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

thriftylass

Marru wrote: »

Hello all,

I really really should start marking my spends on notepad as all my cash spends just vanish and in the end of every month I have this pot of money that I don't know where it has gone and I can only assume I have "eaten it" so it gets dumped into the grocery spends.

I was the same, now I carry a small notepad whereever I go, and it's amazing to see how many little things weren't actually grocery spends. Two plus points, this might bring the total of your grovery spend down and shows you were you're maybe "wasting" money.

Off to treat myself to my first choc covered gingerbread of the season and a cuppa

Frugaldom

Good afternoon fruguys and frugals!

The sun is shining here again, but it's still extremely cold. I've just caught up with all the posts, so I sending out positive thoughts to everyone before launching headlong into dealing with a long British winter.

We managed to get the kitchen storage heater to come on last night without it blowing the fuses! That means we now have 4 storage heaters running plus 2 oil-filled radiators, bt it has made a big difference going into a warmish kitchen in the mornings (15C) It looks like the 24 hour meter reading is going to hit 70+ kWh/units no problem but d'you know what? I've given up worrying about it! With a careful watch kept on the hot water situation, I'm sure I can manage an average of £5 per day once we've moved into the new house. I know this may sound loads to some people but 2 of us here work from home, so the annual budget doesn't need to worry about such things as travel, lunches and other work associated costs. In the grand scheme of things, I don't think this is too bad. In fact, it is a small price to pay for the luxury of working from home with hours to suit. My annual budget for utilities in 2008 is £1500. To date, I have spent £1,030 but have the final quarter's electricity plus the final telephone bill. We can probably expect more price rises for 2009 but, like the glutton for punishment that I am, I'm going to leave next year's budget at the exact same as this years and hope that the change of house will absorb any price differences.

I've spent the last few nights watching the old TV series, 'The Good Life' on DVD - something I treated myself to whilst bargain shopping - it was a real eye-opener when they mentioned the fuel for their rotary cultavator being 77p per GALLON and the 'executive' Jeremy earning £18,000 per year! Seeing as the programme was from 1976, I'm amazed at how rich Margo and Jeremy were at the time! He commuted, she was a stay at home wife, they had a cleaner, a gardener and a social(ite) life. If we go on the price of gold, my estimates, at their lowest possible, are 2008 = 7x 1976, so Jermey's executive salary was worth at least £126,000 per annum and petrol would be £5.39 per gallon now. Hmm...

Back on the frugalling, I now need to get rid of the lovely bathroom suite that I acquired via freecycle, as there's nowhere it will be needed for the forseeable future. I'll try Gumtr€€ first, so I get paid 30p for advertising it

Thriftylass, I looked at the price of frozen turkeys in Mr Autumn Meadows last week and they were £34, or was it £43?!

thriftylass

nykmedia wrote: »

Thriftylass, I looked at the price of frozen turkeys in Mr Autumn Meadows last week and they were £34, or was it £43?!

What is Autumn Meadows, couldn't find it (google came up with carehomes). How big are those frozen turkeys, I guess they weigh a lot more than a goose (4kg for 20 quid)?

Cheers

Frugaldom

I meant to post this yesterday but forgot.

Budfet to date at five sixths of the way through 2008. 10 months down, 2 to go and the budget looks like this:


2008 budget

TOTAL FOR GROCERIES £1,098 / £1,026.53
TOTAL FOR GIFTS £400 / £237.79
TOTAL FOR EVERYTHING ELSE £400 / £400
TOTAL FOR UTILITIES £1,500 / £1,030
TOTAL FOR HOUSEHOLD £200 / £191.90
TOTAL FOR INTERNET ACCESS £180 / £151.83
CONTINGENCY FUND - £222 / £70.83


TOTAL £4,000 / £3,108.88 (Balance = £891.12)

The reason I have gone into contingency is because of overspill from 'everything else'. Moving house means I have made a couple of extra purchases recently, like the carpet cleaner and the new coal bunker but it also means that I still haven't had to touch any of the savings. :j

cw18

thriftylass wrote: »

What is Autumn Meadows

I've always assumed it's a code name for a chain of supermarkets (one local to me) who were recently taken over by another....... The real name is a different (hopefully sunny and warm) season and another word for Meadows (where you see cows or horses or sheep)

Frugaldom

thriftylass wrote: »

What is Autumn Meadows, couldn't find it (google came up with carehomes). How big are those frozen turkeys, I guess they weigh a lot more than a goose (4kg for 20 quid)?

