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

Brighton_belle

Great news about so many companies passing on the rate cut: just shows the extreme times we are living in. No one can predict what will happen next. But we are at least a step ahead but having started the taking control of our finances.
Just had a free firework display curtesy of the school I live near - just nipped out to the school boundary fence and had a great view.
Treating ourselves to the heating on this evening and might have rice pud (19p asda) later:D .

cw18

nykmedia wrote: »

cw - I was just thinking that it may benefit you to set up as self-employed for 30+ hours a week doing whatever you like doing best and turning it into cash. If your income after all expenses was around the £90 per week mark then you could qualify for your carer's allowance, plus you would be working from home, so would be there for OH. That way there's nobody stopping you from paying off whatever debts/mortgage etc that you want from your redundancy money and savings. You could also apply for working tax credits and child tax credit of you have a child in fulltime education.

Hmmmm........ hadn't thought of that

Not quite sure what I could do from home, but sounds like it might be worth investigating Will probably wait until after Christmas though, as elder DS is home from 12th/13th-30th/31st December. So I'd only have 2 weeks before I have a full house again :rolleyes2

twinkle_star_2

Hello everyone,

I only came across the MSE forums the other day but have been sitting reading them every evening since! I love this thread best of all. You all seem so supportive and lovely to each other and its not so scary and strict as some of the other threads seem to be. I'd like to join properly for next years challenge although I think i'm already living on approxiamtely thay anyway so I'm sort of already joined in!
I suppose i should do a short intro - I'm 23 and only graduated in 2007. I worked full time in a university library for a year (during which time i managed to get rid of my overdraft) but i have now moved to Cardiff to live with my OH. This entailed going part time so my budget is no seriously limited. I am just starting to get the hang of frugality (i.e. beyond not going shopping every weekend!) and for the first time ever I have been working to a budget so here's a very rough breakdown:

Set expenses
Take home pay p/m: £780
Rent: £325 (however this includes £75 for all bills incl. council tax)
Travel to work: £55 (bus pass)
Mobile phone: £35 (this is a set expense as i'm tied to a contract but will end v. soon at which point I will pay as i go...)

All elseI initally estimated i could spend about £75 per week whilst still allowing for something unexpected each month (cats, travel, etc) but I'm trying to cut it down to £60. This pays for lunch at work (£8 p/w), groceries, pet stuff and anything i want to buy for me (clothes, entertainment, etc).
Though my budget is supposedly for one (me) I pretty much cover food for my OH (as he has been out of work for a bit -but not much longer!) and both our pets (we have a cat each) and the occassionl tenner for petrol (his car).
S £60 X 52 weeks is £3120 (plus som of the money for bills) is about £4000.

So anyway, thats me. Sorry for the excesively long first post.

P.S. Also, "frunchkin" = best word ever!:T

Skint_Lynne

Good evening all,

Welcome aboard Twinkle_Star. I am practicing/getting prepared for the 2009 challenge, but everyone is great on this thread, very helpful and supportive.

No parties tonight, I'm just back from costco, and guess what I bought bails, 473ml approx of good vanilla extract for £3.99, vat free. This is fantastic cause you can pay between a fiver and eight pounds for 100ml from the supermarkets. It is dated until 2012, so a great buy. I make tablet, so use the extract for that. I wanted to price the condensed milk, but could not find any, it will be there though. Also got rice (courtesy of sophiesmum telling me about it), a big 5kg jar of it for £5.99. I've seen the same one is Tesco for £10.99. Toilet rolls as well, none on an offer, but still cheaper than Mr T. Also some nice tinned tomatoes. Mum got these the last time and I liked them. My storecupboard is coming along nicely now, it is filling up in preperation for DH coming home. Not long to go, 20th December, so around 45 days I think.

