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

Frugaldom

Grandma247, could you log your readings each week on www.i-measure.org and compare what you spend with what they estimate? I do that with my electricity even although I've now moved to a house that has a prepayment meter.

Penny, don't worry about the week dragging in, new year will be here soon enough and then it'll be all systems go (again) with the new challenge. I'm having a well-earned break this week, as I have spent so long, now, logging spends, cutting costs and saving whatever I could. I've settled on a no-spend-week and, instead, am slowly munching my way through 2 huge boxes of Th0rnt0n's chocolates and a box of rose & violet creams whilst catching up on film viewing and making the most of the dry weather to get into the garden whenever I can.

Whitewing, I truly hope that you can resolve whatever family problems are hanging over you at the moment. It's your first Christmas married and it's difficult enough keeping one set of relatives happy without trying to juggle 2 sets plus your own family unit. I decided just to keep quiet about suggesting anything for my DD and her fiance; they went to his folks for Christmas, despite this supposedly being his first Christmas away from home. :rolleyes: Hope that doesn't mean they are rexpecting New Year's dinner here! :eek: Hadn't thought of that, although I doubt it very much as I'm not renowned for my culinary skills. :rotfl:

Loupylou, we got our greenhouse cleared out today, too. Well, HS cleared it out, I just helped lay the groundsheets and move the pots. I have all my seeds at the ready, my planting diary made up, my kitchen window box in place and have ordered a few more seeds of things I didn't have. All set, ready for 2009. Just need to invest in some compost and grow bags, but still have £42 of £2 coins that I can allocate to that. It's a longterm investment that will reduce our carbon footprint by helping provide fresh produce without having to drive to a shop. Hopefully, the fresh produce will be longterm and save on the grocery money too.

CW, nice work with the B00ts items and points. I'll start reorganising my pressie 'stash' after new year, when I'll need to do some listing of the excess freebies I had stashed this year. :rotfl: I don't spend enough to warrant any other points cards, Tesc0 club card and Co-op are about as far as I go.

Sophiesmum, I used to sprout mung beans for feeding to my parrots, but they are also brilliant for stir frying with chopped veggies and soy sauce (the bean sprouts, not the parrots :rotfl: ). I would grow them again if I manage to find any mung beans about here, as they are really fast growing, easy to keep and cheap for bulking out any stir fry meal.

redglass_2

andromache wrote: »

I assume you've seen this entry on Martin's blog? He's said he'll keep it updated with new news.

Thanks Andromache, I did see the link but if you scroll down there's nothing added since October and I'm not sure whether that's an oversight or whether it means nothing has happened to ICICI since then - can that be possible? Think I'll hold on a bit longer and see what happens...

redglass_2

arrgh - forgot allotment rent....

Allotment rent 10.00
Gas & Electric 510.00
Logs, matches, kerosene lighters 140.00
Internet/phone 120.00
House insurance, building and contents 120.00
TV licence 150.00
Charities 88.00
Window Cleaner 120.00
Dentist 50.00
Mobile 40.00
Travel insurance 50.00
Specs and sunglasses 10.00
Seeds (wild guess) 10.00
Tiling (already booked, estimated labour) 150.00
Exercise class (a remedial one, for back problems) 240.00

Total 2508.00

Some of these look expensive but there are reasons, e.g. I will need new specs next year and as I have varifocals I can't buy them online. I also need prescription sunglasses for driving in bright weather (I get dazzled otherwise, can't see a bluddy thing!). Travel insurance is costly because of a pre-existing medical condition but if I don't go away this year I won't have to pay it….

If I stuck to £4k that would leave me £28 pw for groceries, clothes, toiletries, outings, presents and everything else. I know I would never stick to that, so I'm allowing myself £5k, which gives me £47 per week..

Not included:

Water rates
Anything car-related or computer-related (needed for work)
Accountant (ditto)
Magazine sub (ditto)
Work stationery (ditto)
Union membership (ditto)
Mortgage (paid off)
Council Tax
Haircuts and colouring. I've decided to treat this as a luxury. I used to use home colourant but I now have it done at the local college as my hair is getting elderly and 'difficult'.


