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

Brighton_belle

Happy Birthday Lynda - what a great start to the day to have an offer accepted. Love the potential of the garden. CW - I had to laugh becasue I though wow, how cheap - you'd have to pay £60,000 more for a small mid terraced victorian 2 bed house with a garden of 8ft sq (i.e. where I live) and the second bed is a single.

Lynne - that is so frustrating for you:mad: . It really difficult whe you don't want to lie isn't it. Perhaps the temping route may provide an answer.
As for your suprise at how much you spent this month - it is all part of the learning curve and gettting to grips with things. It takes time to change habbits of a life time.
Packing up 1 sold ebay item today, and some nice green suede boots have had an offer so they will be sold today at least, even if for very little. Got to decide whether to relist a chair or bung in on freecycle.
Redglass - I hope you enjoy every second of your date with the plumbers:D . I think i will feel the same when my kitchen is done.
Sophies mum - glad you are spending a little of your amazing savings on yourself, especially as you have missed your old one every year.
Finally did my tax return on line for the first time last night and have now paid on line the grand sum of £7.36 they conluded I owed. Also signed up to a dvd offer through pigsback and should get 2 free cinema tickets and 1,300 piggy points. Must remember to cancel the membership after 30 days.

Big welcome to the mini flood of newbies - this is a great challenge and a lovely forum. My advice would be that if you feel overwhelmed, just change things one step a a time. That's what I've been doing since I joined in July.

MrDT

Congrats Lynda, that house looks really nice. I know you're looking to set up a proper home, so I'm glad you went for this place as opposed to the flat!

Oh, and HAPPY BIRTHDAY

shaz_mum_of__2

Congrats lynda it looks like its all new stuff too

sophiesmum i have knitted a nativity set ........the jean greehowe one

just got mary and a shepherd to finish althogh some of thm look a little cross eyed i am pleased this is the real thing



will post pics when finished

Shaz

Boomdocker

I love it Shaz, it is soooo cute!!

lyndasharp

Shaz, that nativity set is brilliant!

I'm thinking that the house is cheap too, having spent the weekend in Cambridge and read my Dad's property paper, a similar house in that area would be around £100k more. It's had planning accepted in the past for an extension to the downstairs, with a conservatory and bigger kitchen, and more importantly for me a double garage. Think I'll be saving up to extend the place at some point! Though I would make sure there was enough vegetable growing space left outside, of course...

slowlyfading

Happy Birthday Lynda! :j

sophiesmum_2

:bdaycake: Happy Birthday Lynda, great news about the house:j :j


Nyk - not operated on Phil the Pig yet????
Shaz - knitting is the only thing I will never ever ever be able to do,:eek: and I come from a long line of knitters who have all tried to teach me:o My kids had lots of the greenhowe toys knitted for them as littlies my favourite was the painter one with the bucket and paintbrush:D Never seen the nativity sets before though :T :T

Just been to costco and picked up my nativity whilst getting supplies for oldies. I am chuffed with it:D athis is it - looks small in picture but stable is actually 18" high and most of figures bout 12".

Feeling all christmassy now

JustKeepSwimming_2

Hi All :hello:

I haven't posted on here for ages, as I've been doing soooo dismally with my challenge! I've also been all over the place (not literally, just felt like it!) with work changing so many times, my kids moving school, my childminder resigning (after getting dream job that I have since had to resign from due to childcare issues :mad: ) & my house developing all sorts of problems that I "have failed to grasp the basics of home economics" as it used to say on my school report!

I have, more by default than by plan, decided that I'll restart the challenge next year (Nyk - there will be a challenge next year, won't there? Sorry if this has all been covered in previous posts, but I don't think I'll ever catch up with them all!). I'll also set a more realistic budget... :rolleyes:

Although I don't post often, I did start well & found lots of your posts encouraging & useful & although my bank account has been haemorrhaging in a worrying fashion, I comfort myself that it could have been so much worse had I not found this thread!

Good luck eveyone - lots of you have done so well, it has given me hope for 2009 (never mind all the media doom & gloom).

Penny2myName

Happy birthday lynda

Right back to my monthly update

Total spend for 01 Nov 2008 - 30 Nov 2008

TOTAL FOR ALCOHOL £10.79
TOTAL FOR ANIMALS £14.09
TOTAL FOR BAKING £4.91
TOTAL FOR BILLS £235.50
TOTAL FOR CHARITY £4.00
TOTAL FOR CHRISTMAS GIFT £11.80
TOTAL FOR CLEANING £2.12
TOTAL FOR DRESS MAKING £6.83
TOTAL FOR FOOD £166.35:eek::o:eek: Have to admit been a few take-outs
TOTAL FOR OTHER £10.00
TOTAL FOR SCHOOL £2.40
TOTAL FOR SOCIALIZING £0.60
TOTAL FOR TOILETTRIES £14.75
TOTAL FOR TRAVEL £62.60
TOTAL FOR TREAT £3.34
TOTAL £550.08

£5778.40/£5475.93/ Weekly Budget £ 68.30

Frugaldom

One month today and it'll be 2009! I can hardly believe it! I had a closer look at my spending diary ( www.spendingdiary.com ) and have broken the categories down so I can see exactly how much is going where. I can easily see where the bulk of my money goes - almost equally between heating and eating!

Year to Date spending
Groceries - £1145.70
Gifts - £254.36
Everything else - £245.05 (mainly household items I bought for me )
Household Insurance - £52.40
Internet access - £171.82
Clothing/Footwear - £46.50
TV License - £139.50
Telephone - £147.91
Travel - £81.20
NTS Membership - £32.50
Mobile phone - £20
Items for new house - £252.25
Coal - £52.50
Electricity - £1108.90

Total spend to 1st December - £3,750.59

Signature updated, Phil the Pig emptied and counted, fire cleaned out and kindled (it's still white with frost here), sun's shining, so I'm going to plant some garlic in my corner pot and then try to make a start organising the kitchen for the washing machine & cooker arriving this week. Must also find my coin bags so I can bank the contents of my sealed pot when in town on Friday.

I know I'm cutting it fine with my balance, but I'd like to include the housemove here so it doesn't affect 2009 savings. I'll be doing a tally of all the extra savings I have made over 2008 from things like cashback, winnings, eBid sales and free clicks. Next year, I'll need to budget for livestock, but am not expecting to have to move house! I am hoping to begin the year with my £4k in the bank right from day 1 but I haven't counted up to see how close I've come to that yet, as I also want my ISA money available in full for the 6th of April. More number-crunching needed to see how money-neutral I can expect next year to be.

Justkeepswimming, there will be a 2009 challenge. I'll get the thread started nearer the end of this month so the budgets don't get confused.