying cheap at car boots and then reselling for a profit would be taxable, selling unwanted CD you got for Christmas is not (as far as I understand it).

It is probably worth keeping track of what you sell though as the taxman is bound to start sniffing around ebay sales now that so many people trade on it.

affordmylife · 29 January 2008 at 5:26PM

Just updated my sig to take of recent shopping and dds come out of my account.

I originally opted for the £5,000. challenge cos £4,000. sounded really tight for us but so far its been easy. Ill probably carry on this year but may lower it next year.

This month due to frugality i have paid £500 of my credit card. I am delighted with this cos i was expecting to only manage £200.

It must be because i normally spend £100+ a week on food and this month i have spend £120 for the whole month. Im so pleased.

Thank you all for your support and advise.

Burlesque_Babe · 29 January 2008 at 5:27PM

No, you don't need to declare it if you are selling your own possessions - its the same as if you put an advert in the paper. You only declare goods you have specifically bought (ie stock) to sell on for a profit.

Frugaldom · 29 January 2008 at 5:38PM

catshark88 wrote: »

It is probably worth keeping track of what you sell though as the taxman is bound to start sniffing around ebay sales now that so many people trade on it.

Apparently, if there's any suspicion of benefits fraud or tax evasion, they have the right to request bank statements - could be proof of PayPal transactions as part of the enquiry. I heard about this ages ago, plus the story of people trying to avoid being caught by bidding for vouchers rather than transferring PayPal funds to bank accounts. With regards to tax & tax credit claims, they are only interested in anything over the first £300 in any year. But it's always best to be on the safe side as many of the 'major sites' are used for research purposes. Scary, or what? :eek:

Janey51 · 29 January 2008 at 6:30PM

redglass wrote: »

Surely they're not allowed to...surely! :eek: I heat downstairs with a wood stove but the price of logs is going up, too, so I'm always on the lookout for people throwing away wood...broken chairs, old skirting boards, anything they are willing to give away.....I embarrass my friends.

Me too :j
I am shameless now when it comes to grabbing any wood sitting around doing nothing

Janey51 · 29 January 2008 at 7:04PM

Thought this was a NSD...again :mad: but thwarted by DH. Can't criticise as it was stuff we needed, vacuum cleaner bags and new filter. The one thats in the hoover at the moment is threadbare and held together with tape so I think its time for a new one. Wonder how long these will last me or I could just stop hoovering.

So, total spend today was £6.49. DH got a new lead for my slow cooker but I'm not counting that as it will come out of the insurance money.

Had an offer for an interim payment on our fire insurance claim today and its a lot better than we thought.
We have decided (or at least I have put forward the suggestion to DH) that we have a real think about what we need to replace as a lot of the things were just possessions and the important things can't be replaced no matter how much money we get.

I proposed that we decide how much we will spend on replacement stuff and save the rest. :j Having the cash will give us the freedom to pick and choose and if we have a defined budget, we won't just splurge the lot on pointless possessions.
I would like to spend about £50 on things for the garden as I lost so many seeds, pots etc.

The Gods got me back for getting the 2 free yogurts on the back of my Mum's shopping today (buy 2 get 2 free). I dropped a pot I had taken into work for lunch and then one of my crafty cats dived straight into the other while my back was turned :mad:

DH gave me some of his tips today for helping over the weekend ...£5:j
Straight into the piggy bank.
And he bought me a mini piggy bank from a charity shop.:D I don't think he's quite thinking in a frugal fashion yet but he's heading in the right direction.

And I was given a spare desk diary so have made it my spending diary as I am finding the other one too small :rotfl:

redglass_2 · 29 January 2008 at 7:43PM

moanymoany wrote: »

I read somewhere - senior can't remember moment - someone had an arrangement with a builders yard to collect the bits of wood that were too small to sell, they pretty much ran their heating with this wood supply. Anywhere that uses wood would be worth trying.

Thanks, Moanymoany, and thanks too to Mortgagefreeforme, who PM'd me with a similar suggestion but I don't seem to be able to PM back, some sort of problem with the software. I see possibilities in this idea! :T

Aril · 29 January 2008 at 10:08PM

Hello fellow frugalites!!
I am loving all these new frugalling terms....quick someone ring the OED we must be worthy of at least one page dedicated solely to us for our outstanding effort made in the name of language development [and at what speed]. My contribution today is frugal fritter fund [go on try saying that quickly with your teeth in and after a couple of small sweet sherries:D ] Definition: a small [note the small;) amount] of cash squirrelled away for those emergencies when you're in the mindset to blow loads of cash. This will allow a small treat to pacify the materialistic monster within [mine can be very noisy and attention seeking when she so desires] but saves the huge feelings of guilt after an unplanned for splurge.

