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

Skint_Lynne

Evening all,

Not much to report, another night of cleaning and I have stew in the slow. II'll probably get things finished off by tomorrow night now, all downstairs is sorted. Then I'll move upstairs and then finally, get the christmas tree up. I've not written a card yet, hopefully I can fit that in somewhere between tomorrow and Thursday.

Not long until the challenge starts for real, I am so excited!!!

looby-loo_2

sophiesmum wrote: »

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 !!!!

That looks good. I bought the Kenwood Multi-Pro Compact when it was half price from Argos in the summer. Really pleased with it for less than £30 but except that it came with a drawer full of attachments that I will never use, but wont throw away either. I sold the recipe book on Ebay for £4.70 too!

Welcome all the newcomers - I have yet to set my realistic budget but I am going to do it just for me. I direct debit DH £150 a month now he is retired but the rest up to me. He does not do 'MSE' in any style, shape or form and I don't think he will ever learn so I just wont worry about it. I've decided I wont let what I can't change bug me.

Making space in the freezer campaign - today had a 'take-away' of chicken korma, rice and nan bread, all saved from earlier. Served with dark green cabbage leaves - our favourite!
Tommorow - a collection of 5 fish bits in a frozen pastry pie will make quite a space for Christmas stuff.

I also 'double glazed' the bay window last night with window film. DH and DD din't notice it is so clear. I turned the radiator down 1/2 a number and just noticed it is still on the same setting. Normally it gets turned back up as soon as I go to work! ps - the film from B&Q in the purple packet is 10x easier to use than the Wilko version.

Who said potatoes? I'm growing more next year too.

sophiesmum_2

Good morning frunchkins:D

Off to manager's meeting in a minute, will also be our xmas lunch afterwards which is not usually very festive as we ll have to drive from all over the North West so no one can have a drink at all and then we have to rush off to try and beat the rush hour traffic. It's a bit of pain really, I get to hand deliver xmas cards to colleagues though so at least that bit is dfw and the petrol is covered on expenses.We used to get vouchers for xmas now we get this meal :rolleyes:

Tonight is hot pot supper quiz night with oldies so won't be eating at home all day, and DD and OH still got the lurgy so no one wants feeding much just lots of drinks.:eek: Very frugal day foodwise:p

Have a great day everyone:D

thriftylass

Raychee wrote: »

Hi,

I'd like to join in, starting in 2009.

I'm going to set my budget at £4500 for the year. This only covers my half of things - groceries, phone bills, some fuel bills, presents, car, and a few other bits and pieces. My partner pays the mortgage, council tax etc. It sort of works out...

£1300 - Groceries
£60 - haircuts
£1080 - Petrol (I need my car for work - there's no choice there)
£138 - TV license
£204 - phone
£40 - mobile (no choice - 18 month contract.. can't change tarif for a while)
£200 - birthdays
Plus bills, car tax, mot, insurances etc

Crikey! I think it may be possible...

Raychee

Welcome Raychee, you and I are in the same boat, I also just do it for my half because me and my BF split the bills similarly.

bails

Hi SM, sorry had to dash off yesterday but wanted to say thanks for the great spot in Mr Ms :T It's a shame I didn't see your post earlier as I literally drove by the door in the afternoon :rolleyes: Can I just check, do you remember if they were lower case letters? Thanks so much, I hope my M0rrisions has some!

Off to catch up now...

Welcome more new people, woo hoo! :T I'm sorry I'm hopeless with names (I barely know my own some days :rotfl:) but I will remember them eventually Welcome to the frugal gang!
Nyk, my Approved order has been dispatched and I also got the Ebay voucher, thanks for the heads up! Now, I must not go looking for things to buy with it until this evening *scurries off to close Ebay window sharpish...well, maybe a quick peek...:p*
Organised? :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl: I so wish!!
Have a great day everyone, work beckons (ooh, I do love saying that :j)

andromache_2

bails wrote: »

Andromache - respect to you :T What a helpful and informative post, I'm glad you didn't PM it. You are indeed one switched-on woman when it comes to your finances and studies, and you still leave room in your budget for travelling - what's not to like? Any thoughts on next year's trip? A couple of my friends just got back from Argentina (one of my (many) dream destinations) and it looked awesome! South America is more expensive than SE Asia of course...
Speaking of dreams, my Dream Pot is over the £200 mark now - 1% of the way there :j :rotfl:

aawww, thanks bails, that's really nice of you to say so I actually spent a few hours yesterday helping my brother to go through his finances and make a budget as he's a first-year and is worried that he's spending too much (he's right!) so my switched-on-ness is helping others at least :cool: I need to have a chat with OH about what he wants to do this summer; so far it's been tied down to 'something fun' My dad went to Argentina last summer for work and it sounded lovely - I'm trying to learn a bit of conversational Spanish as well so it would be good to practise! Some other friends went to Peru, Machu Picchu etc, and they had an amazing time too, so I'm really tempted by the S America idea... that has to be booked really far in advance, of course. I won't have as much time this summer as I need to do some work experience in order to figure out what branch of the legal profession I want to go into, but I should still have at least 5/6 weeks which is ample for an adventure of some sort! I still have money left over from last year as well as extra earnings and scholarship money so I have over £1000 already... Watch this space

I love the sound of a 'Dream Pot', it reminds me of the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, sounds quite magical... even if in reality it's just an empty jamjar or something like that :rotfl: You must be getting so excited about going to India! Especially now you can mark all the places you want to visit on your snazzy map after Christmas :cool:

OH is coming home today :T so I will be spending on a travelcard so I can meet him at the station and help with his bags. Can't wait as we haven't seen each other for almost 3 weeks I don't know how you manage being without your DH for so long at a time, Skint Lynne - bet you must be so excited to be having him home :j

Frugaldom

Oooooooooooh.... hello! Isn't it exciting?! :j 1 week until Christmas, 2 weeks until New Year and then the new challenge begins! I have started working on the new thread but not posted it yet as I had extra work arrived late last night that needs doing before I do anything else, plus post to go out before lunchtime, as it's half day. No deliveries or collections here yet, though! :rolleyes:

Hope you all have a great day - did everyone see the iTunes vouchers offer in Martin's newsletter - today only in Morrisons, buy 2 x £15 vouchers for £20! Great offer, if anyone's getting an iPod from Santa.

Catch up with everyone later, going to see what postie has for me.

NEW THREAD FOR 2009 CHALLENGE STARTING LATER TODAY!

bails

You're very welcome Andromache, I think it's important to say nice things rather than just think them; there's far too much negative stuff around already Oooh, I'll be so jealous and excited for you if you make it to South America! It's been top of my list since I was 19 (which begs the question, why have I still not been there? ). I guess the answer is my plans get thwarted every time I try - my round the world trip has been postponed several times (mostly due to men :rolleyes: and their money issues :rolleyes:) and when I was finally signed up to lead an expedition to Peru, I had to pull out when I got ill. Sigh. And then my brother even beat me to it by jacking in work and going pretty much everywhere!! Oh well, my time will come, I'm sure of that And 6months in India aint exactly shabby :j
I love the way you describe my Dream Pot, I'd never thought of it like that but I will do from now on! :T It's actually a virtual pot at the mo, just a bank account I'm trickling money secretly into. I'm already excited about it, even though there's only 1% in there so far :j
I'm also getting really excited about the new challenge, the enthusiasm on here is infectious!
That is a great offer Nyk, I just can't think of anyone to get them for We both have ipods but don't download music - maybe we should start...:rotfl:

Have a great day everyone, I really am going now and enjoy seeing OH Andromache. I missed OH and he was only away 4 days so I really don't know how SL does it either xx

:j BRING ON THE NEW THREAD! :j

MRSMCAWBER

Morning all

Ohhhhh exciting "Its nearly here" -the new thread that is -not xmas :rotfl:
So my final thought *for now*:o is a limit of €2400

1. €140 x 12 for groceries = €1680
2. €25 x 12 for gifts = €300 .... Mainly for hubbies golf club..can't make that myself -b*gger
3. €10 x 12 for garden bits n bobs =€120-hopefully just more compost
4. €25 x 12 misc =€300 -just in case anything crops up(pinkies crossed I won't need it)

So there is my €2400 budget :eek: ... but [strike]if[/strike] sorry WHEN I stick to that it will allow me to bank €3000 :j

On the partners being away from home -Im sooooo glad that hubby doesn't get sent on tours anymore.. 4 months was the longest he has been away since we got married :eek: glad to see the back of that.. now he is off for xmas for 1 month so I have to encourage him to play more golf :rotfl:

Right I will get off and look forward to the new thread starting :T

cw18

Just phoned about my car insurance budget account -- all settled up, and saved myself £4.68 compared to leaving it on monthly payment, which is equivalent to earning 3.95% interest on what I've just paid between now and 1st May (when the last payment would have gone out) :T

As the chances of earning that kind of interest are pretty remote, I'm really pleased to have taken this off my budget for next year