Live on £4000 for a year - Part 3

shaz_mum_of__2

Anyone still playing free bingo ??

Shaz

MrsHayes

Brighton_belle wrote: »

Mrs Hayes - you don't have McAffee by any chance - because the same thing happened to me earlier in the year - drove me mad. In the end it became apparent that it had gone wonky after an automatic update by McAffee. Fortunately lodger is computer whizz kid and sorced the problem to the down load. I left Macaffee and and now have free virus protection though a company he recommeneded.

I don't think so we have something called AVG as our security/firewall thingy. I think it is just our network provider as about a month ago it refused to access another website for about a week but after that it was fine. Since I could get on last week until Friday with no issues I'm hoping by next week it will be resolved and I can stop going through these proxy servers which take 10 minutes to load each page and do funny things when I try and post! Thank you anyway though xxNyk - I think I would go a little bit mad if I stayed home full time with the baby/dogs! At the moment I earn more than my husband as he changed career and is still training however when he has qualified and earns more ideally I would like to only work mornings. We would like to have our own business together one day which would hopefully enable me to be more felixible for future frugalmites! xx

EagerLearner

Marru sorry to hear your news - we are desperate to get a kitten but I think in my mind I worry about not being able to cope if we ever lost it!

Loving the stories about frozen wildlife... shame I only have 1 shelf freezer! However, we don't get that much wildlife around, although, I am sure I heard rustling in our bins last night which I think was a fox as a seagull would have left more evidence and mess. Foxes are no longer scared of coming into Brighton - we saw once a year ago, just sitting in the middle of a residential road, as several people walked by. We even stopped to stare and he didn't even budge!

I spent too much this week on household stuff, confession as follows:
Pepper mill £9.99 (but it's rubberised, ooOOoooooo!)
Meal out £17ish (during shopping, bad idea not to eat at home)
New kitchen bin £14.99 (needed, current bin is open and therefore smelly)
Drawer underwear sorter £2.50ish (easier in the mornings when I am half asleep)

We don't normally get any house stuff... but felt like I was going mad without having these bits... tsk tsk, next month must improve or the yearly total will creep up, and it's not like there's much to go... The next 4 months will be a test!

sukielou75

Hello All,
Marru, so sorry to hear about your little piggy, it's so sad when you lose a pet, you get so attached to them, they become part of the family and are just like little people with unique little personalities and traits of their own. I hope you are ok.
Shaz, I'm still grinding away at the free bingo, no joy as yet but I did get 50p credited to my account when I played a 2p game (last of the big spenders)!
Hope everyone is doing well.

Frugaldom

II_D2_II wrote: »

this is the most amazing thing i have eer heard of, i seen this in someones sig and i never believed this was real and i found the thread....
all i can say is WOW this is really truely amazing, is it ok for me to stick around here just to see what goes on please and what you all talk about.. not join in because i know i cannot do it hehe

Hello, welcome to our wacky frugal wonderland and yes, you are perfectly welcome to stick around and follow the progress.

Shaz, I'm still sticking it out in free bingo whenever I can. The best I have had recently was the £7 odds last week thanks to a bonus credit.

OK, DGD has now settled down to watch a DVD after having a whale of a time outside in the rain cycling through puddles! The joys of the young 'uns! :rotfl: I decided to start preparing my end of month household accounts and get to grips with just how much (or little) I have left. Once again, I have juggled the target budgets, so it now looks like this:

New targets


TOTAL FOR GROCERIES £841.75/£1000
TOTAL FOR GIFTS £151.80/£400
TOTAL FOR EVERYTHING ELSE £242.17/£360
TOTAL FOR UTILITIES £1242.94/£1500
Electricity - £1117.53
Telephone - £147.91
Mobile - £15
TOTAL FOR HOUSEHOLD £191.90/£200
TOTAL FOR INTERNET ACCESS £121.85/£240
CONTINGENCY FUND - £300


TOTAL SPEND - £2829.91
BALANCE - £1170.09

We have 4 full months to go and, on average, should have £1333.33 remaining, so it's only £163.24 out and I'm not too worried, as I have estimated essential spends between now and the year end. I've rounded the figures so they don't irritate my financial OCD

Groceries - £200 (never going to stay within £1000/year)
Gifts - £250
Electricity - £200 (4th quarterly bill due October)
Telephone - £40 (4th quarterly bill due November)
Mobile - £15
Internet - £80 (Intro offer finished, £19.99/month from September)
Total - £785.00

Left for Everything else/contingency - £385

I'm going to do it, I'm going to do it, I'm going to do it! I hope! Off to juggle a few more figures now and see if any of them can help keep the CCs on 0% - running out of options on this front. :eek:

slowlyfading

:hello: everyone. Have updated my signiture, and its going well! Am £170 behind budget so far, so am really pleased with that however, I do need to buy a few new items of clothing, but it shouldn't come to that amount - although a new winter jacket is needed sometime!
Hope everyone is okay today
sf x

Mollymop5

nykmedia wrote: »

MUST get to postie today but once again, it'll need to wait until I've collected DGD from nursery and poor child will need to 'help gran do her work'. Getting in a right old tizz about this scenario, as it's been going on for as long as I can remember! How do working mums manage with young kids if there's no childminding facilities available locally? And there's no form of income compensation for those of us who need to stay home to look after grandchildren, yet we still need to earn a living. It's ludicrous!

Rant over - sorry

Nyk have you thought of registering as a childminder? I registered and did a 4 day course.On the course were 3 grandparents who were going through the process soley to look after their own grandchildren.The parents could then claim childcare tax credits and pay the grandparents for looking after the children.It does seem a bit silly.But these ladies said they loved having their grandchildren but were still at an age that they needed an income.This worked out for all parties involved.Once registered you needed advertise for other children.You just inform Ofsted from the beginning that that is the reason you are doing it.Just a thought

liney

Mollymop5 wrote: »

Nyk have you thought of registering as a childminder? I registered and did a 4 day course.On the course were 3 grandparents who were going through the process soley to look after their own grandchildren.The parents could then claim childcare tax credits and pay the grandparents for looking after the children.It does seem a bit silly.But these ladies said they loved having their grandchildren but were still at an age that they needed an income.This worked out for all parties involved.Once registered you needed advertise for other children.You just inform Ofsted from the beginning that that is the reason you are doing it.Just a thought

I was under the impression that you could only claim tax credits to cover payment of a registared childminder who is related, if that person also looked after another child on the days the grandchild is 'in care' too. I don't think 'just advertising' is good enough.

Do check that out thoroughly before spending any money on courses.

Brighton_belle

Frugal act today was to realise that I can tear freezer labels in half (they're only 1"x 0.5" to start with) for some items.
Very good news is that after I rang around last month, OH got very nice tax rebate in todays pay slip:j . He's been on the wrong tax code since April.
Oh and got 4 free energy saving lightbulbd from EDF. (I'd rather they just hadn't put their prices up...)

Regularly freezing 100ml of UHT skimmed as left over from 1lt for yog maker. Using this (added to HM skimmed yog) to make lower fat cheese sauce for mac cheese. Very Yum.
EL talking of seagull - we heard a thud outside the other day and a plumb very large baby seagull lay dead on our 'shared with neighbour' step. Wasn't quite frugal enough to pluck & stuff for lunch:rotfl: . Should have sent it next day delivery to Janey:rotfl:

sophiesmum_2

Mollymop I had exactly the same thoughts when I read Nyks post as i have also heard of someone doing this:D