Live on £4000 for a year - Part 3

wendywitch

I am as confused as ever. I decided to re read part one of the challenge as I seemed to have got lost during the challenge.
So, I receive child benefit am I supposed to add that to the £4000 ?
I DON'T include my rent, council tax or water rates in my £4000. What else don't I include?

JAMIEDODGER

wendywitch -

the challenge is 4k plus child benefit

dont include:

rent/mortgage
water
council tax
work related expenses
debt repayments
savings (out of which you would pay for holidays or work to be done on your house)

include:

everything else



hope this helps x

JAMIEDODGER

have been looking more into the budget today. i think it is quite possible to make a large chunk of my xmas 2009 budget money neutral. i plan to ebay/amazon/quidco and carboot my way!

have started a list of things that would be really helpful in bringing 2009 in under budget. for example i would need to get a table of some sort and a clothes rail to enable me to do the carbooting. i will also continue to do piggy clicks resulting in a voucher or two (boots) to help towards the cost of xmas.

i am also going to aim to keep the 'entertainment' part of my budget as low as possible. this isnt always easy as a single parent as i have to pay a sitter everytime i want to go out. i swapped some of my clubcard vouchers up for deals and have planned a meal out to cafe rouge in october with a couple of friends:) that way the evening should only cost me the sitters fees! going to the cinema is pretty expensive nowadays so I will be making that a RARE treat. ie a couple of times only next year making sure its something i REALLY want to see. I am hoping I can offset this in someway...I have a few more ideas whirring around in my head which will need some more thought. off to ponder some more...

Frugaldom

I'm pondering too. DD is planning on buying a tumble dryer and I have one that very rarely gets used. To be honest, I only bought it when we moved here (bought brand new, it isn't a year old yet) because there were 5 of us (DD & DGD staying at that time) and no heating to help dry clothes during wet weather, plus, this is quite a damp house. So, I'm thinking I could let DD have the tumble dryer (early wedding gift, deduct from wedding fund) and I could invest in a dehumidifier, which would help with both the dampness problem and clothes drying during wet weather. Now, I just need to get DD into a mood where she'll actually speak to me, since she stropped off nearly a fortnight ago and hasn't yet come back!

JAMIEDODGER

a humidifier sounds like a great idea nyk:) and not to mention the fact that you are very generous to your dd (im not sure id be as nice as you if it was one of mine lol)

slowlyfading

I love the idea of starting with a lump sum! If only I could do that - I have no chance of that I dont think. I think what I'm going to do, if its still £4k a year, is take out my £10.92 per day for the week (so £76.44) and then use the cash to do this. That way, I think I might be more aware of what I'm spending, and less inclined to spend! Then, if I stay under budget, I'll transfer the difference over to saving, so its a double incentive! =] I'm also liking the idea of cash neutralising presents/birthdays/christmas, so I'm going to ponder that as well! I'm such a geek, haha! x

Frugaldom

Slowlyfading - you'll be pleased to know that next year's challenge allows us an average of £10.95 per day or £76.71 per week because we don't have the extra day in February. I find the challenge impossible to do on a week by week or month by month basis because every quarter I have the electricity & telephone bills, once a year I have the house insurance & TV license and my overall spending is sporadic depending on what sales are on, what bargains are available for stockpiling and what gifts I can buy in advance. In fact, I'll go right now and check my spending diary to see how January to September panned out. I know the average daily spend works out at £11.36 but I have already paid the annual bills, the largest of the electricity bills and done some Christmas shopping.

Speaking of shopping - I just won my auction and paid the £10 (including P&P) for a brand new, 3-tier electric steamer. I've updated my signature to reflect my recent spending spree.

slowlyfading

nykmedia wrote: »

Slowlyfading - you'll be pleased to know that next year's challenge allows us an average of £10.95 per day or £76.71 per week because we don't have the extra day in February. I find the challenge impossible to do on a week by week or month by month basis because every quarter I have the electricity & telephone bills, once a year I have the house insurance & TV license and my overall spending is sporadic depending on what sales are on, what bargains are available for stockpiling and what gifts I can buy in advance. In fact, I'll go right now and check my spending diary to see how January to September panned out. I know the average daily spend works out at £11.36 but I have already paid the annual bills, the largest of the electricity bills and done some Christmas shopping.

That's interesting to read how everyone else does it! I'm still at home, and so just pay my mum a bit every week/month depending on when she wants it, and so can budget weekly, which works for me =]

Speaking of shopping - I just won my auction and paid the £10 (including P&P) for a brand new, 3-tier electric steamer. I've updated my signature to reflect my recent spending spree.

Yayyy! And that's a fab smiley lol ! =]

Frugaldom

Isn't spendingdiary.com a fantastic web based frugal-tool?

I've just checked all my totals and here is how my 2008 month to month spending pattern looks so far:

January - £691.05 (includes quarterly electricity to Jan & contents insurance)
February - £135.15
March - £222.22
April - £678.52 (includes quarterly electricity to Apr)
May - £299.77
June - £210.80
July - £280.59 (includes quarterly electricity to July)
August - £280.80 (includes TV licence)
September - £132.30 to date

The biggest bills were for electricity from when there were 5 of us staying here. We had hot water on every night and all rooms being heated. Basically, I was reading the meter but doing nothing drastic about cutting down what we were using other than turning down the heaters. Assuming that the price increases haven't swallowed up all efforts this year to cut back, I'm not expecting to pay anywhere near that amount next January or April.

whitewing

Skint_Lynne wrote: »

Good morning,

I am drinking coffee now instead of G & T!!!

I should hope so - according to your post, it is 8.44am, lol!