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

Janey51

:wave: :wave: :wave: :wave: :wave:

Found you again.

JAMIEDODGER

hello all and thanks NYK for the shiny new thread:)

things are going ok for me atm, october looks like being a much better month and I am still tucking a few pennies away towards my start of 2009 (i need £577.95 to start my year off with a months challenge money in advance!)

am still keeping a check on my spending and am trying to get rid of as much debt as possible! also trying to find new ways of reducing those monthly outgoings!!

cant wait to read how everyone gets on this month!

looby-loo_2

Good morning everyone, I'm just lurking for the moment. Cirumstances mean I don't feel like spening anything so I'm well within the challenge if only I had kept the records

Penny2myName

:(:(animals just went mental and knocked the ironing board that had my new flask on it. No longer have a new flask, to take drinks to college. Luckily one of the women at college brought her spare kettle in yesterday, but I had some of my precious coffee in that flask (on the 100 day challenge so trying to stretch what coffee i have in as far as possible) Well just filled a few tubs with sugar, dried milk and t-bags. But not a happy chickadee today now.

Skint_Lynne

Good morning on the 1st October,

This is the month where my luck will change (hopefully!!). I would like to have a job by the end of the month. And I would like to be well underway with getting this challenge off the ground.

I had nearly a no spend day yesterday, I spent 35p in Lidls. Whilst I was there, I got 2 free items via coupons I got from my mum's daily express. A free pack of shortbread and a free pack of muesli. I would never have went into a shop with coupons before, but I will do it again!!

Have a good day everyone,

SL x

bails

Morning everyone!

Deleted_User wrote: »

I'm aiming for £8,300 for the year to include everything. I'm currently at £6258.32.
Not sure how I'm quite done it to be honest since rent is £420pm and I don't have an allotment or garden. However, every year since 2004 I've lived on approx. £9K a year.

Hiphouse, I'd love to know how you manage on this! :T Would you mind telling us a bit more about it please? £5040 for rent leaves £3260 for everything else, wow! I'm assuming this is just for you? I'd really appreciate a breakdown of your spends if you felt like posting it, or anything that can help us improve on our targets. Thanks a lot.

whitewing

I'm excited about new people on this thread. It is of course brilliant to see the old-timers too. I'm still thinking about how to do next year. I am inclined to try a 'catch all' target, with (little) pots of pre-earned money. This would cater for the fact that I will have £1K to start the challenge next year. The only problem is going to be keeping track of it all. I need to redesign online banking!

Hmmm.

lilac_lady

Ist October and I feel renewed regarding saving instead of spending. I'd like to know the one best tip you have learned from posting in the past 9 months. Mine was to spend a weekly fixed amount of cash only oncethe DDs were deducted at the beginning of the month. If you part with cash it really concentrates your mind on what you're buying. Good luck to those of you who are heading for the finish line.

cw18

Just had the bigger dog to the vet for his annual booster -- and had a chat with the (always fanstastic) vet that he loves sooooo much about trimming down some of our costs without actually risking getting slammed a huge vets bill in return.

This conversation started when he asked if the dogs were due worming/flea treatment -- at which I looked very sheepish and admitted they are just about due, but I'm looking at ordering them over the Internet as they work out a lot cheaper (also briefly explained we have to run the dogs on money only intended to support humans - so they're eating into "our" money). He was fine about it, and just checked I was pricing up the worming tablets he'd give them in the right sizes. That's only going to save us a couple of quid a month, but every little helps right?

I then grabbed the opportunity to ask about weaning the larger dog off (very expensive) hypo-allergenic food -- which he's been on since Feb 2005 due to having come to us with horrendous allergy problems to something.

He said we'd probably see a reaction within 2 weeks if we were going to get one -- so as we've been weaning him onto cheaper food for the last 10-14 days (through necessity - would have run out of the dear one before I got paid unless we'd stretched it with a cheaper brand) he says we're probably OK to continue him on the cheap stuff now. (But did advise we keep an eye on him, as the source of protein isn't consistent within even a single flavour of a single brand from one batch to another, and it's often the source of the protein that causes allergies.)

So that could drop his food bill from £30/month to as "little" as £14 based on the one we've been using the last couple of weeks :T

(I'm also convinced he didn't charge the full rate for the booster, and he certainly didn't add anything on for clipping a few of his claws. I our vet almost as much as the big dog does...... he drags my arm out of the socket trying to get into the vets surgery much to the amusement of anyone waiting for a bus at the stop almost outside the place, the staff at the vets, and anyone else in the waiting room !!!!)

whitewing

weezl, I've just been reading the nutrient posts that Nyk linked into on the bottom of her opening post of this quarter. It's mightily interesting. 2009 is going to include more of a focus on healthy & cheap for me. More planning. We're reasonably healthy and cheap at the moment.

Lilac lady: my one best tip from the last three quarters is to notice how small seemingly insignificant amounts add up to big spends :eek: or big savings .