2008 - Live on £4000 for a full year.

FrankieM · 19 March 2008 at 4:29PM

Oooohhh....
I've just rediscovered freecycle.....
How exciting.....!

DdraigGoch · 19 March 2008 at 5:22PM

Freecycle has done me very proud today, and eBay and the local recycling centre. For the grand total of £19.50 I obtained the following:
2 pairs of designer [long! I'm tall, so get draughty ankles a lot otherwise:rotfl: ], a set of partworks on history of art, a set of partworks on how to paint, the materials [books] for a foundation course in Art at the OU, a box of watercolours [old but useable], brushes and paper, and - believe it or not - a full dresser by Ercol. Barely a scratch on it!

Now, I know that £19.50 is a lot of money, but I needed some more storage in the kitchen and, frankly, if I don't use it I can eBay it:j The art stuff is brilliant as I was hoping to do something with the OU and now it means I can at least have a go and see if I can do it [it's been a long time since I was in school] and I feel that I have had a huge bargain day.

Oh, and I found a free Easter holiday for my son! [local, not applicable UK wide, before you all ask:rotfl: ]

All in all, quite a good day.

Hoping you all have a good day today
DG

ps I daren't go near the receipts ..... :eek: and I've just had the quote for some building work, essential stuff - about 70% LOWER than the local firm... so even though that means I shall be borrowing, I shan't have to borrow anywhere near as much. Wish me luck.

Frugaldom · 19 March 2008 at 5:48PM

Further to Jay's comment re ISA RATES

I just noticed the Bank of Scotland ISA offer of 6.4% fixed rate but when I read the 'more details' the fixed rate is only if you left the money there for 4 years. It dropped to 5.8% over one year. What I don't understand is how the same institution can offer so many different variations on their interest rates for what is almost the same product. OK, I can see that if the cash is theirs for 4 years then it costs nothing to administer the account as far as you withdrawing cash is concerned, but it's still bamboozling, to say the least.

A few posts back I had number crunched to the conclusion that £75,000 in savings would provide enough monthly interest to live off as a frugaler, but I've now found out that we can actually invest up to £93,000 tax free. This is a financial OCD sufferer's worst nightmare because it's moving the goal posts constantly on the savings front and making the end result look further and further away! The £93,000 does include £30,000 of premium bonds, though, which aren't very MSE as far as I am aware. But still... I haven't even touched on pensions and friendly societies.

I was already aware of the increase in what you can save in a tax free Isa, going from £3000 to £3600 after April 6th, but I've only just found out that we are also allowed to save cash in a 'friendly society' or 'bond' up to a maximum of £25 per month. We can also buy child bonds up to the same value and any interest is tax free. I've found one that's for 10 years and includes life insurance, so that's the funeral plan taken care of! I should also get 7000+ mutual points (which converts to £45 shopping vouchers) and £15 of High Street vouchers from the company itself! :rotfl: (Not meaning to be morbid but I would hate to 'pop off' and leave my family to pay a funeral that they possibly couldn't afford. I had asked about life insurance, but apparently it ONLY pays out if you die, which can mean you lose it all if you don't die within the set time! Where does the money go?? :eek:

Is it just me or does it look like our entire working lives could be turned over to 'investing in order to avoid paying tax' if we were in the financial situation to do so?

The quarter mark for this challenge is when I'll start the new thread. That day falls, funnily enough, on 1st April, just a few days before the new tax year. We'll be ready to meet that head on, no problem. :rotfl:

Here's my next instalment of number crunching - my rehashed budget, again! :rolleyes: I am DREADING the next electricity bill as I have guesstimated it at well over £500 for the quarter :eek:

My recalculated budget for 2008 is:

Groceries: £1200 - £271.50 = £928.50

Heat & Light: £1200 - £419.44 = £780.56

Telephone: £250 - £59.72 = £190.28

Mobile: £50 - nil = £50 (still haven't topped up this year)

Internet: £220 - £31.91 = £188.09

Insurance: paid using cashback

TV Licence: paid using cashback

Gifts/Special Occasions: £500 - £69.69 = £430.31

Everything else: £580 - £250.64 = £345.58

Total: £4000 for year. Already spent £1155.30, balance = £2844.70

Target average weekly spend = £76.50 over a year

Actual average weekly spend = £102.36

Day 79 of 2008, 287 days left at average £69.38 per week

PS: GOOD LUCK DDRAIGGOCH! Well done on today's frugal 'haul'

Marru · 19 March 2008 at 6:12PM

Hi All,

I have also been staring at my spreadsheet today. I have made a cash flow forecast to the end of the year with all expenses that I can think of allocated when they are likely to go out from my bank account. I have excluded all income that is not confirmed. This means that in the end of the year I am 1,848.37 in debit :eek: . Not to worry thou as I will still get some projects to do from my ex employer (especially in July - August to do our June year end stuff) and I do get some money from Amazon every two weeks and also my tax credits should go up in April. Have to wait till 6th of April to update them. Waiting for refund to my income tax from year 06-07 and in April need to do 07-08 and get refund for that as well. Also waiting a refund for my self employment NI contribution for tax year 06-07 and need put new claim in for 07-08 in April. AND £40 coming from RBS from old CC penalty charges :T . Oh and in September I can say goodbye to my expensive BT business broadband. So I should be ok.

