Live on £4000 for a year - Part 3

shaz_mum_of__2

studentgirl wrote: »

Hi Shaz both my partner and I are students and are paid in three lump sums and we find this really hard. we try to pay every this when we get the money ie three months rent, £50 on the elec meter. But we always end up skint towards the end of th three months. One this that has helped is buy say £75 worth of savings stamps for when the money is gone.

Good Luck Studentgirl

The plan is to try and live off hubbys income and save my grant in a high interest account and possibly pay some extra mortgage payments


I daresay the plan will fly out the window come christmas:rotfl: :rotfl:

Will have 1 less to feed come september when 16yo goes but lose child benefit even though he is technically in full time school (army colleges don't count) although we have agreed he will pay some sort of board all the time not just when he is home (my parents think this is unfair i say i am preparing him for the real world)

We do gain a little as students dont pay council tax so a 25% reduction on bill (about £300)

We have shopped around and got the best deals possible i think except phone ..........we have BT line and no other supplier so stuck with them ...we get calls and broadband somewhere else though but have to pay line rental could save another £20 pcm if the cable co laid cable a few hundred yards further!!

We cancelled all fees for bank accounts ,fees incurred by not paying by DD,etc


Have earned £75 of amazon vouchers from a cashback site and stoozed almost £8k earning us almost £400 interest so far(have just transferrred the"debt" again to a 0% card for 15 months

The only 2 treats we have now are a DVD club membership and the wildlife club membership

we both have mag subscriptions paid with clubcard points too

MY point ......yes there is one is we have now saved money .how do we now make some extra ????

toyed with ideas book sales,car boots ,jams and chutneys,raising bedding plants and veg plants ,building birdboxes/tables i would like a craft based hobby busines like selling gift baskets and various spring ,summer, christmas fairs but the outlay would be quite big but hope if keep local there would be follow up work

Any other suggestions ??

Sharronx

whowants2brich

shaz_mum_of__2 wrote: »

We do gain a little as students dont pay council tax so a 25% reduction on bill (about £300)

Not true, I think... Assuming you and hubby live in the same house as "the student", then you won't get any reduction at all. It's only a 25% reduction if there are 2 people in the property, as you can say there's only one person for council tax purposes and therefore claim the reduction...

Reducing from 3 to 2 would not amount to any discounts...

lyndasharp

shaz_mum_of__2 wrote: »

Did you graduate in the cathedral ,i bet that was fantastic

Shaz

Yes, managed to graduate there twice :rotfl: Two one year postgrad courses! It was lovely for about 10 mins, but VERY VERY COLD!!!! Brrr!!!!! And very very boring, long speeches and excessive clapping, took around 2 hours each time. Cambridge graduation was much better, even if it was bizarre latin and finger holding, at least you got free 3 course meals instead of one drink, which was all Lincoln could manage. If you want a photo at Lincoln graduation, be prepared to queue for hours if it's anything like mine! I just gave Dad my camera, cheaper and quicker!

shaz_mum_of__2

whowants2brich wrote: »

Not true, I think... Assuming you and hubby live in the same house as "the student", then you won't get any reduction at all. It's only a 25% reduction if there are 2 people in the property, as you can say there's only one person for council tax purposes and therefore claim the reduction...

Reducing from 3 to 2 would not amount to any discounts...

There are only 2 adults me and him i get some sort of exemption certificate so he as classed a s a single person and gets single person discount ie 25%

Thats what the student finance people and council said anyway

Shaz

whowants2brich

shaz_mum_of__2 wrote: »

There are only 2 adults me and him i get some sort of exemption certificate so he as classed a s a single person and gets single person discount ie 25%

Thats what the student finance people and council said anyway

Shaz

If it's just two of you, and he's classed as a student, then you'll be effectively living on your own for council tax purposes and so get the single person's discount of 25%.

You'll just have to show he's signed up on the course and attending and yeah, it'll save you £300. And cost you a heck of a lot more in uni fees :)

Penny2myName

From watching this thread for the past 9 months or so (very first post) I have come to realize there is a universe of information locked away within your heads, so here goes
I want to make some kind of cake or something with strawberries, what I have in is
11oz strawberries
2 meduim eggs
flour both kinds
Coco powder
thought I had baking powder but cant find it
Margerine
Butter
Milk
Thought I had cream in freezer till i brought it out to defrost and found its broccolie and cheese HM soup:o.

Any tasty ideas/recipes welcome. Thanks

Frugaldom

Yum! Chocolate sponge and a HM strawberry milkshake whilst waiting for the sponges to bake.

I got a response about my vouchers - I've to return them and then they'll replace them with the correct ones.

Penny2myName

Thanks Nykmedia, but actually want to incorporate the strawberries into the cake.

Marru

Hello all,

I am happy to tell that my phoneline and broadband problems so far have been sorted. And they will disconnect my broadband over 2 weeks earlier than I expected. Now I just need to put everything crossed that there will not be any glitches in the change over. This will save me over £50 per month so I am well pleased now the profits from the book sales are more of profits and not eaten by expensive phoneline and broadband costs. I just wish my sale would recover to the level it was in the end of December which was my record week.

Bails worked me very hard today but I can't complain as she worked twice as hard and brought lunch with her. I am pleased to say that I have continued sorting out my no more junk room since she left and can't believe that it is now past ten. I am really hungry so need to go and raid near empty cupboards. I can see a big shop coming up next week.

I will have my very first mystery shop on Friday and I am really nervous. I used to go to big companies to audit them and now I am getting into jelly by doing a mystery shop. It will be small income and gets me out of the house.

Off I go to get some food (again)

Nighty night,

Marru

PS sorry I haven't comment on anything that has been going on today but really tired and need to go now...

whowants2brich

Penny2myName wrote: »

From watching this thread for the past 9 months or so (very first post) I have come to realize there is a universe of information locked away within your heads, so here goes
I want to make some kind of cake or something with strawberries, what I have in is
11oz strawberries
2 meduim eggs
flour both kinds
Coco powder
thought I had baking powder but cant find it
Margerine
Butter
Milk
Thought I had cream in freezer till i brought it out to defrost and found its broccolie and cheese HM soup:o.

Any tasty ideas/recipes welcome. Thanks

Probably too late for tonight, but if you want to try something tomorrow, leave out the cocoa powder and go for a plain sponge cake. If you have some sugar (preferably jam sugar), make some strawberry jam for the filling. If you haven't got any sugar, buy some - as a cake without sugar won't work! Cut the cake in half, put a load of jam in the middle, slice some strawberries on top. Have a hot chocolate with it With the soup for main, the cake for dessert and a hot chocolate for drink, sounds like a lovely meal