Note the verb to overfrugal does not exist....there are already sufficient terms to cover this including mean/stingy and is not something that ever occurs on such successful challenges:D
Gnat bottom stakes are continuing well...OH is extremely pleased with himself as he's worked out that it's far cheaper to heat the water for the BM in the microwave than in the kettle and between us we have found a deal to cut the weekly cost of the small person's Beano with a short term subscription deal that saves us the price of 3 copies [not that I begrudge the small chap 99p per week it's just making my budget a little more elastic:D ie go further]
Other main news is that I have managed to buy an entire outfit for my sister's civil partnership do for the princely sum of £15.49 -gorgeous beaded top from Oxfam, smart M&S trousers from the charity shop and silver pumps £4.50 from BHS. Oh how times have changed...when same said sister got married 10 years ago [it's a complicated tale!] I spent £80 on the skirt alone:eek:
Anyway must wend....before I forget please can I join up for the part of the challenge which will hopefully stop my wibbly bits from wobbling so much....eating wise I still seem to think it's Christmas:o
Keep up the fabby progress and posts!
Aril

liuhut · 29 January 2008 at 10:32PM

OK figured out my spending for the month

£232 on food
£50 phone
11.61 TV Licence
80 Gas/Lecky
31 Clothes
24 Xmas Presents
28 Mobiles
50 Mobiles
38 Petrol

Total 544.61
Now I do have a LOT of luxiories but I am keeping my daily spending diary and am going to make a real effort next month with NO chocolate...god did I really just type that.
The gas is going in the right direction, only ONE unit used yesterday!!!,
Food wise I have hardly anything left in the house and Mr T is coming tomorrow night but I am going to count that into next months figures.
Mobiles are less for next month and I have maded an extra 430 this month so really pleased with that.
I think that this is really helping me to concentrate on reducing spends although oh did spend 120 on beer and he was pleased with that..argh men

Frugaldom · 29 January 2008 at 11:00PM

The Frugal Fitness Club
How to get your free membership

Scour the free ads, register for Freecycle updates and ask everyone you know if they have any gym type equipment they want to offload for FREE. (I already have an exercise bike, compliments of someone I worked with last year). You'll also need a measuring tape, a sense of humour and a strong will to succeed. There is no diet, only an agreement to try to balance your eating with your exercise. Besides, I don't have any scales, so I can't be overweight :rotfl:

Take measurements of all of the following: neck, chest, waist, hips, thighs, tops of legs, calves, ankles, tops of arms and wrists and keep a note of them. You should have 15 numbers in total. If you take these in inches, then the number isn't so big.
Next, add them all up to get your total 'figure'. This is the only figure we will be sharing, as it saves admitting to where our wobbliest bits are! :eek:

(Please do not take part in this exercise unless you NEED to tone up or lose size.)

Whatever this figure is, we are aiming to lose a foot (12 inches / 30 centimetres) with no lame excuses for being unable to afford it - there is no diet, there are no gym fees.

I like to think of the festive period as a time of plenty, when we eat, drink, be merry and then have a foot spare, overall, to lose before summer. This is known as being 'Foot-loose'.

You have 14 days from 1st February to St Valantine's Day and, with any luck, you'll be able to indulge in some free "fancies", hopefully compliments of a loved one but, if not, treat yourself; go for the whole kit and kaboodle - foot loose and fancy free - it's only for one day.

You normally have the second 14 days to complete your efforts to set the spare foot loose. This year, however, you get one day extra for celebrating, purely because you joined this challenge! :rotfl: OK, that part's a frugal fib, but it's handy knowing we have one more day to measure up to our new frugal figures.

Join the Frugal Fitness Club now - all you need is paper, a pencil and a measuring tape. You can improvise on everything else as it's a do as you please fitness regime with only two rules - keep checking your "figure" and no cheating.

GOOD LUCK - This challenge starts on FRIDAY 1st FEBRUARY and ends FRIDAY 29th FEBRUARY 2008.

I'm off to open a new thread for it where you can add your names and 'figures' - if you dare :cool:

Edited in - here is the link to the 4k Frugal Fitness Club

2008 - Live on £4000 for a full year.

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