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

sophiesmum_2

MrDT wrote: »

Hello all I've already bust on this challenge but keep reading up so I don't miss out any tips

Did a little Christmas shopping this evening, worked out rather nicely £22.50 worth of gifts and it only cost me £5.16 (actually a little less than that lol) here's how:

M&S 3 for 2 Christmas stuff, picked up three items at £7.50 each. It was 20% off day, and I guess there's something a bit squiffy with their prices since the VAT cut as I was actually given 21.7% discount. Not only that, but they applied the discount to the total BEFORE deducting £7.50 for the free item. Oh, and I had a £5 voucher thanks to the direct line offer a month or two back...

So, £22.55 worth of goods (3 gifts and a 5p carrier bag)
-4.89 for the VAT cut and 20% promotion
-7.50 for the 3 for 2 offer
-5.00 for the gift voucher
equals a grand total of £5.16 paid.

That £5.16 was paid on a cashback credit card lol so I should see two or three pence back from that too haha!

Anyway, I'm well chuffed with that and had to come mention it here haha!

Will keep reading, will weigh in at the end of the year with my totals, and be back at the start of January with my 2009 budget and targets

Impressive shopping MR DT:T

sophiesmum_2

Finally managed to persuade OH to get the tree down from loft and have now put it up in lounge.
It's lovely sitting here all snuggly and warm with just the glow from the tree lights:D very relaxing.
Got a hectic schedule between now and xmas with oldies but have booked weeks leave over xmas and new year:j. Tomorrow night we have the kids youth club coming for party again, went down well last time, have lots of food and presents etc to prepare for that along with a coffee morning before hand, and a meeting with socialworkers in afternoon. Looking forward to the weekend it's been really busy here this week.

whitewing

Mr DT, I want to know what you're buying your girlfriend for Xmas....

Sophiesmum, you're just fab. Have a lovely weekend.

Sweet dreams lurking people.

sophiesmum_2

Good morning frunchkins:D
Just pondering ... haven't seen jumblebee around for a while - hope she hasn't been swallowed up by all her jumble sale buys;) Hi to anyone else who is lurking but not posting at the moment.

Busy day here today, coffee morning for oldies first, but that means free bacon butties so not all bad;) , lots of prep for tonights party with youth club and oldies - , sandwiches, cakes, jellies, pressies, pass the parcels to wrap etc, also need to pick up one of the costco birthday cakes for tonight too- may have to delegate that to my mum- not enough hours in the day today. Cooking tea for oldies between these two but made that in advance last week - (relief) so not much to do for that, then oldies will join in with kids for dessert part and birthday cake. The cake is for youth club organiser who also provides entertainment here regularly for oldies with his group so they are very fond of him. The cake is a surprise- luckily costco birthday cakes are huge so enough for everyone.:D for only £10.99 -bargain!!!!!
Sometime this weekend I need to rope in some of more active oldies and get the xmas decs and trees up around the scheme - have just been too busy so far this week.
Have a meeting with social services to squeeze in this afternoon too, deciding on a residential placement for one of my oldies, very sad to see him leaving us but he can no longer cope in own home even with support so need to make sure that they do their best for him - I am attending as his advocate - he has no one else interested - but the social workers have come across me before so know they won't get away with sticking him just anywhere;) these people are my "family".
Better get to work then lots to do, have a good Friday everyone, roll on the weekend.:j

the_cat

:A Sophiesmum:A

I dearly hope that if I or any of my family are in need of any form of sheltered accom in the future, we are lucky enough to find someone as kind hearted and caring as you working there.


I have woken up in a much more positive frame of mind today. In true to form bl00dy minded spirit, I have decided that I am not prepared to change my plans just because the government want me to pay for their mistakes by spending my hard earned cash. TBH I value my peace of mind more than material objects. I will do it in the future probably, but after I have cleared the mortgage. Just hope I can remain strong if they cut the rates again!

Have to hang around for the roofer today, who is coming to price up leaky ceiling problem, so I will try to do a spot of decluttering and maybe wrap some christmas presents. Need a cake or something made too as kids have eaten everything yet again!:rolleyes:

Hugs to all
Cat

andromache_2

the_cat wrote: »

:A Sophiesmum:A

I dearly hope that if I or any of my family are in need of any form of sheltered accom in the future, we are lucky enough to find someone as kind hearted and caring as you working there.

:T

My term has finished! I got 13 hours' sleep last night after averaging about 4 hours a night over the last week due to the massive pile of essays I've had to get done. Handed in the last one at 9am yesterday having not gone to bed and spent the day feeling strangely energetic until I collapsed into bed at 8pm Really wish I were better at time management! I've got a few more days left to sort myself out and get the books and photocopy the other materials I need to work over the holidays, and then I'm going to go home and sleep for a week

Those WHSmith vouchers are great; I got the Guinness World Records 2009 book for a Secret Santa I had to do for only £5 using one of them - thought that was quite good! In fact almost all my Christmas presents this year were either bought in the January sales or following a hint from this site

Have a lovely Friday everyone

shaz_mum_of__2

mama67 wrote: »

Shaz, so you got rid of Economy 7?? I always thought this was cheaper!!

I tend to put the washer and dishwasher on overnight whilst on Eco 7. we use approx 20% of our total electric overnight.

What we pay each month pretty much covers our usage, so not in credit there.

We have oil CH and water and are in credit with them and they pay us interest on any cr balance.

We had eco 7 storage heaters taken out and Gas CH put in as it was freezing at nights when we were in and lovely and warm in the morning when we weren't.

The eco 7 electric we had was 11pm -7am and even with running washer and dishwasher running during the night our bill showed the majority of use was outside that time frame .

Check your prices as we were paying almost double for daytime rates on eco 7 i guess in order to make the cheap night rate look good
the single rate we pay now is less than the eco 7 night rate was!!



Shaz

SmlSave

Hi SmlSave, there's no shame in lurking and we'd all love you to join us here for the new year's challenge. Feel free to post your ideas, sample budgets etc and if you have any new moneysaving hints, tips or ideas, share them here. I'll get your name onto the challenger list asap.

Thanks everyone for being so welcoming!

Here's my current budget for your keen eys to go over:

Home Insurance - £25p/m - £300p/yr
Water - £5 p/m - £60p/yr
Gas - £25p/m - £300p/yr
Electric - £32p/m - £384p/yr
BT - £12p/m - £144p/yr
Sky - £27p/m - £324p/yr
Life Insurance - £30p/m - £360p/yr
Groceries - £200p/m - £2400p/yr
Car Insurance - £30p/m - £360p/yr
TV Licence - £10p/m - £120p/yr
Car Tax - £10p/m - £120p/yr

TOTAL: £4872 per year :eek:

Which I was surprised at not being much more - now this has got me worried that I'm missing something from the list! :rolleyes:

Sky I'm afraid is staying cause we're both now hooked Hopefully the Insurances will come down when I renew and so as I see it that leaves Gas, Electric and Food to cut down.

Any help and advice would be brill so I get myself sorted for Jan 09!

Frugaldom

Good morning Frunchkin friends

First of all, WELL DONE, MrDT, I approve, completely, of your shopping methods and, like Whitewing, am interested in what one's 'lady friend' will be receiving by way of that extra special gift.

Sophiesmum, like everyone else here, I think we would all love to have someone like you in charge of our retirement homes of the future. I know my gran would appreciate living somewhere like that if we could only get her to see that being over 90 is WHY she can't do everything she wants to do when she's on her own. (She insists on staying in her own house, which has stairs, and had the grumbles about the stair lift when it got fitted because it got in her way when walking up and down past it!)

Andromache, well done on getting through the term and getting a decent night's sleep! I hope everything is going well with the studies and well done completing all your assignments on time. :beer:

1274, I have a full year's spreadsheet and can clearly see my spending pattern, with its peaks and troughs. In this new house, I have a prepayment meter for electricity, so those peaks will level out, but here's how mine looked over the past year once it was all broken down into smaller categories:

Jan - £323.31
Feb - £135.15
Mar - £222.22
Apr - £678.52 (includes massive winter electricity bill)
May - £299.77
Jun - £210.80
Jul - £280.59
Aug - £280.81
Sep - £203.19
Oct - £438.41
Nov - £653.57 (includes almost £300 for house move related items)
Dec - £136.87 & still spending
Total spends to date: £3,863.21

My annual budget is £4000, which equates to an average of £333.33 per month for absolute essential household bills and cost of living. Whatever is left from the monthly amount is saved in the bank for the following month and so on. However, I am aiming to get to the stage that I have the whole amount 'up front' in an account (that gains some interest, no matter how little) and will be making the deductions from that whilst, at the same time, trying to earn the equivalent of my spends in extra income so they become 'neutralised'. My self-sufficientish lifestyle includes being money-neutral.

I'm still working out how much of my 2008 budget has been neutralised, but hope to have that figure before the start of the next challenge.

Frugaldom

SmlSave wrote: »

Thanks everyone for being so welcoming!

Here's my current budget for your keen eys to go over:

Home Insurance - £25p/m - £300p/yr Is this just for contents or does it include buildings?
Water - £5 p/m - £60p/yr
Gas - £25p/m - £300p/yr
Electric - £32p/m - £384p/yr
BT - £12p/m - £144p/yr Could you get on to the £10.50 per month package
Sky - £27p/m - £324p/yr
Life Insurance - £30p/m - £360p/yr
Groceries - £200p/m - £2400p/yr Does this include toiletries, cleaning & laundry products?
Car Insurance - £30p/m - £360p/yr
TV Licence - £10p/m - £120p/yr This may be under, as it was £139.50 for licence this year and will probably go up to around £145 in 2009
Car Tax - £10p/m - £120p/yr


TOTAL: £4872 per year :eek:

Which I was surprised at not being much more - now this has got me worried that I'm missing something from the list! :rolleyes:

Sky I'm afraid is staying cause we're both now hooked Hopefully the Insurances will come down when I renew and so as I see it that leaves Gas, Electric and Food to cut down.

Any help and advice would be brill so I get myself sorted for Jan 09!

Do you pay a monthly fee for Internet, or is this included with Sky or BT?

Also, you haven't included any of the following:

Clothing/footwear
Days out
Socialising
Entertaining/extra entertainment
Gifts for family & friends
Health & beauty
Hobbies
Eating out / takeaways
Essential/emergency household repairs
Household items & appliances
Miscellaneous (saw it in the sale, HAD to have it type impulse buys )

Apologies if I missed a previous post or have forgotten - are you working out your entire annual budget or just household running costs & cost of living? Don't forget to include all mortgage or rent payments, debt payments, petrol, car servicing/MOT, food & drink bought during work hours, memberships, cost of any pre-booked holidays etc for your 'all in' budget.