But when it comes to my challenge it seems to me that only thing I have a control over is the grocery budget and when all the others are taking over I end up taking the difference out from there. It already has gone from £1.6k (included animal care stuff) to £1.1k and shrinking.

I called my local college that provides courses that I am intereste in to completely change my career and they told me that the fees are £2k !!!! I didn't ask was this for a term or year (I hope it is for a year). They are calling me back if there is a way for me to get the tuition fee free due to my circumstances. Fingers crossed.

Other strain to the finances is that I will get a teenage daughter in the autumn. My niece will come and live with me but I just found out that in the eyes of the officials she will be treated as my own as I am responsible for her. I just feel a bit like a fraudster bringing another child into this country to be brought up with the public funding. But she needs a break from her mother and vice versa.

So in the autumn I will be broke mum of two in full time education at the same time working 20 hours a week as self employed (no wonder there is no time for washing up or hoovering).

Ok that is enough. I need to go and get LO home from the nursery and catch up in the evening with my work so that I don't have anything outstanding over the easter. Bliss!! Have allocated rest of my budget of this month to petrol (going to London on Easter Saturday). What ever is left will go to utmost essentials to keep LO fed until my big shop on 1st of April (happy April Fool!)

Marru

Frugaldom · 19 March 2008 at 6:38PM

Marru, take a look at this link for info about funding towards further education, see if there's anything there to help you.

DdraigGoch · 19 March 2008 at 6:57PM

Nyk, I'm very interested in your OCD crunching, but what is involved? What sort of figures are you working from - not your personal figures, the interest v deposit sort of figures? I'm just fascinated to think that if I could downsize and invest then we could have a full time job investing the proceeds! LOL

FrankieM · 19 March 2008 at 7:11PM

Right, I've taken the bull by the horns and sorted out my totals now....if we are going to have a new thread in April, then I want to get myself sorted out before then.....it gives me a shockingly low figure to survive on....but even if I go into minus figures then I know how much I've spent and I'll be more sorted for next year...
My budget is only 11 months cause I didn't start till Feb...

My DH is looking at retraining to become a teacher in Sept. so my stringent budgeting will come in handy...we've been looking at selling the house and renting cause the mortgage is so much more than rent is around here, but if I can live on £4k and CB, then we may not have too!

Frugaldom · 19 March 2008 at 7:24PM

DdraigGoch wrote: »

Nyk, I'm very interested in your OCD crunching, but what is involved? What sort of figures are you working from - not your personal figures, the interest v deposit sort of figures? I'm just fascinated to think that if I could downsize and invest then we could have a full time job investing the proceeds! LOL

Hi Ddraig, I just find numbers quite fascinating and could happily numbercrunch all day if it would pay my living, so that's what I'd like it to do one day. The whole self-sufficiency thing interests me, but I don't really want to live like a nomad and eat homegrown produce simply to exist. So, I set little challenges, like this one, although this is a rather MAJOR challenge seeing as it's dealing with the entire cost of living.

It all started in 1999 with the 'Feed a family of four for £10 a week' challenge and kind of developed from there. Various methods and calculations and all sorts of money games have been played and I'm now about 99% sure that my longterm plan can work. I believe it is possible to work your own money hard enough to pay you a wage that's sufficieint to cover your cost of living without your having to be filthy rich. I know my plan is working because I am now virtually debt free, but I haven't smoothed the edges enough, yet, for it to fully support my frugal lifestyle, let alone increase my savings. However, I am hoping to test that part out in 2009.

Many people think it's a ridiculous plan, I should warn you about that part. But to start you off as a number-crunching OCD sufferer, you first must have a detailed account of how, where and when you spend what money you already have. Hence, year 2 (for me) of this challenge. :T

whitewing · 19 March 2008 at 8:38PM

Phew! Just spent half an hour with two very kind and friendly firemen. Shame OH, MIL and DS were there, lol!

Anyway, brilliant visit (lots of good advice & some we hadn't thought of), and we did get a free smoke alarm. And it has a built in 10 year battery. And (in theory) the fire service will ring us in ten years' time and ask to come out again! How about that for a frugalling future?

mumzyof2 · 19 March 2008 at 8:44PM

thats brilliant ...

2008 - Live on £4000 for a full year.

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