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

HH62

I'd like to join in this challenge next year too please. As my income is likely to fluctuate a lot next year I'm just working on the first quarter, Jan - Apr inclusive at the moment.

My budget is £600 a month, or £2400 for the four months. That may sound a lot but it will include

Council Tax
Water
Gas
Elec
Petrol
Other car costs
Food
Insurance - car, buildings/contents
Everything else

It's basically a case of £600 a month to cover everything (no rent/mortgage).

Thanks for letting me join in !

Frugaldom

Latest challenger list has been updated to reflect arrival of HH, welcome on board

I've just been looking at savings and am annoyed to see my ISA interest has dropped below 4% whilst inflation, on the other hand, is now 4.5%. :mad: It could even be higher than that, new figures due out tomorrow. Does anyone know of an ISA that guarantees to keep ahead of inflation rates?

cw18

nykmedia wrote: »

I've just been looking at savings and am annoyed to see my ISA interest has dropped below 4%.....

The only one I've ever used (not putting anything in yet this year) is currently at 1.75% if you have a current account with them, and 1.0% if you don't :eek:

When I originally took mine out (2000-01 tax year) it was a competitive rate as well :mad:

Marru

Heeeeeelp...

...this is the situation: I need to earn £3,650.- to cover the living costs for next year. I should also need to earn extra £1,996.71 that my "all the others" budget is in deficit. Except this I hope is sorted by having overestimted child care and petrol costs and also by getting tax rebate next year from tax year 07-08. But I got an email about this course that is held over two weekends in spring and I really, really, really want to take it!!!! Even if I could manage to get someone to look after DD, someone else to look after The Dog and someone else to look after all my other animals the problem is that it is going to cost £925.- (but this includes accommodation, all meals, spa when not on the course...) How can I make £925.- plus petrol to get there to be able to go for this course???sighs....

Frugaldom

Marru, is this new course like a once in a lifetime opportunity? If not, then perhaps it might be best to get your health, current course and other more immediate worries resolved rather than putting yourself under even more pressure to find almost another £1000 over and above everything else extra you are trying to do. DD needs her mum fit and healthy, she doesn't mind if you're rich or poor, or how many courses you study. Only other thing I can think of is to make sure that you really do need to do the course and then contact them to find out if they offer a scheme for paying it up but, again, I don't know where you'd find the extra £120 per month (petrol included, hopefully). It's a huge amount of money to me, I'm afraid. Other than that, I haven't got a clue what you could do that wouldn't impair your health further. Sorry, I'm no help.

cw18 - I always thought that the Bank of England took the rate of inflation into account when determining the interest rates. Now I am losing all faith in the financial institutes and think we really would be better off saving cash under the mattress and only spending wisely, as many people already do. The thing I fear most about this scenario, though, isn't the prospect of being burgled, it's the prospect of UK joining the Euro and rendering our pounds useless within the United States of Europe!

Egg Money is still offering 4% and HiSave is still offering 4.5%. As of 4th December, my business account has dropped to 0% but still charges ridiculous transaction fees and astronomical overdraft fees, which I avoid like the plague, so I am at a complete loss as to where, when or why. I appreciate that any interest is free money and don't even mind paying the tax on it, but 0% AND transaction fees is a huge joke! I have a feeling that the final week of 2008 will be spend switching money about so it's worth saving.

Edited in - Forgot to mention these 2 points when asked, sorry.

I liked the Enid Blyton books but was more of a Miss Marple or horse & pony stories person, although I did have many of the Famous Five paperbacks and remember Mallory Towers. My 'I'm all growed up now' frugal book collection comprises all of Martin's books plus several others of similar vein, entrepreneurial type stuff, autobiographies, biographies, how to's plus my signed book collection - everything from Percy Thrower to Duncan Bannatyne

My collection of money banks ranges from my homemade wooden brick for the housefund to the odd assortment of pigs, ponies and papier mache animals that are scattered throughout the house. I even have a chicken, like the mother had on the TV series, 'Bread'. (Been looking at that on DVD, waiting for the right moment to snap up the complete series 1-3 boxset at an unmissable bargain price with cashback and free delivery, but haven't found a willing volunteer to pay for it for Christmas yet.)

Brighton_belle

Lots of newbies:j :j
Just signed up for the isubscribe 12 Radio Times's for £1 - what a great start to the 2009 challenge:D . Thanks for giving me the confidence to go for it SM.
I've been very productive today: Bulk cooked 14 lentil/feta lunch portions now in freezer. Prepped tomorrow dinner ready for sc in the morning. And finally got down to making some xmas pressies with the 'stone poetry kit' I picked up unused in a charity shop (made by the same people as magnetic poetry but this is making (coloured)concrete poetry bricks (for the garden)so been mixing concrete this afternoon and creating words with the 'alphbet' bit of kit they supply. After xmas Ill do some for my own garden.
My money pots are beach huts I was given a few years ago. One for £2 coins and one coppers.
Need to do a practice run making a trifle tomorrow as I have never made one before and I need to make one at xmas as my contribution to the grub at parents.

sophiesmum_2

Shaz - asda hve apple tango on offer this week, 2 x 8 packs for £3.00. I picked some up on Sunday to keep in for DD for college. Bargain at less than 19p each:D

BB- :T frugal bargain with the rdio times subscription. I have dropped hints about mag subscriptions for xmas as mine are due to finish this month.
You will be fine with trifle it is foolproof:D

Just finished clearing up after visit by guides for xmas play etc. I was very good and refused birthday cake(one of my oldies is 92 today).quality street, and mince pies:A as Mr T says every little helps;)
Whitewing - hope you are making progress, missing your posts, but hope you are lurking not far away.

the_cat

Hi everyone

Wow, lots of posts today!!! Have caught up reading them all but can't really remember who said what - so hugs to all in need.

Spent early today getting my free £20 shopping in Morrisons including a few more bits for the storecupboard. Finally managed to get some passatta after about a month of no stocks but like loads of other basic/value items it has shot up in price. Seems the supermarkets are playing us for idiots :mad:
Haha, I'm going to enjoy NOT shopping in January and using my stockpiled food even more knowing that! With all the money off offers that have been floating around I should think a lot more people will have a store to eat from next month. Just hope that doesn't mean they put the prices up AGAIN

Will be busy tomorrow as I am helping cook a 3 course evening meal for 30 men. They pay per head for the privilege and we provide the labour for free - all in aid of a cancer charity:T

Right off for early night/hot bath - bliss

Frugaldom

Another question from me - I just found out that there's a new Morrison within a 50 mile round trip of here and have seen a few people mentioning free £20 worth of shopping - is this like a loyalty programme or is there something I should join so I don't miss out on any offers like this?

sophiesmum_2

nykmedia wrote: »

Another question from me - I just found out that there's a new Morrison within a 50 mile round trip of here and have seen a few people mentioning free £20 worth of shopping - is this like a loyalty programme or is there something I should join so I don't miss out on any offers like this?

This one was a one off, over last few weeks, 4 I think, you had to spend £40 a week and then you qualified for £20 voucher. They don't really have a loyalty programme except for petrol sales when you can earn vouchers to spend in store.
Within about 8 mile radius we have a massive Walmart supercentre (asda), Aldi, Lidl, Tesco extra, 2 Morrisons, Sainsburys, Costco,and Somerfield, so plenty of scope for bargains.