I'm glad your break was nice sophiesmum, and I hope your DD will be okay. Your talking of horses reminded me when my cousin felt sorry for hers one winter. My aunt and uncle were out for the day and when they returned it was chaos. My cousin really felt awful that her horse was out in the cold draughty stable and both her and her brother (my no 2 cousin) decided to bring the horse into the house. It wrecked the place and s*** all over the joint. They were in the doghouse for months and had to get part time jobs to pay for the damage. They were 17 and 18 when they done his, so not as if they were really young. What a pair of dafties:rotfl: :rotfl: , that happened about 15 years ago and it still makes me laugh:p .

Speak later,

SL x

Brighton_belle

Big welcome to the forums twinklestar:T . Sounds like you have made a very good start. That wasn't an excessive 1st post at all: it's good to get to know you a bit. Pease join in whenever - I've been practising for the 09 challenge for several months and have learnt loads, gradually cutting my budget, with a lot of fun along the way.

sophiesmum_2

Welcome on board twinkle_star, I agree "frunchkin" is a great word,:D think it was jumble bee who coined that one - combination of frugal and munchkin - it's a frugal term of affection:D

SL - :eek: :eek: :eek: at the horse in the house, don't tell DD she will be after bringing hers in - mind I don't think he would fit in the lift:rotfl:
Sounds like the costco stockpiling is going okay:T , I need to have a ride to costcothis weekend for bacon for my oldies at work so I am going to check out the turkey crowns/duck etc and see what is good value for xmas.

Did a bit of shopping around and mnaged to get DD's insurance down from £489 to £270 now she has a years no claims, so quite happy with that, also paid her tax £15 - online so have spent £285 tonight:eek: that's going to make a huge dent in my budget, but she needs the bike to get to college/stables. It works out at about £5.48 a week which is cheaper than buying her a bus pass - she pays for her petrol herself. Will update my totals in a minute:o but the money left in the budget is looking scarily small.

Skint_Lynne

sophiesmum, my mum got a turkey crown tonight for sunday dinner and in order to 'trial' it for Christmas. We went out last year but it is too expensive, £60 per head:eek: :eek: :eek: .

She also got a fancy turkey from the butchers for boxing day, now it was really nice, but that cost her £100, she admitted it to me the other night, that is crazy!!!

I told her that you have got these in the past, she likes the meat in costco, so I hope the turkey crown is nice, it looks really good and my mum is very fussy!!! I'll let you know how it tastes.

PS: The turkey crown from tonight cost £18.00, so a better buy than last year's.

SL x

mama67

bails wrote: »

Welcome back Janey, glad you had a great time! Ignore that horrible letter; I don't know how some people can do their jobs sometimes, I really don't :mad: I loved Mum's Memory today, fab! :T

Will go and check my ISAs in a min but quick question for the cooks out there - I have a recipe that needs vanilla extract; I have vanilla flavouring in the cupboard (no idea why ) are these the same thing? Is mine a poor man's version? :rotfl:It asks for 2 tspns, do I use the same amount if I can use it? Thanks a lot!
EDIT: I have answered my own question, flavouring is synthetic. The question now is, can I bring myself to buy some vanilla extract?

Have a good day everyone; I'm decluttering my office - mixed feelings of dread and excitement about that

Bails, I know this won't be any good for now but you could make your own Vanilla Extract!!
Take a bottle of Vodka and add 2 or 3 split vanilla pods, leave in a cool dark place for approx 4 months and then you will have Vanilla Extract.

Personally I just buy the littel Dr O**ker bottles from the supermarket @ 89p/ea.

HTH

mama67

cw18 wrote: »

Hmmmm........ hadn't thought of that

Not quite sure what I could do from home, but sounds like it might be worth investigating Will probably wait until after Christmas though, as elder DS is home from 12th/13th-30th/31st December. So I'd only have 2 weeks before I have a full house again :rolleyes2

Cheryl, Didn't you say you made cards.

How about selling some of those, there are people in my village doing it and they are selling for approx £1.50 - £2 a card.

cw18

there's not much of a market for them around us, and the overheads of a website are horrendous if you want to try and make sure it gets traffic through it