Live on £4000 for a year - Part 3

whitewing

Nyk, I am very mean with my family. If there is something they don't like I blinbd the with science. I tell them that is a result of our natural defence mechanisms, which make us suspicious of 'new' foods. So one must try it at least 20 times before one can possibly know whether or not they like it. (I say 20, I think it's less than that).

So for now, each family member of yours needs at least 60 servings:

tuna curry
tuna fishcake
tuna trifle

What's not to like about tuna anyway? Personally, I love it mixed in with salad cream and added to pasta, with maybe some sweetcorn.

Spent 4 hours yesterday being forced to wedding plan by aunty (who is lending us a lot of crockery, table cloths etc)

Spent another 6 hours last night and 1 hour this morning already sorting out funeral arrangements.

Have a list as long as my arm to do today and feel sick already at the thought. Need to borrow sophiesmum!

sophiesmum_2

Fizzel,
thanks for the update, glad you are back with us, and it sounds like you have everything well under control again.
just a thought have you heard of "The family Fund" - it is a fund run by Joseph Rowntree trust which gives grants to families with kids who have disabilities and on low incomes. They will fund holidays,washing machines, computers etc or some other stuff. Have a look and see if there is anything that you may be able to get to help you with the boys. Just google "family fund".

fizzel81

sophiesmum wrote: »

Fizzel,
thanks for the update, glad you are back with us, and it sounds like you have everything well under control again.
just a thought have you heard of "The family Fund" - it is a fund run by Joseph Rowntree trust which gives grants to families with kids who have disabilities and on low incomes. They will fund holidays,washing machines, computers etc or some other stuff. Have a look and see if there is anything that you may be able to get to help you with the boys. Just google "family fund".

Thank you, yes have heard of them and had a look at there site ive not applied for anything though as i dont need white goods (i used dla backdate to get a new high tech long lasting washing machine and my tumble dryer) tbh im one of these that looked on the site but there is many others alot worse off than we are iykwim, it would be nice to take them away for vene a few days but id need a suitcase just for there creams,clean suits etc (as it would take time away from the holiday to be washing it all in a laundertte not to mention machines would have been using bio washing power many times it would be lurking in the machines)

there dad is taking them for nearly a week in august (im having a tooth out under sedatation so he is taking them for a whole week) being just outside of portsmouth im hopeing he does stuff with them, just the other 5 weeks to fill, im slowly looking on the net for things to do that doesnt cost a fortune, plus with having an oyster card bus and tube travel can be very cheap to get to lots of places

to top it off ive just sold the buggyboard of the pram system that sold last night (woohoo, the buggy was urm one of my little defaults) owen can use the stroller and with him walking if ds2 is tired he can sit in the buggy, we can buggy share now between the 2 of them

lingojingo

nykmedia wrote: »

Glad you thought to post here so it was spotted in time and hopefully sorted out. I'm surprised Martin didn't make a small print mention about it, because I'm sure there will be plenty of folks get caught out by it if there's a national newspaper promoting the cheap travel tickets. The newspaper probably isn't even aware of the connection.

Thanks again Nyk - I got an email from them this morning confirming that my 'membership' has been cancelled.:A

Further to your electricity monitoring, my supplier has a section on the website where you can see graphs your usage of both gas and electricity compared to last year. It's averaged over each month rather than daily, but I can see how my amount has dropped (apart from January when the new kitchen was fitted, using masses of electricity drilling holes in my rock solid walls:rolleyes:).

lingojingo

fizzel81 wrote: »

nyk i cannot work out how to chart my elec use i have a mega old meter (which doesnt have numbers that turn round! it has clock like dials hehe) and my gas meter is an old 50p one, but the numbers barely turn, not sure if this is a good or bad thing, they turn but not very fast in fact in a week ive used 2 full gas numbers if im doing it right 8683-8685 hmm im sure im doing something wrong looking at it like that, i have gas hot water and just cooker this time of year (ie no heating its not needed).

