Live on £4000 for a year - Part 3

whitewing

Sophiesmum, still thinking of you and yours xxx

MrsHayes

Ahhh I am fuming at British Gas! Gave them our recent reading on Monday and although we are in debt with the electricity the payments have stayed the same but even though we are in CREDIT with the gas they have put our payments up an extra £19 a month!!! You are kidding me we cannot afford that. We haven't even used any more gas hence the reason we are £30 in credit! God I am so cross as I was sure our payments would be going down as Dh fitted a brand new boiler a month ago which is meant to be way more economical than out 20 year old old one ;-( Oh and I forgot to bring my porridge to work this morning so now I am hungry and fighting the temptation to go to the shop over the road to buy some breakfast.

Hope everyone else is having a better day & good luck with your house offer Lynda xx

sophiesmum_2

Good morning frunchkins:D
Have been pondering my budget for next year, and think I will be doing it slightly different to you all:rolleyes:
Although the salary for my job is really pathetic in cash terms I do get lots of other perks which make it worthwhile for me. I have our flat provided free of charge so no rent to pay, water rates are included too but best of all our electricity comes as part of the package:j When I started this job the electricity part was estimated as being worth around £500 a year - obviously with all the recent hikes it is worth significantly more than that now:D and we don't have to think about making choices with trying to reduce our consumption. Having said that I don't believe in wasting resources so still make an effort to not waste where possible.
Anyway my all in challenge is going to be easier to organise than others as what is left is mostly fixed cost stuff,council tax. insurance, car costs, cable, etc bar from food spends. DD has the family allowance to cover her costs(clothes.college stuff etc) so I don't need to add that into budget.
Most of my renewals for insurance, car tax, etc are due in December so I think when I start the challenge I will deduct the whole year's fixed amounts to begin with then I know what is left will be for food, gifts, entertainment,holidays,clothes, and other miscellaneous stuff.
Just need to finalise the amounts, then hopefully will be able to do what Nyk suggested and start with cash in the bank. Also going to try and increase savings in my interest beater account at the same time:D

Woodyrocks

My name is Woodyrocks and I am an addict. I have been using for a 5 days, sometimes twice a day. A friend introduced me to it and I have not been able to turn my back on it since. I wish I was stronger a person, wish I could resist the temptation but I just can't. I like to be alone when I do it because the thought of being caught at it fills me with shame. I know exactly what people would think of me if they knew about it and how harshly they would judge me for being so weak and succumbing to the evil that it is.






Yes, I am a Spendingdiary.com addict

Frugaldom

Hi guys, busy, busy, busy here with work today, which is typical when trying to boost my interest beater account by playing free bingo :rolleyes: :rotfl:

Just received a cheque for £50.01 cashback from free£5s, so that's something else added into all my challenge totals in signature and brings me ever closer to my September 500 target :j

tori4 wrote: »

Hi there

As I have said before I am looking at starting this challenge in the new yr. I have looked at old threads etc. But how do I spend so little on Gas and Elec our current bill is £50 per mnth (I have already change supplier and capped prices etc ) and Iam sure this just covers our use.

Do we have to convert to a key card thing ?

Food and other expences I understand we just buy less or cheaper, but gas and elec seem to be a standard fee like water and C Tax. I must be missing something I think.

Hope you can help

Tori

Hi Tori, gas and electricity are things that are entirely under your control, you only pay for what you use. Several of us on here use the site at www.i-measure.org.uk so we can feed in our meter readings and calculate, on a weekly basis, how much we are spending. There are also several threads in MSE about how to cut down. Your 'capped rate' doesn't mean you pay £50 per month until your contract expires, it's a capped rate per unit of power used. The fewer you use, the lower your monthly rate Hope this helps.

Woodyrocks - spendingdiary.com rocks!

Back soon, work beckons

redglass_2

whitewing wrote: »

I got nobbled in Tesco yesterday by the eon energy salesman. I have signed up for a capped until 2010 dual fuel deal with a free energy monitor. And I have a 14 day cooling off period so I need to now look carefully at it.

Hi Whitewing, I have the eon energy monitor thing and once I set it up it made interesting reading. I found out that the computer costs much more than I thought, for a start. The gadget also gives the room temperature, which is useful for working out your comfort zone. I start wanting to put on the heating at 18 degrees, but I don't usually give in to the urge, so I'm waiting to see if I get acclimatised in a few weeks. Tough, that's me...:cool:

Skint_Lynne

Hi All,

Well, I have totally read part 3 of the challenge now, so will go back to Part 1 and part 2 and take some notes, I think that would be useful to pick up some tips. I'm going to go onto Old style for recipies and household tips to see what they say as well.

I can see some places where money can be saved and if I get this job, I'll be able to get rid of a lot of debt as the salary is so good. Just need to keep my fingers crossed.

I've made some lists for myself today, one for shop stuff, one for personal stuff and one for challenge stuff. I've printed them off, but saved them to add stuff on if needs be, also I can turn any task that I have done red, so that I know that it is complete.

I'm determined not to be living this way when I'm older so action needs to be taken now.:cool:

Will check in later,

SL:cool: x

bails

:hello:Hiya everyone!! Hope everyone is okay, if not hugs to you. We had a lovely, lovely time catching up with all my friends :j Will try and catch up on everything but may take me some time xx

Frugaldom

:hello:Hi Bails, nice to see you back, I hope you had a lovely time and aren't too 'spent out' either way

I checked account to see if my DD had come off for broadband as my introductory offer was up last month and we're now on to the £19.99 package (reduced from £24.99 after intro offer of £14.99) and to my delight, they have only deducted £14.99, so that's £5 of extra savings into my September500 fund! It must be next month the £19.99 begins.:j

I managed to get some aprons, £4 for 2 including P&P from eBid, and have added the spend to my totals. That now leaves me with £32.38 to last me until 30th September so that I have exactly £1000 left for the final quarter of this challenge. :cool: I WILL have exactly £1000 for the final quarter, I will, I will, I will! And whatever is left is going in my housefund, courtesy of September500. I think I'll have a mini October chalenge too. I like these, they remind me to do my clicks and surveys and collect my points and claim my free tickets.

I am definitely going to stick with the 4k target next year, however, to make things interesting, I'm also going to attempt to turn the council tax & water payments into a money-neutral challenge. I'm still working at getting HS onboard with this challenge, but not gettng very far! I guess that's one of the main differences between having an OH and house sharing - I have no involvement with what HS does or doesn't do with their income. I'm guessing that's why he prefers to remain a HS and not an OH! :rotfl:

Brighton_belle

:j bails is back. Am she had a great time:j :j .
Nyk (and everyone else) you're an inspriration:D . I've been totting up the small changes I've been making since starting this challenge and it is all good. Will list at the end of the quater.
Today we had a lovely sunny afternoon on the downs picking blackberries. I haven't done that since I was about 10 and it was great (all all down to this challenge) We g,ot a smidgeon under 1kg. (thinking about it we picked over 1 kg but not all of them made it to the pot:D ) I also applied for a cashback card and have been accepted by Egg. Very excited by this. Off to check how many of my ddm's are transferable on to this. Or else it's just food,petrol & bits and bobs, but all good and all will add up.
Hope your college day was more bearable Marru.

Hope you're a bit clearer Tori re gas and elec - took me a while to get it.
Your ddm of £50 is just the companies decision of what they think you'll use balanced out over the year. Cut back on your ussage and when they review your account in 6 months or so hopefully they will reduce it (or if prices go up again, at least your's mightn't go up). I believe ddm is the considered the cheapest way to pay over all - tose key cards are much higher rates I think?