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

Penny2myName

Just been reshuffling all my incomes around in my head, and have decided to use my A&L account for the purpose of this challenge. I already have all my utilities coming out of it.
My main Halifax account will carry on being for my debts alone (and has most of my income going into it). My basic Halifax account I have set up as a treat/school holidays fund, to get £5 a week into it, then during school holidays I can take the kids on days out so is not part of this challenge.

£135.15 Balance 1st January
£100.00 Maintenance 1st
£185.60 Child Benefit 6th
£421.75
Normal monthly income is
£100.00 Maintenance
£185.60 Child Benefit
£285.60 Total
£22.09 from initial balance for first 6 months

Each month I have £307.69

Utility DD's £176.25
Household Insurance - £11.84
Internet access - £17.00
TV License - £11.61
Telephone - £25.00
Gas - £45.00
Electricity - £32.00
Water - £33.80

Leaving £131.44 for

Groceries - £0
Everything else - £0
Travel - £0
Wildlife Membership - £0
Mobile phone - £0
Cleaning - £0
Avon- £0 Money neutral
Gifts - £33.40 Money neutral

Toilettries -£108.96 Already been deducted from £4k and covers 5x £22.09 for last 5 months. Just need to make a profit of £23 from avon to bring my total income for A&L to £4k for overall year balance (including the £108.96 already spent)
No clothes/footwear are being added as I am doing a challenge not to buy any new for 365days in 2009

findingmyfeet

shame you arent near me JANEY51- my lot drink enough milk to sink the titanic - we use over 15 litres a week! All goes on cereals/coffees and kids milk shakes etc. Need to find a way of cutting that down for starters.
Someone mentioned uht milk a day or two ago. Here i am paying 74p a litre for ss milk - is there anywhere cheaper?

Hubby asked me what i was doing last night fiddlig around with all the bills and receipts i could find. Explained itwas to find out what we spent on this and that- His eyes rolled to the ceiling in a ' here she goes again ' type expression!!! Then he said he agreed with what im trying to do and would help with what he could. Later he came back saying that apart from his petrol could i just give him pocket money every week so that he knew exactly what he could spend without interfering with my budget. At first i thought whimp and cop out, but then i thought it sweet as he probably 'Scared' i might get upset if he gets it wrong. ( i must be an ogre!) Does anyone else do this ?

off to work but willl pop back later
bye

lyndasharp

I'm really excited about the new thread, and a whole new year for the challenge! Woohoo!I'm being as frugal as I can this month, but it's still going to be a fairly high spend thanks to the £127 on car insurance. Still, all my Christmas shopping is now done and I think the only groceries I'll need for the rest of the month is a bit of milk and fruit. I should still manage to come in under budget though!Andromache, enjoy seeing your OH. I'm not seeing Bf midweek this week as he is extremely allergic to the cat in my new house, I'm finding it very difficult just having the 5 days apart!</p>
Help, odd things have happened to the new paragraphs!

cw18

Penny2myName wrote: »

Leaving £131.44 for

Groceries - £0
Everything else - £0
Travel - £0
Wildlife Membership - £0
Mobile phone - £0
Cleaning - £0

Had to chuckle when I read this -- looks like a 12 month housework ban/strike and a starvation diet is the order of the [STRIKE]day[/STRIKE]year :rotfl:

cw18

findingmyfeet wrote: »

Later he came back saying that apart from his petrol could i just give him pocket money every week so that he knew exactly what he could spend without interfering with my budget. At first i thought whimp and cop out, but then i thought it sweet as he probably 'Scared' i might get upset if he gets it wrong. ( i must be an ogre!) Does anyone else do this ?

We always had our pay cheques go into our own bank accounts, then DH passed me a fixed/agreed sum each week. What he had left was then his. He then paid his own car expenses such as insurance, service, mot, road tax and petrol from it - and what was left was his for fags, papers, booze, presents for me. But he used to cough up if the house needed work (rather than me just wanting something doing), and also provided a good wedge of spending money if we went away anywhere.

I had all the bills going out of my bank account, then paid for all the food shopping, all the present shopping, and for the holiday(s) themselves -- plus running my own car and paying for childcare (until the youngest started school in 1995!)

So in a way I guess we operated on DH having "spending money" rather than control of the household budget

SiannieLaz

Mornin All,
Just trying to tweak my budget for the impending challenge!! Wondered if any of you have an example spreadsheet I could have a look at? I've been trying to set one up but am not doing very well and keep confusing myself!! Any help much appreciated
XX

cw18

As a spreadsheet addict, I'm almost ashamed that setting my budget is the one thing I haven't used a spreadsheet for -- just a calcutor (albeit the one on the computer ) and a Word document, as this means it's easier to copy and paste into a post on here

HH62

Hello everyone

I'm trying to get myself sorted for my challenge.
I've decided (hope this isn't cheating!) that anything I spend now, even if it comes up on my CC bill in January, won't count on my challenge. I'm literally starting with every penny I spend from January 1st.
Second, I'm trying to get some ideas for building up my store cupboard. At the mo it contains some random things but not good basics! So I'll try to catch up on the OS board for tips.
Third, I got a little piggy bank for my £2 coins. Just hope they fit in the slot..lol. Not been able to check yet as I don't get many of them.

I live alone so I can't blame anyone else for any of my spending. It's all down to me. I'm a bit scared of the challenge, but I'm excited too, if that makes sense.
Any advice would be gratefully received!

cw18

HH62 wrote: »

I'm a bit scared of the challenge, but I'm excited too, if that makes sense.

Yep, me too......

HH62 wrote: »

Any advice would be gratefully received!

My main thing has to be realistic with my budgets..... the main one being my grocery one.

Initially I was allowing £1440 for the year, which allowed £100/month for food for me and my younger son, £120 for cleaning and hygiene over the year, £80 for meals I'll be providing for my GDs until the start of the school summer holidays, and £40 for extras when elder DS is home on leave.

The more I looked at it the more I didn't like my chances of keeping within this, so I've now changed it to £1314 for food for me and DS (£1.80 each a day), £73 for cleaning and hygiene, £84.10 for food for my GDs, and £50.40 for elder DS's visits home -- making for a revised budget of £1521.50

My overall budget total for the year has remained unchanged though......

This means my 'anything else' budget is looking pretty sick as it's had to "hand over" £81.50, but I reckon I should be able to come in under budget on the higher grocery figure (meaning I can move some back to 'anything else'), whereas blowing the lower figure would have left me feeling a dismal failure :eek:

HH62

cw18 wrote: »

Yep, me too......

My main thing has to be realistic with my budgets..... the main one being my grocery one.

..

whereas blowing the lower figure would have left me feeling a dismal failure :eek:

Absolutely makes sense. I think I've underestimated on some areas of my budget so will have to cut back in others because I don't want to feel like a failure either.

I've got a lot of stuff stocked up (I tend to hoard cleaning products for some reason :eek:), and need to see what I'm likely to run out of.

Things I think I have 'plenty' of are household cleaners, clothes, make up and toiletries. These are all items I spend far too much on and buy too much of. I call it 'stocking up for emergencies' but in reality it's hoarding :rotfl::rotfl:Is the world really going to end if I run out of mascara ?? :rolleyes:
I'm going to spend some time this afternoon putting all my cleaning products together in a plastic crate in the garage, sort out all my make up and toiletries and sort my clothes out too. I'm going to make a list of what I've got. Hopefully I won't need to buy any of these items before May.

Right, better make a start! Moved house recently and the place is still a tip....