Live on £4000 for a year - part 4 (Oct - Dec 2008)

andromache_2

Hi everyone!

I've had a really lovely weekend; my dad came up yesterday since he was in the area visiting a friend with cancer, and he brought me my new bike (early Christmas present) and some pink flowers and a big bag full of nice snacks which I can't afford on my normal budget and it was really nice to see him. What's more, OH also came down for a couple of nights; I've been missing him loads since we both went off to uni as he's much further away this year. We didn't do anything much other than share a £3 bottle of wine but it was lovely. Wish the train tickets weren't quite so expensive!

taka, your Mr S still has the basics garlic baguettes?? I always made sure I had them in last year for when people came round and thought they were really tasty but my local Mr S has stopped stocking them! I tried their normal garlic baguettes on offer at 3 for £1 but I didn't think they were very nice at all. Mr S: please bring them back! Quite a few other basics lines have gone from our store as well :rolleyes: Oooh, and I know exactly what you mean about having wayy too many bank accounts, most of them opened for the quidco cashback...

OK, frugalites, I have a question I know you can help me with: it's my friend's 21st tomorrow and he's having a 'pudding party' - what can I make?? I have a microwave which turns into a fan oven and a hob, a glass cooking bowl, and some saucepans, a whisk, and some perspex cooking trays I can probably borrow. It's not really worthwhile buying flour or anything since I would never use it otherwise! At the minute, I'm thinking chocolate refrigerator cake or Eton mess or something along those lines; any other ideas? TIA

Hope your hands get better, Marru I had a rash over the summer which appeared all over my body and was red and spotty and itchy - I went to a hospital in Vietnam but they couldn't do much for me other than prescribe 'dermatitis'... very scary! Mine cleared up and I hope yours does too. Hope everyone else has had a nice weekend and is looking forward to the week starting again

Marru

Hi,

I am back and have calmed down. I am still getting text messages and even now they are making me laugh it is still a reminder of unfinished business....:mad:

Soooo, for having dodgy hands for a day forced me to sit down with hands on my lap and while DD was watching her films on my laptop I was able to listen some training CD's that I have been meaning to do for a long time. Just now splashed out on stitching frame for myself and ordered it form eB@y. I did try the other auction site as well but they didn't have the size I wanted. Now I shouldn't have any excuses to finish the wedding present for my friend.

On frugal point I have lots of yummy food in the fridge and have had two NSDs. Someone recently asked about slowcookers and remoskas. I don't have experience of remoska but I have to say that slowcooker makes me a brilliant cook. When I cook normally it is ok but what ever I throw into SC it comes out delicious. :T

Might go now to get cup of herbal tea while watching some news and then off to bed. Despite it being half term week here I am off to college every day to work on my assignments as there is less distractions and access to library.

Oh forgot to say, I made fifty quid on MB today. Yesterday one of my qualifying bets was for a horse called Blazing Bailey, and it was only one out of all my bets this weekend that won :rotfl:. Today I did have a bit of a hairy moment as I was gambling with my lay odds and my lay wasn't matched untill in running :eek:. I should have learned my lesson by now..:o

Have a great week everybody, nighty night,

Marru

cw18

I've spent this evening massaging figures and fudging my budget for this challenge, as I wanted to get as close to the £4k+CB starting point as possible.....

and with a bit of "creative accounting" I'm bang on.....

Would be interested to know if people think this sounds reasonable or not. Some of these bills are probably going to go up, whilst some I can shop around to try and bring down -- there's only a couple I have no control over at all.

So my overall target isn't just to survive on the £4k+CB, but to have as much as possible left over at the end of the year......

Nyk - I apologise that the individual lines contain several unrounded figures, but I hope you will note I managed to get nice round figures for my actual overall budget. (Done that way just for you and the first post in the 2009 thread(s) )

Gas and Electricity - £870 - budget set at current payments, but this is overpaying and will be looking to try and drop it around Easter as I want to be sure we're not in debt at the end of the Winter.
Central Heating cover - £200.16 - budget set using current monthly payment, but due for renewal in April/May. Always seems to go up, but may shop around and compare other companies against BG.
Bldgs & Contents insurance - £ 382.32 - budget set at cost as of December 2007. Will be shopping around next month, so may have an increase/decrease on this to balance against the 'everything else' kitty before January.
Groceries (incl cleaning & personal hygiene) - £1740.00 - budget set using this months £145 for food only, but looks like I'm going to scrape in with enough to spare for the other items.
Phone line rental - £126.00 - based on current. see b/band for potential savings
Phone calls - £72.00 - based on last 12 months. see b/band for potential savings
Broadband - £239.88 - based on current. On minimum term contract until Jan/Feb, at which point I'm going to shop around for the last three items and compare packages against individuals.
TV Licence - £143.16 - part of the year is paying for the 2009-10 licence and part for 2010-2011, so this is what I expect to go out of my bank rather than a single licence fee.
Mobile phone contract - £322.43 - I think I'm right in calculating the figure to the end of my mimimum term (August), at which point this will be going.

