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

Brighton_belle

That was really good of him CW, as as others have said, there are some lovely people about. Small gestures can make such a difference.I like the quote whitewing too and will print it out. Good news CW on pension:T .
White wing - do not feel one ounce of disgust at yourself. You are taking positive steps to improve your health and well being and are doing it sensibly by being monitored by a dr:T . Taking them does not make you weak or anything like that: we all need different help and it is not easy to lose weight. These drugs are just helping you to get the ball rolling. And the more you lose, the better you get to feel about yourself/feel in control etc and it snow balls. I say well done you for going to the dr for help. As you say, it is a gradual process of small changes gradually adding up. Far far better than mad crash dieting.
We'll try another 'own brand' tea sometime: got to work thgough new box of PG tips first:D .
((HUGS)) SL. Sorry to hear you are having a bad day.

10 portions of hM tom soup now cooling.
One ebay item has already been bid on for £9.99:j . Have just listed another 2 of the final list ever. Also listed a dressmakers dummy on freecycle and 10 million people want it:eek: . Off to offer teabags on freecycle now...

skint_taffy

you should have listed the dress makers dummy on ebay as they go for loads!

sophiesmum_2

Just checked my online banking, £40.77 to deduct from totals as life and car insurance out today:rolleyes:

Off to update

Paulgonnabedebtfree

nykmedia wrote: »

Paul, we're self employed, too, the Inland Revenue site explains how much per mile is allowable for any work-related travel but I take it as a lump sum payment at year end to save confusing things.

I don't know if things have changed but the way it was explained to me is that xpence per mile can be used as the calculation or a percentage of the overall running costs. Once one of these methods has been chosen, it cannot be altered until a change of vehicle occurs. I have always used the percentage method and only become aware of the xpence per mile method after purchasing my current vehicle - therefore making it unalterable until I change the vehicle. A fixed allowance per mile sounds a bit hit and miss to me because vehicles will vary greatly in their running costs. For instance, I can start my working day with as much as 2.9 tonnes to haul around and finish it with 2.1 tonnes (I carry water in a tank and it gets used throughout the day's work). As there is a lot of stop/start, I count myself lucky if I get 30 miles to the gallon - with diesel.
I do find it easier to calculate a straight percentage of the total running costs. It can vary more though as repairs and maintenance are less consistent than mileage for me - especially as it doesn't need servicing every accounting year (18,000 mile intervals or 2 years).I deally I would like to do the mileage method when the vehicle is newer and move on to percentage when the vehicle gets older (more repairs to offset against tax) but that's probably why they don't allow that

1274

I am really really proud of myself today. I cancelled £200 worth of Christmas present orders on Amazon that I made over the weekend, and will now start from scratch with a smaller budget. Since I have expensive tastes (oops), it seems really mean to be getting people things for under £50, but I've decided to set a £20 limit per person and stick to it since that's all I can really afford. It will probably look mean though as last year the family got £100 presents.

I was just posting on Taka's MFW thread and wanted to check that you'll still have me in your gang if I do an all-in challenge not the £4K one? Please please say I can stay, you're such a nice bunch of people!

Brighton_belle

Well done 1274on cancelling your amazon order. Learning to live within our means has to be the best example to any children in the family, and as for everyone else... I would hope they would appreciate your honesty.
I've made a list of how this challenge has impacted my life since July. I decided to take Nyk's advice to someone else and make a list as a record of progress and hope to do another one towards the end of the first quater of next year.

These are the things I’ve done since signing up for the challenge in July
things I got through freecycle instead of buying
Kitchen Sink
6ft x 5ft bookcase
2 x freestanding storage shelves
Tiles for mosaics

‘free money’
Bingo cashback: £30
£5 M&S voucher through Oxfam – swapped with unwanted gift
£5 M&S voucher through direct line quote
Co-op divvie card
Cash back credit card
Books sold on Amazon: £8.67
Increased nectar points through edf: bought kitchen elec scales
A&L account: £150 pending
Total: £200 and counting

freebies
energy saving bulbs through edf
carbon credits wind up torch
pigs back cinema voucher
orange Wednesday free cinema ticket

Changed to more frugalising habits
£2 coin savers (£26 so far)
Loose change money box (total unknown)
Log every penny spent in daily cash book and excel spreadsheets
Spent birthday money on remoska – cutting elec costs and cooking more creatively
HM bread
Switched to dried milk, half the cost
Blackberry picking
*Reduce grocery costs for 2 from £230 per month to £175
Changed over house to e.s.bulbs
Ongoing clutter clearing and improving storage
Budget planning on going
*Renewed hse/building ins reduced by £180
*Internet cost reduced from £216 to £108p.a.
*these 3 alone total savings of £500+
Make more use of free weekend calls and reduce phone bill by half

So thanks everyone.:T

Skint taffy - thanks for ebay comment re dummy. I have been so overwhelmed by 50+ deserving requests for it I have decided I can't cope with selecting one of them and will ebay it and give the money to the friend who originally gave it, as a suprise: she has been very good to me in the past (who said I could do what ever I liked with it, she was glad to see the back of it).

carolbee

I have following this thread avidly and would like to join in for next year. any tips please on what I should start to identify in the way of bills etc for that so that I can start to gather my paperwork/spreadsheets. I expect someone has asked this before, so a link to it, or a list of the items to include would be very helpful - see you in 2009!

cw18

Nyk's latest list of what she's included is here

Paulgonnabedebtfree

Well I am in my first month of traioning for the 4 grand challenge next year. I've just been out to buy some bread, milk, eggs and bog rolls. This has pushed me just over the £333.33 a month. I will have to put more diesel in the tank yet too.
Also, I started keeping a spreadsheet on 1/11 to identify where every single penny goes. I shade in any item(s) that can go in the "unnecessary spending" column. This has allowed me to note that £51.42 has been unnecessarily spent this month and what I've spent it on. If this sounds bad, although I didn't keep records before 1/11, I reckon that I unnecessarily spent more than that in a week before. Apart from some diesel (and some butter which I forgot in the shop), there is no need for me to spend any more money this month.
Also, I do wonder what constitutes unnecessary spending anyway. I suppose if it were taken to the extreme, all bought drinks are unnecessary because it's possible to live perfectly happily on water from the tap.
Although I have slipped a bit over budget, I note that I have a stockpile of long shelf life items (on offer) which I have bought in November.
I'm not going to give myself a hard time about being over budget though. This was my first month of training after all and that's what training is about - i.e. making mistakes and improving from them.
There are some bargains that I will not go for though. Battery eggs are far cheaper than free range but I'm not happy about battery farming.

whitewing

Morning all! Just popping by quickly. As far as I am concerned, everyone is welcome to join us with whatever individualised version of the challenge they want to do. Still haven't decided how I'm doing mine yet. (Hey, pimp my challenge! Does anyone watch 'Pimp my Ride'? I'd love them to do my car).

As for what constitutes a necessity, I find that varies throughout my own challenge anyway. For me, it's more about 'am I happy to spend what I am going to spend on this particular item'? And do I have the money to pay for it up front?

Anyway, must be off now. See you this evening. I'll belurking even if I don't post.