Hi Fizzel, my gas meter is just the same - I use about 1 1/2 'units' a week at the moment. But don't get too excited by that. Just had the bill, there is a very complicated method to convert those units into kWhours
take number of units used
multiply by 2.83 (converts to cubic meters)
multiply by 1.02264 (conversion factor)
multiply by 39.8 (calorific value)
divide by 3.6 ( to give kWh used)
:eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:

So the tiny numbers on the meter convert into something much bigger on the bill I'm afraid.

fizzel81

oh damm, there was me thinking i was doing ok, i dont get how they caculate hence im not going to try (id just get confused)

bails

Fizzel, nice to see you posting and once again my hat goes off to you for all you cope with; you know what, we have some real superwomen on here :T
BTW, where is MrDT these days?

I'm a mess today, not surprisingly, so taking it very very easy. Hopefully I'll make it to the shop later as I need kitten food and something for myself.
It's a beautiful day here, hope everyone else is having a lovely day. Hugs Whitewing, perhaps Sophiesmum could hire herself out to each of us in turn?

Frugaldom

Good morning frugalers

After reading Martin's newsletter yesterday and checking out the possible 60% increase in gas prices, it has made me even more aware of fuel prices, electricity consumption and how that affects everything. I just read the SpringMeadows special offers newsletter and cannot believe how blatant they are about their price increases! Practically everything that's half price has been halved at an increase on the original! Prime examples - half price grapes, reduced from £5 to £2.50 :eek: And the cooked, crumbed ham... half price at 92p per 100g, that means that after the offer, it'll be equivalent to £18.40 per kilo! For a few slices of meat for putting on a sandwich or serving with salad? Are they kidding?! :eek:

Has anyone noticed the small print underneath the TV adverts? One of those supermarkets doing the 50p bargains, "You can get all of this for just £4", has small print stating that customers are allowed to buy a maximum of 2 of each item! That rules out stockpiling, unless you live nearby or have a large family and each goes through the checkout at different times.

OK, here's how things are looking at chez 'Spratt' on the food front - the cupboard under the stairs is still packed with enough rice, pasta, spaghetti, cous cous, jellies, preserves, sauces and toiletries (apart from toilet rolls) to last out the year. The toilet rolls, I don't know how anyone could carry home or store enough of them for 6 months, and even the Mr T delivery van refuses to deliver any more than 5 packs to any one customer, so I'll need to include these in my average of £10 per week budget. The only way my personal versions of the stockpile & grocery & 4k challenges can succeed is by adapting our basic diet and doing without more & more. It really is shocking! To think that people get paid £18,000 to run a household (it was on TV last night) really made me think about looking for such a job. Think about it - all you do is everything a wife would do except for the actual relationship part, the boss GIVES YOU the money to pay for all the household bills, DOESN'T charge you a penny for your accommodation and then, on top of all that, PAYS YOU 18k a year because it's your job. Umm.... I am really, really tempted to advertise my housekeeping services. That's a basic £8.50 ish per hour, 40 hours per week and no rent or council tax or household bills to pay.... :cool: I wonder... :rotfl:

bails

It is getting quite scary isn't it? Is everyone going to cap their energy?
18k is a lot of money with no rent or CT to pay, go for it! Where did you see that?

Frugaldom

bails wrote: »

It is getting quite scary isn't it? Is everyone going to cap their energy?
18k is a lot of money with no rent or CT to pay, go for it! Where did you see that?

Hi Bails, we aren't going to cap the electricity rate - we can't guarantee to be here for any set length of time, so can't contract to anything, plus the account isn't in my name, unfortunately, I just pay the bills :rotfl:

On the 18k job, it was a programme on TV last night where they had 3 households interviewing for housekeepers and 3 potential housekeepers doing trials for each of the households. As usual, they used rather extreme examples, but the basic line was that live-in housekeepers can earn £18k per annum. It works out about £8.50 per hour over a 40 hour week and when I checked some of the jobs sections online, that's what some hotels and offices are paying for cleaners - but those cleaners still need to keep a roof over their own heads. Now, I'm off to browse live-in jobs as this household situation is looking pretty rocky as far as landlords are concerned. :mad: