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

Janey51

nykmedia wrote: »

I have a confession to make - I am completely obsessed by my challenge (just in case you hadn't noticed) and have, YET AGAIN, closely inspected my overall 2008 spending diary. The way it stands right now is that I have spent £3,543.46 of my 4k budget on the cost of living and £344.75 on non-standard costs associated with the housemove. I feel like it's misleading to include costs that are not associated with the original challenge (moving house), so I'd like to remove the house-moving costs from this budget to allow me to complete it under 'normal' circumstances. I have more than enough in the various savings pots that I've accumulated and will transfer the £81 spent from 'Phil the Pig' to my 4k budget, just to make it fair. Does everyone agree with this? Please?

Mmmmmm.......should we let Nyk do this frugalites :rotfl:

sophiesmum_2

Morning janey, marru (lurking):D and everyone else.

Nyk - I am always in awe at your budget juggling skills:D , seems quite reasonable not to include the house move costs - will give you a truer picture of cost of living without them.

Lovely xmas dinner for me later as taking the oldies chair based exercise group out to pub for our festive treat. We used to pay per session for an instructor which cost them about £1 a week each. Then I was sent on instructors course so we cancelled the instructor and I take the classes. We halved the subs to 50p and have been saving this towards our xmas meal so now off to reap benefits.
Going to the two for one pub;) two 3 course xmas dinners for £20 plus free bottle wine with every 6 people. Bargain! We also have lots of cash in pot for drinks and coffees etc so should be a good afternoon.I won't be drinking as I am the taxi service - doing couple of trips but it is onlly 5 minutes away.
This is my treat as it is the one meal I won't be cooking:j and I am having salmon as have about 4 turkey dinners booked in by xmas:rolleyes:

cha97michelle

Janey51 wrote: »

I wonder if I could teach the cats to sing :rotfl:

probably.

have a look at this i found.

cw18

My redundancy payment has hit my bank account this morning - so I'm solvent again :T

Came just in time to pay my house insurance as a lump sum instead of by instalments (new policy kicked in at 1 second past midnight, but had been told it takes 4 or 5 days to initiate the instalment plan even though I paid that way last year) -- so I've phoned and paid that. Means I don't have to budget for this years and save for next years out of my 2009 budget

I've also been on-line and "cleared" my dearest credit card...... there will no doubt be a 'few' quid of interest on the next statement (due to be generated in the next week), but if I check daily and pay that immediately that should be one gone.....

I have enough to pay the next one down as well, but the invoice for the funeral director will be here in the next couple of days (was expecting it last week, so phoned to check -- and they've just got it ready to post today) and I don't know when I'll start getting money in from anywhere else...... so I'm trying to figure out how much of it I dare clear without leaving myself in a position where I have to shop on the plastic for the next 2 months !! (Plus I need to keep cash for my Direct Debits too)


Anyhow, I'd best run. Younger GD's pre-school nativity starts in about 15 mins, and the postman has just been !! Back later for a short while, and then out to collect younger GD and get her to her other nursery for their nativity this afternoon !!!! Tomorrow afternoon is the turn of elder GD -- though she also has it this evening, but I'm looking after the younger one while my DD goes tonight.

thriftylass

:grouphug: to everyone who needs them. CW glad your payment finally came through and SF good luck with the job search.

Well done to the ones who already posted their new budgets for 2009, well impressed. Feel a bit guilty because mine's higher than others that are for three, but I know from previous posts that's ok.

Nyk, :T yeah please start the new thread on the 18th. That means we newbies don't have have to wait that long any more to sort of start properly. Can't wait :j :j

I think I'll put up the christmas deco tonight although it's two days early for us, but then I already leave on the 22nd to go home.

shaz_mum_of__2

Nyk

Start from the 18th if you want

I will be doing my accounting jan 1st to dec 31st though.

That way i have plenty of practice under my belt for next christmas instead of thrown in at the deep end this year ( i will need it)

I have decided to do a 1 month storecupboard challenge starting 5th January(back to school day) i will only buy fruit and milk and squash/juice


Sophiesmum is costco worth the subscription? there is a store in Sheffield about 3/4 hour drive and wondered if it was worth it for me

Shaz - having a lunch break and a rest from essay writing..............my brain hurts!

andromache_2

Glad your money came through, cw - that must be a relief.

I had a fun but not particularly frugal evening yesterday - went to see the musical Wicked in London. It was amazing! It cost £24.80 for the travel, ticket and pre-theatre meal, so still a bargain I would say Then I'm off to eastern Europe tomorrow for a long weekend... hoping not to spend too much but I imagine it will bump my already high spends figure up further. It's subsidised as it's for a competition so only costing me £15 for flights and accommodation.

On the plus side, I have now finished my first term this year and can confirm that, after adjusting for the fact that last year I included LDR travel whereas this year I am not, I spent £883.38 in the first term last year but only £741.56 this term. I had hoped it wouldn't be as much as that but it's still an improvement! Even though I know a good chunk of that (my spreadsheet tells me £319.56 ) has gone on sensible university-related stuff, it's still a lot when you add it up! :eek: Anyway, I didn't have this thread for the first term last year, so I'm sure that's what's made the difference and am looking forward to the 2009 thread! Thanks for keeping the motivation going everyone :A

Frugaldom

Good afternoon to all.

First up, the new challenge is NOT starting on the 18th, it is running from 1st January to 31st December 2009. All I said was that I would start the new thread on the 18th, so that everyone had time to complete this year's challenge but, if it causes confusion, I'll leave the new thread until the very last minute. 2009 budgets do not start until 2009, sorry.

CW - glad you got your payment through just in the nick of time and that it's been enough to clear off some debts already. :j I'm only sorry that the circumstances couldn't have been better and am thinking of you and your family for Christmas. Likewise with Janey, Sophiesmum and anyone else who has lost a loved one.

Postman delivered my new boots today :j ... except when I opened the package, which had NO ADDRESS, only name and postcode, it contained someone else's shoes! :mad: It also contained the despatch note with the 'send to' address a complete and utter mishmash between mine and someone in the Midlands! I was so angry at such stupidity and fired off an email saying as much, and also told them I would return package but was NOT paying for the postage as it was their mistake, not mine! Swift email response arrived with apology, proper order will be despatched today and please return FREEPOST.

Next problem of the day, I've had to pay £10 into Tak€abr€ak Bingo as it had stopped giving me free scratchcards until I made a deposit. Did that and still no free scratchcards, so I played a few penny games then switched into a new room, where it eventually let me access the free scratchcard. Now I need to reconfirm all my details by sending ID verification because I've moved house! What a pain! But perseverance wins the day, so I'll get around to it soon, I'm not giving up on my free scratchcard winnings. :cool:

It's freezing here, but the sun is shining, so I have a washing on in the hope of getting it hung out for an hour. Still no signs of electrician, so the cooker still hasn't been connected up and the heater that got 'fixed' in the kitchen has stopped working again. I am sincerely hoping that these slight annoyances don't multiply any more. I'd like to get the Christmas tree put up but have no space because we still have so many boxes sittng about and no place to put them until the ground thaws enough to let us get a base dug to build a shed. :rolleyes: Maybe I'll just get the presents all posted off before the weekend, and that will make at least some space. If only I could get rid of the tumble dryer, too, as it's taking up space in the kitchen that I badly need. Downsizing has it's drawbacks, too.

lilac_lady

Nyk's challenge is all the better for allowing us to make our own targets. Some of us will need to do it because we have to do it. Others will use the rest of their income to save for something special (me - holiday) and others will do it because they want to embrace simplicity and frugality. It seems to me that it doesn't matter why we're here, we all want to eliminate unnecessary spending.

PS - in this uncertain time many of us will be giving our families a helping hand if the credit crunch bites them too hard. (me again) That's another reason why I want to take the help offered here and follow a spending plan.

cw18

Nativity was the normal pre-school/reception class "muddle", but lovely to see the children work so hard at it

Postman brought a cheque (off to cash it at the PO in a minute) for the outstanding balance on DH's IB -- so that's cash in my purse for groceries hopefully for the rest of the month (and then some!). Also brought the forms to get the Occupation Pension payments moving (ie. request for bank details and NI number for tax purposes), so need to sign those in front of a witness and send them back ASAP..... looks like they'll be aiming to make first payment by the end of the month, but at least I now know what I've got coming in from that for working the budget. Lump sum from that is over 50% more than I expected, and the weekly payments are also up (by £17 while I also get for DS, and £23 once I'm "on my own" when his college course finishes). So I think I'm definitely going to keep my Unit Trust running for a further 10 years (at £20/month). So that's a change to my "all in" budget for 2009.......

Still waiting to hear from Child Benefits, Tax Credits and Widowed Parents Allowance though

Postman also brought the Abba CD collection I ordered from HMV last week (all 8 albums they ever released, plus a bonus one) which I thought was an absolute bargain at £29.99 -- especially as I also got £2.09 cashback on it So I've got one blasting out at me now, and it's scarey just how many of the tracks I remember all the words for :eek: