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

lyndasharp

CW, my budget at uni was £50 per week as spending money, to pay for my food, going out, clothes etc. As my uni had 3 x 10 week terms, that was £1500 a year, and I seem to remember my rent was about £2500, so with about £1000 in bursaries plus the max loan of £3500 ish, left me £500 a year spare for spending money outside term time. That was topped up by working during holidays. I suspect costs would be fairly similar now, though maybe the rents are a bit higher!

Scarily enough, I'm still living on about £50 a week for spending money - most of the extra I'm spending comes from running my car!

redglass_2

I went to a school that used to be a boarding school, where a snotty teacher told me that 'scholarship girls' (like me) had been the ruination of the place. The thing I most wanted from old-fashioned books (was it Blyton?) was seedcake! When they had midnight feasts in the dorm, Cook always sent seedcake. I imagined it all nutty and crunchy, but my mum would never make one (we seemed to have missed out on having a cook, somehow :rotfl:) because she said it was horrible and I wouldn't like it. Years later I did taste seedcake and it wasn't that great (in my opinion, anyway) but strangely enough I still imagine it the way it was in my fantasies, even now. I stopped being so keen on Blyton when it dawned on me that dirty, dishonest Mr and Mrs Stick, in one of the Famous Five books, were meant to be working-class people - like me, like my friends and parents. They never got to go to Kirrin Island, in fact they didn't even own an island! Jolly bad show! :rotfl:

thriftylass

brokeandworried wrote: »

Hi

I've only joined MSE in the last 2 days - came across this thread and am very interested. Can you tell me what is an isn't included in the 4K? Surely it can't include rent, otherwise my budget's blown!

Many thanks

I think Nyk put down the general rules in the first post. Not included are rent/mortgage, council tax, debt payments, work related spendings etc. But everyone does it slightly different.

Marru

Good morning everyone

DD is back in full health but I felt I needed a day off to recover from all the excitement of last week (and I do still have a cold ) and have been sleeping all day after dropping DD off to nursery. Anyway, upwards and onwards for me after my refreshing nap or [strike]several[/strike] couple of hours.

Just need to go and post couple of books I have sold :T and then to walk the dogs. I simply can't wait for new year to start, the sooner this one is over the better as it hasn't exactly been the best in the series of years. And next year it will be my big 4 oh so good time to have a bit of a ponder of directions and priorities.

I loved Enid Blyton books and the adventure series was my favourite. Obviously I read them translated and I would love to read them now in original language.

Not a NSD I am afraid as need to pop into the shop later, will try to keep it to the minimum thou.

Better make a move before it gets too dark to roam around fields...

Hope you all have had a fantastic day!

Marru

Frugaldom

I cannot believe you lot managed to cram in 5 pages of posts since I checked in here yesterday. :eek: Nor can I believe that we have only 16 days until we reach a brand new year! :eek:

Grandma247, GlendaM and Masomnia have all been added to my list, so I can officially welcome you all on board the good ship Frugalpop! We all hope you enjoy your impending year-long journey to Frugaldom and beyond! :rotfl:

Janey, I am delighted to see you in such fine fettle, keeping up frugal morale (frorale?) in my absense. Well done and thanks for that! :T

Once again, for anyone who hasn't had the time to read much of this forum, the budget is about the cost of living - if you can survive without it, technically it shouldn't be counted. However, there have been many, many variations introduced by many, many people, according to their individual lifestyles, so I will not be including the amounts in the 2009 challenger list when it goes up on Thursday, we'll just be recording total spends periodically throughout 2009.

HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY Skint Lynne! :beer: I had gone before you posted, so I missed all the celebrations.

Don't worry if you seem to 'blow your budget'. I have been doing this challenge for a couple of years now and it is ONLY by doing the challenge that I have afforded to be able to 'blow my budget'. This Christmas is the 3rd Christmas on a recorded daily spends challenge but it's also the third house I have been in, as I have had to move for each of the past 3! :rolleyes: I am keeping everything crossed that I can stay in this house indefinitely.

For the purposes of the 2008 '4k challenge', I have spent £3,911 (so far) in 2008, but my overall spending has amounted to £4,399.78 if I incorporate the costs involved in moving house (again!). I've earned/won/cashed back £1,165.55 of extra money (so far), so the balance of my spending is at £3,234.23 for everything, if you see what I mean. In theory, I should have £765.77 + interest in a savings pot somewhere. :eek: That's got me thinking... off to count it up! Back soon.

Back again! I actually have £786! It's tucked safely away in my 'quit smoking' bank and my 'interest beater' bank.

sophiesmum_2

:j Well done nyk, that's quite an achievement. :T Hopefully this house will prove more frugal to run and will help lower your expenditure even more for 2009:D

Just fed OH and DD the last of the stilton and broccoli soup, HM seeded bread and the last of the trifle for tea - another cheap tea:) They both have the lurgy now and feeling awful, hope I don't get it I have much too much to do at work next few weeks can't afford to be ill. i've sent them to their beds out the way.
Mentioned earlier that I would have to pop out for paracetamols for them and got inundated with boxes of the flippin things from oldies,now have about 5/6 boxes of 100,no wonder the nhs is in a bad way.Still won't have to buy any now.

JennyBee_2

cw18 wrote: »

Look after the Chalet School ones..... I listed some tatty copies (creased spines, marked covers, names written in them -- and crossed out) on eB*y some years ago (probably around 1997) -- and some of the titles went for really silly prices. Started them off at something like 5p, and I think the dearest went for just over £80 :eek:

dear god, some people have too much money!!! I have to say that I was going to get the malory towers audio books but I am rebelling against the awful covers that they seem to have put on the new versions.

I always wanted to go to a boarding school and have midnight feasts and I would have killed to have played lacrosse!!! (actually, I probably would have killed someone so best I never got the chance!!!)

dND

:bdaycake:Happy Belated Birthday to Skint Lynne from me too:bdaycake:

JennyBee_2

Thanks for the amazon £2.50 code link. I just got mine!

Frugaldom

Thanks Sophiesmum, I'm quite impressed myself, as I managed to fill my 2008/9 ISA allowance from day 1 and now have the 2009/10 limit 'stoozed' into my high interest account. I haven't decided whether to continue with my CC shuffle next year. What with interest rates dropping so low and transfer rates reaching 3%, we practically need a guaranteed 4% interest for the full year just to break even after tax. It makes me wonder if it's worth my while doing, for the sake of an extra £100 per year... except I then think of what that £100 could pay, when it's completely free money! :rolleyes: I wonder what the Interest Beater amount will be for us next tax year? :rotfl: It certainly doesn't look like being 6.5% :rolleyes: