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

Marru

Hello,

It is Tuesday so I am shattered so not much to report from here.

You are all right about the course. It would be the ultimate treat thou and at the same time a life changing experience. Hey ho, if I am meant to go there something will come up. Thursday bingo, here I come...

Believe it or not but I am going to head to bed....night night...

sophiesmum_2

nykmedia wrote: »

When updating my budgets, some of you may have noticed that the amounts in my signature don't exactly add up to my total generated for cash neutrality. This is because I paid for DD's engagement party from my cashback savings, bought my greenhouse & garden items from my £2 coins savings (I still have £56 left) and have used more cashback and all the vouchers for frivolous spending and some extra gifts, hence two of the extra deliveries tomorrow. I'm just about to tot up what I have left of the cashback up to the point it started going into my £1000 in 100 days 'pot' and I fully intend to blow the balance before the year is out. This is my way of saying s*d the recession, I work hard to stick to my budget and I have paid all my bills, so it's the final fun fling! :rotfl:

Don't worry, I won't be touching the quit smoking money, the Interest Beater money or the £1000 in £100 days, it's all aimed at next year.

I feel a bit like that at the moment I really feel like having a splurge but can't think of anything to buy that I want and the frugal gene is becoming too deeply embedded to waste the money on stuff I don't really want. I may treat myself to some books from amazon, used to be my main downfall;) at least I could sell them on afterwards.

dND

After two and a half days I'm over half way through putting 6 months worth of receipts into my spending diary :eek: Hopefully this will convince me not to take a 'short' holiday from doing it again. Once it's all in the diary I'll update my spreadsheet and can make a guess at what I should be aiming at for 2009.

Going back through the receipts I can see I spent a small fortune on not very much, mainly when my son was here. With the pound-euro at parity now it's stopped feeling like play money.

Early night tonight I think so I can finish the receipts after the farm work tomorrow - plus I need ages to keep up with all the posts on this thread :rotfl:

Happy frugalising everyone :beer:

Janey51

findingmyfeet wrote: »

Not any good at this yet but i am realising that being frugal is about being ultra organised and well planned. Is this true or am i being daft ?

Us Organised You jest :rotfl: :eek: :rotfl:

If I am so organised...why have I got enough UHT milk to re-float the Titanic that needs to be drunk by Dec 31st:eek:
No room in the freezer.

A slight over calculation on my part

JennyBee_2

Hmm..am redoing my veggie plot plan to include more potatoes after reading in a magazine that due to some new legislation due in regarding pesticides etc, the average price of potatoes will go from about £1.60 for 2.5kg to £5.94 for 2.5kg by the end of 2009!!!!!!!

My spreadsheet for next year is all ready to go and I can't wait to get on with it! Is it sad that I'm excited about that?!!! Actually, don't answer that....

candygirl

Hi everyone:hello:
Right i've done a rough budget that comes in just over 4k, but will try and get my food n grocery bil down a bit, even though it does include all food, toiletries and dog food;)

Here goes:D

Gas n leccy= £780
House ins=£270 (building and contents, I got £50 cashback via Quidco)
Phones n net, includes landline, mobiles n net £ 648
Life ins= £132
Food, groceries and dog food=£1560
tv licence £150 (can't recall exactly how much they are:o )
Birthday pressies n xmas £350
Nights out=£120 (prob grossly underestimated, but I wont be able to go out much whilst on benefits)
clothes n shoes £300
hair dye n cuts £120
total =£4230
I also have a car, and all the expense this entails, but as it's not a necessity am not including it:D

Frugaldom

I'm with you, Janey - my organisational skills are practically non-existant. I can barely organise my words into sentences, let alone anything else! :rotfl:

I just found an email in my spam folder from fleaBay offering me 15% off ANYTHING (maximum discount £100 :eek: ) if I pay using PayPal. It expires on 19th. Did anyone else get this? Going to try it now, via cashback site. :cool: Will let you know the results.

I've done all my calculations and I have a grand total of £76.28 left of my cashback/sealed pot/£2 coins/spare cash savings pot without touching my Interest Beater or quit smoking savings, and that's after paying for the Approved Foods order from it. I may have a trip into town and stock up on more bargains but will need an inventory of next year's gifts soon at this rate! :rotfl:

Edited in later - Err, umm, dum dee dum.... the above-mentioned 15% discount worked! Suffice to say, I now have not a penny of my end of year 'blow out' money left, but I did get an absolute stonker of a bargain, as it was already half price with free delivery as a special Christmas offer and I went via my favourite (TCB) cashback site! :rotfl: I'm not saying what it is until it gets here, though.

sophiesmum_2

nykmedia wrote: »

I'm with you, Janey - my organisational skills are practically non-existant. I can barely organise my words into sentences, let alone anything else! :rotfl:

I just found an email in my spam folder from fleaBay offering me 15% off ANYTHING (maximum discount £100 :eek: ) if I pay using PayPal. It expires on 19th. Did anyone else get this? Going to try it now, via cashback site. :cool: Will let you know the results.

I've done all my calculations and I have a grand total of £76.28 left of my cashback/sealed pot/£2 coins/spare cash savings pot without touching my Interest Beater or quit smoking savings, and that's after paying for the Approved Foods order from it. I may have a trip into town and stock up on more bargains but will need an inventory of next year's gifts soon at this rate! :rotfl:

Edited in later - Err, umm, dum dee dum.... the above-mentioned 15% discount worked! Suffice to say, I now have not a penny of my end of year 'blow out' money left, but I did get an absolute stonker of a bargain, as it was already half price with free delivery as a special Christmas offer and I went via my favourite (TCB) cashback site! :rotfl: I'm not saying what it is until it gets here, though.

Nyk anyone who can keep track of all the finances in your sig, keep us rabble in check, run a business and a home, and grow veggies in their spare? time is organised in my book:T

sophiesmum_2

Right confession time - I have just ordered this:

http://www.lakeland.co.uk/F/product/12002

except i have ordered it from amazon for £117 plus free one day delivery through amazon prime which I WILL cancel before the end of the months trial. Friend has already claimed my old well used processor, so just a blender to rehome now to make room for it:rolleyes: :xmassign: Merry xmas to me !!!!
Pity everyone doesn't live close by as we could have set up our own FRUCYCLE group:rotfl:

Going to pay for it from balance of challenge money which I will adjust in a minute and stuff aunts money in the sealed pot. I know it would earn more interest in bank but its a bit of fun when it comes to opening up time, and my last sealed pot money is now in bank earning interest.
Spending urge now satisfied but OH will graon at another kitchen appliance coming into house, I will tell him it is decluttering strategy as two appliances will be leaving in it's place

Frugaldom

sophiesmum wrote: »

Nyk anyone who can keep track of all the finances in your sig, keep us rabble in check, run a business and a home, and grow veggies in their spare? time is organised in my book:T

:rotfl:You haven't seen the chaos that holds up the roof of my house! And the 'running a business' is now scaled right down to just being self-employed from home, so I can work whatever hours suit - like now! Just getting tomorrow's 'tasks' off the network and can have MSE open whilst doing so

My budget spreadsheets have everything in them (all non-business spends, not just this challenge) and I have set up different bank accounts for the ciggie money and the Interest beater. Cashback goes into my ordinary account, hence the reason I want to use stuff like that to neutralise the 4k spending, rather than have it as extra. I've blown the lot this year and previous years, rather than neutralise my spending, but I've had rather a lot of extras to pay (and my fun spends) :rotfl: I'll maybe post a breakdown of it all before the new challenge starts.

Well done with your budget candygirl!