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

bails

Ooh, have a lovely time Sophiesmum, I would love to be going to the Lakes walking! You'll be missed.
Sorry to hear you're exhausted BB, hope you're still fast asleep on your lie-in. As for the 'to do'list, you know the drill... If it helps, I'm with you on both counts x
I forgot about the frivolous spends conversation, thanks for the reminders. Mine used to be books, stationery and travelling! I've cut out the first two completely but as you know the last one is still around. To be honest though, I don't consider this a frivolous spend as it's something that I truly love and makes me ridiculously happy, and I guess that's the point with all our spends; one person's 'frivolous spend' is another's 'treasured investment in happiness' Charity shop bargains are my new playground as well
Lynda, where you work looks really interesting (any chance of a look around?).
Have a lovely day everyone. I'm thinking of heading to the gym just so I can have a warm shower :rolleyes:
EDIT: oh,oh,oh I became a Fantastically Fervent MS Fan :T:j I didn't even see that happen!

JAMIEDODGER

Have a great time SM:)

andromache_2

Have a lovely time, sophiesmum

purplevamp

sophiesmum - Have a great time, hope the weather holds out for you.

I have received my first money neutral gift today - a HSM3 CD for my DD. I won it in a comp over on the other threads. :j She'll be so pleased with it.

After reading through the previous posts, both on this thread and the other 3 (well, skimming them :rolleyes: ) I have decided that I'll try to stick to £4K and use the child benefit as a contingency, that's nearly £2300 spare :eek: . I've been looking at my budget and I feel [strike]confident,[/strike] [strike]positive,[/strike] sure that I can do it on the £4K alone, but I've got a wedding and 3 "big" birthdays coming up next year which will eat money!

MrDT

Hello all, reporting back as promised... Declaring myself bust!

I've now gone over my 3k target for 9 months. Here's a breakdown of my spends:

Trips........£919.30 (Day trips, weekends away, holidays, includes all spending money)
Shopping.....£497.55 (Groceries, toiletries, household)
Nightsout....£469.93 (Drinks, tickets, taxi, etc)
Eating out...£346.74 (Canteen, pub , restaurant, takeaway, anything not at home/from shopping pot)
Electric.....£300.00
Misc.........£141.93
TV License...£ 91.90
Clothes......£ 88.00
Gifts........£ 56.50
Alcohol......£ 42.62 (Beer and wine etc for drinking at home)
Cinema.......£ 20.27 (Tickets, snacks, drinks, etc)
Charity......£ 17.50
Medical......£ 12.00

My 3k lasted from 1st April to 3rd Novemeber; so I managed to reach day 217 of my 275 challenge days, about 80% of the way - better than I'd expected haha! Of course this conveniently misses out Christmas, but it does include my summer holiday, so I figure it's a fair balance.

I'm going to keep the spending diary going to the end of the year to get a clear picture of where the money goes. This will help when setting my target for next year Oh, and I want to keep an eye on the spends regardless of this challenge, I want to put away as much as possible in my house deposit savings by the 31st December!

Of course, next year could be totally different... I might be living somewhere different so bills could change, I might weaken and buy a car which would cost an arm and a leg to run, I might be going away on holiday or maybe I'll stay home... Next years budget could be totally different lol, but one thing's for sure, I'll be taking part again

Good luck to all of you that are still going with the challenge, not long to go now! :T

cw18

:eek: the figures that shocked me on that list were......

MrDT wrote: »

Shopping.....£497.55 (Groceries, toiletries, household)
Nightsout....£469.93 (Drinks, tickets, taxi, etc)
Eating out...£346.74 (Canteen, pub , restaurant, takeaway, anything not at home/from shopping pot)

I can't imagine spending as much on nights out as on my grocery spending -- and to have eating out on top of that..... :eek:


but good on you for keeping (and sharing) these records :T

Looking forward to seeing how you set up next years budget using these as a baseline/starting point

cw18

BTW: What was the final spend that made you declare yourself bust? I'm sure you said you'd share that with us when you came back with the 'bankrupt' statement

Skint_Lynne

Hope you have a good time sophiesmum!!

The week started a bit better for me as I had a NSD yesterday (apart from £50 into the wee one's card). I had saved this up, but will write it down as a spend. I've got a busy day ahead as I have an order to unpack, so will check in back and forth.

It is cold today, but better than yesterday, it was freeeeeezing!!!

Have a frugal day everyone!!

SL x

thriftylass

cw18 wrote: »

:eek: the figures that shocked me on that list were......

I can't imagine spending as much on nights out as on my grocery spending -- and to have eating out on top of that..... :eek:
but good on you for keeping (and sharing) these records :T

Looking forward to seeing how you set up next years budget using these as a baseline/starting point

I can relate to the night out spending, especially over 9 months (MrDT spent ~50 a month = pub once or twice plus theater plus??, easily spend that) and eating out (MrDT spent ~ 38 a month, easily spent in two trips to restaurant and canteen). We don't spent as much any more but only because I take my own lunches now (I used to spend easily 50 a month on that alone) , we reduced takeaways to 1 or 2 times a month and taxis add up quickly too even if you only do a few trips from the pub/restaurant. On the plus side he only spent 55 on groceries and household per month, whereas most people spent 100++. So I think it's not too bad just differently distributed compared to others. Overall he only spent 2k on "essentials" more or less (food -in or out- and bills). One third alone is holidays and trips.

Frugaldom

Good morning to all,


Firstly, my sincerest thoughts and wishes are with the family of my late landlord, following the weekend's tragic events. I'd prefer not to discuss it on the forums but, after thinking overnight about it, decided to pass on my thoughts here, to those of you who knew the full extent of the situation.

Today I am switching funds around, as the recent events could have an impact on the overall budget. , especially as I'm preparing to do the 2009 challenge on an 'up front' basis. I've already got DS's 21st birthday money and have now also set aside a specific amount for DD's wedding. That means I can add the ciggie money, sealed pot and any further £2 coins savings to my £1000 in 100 days challenge. I may use a cashback credit card for next year's balance rather than lose any interest from the stooze pot. Whichever way I do it, and however anyone else chooses to do it, the challenge will run in 2009 and I will be using 4k as my own, personal target figure, but I'll start the new thread in 'Old style' rather than debt-free-wannabe.

MrDT - well done for logging all your spends and congratulations on getting as far as you did whilst still having holidays and fun. Interesting changes ahead, by the sounds of things.