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

Frugaldom

Hellooooo.... I've caught up again, everyone seems busy and not too many posts. Fire's kindled here but the sun has been shining today, so it's much milder. HS is back outside playing with bits of wood and DS has arrived home from work, finished early for the Christmas hols. The turkey had completely defrosted, so I now have that in the oven roasting slowly and the giblets in the slow cooker for stick. DS has brought in half a dozen mince pies, so that's that problem solved! They looked like costly thinks to home bake, especially with no brandy or brown sugar in stock.

I emailed the food people about the state of the box, explained that it looked like the carrier was at fault but I won't be taking up any complaints as they did get the order to me before Christmas and the contents of the box will have saved me a small fortune from next year's budget. So what if fat cat gets fed soup for a while, I have enough beans and chilli in the freezer to last us months! :rotfl:

Off to look out my 'wish book' now, to see what's all been achieved in 2008 and start on my new list for 2009

Marru

Thank goodness for Bails,

I am now in really calm and good mood after spending some nice time with Bails. We raided the local charity shops and I got loads of videos for DD to watch over xmas and some treats for myself (Lord of the Dance ) Then we hit the woolies and got absolute bargains from there. But we were very good at only buying what we need and will use.

Off to clean my ratties and give them a bit of a run around before fetching DD home. No school work done I am afraid so I will need to deal with consequenses come next year.

Have a great evening what ever you are doing!

Marru

bails

Happy birthday Mrs Mc, sorry I forgot earlier!
Nk, also forgot to say that my box arrived fine but my kidney beans were all dented anyway so guess they were all like that?
We had a lovely time this afternoon, talking about plans for next year over lunch in a cafe (well, it is Christmas!:D) and Marru's offered to make me a spreadsheet:TIt's her favourite hobby! We did indeed get some bargains and I did really need all that stationery for my business. Actually I just needed stationery :rotfl:

Off to pack for Birghton now, enjoy your new toys Nyk. Thanks for all the mortgage advice so far, much appreciated and will mull it over. Can I just doublecheck that if I make overpayments on interest only (which I think I can) it does come off the lump sum right?

Hope to pop on before Christmas, will just depend if I can get access to one of the computer rooms at the outlaws as lots of people staying. Just in case I can't -

HAPPY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE! _party_:xmassign::kisses3:

skint_chick

bails - any overpayments come straight off your capital - some lenders let you set up regular fixed overpayments so it's taken with your regular dd each month and you don't have to think about it - an extra £20/30 etc- whatever you want to pay. i pay a fixed amount of £750 on my mortgage unless the minimum payment goes above that.

Check your terms and conditions to see how your interest is calculated- if it's daily overpayments come off straight away, monthly at the end of the month so make your extra payment a few days before the end of the month. If it's annual interest then stick the money in savings til the end of the year as it won't come off your capital til then you may as well earn interest in the meantime.

If your rental income is going to be more than your current mortgage payment then I would def consider putting the extra into savings because of tax. You can also include your landlord's insurance when you're working out tax liability - it's usually £8-15 month depending on type/age of house - and wear and tear - usually 10% of rental income. And any agent's fees if you use one.

If you go abroad will you have any other income in the UK? There might not be a prob with having to pay tax but why pay more than you have to! Hope this makes sense and your head isn't spinning now

sophiesmum_2

Evening frunchkins:D
Another oldies party afternoon/meal out the way, cw arrived and is lovely and chatty. Awkward for me to have a proper chat whilst working but hopefully my oldies haven't frightened her off and she will come back tomorrow;) I did warn them to be on their best behaviour but one or two were a bit naughty.
last day of events tomorrow then I will be having a whole week off work:j :j :j

cw18

Nah, they've not frightened me off.....

And I feel much better for being out of the house and in a totally new environment too

Looking forward to tomorrow -- but will be allowing extra time for the journey, even though I don't have any errands to do before hand that could delay my setting off !!!

lyndasharp

My car made a horrible rattling noise when I started her up on my way home from work this evening. :eek:

Good news though, the classic car restorer down the road was still open and put a new exhaust bracket on in half an hour. Plus he only charged me £5 :beer:

No news from home about my Nan, so I'm assuming everything went OK otherwise I'd have had a call by now.

Frugaldom

Bails, have a great time at the outlaws!

I've been searching the supermarket comparison website and cannot find any savers washing up liquid. I think I may end up having to stockpile that next time I'm on holiday visiting parents, as they live near several supermarkets. In the meantime, I'll continue searching.

My new firebricks seem to be working exceedingly well! I have a single back brick and a pair of side bricks in there now and the result is that more of the heat from the logs is being forced out into the room rather than straight up the chimney. The livingroom door is open and it's now 19C in the hall, so it must have topped 20C in here! It makes such a difference from having to switch on extra electric heaters the way we had to in the previous house! :j Still costs a fortune to heat a house nowadays, though, no getting away from that fact.

Lynda, hope your nan's op went ok, let us all know how things went.

cha97michelle

Nyk those temperatures must feel positively boiling after the 12 degrees in the previous house. I tend to have our thermostat set at 19 or 20, but as neither of the boys like wearing socks or jumpers, i have to do it really, especially as DS1 just strips off. It is 16 degrees usually though in the babies bedroom, and i love putting him to bed in his £3 fleecey all in one suit from primark, and then in his grobag. I agree it is warmer though, as DS2 had me up at just after 5am today, so i got up with my dressing gown to put on, as it was before the heating comes on, but i didn't need it and i only had thin PJs on.

lynda i hope all has gone well with your nan. Those stent ops are fairly common place nowadays and not too intrusive, so hopefully now she will make a good recovery. They can reblock though after another period of time, so it is really important for a good diet. I'm sure the hospital will give her good advice on that.

well today was a non-frugal but efficient day. We had DS1 at nursery for the morning, and we managed to get to Mr Ms, get our £20 off voucher and purchase the shopping. I managed to slip another bottle of baileys into my basket unfortunately, but it was £10 rather than £14 so i am learning.

We then got DS1 from nursery at 1pm, i quickly popped to my mums shop to pick up some colouring book pressies for DH's cousins kids as we are having a meal with them over xmas at MILs, my logic is they are cheap (£1.25 for a small colouring book and character crayons) but look more expensive, so i can say it is a just cause gift if no pressies for our boys, but not look too tight if there are pressies for our boys and we haven't bought any.

We've also managed to pay some small change into the bank to ease the January money blues, and get our cars booked in for MOTs in January, which reminds me i must write on the calendar.

I am about to tackle some ironing and watch some bits off the digi box with DH once he finishes cutting his hair, but not much else this evening.

bails your question about PT work and kids. I worked 80% when i returned to work after having DS1 and found it extremely hard, although i don't know if this is entirely normal as i was already pregnant again and ill with it. I will be going back this time in March on a 60% timetable and i hope that will seem easier. It is a tricky balance working and being a parent. I will be paying £52 a day childcare for my 2, and this is cheap-ish compared to some areas, i want to spend lots of time with the boys, but also try to have some life myself. I can't imagine me being at home forever hence the need to go back to work.

I was off work ill for 5 months before i was pregnant with DS1, and they were about to start looking into ME/CFS until they decided i was just depressed. I don't think to be honest i just had/have depression, and think there are aspects of CFS there. Teaching is a horrendous job for me to choose to do in these circumstances but i do love it. I think i will have to have extremely good systems in place to help me cope when i go back to work, as i know my energy levels can't stay steady, and i know i want the boys to go first.

I know i am rambling, but i guess, i feel that with health concerns, you may find it tricky to work PT and do childcare, even with lots of help from DH and parents. You might prefer to do one FT. I know DH's say they will help, and mine is brill, but honestly, i do the majority and i am the only one who ever notices that things need doing or have an awareness of the bigger picture. We had a discussion last night and he agreed i am the director who knows where we are going, and he will work at it and get things done when he knows what the big picture is. So if i am watching kids, i also cook/clean house/wash clothes, he will feed the kids jam sarnies and watch cbeebies all day. I really hope you see what i mean from this and someone else also gives you some ideas. I wouldn't be without DH or the boys though. I wish i could be at home FT and not about to go bankrupt.

Right, going to shut up now and get back to all that ironing and stop procrastinating. xx

andromache_2

Brighton_belle wrote: »

I'm looking for pointers/advice. OH & I haven't been away for yonks so I never 'take in' deals such as andromache has just mentioned. However, we have decided to go away in Jan - basically my Honorary neice said on the phone yesterday(8) she didn't mind whether she had a present from me for xmas, she was just really upset she hadn't seen me for so long( :(3 yrs) This has made me determined to visit her and little bro: I've had to realise I'm never going to be 'well enough' and I'm relatively not too bad at the mo and I just need to do it. Astonishly, OH has decided he wants to come too, so we need to book a B&B for 1 or 2 nights in Weston-super-mare in Jan mid week. Any suggestions form you travellers on how to bargain hunt?

Definitely look out for offers on this site! There was one for hotelclub a while ago which gave you a $49 dollar discount off any room through its site - I used that to get a room in London for £6.39, full English breakfast included I had thought that I had signed up to it with a spare e-mail address but that seems to have expired or something so I can't offer it to you, sorry :rolleyes: Other than that all I could suggest would be staying with friends (easy for me as I have friends at uni all over the country!) or obviously trying this site again... http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/travel/cheap-hotels#sameroom - some good ideas there. Hope you manage to find something, it sounds like a great plan and I'm sure she'll appreciate it I guess you should be checking out coaches and trains around now too in case there are any bargain advance fares available!