Cheers

Spring Meadows - Autumn Meadows - Summer Fields - it's whichever you prefer :rotfl: The turkeys are the frozen Bernie Mat thews ones and I think they are 6kg and 8kg. I know I read or heard a discussion early on in the year where someone claimed that a fresh turkey would end up costing £100 but I didn't think it would be halfway there by this Christmas! :eek:

I forgot to answer the question about River Cottage Garden. I saw part of it - they were catching the squirrels and killing them for the pot. I had sent that in as an answer to a 'new flavour for crisps' competition (squirrel and chips) but I got asked to withdraw my entry as it was found to be offensive! Hmph! It wasn't that when someone brought out Hedgehog flavour! I wonder how long it'll take Hugh feathery-whatsisface to show us how to cook one of them in a clay ball?!

Brighton_belle

cw18 wrote: »

I've always assumed it's a code name for a chain of supermarkets (one local to me) who were recently taken over by another....... The real name is a different (hopefully sunny and warm) season and another word for Meadows (where you see cows or horses or sheep)

Ahhhhh! I've always assumed it was a chain north ofthe border only:rotfl: . Penny has now dropped. (Hands off, it's mine )
Just had fun dressing up in oldest clothes & safety goggles to scrub the artexed bathroom ceiling which developed a bad case of mould over half of it this morning, Attractive.
Delicious weezl lentil nosh in slow cooker. Yet to bake the cakes.
Hugh F_W has set up a n tional website for the matching up of spare gardens/land with those who want to grow their own but no space. The garden owners get a 25% share of the produce in exchnage. Sounds great. If interested, details are on the river cottage website. If i had a bigger garden I'd be signing up.

thriftylass

nykmedia wrote: »

Spring Meadows - Autumn Meadows - Summer Fields - it's whichever you prefer :rotfl: The turkeys are the frozen Bernie Mat thews ones and I think they are 6kg and 8kg. I know I read or heard a discussion early on in the year where someone claimed that a fresh turkey would end up costing £100 but I didn't think it would be halfway there by this Christmas! :eek:

I once asked the local butcher and he said he could get a fresh goose for 40 quid but said I be better off getting one from a supermarket. Well, I'll have a think, probably end up buying a frozen goose and a duck anyway. Together still cheaper then a turkey and yummier I think . Thought I could invest my stop-smoking-fund and then it wouldn't be so painful moneywise.

purplevamp

nykmedia wrote: »

2008 budget

TOTAL FOR GROCERIES £1,098 / £1,026.53
TOTAL FOR GIFTS £400 / £237.79
TOTAL FOR EVERYTHING ELSE £400 / £400
TOTAL FOR UTILITIES £1,500 / £1,030
TOTAL FOR HOUSEHOLD £200 / £191.90
TOTAL FOR INTERNET ACCESS £180 / £151.83
CONTINGENCY FUND - £222 / £70.83


TOTAL £4,000 / £3,108.88 (Balance = £891.12):j

nyk - that's a very impressive budget :T . I just hope that I can do as well next year.

Shame about Spring Meadows being Somerfield. I really thought it was another supermarket that I hadn't heard of:rotfl: . I've just checked the price of turkeys in Mr S, Mr A, Mr T and Mr O and they are all so expensive, anyone know why?? Is it because of the bird flu or something?

thriftylass

purplevamp wrote: »

I've just checked the price of turkeys in Mr S, Mr A, Mr T and Mr O and they are all so expensive, anyone know why?? Is it because of the bird flu or something?

It's the same with all birds, chicken, duck goose etc. I gues the increase is just more drastic because turkeys are so much bigger than the other ones. Might also be due to increases in poultry feed/wheat/fuel prices.