These give a total of £4095.95, which I'm rounding to £4096.

Anything else - £884.00 - this has to cover clothes, shoes, presents (potentially birthday and Christmas for 14 people, all close family and including my three 'darlings' and 2 GDs!), plus increases in bills I can't cover by reductions on others.

So my overall total is £4980 - which is £4,000 + £980 child benefit.


I haven't included my council tax, as this will be paid once we qualify for full benefits.

Also not in there is my mortgage -- once on full benefits (and after the 'waiting period') we'll get the majority of that paid for us. Got too complicated to include the shortfall we would have to pay, as it all depends on the BofE base rate changes, and how our BS passes those on to us (they've just dropped 0.3% compared to a base rate drop of 0.5%, which means an interest shortfall as well as the capital repayment we have to find, whereas before this base rate drop we would have received more than we paid in interest).

Life insurance premiums are also out -- these policies are all linked to the mortgage, so it seemed fair to "dump" them out of the equation In any case they're all fixed amounts that I can't change, so it hardly seems worth adding them in, just to add an equal amount to what I can spend

I also haven't included our water bills (in line with your first post) which we will still have to pay, but I consider this offset by our central heating cover and buildings insurance that we wouldn't have to pay if we were renting instead of with a mortgage.

The other items not in there are the car expenses and the bills for the dogs. These I am covering from DH's DLA, as they are the items the Benefits Agency are most likely to query us paying. We could 'surrender' the mobility DLA for a 'free' car, but it's cheaper to keep mine on the road -- so it only seems fair the expenses come out of this money. And DH would do his nut (and get depressed) if I said we had to rehome the dogs -- so they're staying but he's paying for them.

In line with many others, I've also not included my other debt repayments. I did think I ought to, but having spoken to Benefits Agency reps who specialise in IS it seemed easier not to as I'm now assured they're "allowable" expenses as long as I only make the minimum payments (had previously been told by the general help-line that they wouldn't be allowable, so I'd have struggled to pay them without being seen to be spending our capital too quickly).

This still leaves us with a shade under £18/week of DH's DLA (over and above his "pocket money"), and that will have to cover any unexpected bills on the house, car or dogs !!!! I'm not including this in the challenge though as car expenses would come from DLA, house repairs wouldn't be down to us if we rented, and the dogs have to come from DLA if DH wants to keep them !!! It will also cover the cost of the PAYG mobile DH has, and the one I'll have once my contract runs out..... he only has his because of his cancer (so he can phone me from hospital or to let me know he's OK when he's out with friends!), and I will only need one in case he has problems while I'm out shopping or having some free time. We do need the two though, as I'll often time my trips out to coincide with him being out with friends! (Last year I put £10 on mine every 3 or 4 months, and I'm loading DH's at about the same rate -- so I anticipate these coming in at £30-£40/year for his and probably £20 for mine during 2009, so a weekly average of just over £1)

bails

Hiya everyone, I'm back! Had a wonderful time at my brother's wedding, blubbed everywhere Now experiencing a bit of an anticlimax but to be expected. Off to catch up with you lovely people before I head out to lunch. Hope everyone is well x

redglass_2

Did anyone hear the programme about energy prices on Radio 4 yesterday, about 4.45pm? I was driving down tiny muddy lanes trying to listen to it without crashing and only lost the way twice. :rotfl: Basically it was saying UK consumers are paying way over the odds because (a) despite appearances there's no real competition between suppliers (b) price hikes are always passed on to Joe Public but reductions usually aren't. I guess that's like the outgoings that disappear immediately from your bank account and the incoming cash that takes up to five days to be 'cleared'...where were we? Oh yes, (c) unlike a number of other governments, ours hasn't made proper provision for long-term energy storage d) we are still working to an energy strategy devised for the mid-80's when things were very different. The conclusion was that if the people at the top were getting it right, we could be paying up to 30% less. And here I sit in my big padded jacket at the computer, trying to keep warm.... :wall:Mind you, I do get a good laugh at the sofa ads that are forever on TV, all those barefoot people clad in a scanty vest or two, running about and flinging themselves into heaps of cushions. I reckon their heating bills must be AWESOME. If the ads targeted frugalists, all those couples would be bundled up in fleeces and fingerless gloves, so they didn't get colds on their chests. :rotfl:

Frugaldom

Good morning frugallers, hope you are all well.