Resolutions:

Eat lots of veggies
Get the allotment up and running
Get central heating in this house by December 2009….Brrr….

redglass_2

have just realised something else is wrong with the budget - specs and sunglasses are down as £10 - in my dreams!:rotfl: Ho hum, try again :rolleyes:
ahem...
Have now checked the figures (again) and am going for £5k which gives me £62 pw. Hope this is finally right as i seem to be falling at the first fence

Frugaldom

Redglass, apologies for forgetting to reply to this earlier. I have stuck with ICICI, for now, in the hope that it's still the highest interest available to me and easily accessed in time for the new ISA year. Have to admit, I did practically empty the account in a moment of panic, but then rationalised and decided that it was worth risking it for another 4 months worth of interest.

sophiesmum_2

nykmedia wrote: »

Sophiesmum, I used to sprout mung beans for feeding to my parrots, but they are also brilliant for stir frying with chopped veggies and soy sauce (the bean sprouts, not the parrots :rotfl: ). I would grow them again if I manage to find any mung beans about here, as they are really fast growing, easy to keep and cheap for bulking out any stir fry meal.

The ones I have got today are Daikon radish sprouting seeds, they should take about a week to grow to harvesting size. Going to start them off later. also picked up some mustard, some cress, and some mixed salad leaves all of which am going to get sown indoors now and make a start on adding to meals.
I also picked up a packet of lupin seeds - these are one of my mums favourites and she has not managed to grow them successfully in her garden yet for some reason. Hoping to get a couple of pots full of them sown and grown by her birthday in May:D .

redglass_2

sophiesmum wrote: »

I also picked up a packet of lupin seeds - these are one of my mums favourites and she has not managed to grow them successfully in her garden yet for some reason. Hoping to get a couple of pots full of them sown and grown by her birthday in May:D .

Sophiesmum, I believe the seeds are edible and are sold in Italy as 'lupini' and eaten like sunflower seeds, so once your mum's lupins seed you might have a food source, too. I haven't eaten them myself but perhaps someone out there can confirm this.

andromache_2

redglass wrote: »

Thanks Andromache, I did see the link but if you scroll down there's nothing added since October and I'm not sure whether that's an oversight or whether it means nothing has happened to ICICI since then - can that be possible? Think I'll hold on a bit longer and see what happens...

Fair enough, you can't be too careful! ICICI did have a wobble at the beginning of November when its share price fell quite quickly but everything I've read since then says that its outlook is stable. I've also read that the Indian government puts very stringent controls on its banks so they have been managed much more conservatively than ours, and also as it's such a flagship bank for India Standard & Poor have given them a good rating since they think the Indian government is unlikely to let it fail. India's quite a bit bigger than Iceland, after all! I wouldn't invest in its shares exactly but given the FSCS compensation I'm quite happy to put my meagre savings in there, lol. Hope you manage to find a bank you can trust - not many of them around!

sophiesmum_2

redglass wrote: »

Sophiesmum, I believe the seeds are edible and are sold in Italy as 'lupini' and eaten like sunflower seeds, so once your mum's lupins seed you might have a food source, too. I haven't eaten them myself but perhaps someone out there can confirm this.

Ooh will go and investigate this a little more;)

Apprently the ones I have are not edible but you have set me thinking laterally about other edible seeds. Sunflower seeds have risen in price ridiculously lately and I use quite a lot in my breadmaking so hopefully will be able to get some of those growing, oldies can enjoy the flowers and then I will harvest the seeds:) I have a large bare wall in grounds just ideal for growing sunflowers against .

Skint_Lynne

sophiesmum wrote: »

cw you can't use points to buy online, when you use them instore it has to over the full cost of the item you are buying. Also you don't get points on items you buy with points so always worth checking out whether it is a better deal using cash to get extra points on offers or using points to get free goodies.After buying all the xmas pressies for work, doing some online shopping for mum when the extra £10 offer was on,topping up DS phone for him, and buying my sale stuff I now have £42+ in points for using through the year:D

Bails lovely to see you posting , hope your hampers went down well:D , sorry you are feeling poorly- hope you feel back to your usual self soon.

Marru - cheesy potato cakes with houmus sounds tasty:D enjoy your relaxing day.

Catch you all later off to garden centre now:p

Sophiesmum, how do you top up DS's phone, online or instore? I can't see anything for it online, can you tell me how to find the link?

Thanks very much, xx