Marru, glad your hands are better, it sounds like it's been a reaction to something. Maybe it was the thought of Christmas? You don't need to celebrate the occasion, afterall it's a religious one and, if it isn't yours, then I don't see the need for just playing along. I know quite a few people who don't 'do' Christmas other than the cards and I'm ashamed to say that I never know the dates of what many others celebrate. Why not do homemade cards and if it's someone who really expects anything then they should be a close enough friend or family member to understand that it's not all about gifts.

ISA conversation - you don't need to open a new one each year, you can pay into existing ones but you can only save £3,600 within any tax year for the tax free interest. I've been very un-MSE and have stuck to my original one and am now on year 5 (I haven't filled 5 years' worth, though.)

Off to read the loads more posts that have appeared

thriftylass

redglass wrote: »

... And here I sit in my big padded jacket at the computer, trying to keep warm.... :wall:Mind you, I do get a good laugh at the sofa ads that are forever on TV, all those barefoot people clad in a scanty vest or two, running about and flinging themselves into heaps of cushions. I reckon their heating bills must be AWESOME. If the ads targeted frugalists, all those couples would be bundled up in fleeces and fingerless gloves, so they didn't get colds on their chests. :rotfl:

I was thinking the same when I see these adds. Even better, once there was a report/interview on the Beeb news, where they asked that rather well off lady if she noticed a difference in energy prices. She said yes, the other day she visited a friend and she opened the door wearing a jumper!!! .:rotfl: :rotfl:

I think I notice it this year, although we're still not too bad compared to others. I already put 50£ into my prepaid meter this month :eek: and we haven't had the heating (the one electric fire we have) on much. Usually we had 40£ for months like Dec with the heating on every evening.

bails

Phew, up to page 48 but need to go so wil catch up on the rest later. Thanks for the draft excluder stuff, was planning to make some with some old stripy socks I had so will look into it! Stockpiling is sounding interesting too, will keep reading and thinking on it... Lots more to say but no time, back later.

Frugaldom

Andromache, it's great you got to see your dad and BF, and always great when someone brings 'munchies' that you wouldn't normally buy for yourself Hope you make great use of the bike. Great! (I like that word for today.)

Bails, glad you had a good time at bro's wedding, but I know what you mean about the 'after' part. Hope you're back to normal soon

cw18 those are good figures! I do the same with my mobiles, only top up enough to keep them active. I have 2 because of the lack of signal about here but only have them for emergencies.

TV advertising - What about the ones such as shower gels and deodorants? You know the ones - they swan about their homes in their undies, not a goosebump in sight, whereas, in reality, we'd all be wrapped up in fleecy dressing gowns and furry boot slippers with a bath sheet wrapped around our heads. (Or is that just me? ) I look forward to the hairdryer going on for 10 mins, as it's the warmest thing in the house and, even then, I'm thinking to myself 1200w, best hope for dry hair pretty fast as I've still to vacuum and that beggar uses 1400w! :rotfl:

Brighton_belle

redglass - everytime that ad comes on for the sofa I shout at them to put some socks and slippers on:rotfl: .
Oh Nyk - how very un MSE:rotfl: .It is very easy to transfer ISA's (but you must let the new isa people do it - you can't take the money out yourself and pay in elsewhere otherwise that counts as a withdrawal.) You are of course quite right that you don't have to open a new one each year but can just carry on with the old one: I didn't mean to imply you had to, but as you say, the tax office reguard each new tax year as a 'new ISA' even if to you it is paying into the same one. Having sounded miss smug know it all, I do herby confess that I have only just done a transfer for the first time ever:o :rotfl:
Bails - glad it is not just me then. I've been to 3 weddings in the last year and blubbed everywhere for 2 of them. Thankfully was completely unmoved by the 3rd!
Exciting progression with the kitchen. Lodger No2 has offered to put the new sink in if I pay him. He is very 'handy' and it will cost me a snip compared to a builder:j . (I currently have a round sink that leaks and no draining board set in glass that is impossible to keep clean)I need to get a new worktop though so will go hunting this week.
Glad the MS went well taka. Different companies seem to require different things I seem to remember.
Whitewing - sounds a lovely weekend and a great compremise on a treat spend but setting a budget.
cw: looks like you have put a lot of work into your figures and you've done really well:T . And you are right -your mobiles are a complete necessity. Given your circs - do all in your circle really 'expect' xmas pressies'? I know it is nice to give something but with friends I only give (small) birthday gifts, so their day is special, wheres as xmas I see as a differnt thing altogether, and only get small things for the family members we will see on the day and don't give to friends(and we've all been relieved to stop swapping them: we'd rather just meet up and have a coffee together). It's not just the money, but the pressure of it all I find too draining. I've given up on xmas cards except for elderly relatives.
Children are the exception to the rule and always get something for both.
Getting hot in the sunshine that's blazing in. Must move seats.