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

redglass_2

nykmedia wrote: »

Remember that's just contents insurance, not buildings insurance, thank goodness. We rent, so the buildings insurance is the responsibility of the landlords.

I do realise it's different if you rent, but as a homeowner I no longer have contents and buildings insurance with separate firms ever since I lost my back door key. The back door is one of those double-glazed jobbies with fancy locks and nobody could get it open, not even a locksmith, without causing extensive damage, so before letting anyone loose on the door I consulted my insurers. Contents insurance said: 'This is the fabric of the building, so not our problem, goodbye.' Buildings insurance said, 'A key is contents, not our problem, goodbye.' It went on for weeks :mad: before the key finally turned up. I now have both policies with the same company so I'm never in that mess again.

OK, now for the question: has anyone on here built a wood store from pallets? The cost of a small wooden outdoor store for logs seems ridiculous to me. I can't believe it can cost so much, so I'm searching for a gnat's bottom version. Failing that, Plan B is to buy a big ugly wardrobe that nobody else wants and use it as a wood store....

Hugs to Janey. :grouphug: Sometimes several days come rushing at you at once, and you seem to have had a year's worth recently. My own mother has recently started calling me by other people's names so I guess we will get there sooner or later.... I just hope it won't be too soon.

cw18

nykmedia wrote: »

Remember that's just contents insurance, not buildings insurance, thank goodness. We rent, so the buildings insurance is the responsibility of the landlords.

I realised that -- but I don't think I've ever had a contents policy that low in all the time I've been responsible for it.... and I bought my first house in Feb/March 1987

I've only had a combined policy for the last 2 or 3 years, as DH always refused to let me do the buildings outside of the mortgage -- until I got the company I had my car insurance and contents insurance with to send me a paper copy of a quote, and I could show him we could have twice the cover for just over half the price !!!!!!

My current combined policy is just short of £32/month :eek: And it's due for renewal in December which will almost certainly see it going up


ETA: Just had a play on confused out of interest, and asked for contents only. It could only get quotes from 2 companies (due to how much we need compared to the size of the house!), and the cheaper one is the insurer I'm with now (£182 compared to the £1080 that Hiscox quoted :eek: ). And re-doing the quote for building and contents combined is withing pennies of double the quote form my current insurer!!!

RebekahR

Last weeks budget was £78-80 and I spent £38.60 on food and £28.00 on clothes. I have £12.20 left over unspent! Nice start for the christmas budget ;-) This weeks budget has started again at another £78-80 until next Friday.

Janey51

whitewing wrote: »

Janey, if it helps pop a 'nice' memory of your mum on here each day. That may help the perspective that it's her dementia talking and not her. (((Hugs)))

What a great idea

Mum was an expert at growing fuchsias :T

Janey51

bails wrote: »

Are you wanting to move or needing to?

My landlord says I can stay here as long as I want....didn't say the rent won't go up mind :rolleyes:
The thing is, I am very isolated here and the house is huge. I have lived here 10+ yrs and I love it so much.
But I am no spring chicken anymore and I have to think what would I do if the car packed in or I was ill? Living here is very physically demanding. It's not just the housework :eek: it's the chopping logs and carrying them in, the big garden to maintain and being isolated if we have a heavy snowfall with no electric and no phone.
We have no mobile reception here and it is nearly a mile to the nearesrt house via an unlit country road.
I have a lot of good friends but they can't be here all the time...even though they would love to
I am not going to make any rash decisions now because I know I am still not very rational but it is something I may have to consider next year.
The first winter here on my own will help me decide.

Skint_Lynne

Good morning,

Well, I had an early morning alarm call at 4.30 this morning thanks to my car crash neighbours from hell. The mum and dad are okay, but they have 2 twentysomething boys that hate each other. To be fair, one of them is okay, but the other is a headcase and likes to fight with his brother when he is drunk and then waken the whole street up. His party piece is smashing windows, so today he panned the back window in on his brother's car.

The last time it was the windscreen and he dented the wing, the time before that it was his mother's windows (front and back).

The police have came and taken him away (again). No sign of mum and dad, I don't know if they are away for the weekend.

I do feel sorry for her in a way, I have had run ins with her in the past about this, but now, I just leave them to it, it does not happen often now. I wish she would tell that crazy one to get other digs. He has no respect, a man on my street died suddenly last week (51 years old). The noise was terrible and maybe his wife had tried to get a wee bit of sleep and was woken with that. I think she has enough on her plate right now, the funeral was yesterday and it was tragic, a horrible experience as it was so sad. Then, that stupid b****** is charging about in the middle of the night with a baseball bat smashing his brother's new car up.

Well, he is away in the back of a police car now, peace at last. I have to go to work today and he will be lying sleeping in a cell by now, at least he can get a kip, I will be tired all day.

Rant over, have a good day everyone.

SL x

cw18

Janey51 wrote: »

I am not going to make any rash decisions now because I know I am still not very rational but it is something I may have to consider next year.
The first winter here on my own will help me decide.

And I think that is exactly the right decision to make :T

I've read so many stories about people moving and all sorts very quickly after losing a loved one, only to regret it later (though I think a lot of the time they're pressurised by grown up children to move in with/closer to them), The advice I've seen time and time again is that (unless finances or health dictate otherwise) you should leave it 12 months before taking such a huge step.

Have to admit that although (in real life) I can be a bit of a "loner", I'm not sure I'd want to be quite as isolated as it sounds like you are But then I've never experienced the loss of phone/power to the extent you describe it, but your description almost makes it sound run of the mill -- so clearly something you're used to

BTW: I love fuschias..... but my couple of attempts at growing them failed miserably




I'm still desperately trying to work out my "budget" for this challenge next year.

Went and got dog food yesterday (the one I have to use a small qty of to get the dalmatian to eat the one with less additives), and was pleasantly surprised to find the price hadn't gone up (think it had come down!) since April, and it was also on offer. But I was then told the offer doesn't have a specific end date as the rumours are the food is being discontinued shortly Given I've only just weaned the Dalmatian onto it, and he's showing no problems with this one despite having allergies that could be food related, I'm not sure what to do now :mad:

With this on offer and the other one I'm using coming from a discount shop ATM (don't know how much longer that will last), his annual food bill comes in at pennies over £160. But if I have to put him back on the hypo-allergenic one I've just weaned him off (and which has just gone up for the second time in 4 months) then his annual food bill is pennies under £360 :eek: I was already planning to stock up on enough of both for the next 4 months (which uses the 30kg I bought yesterday between him and the Yorkie), but with that kind of difference in price I'm debating stocking up for 8-12 months if the dates on the bags are long enough.

Only problem then is elder DS may have to share his bed with sacks of dog food if/when he comes home on leave at Christmas :rotfl:

mumzyof2

Good Morning all.
Not much to report except im waiting to see if the cashback tracks for NYK and about to clean the floor, have a shower and then bake a chochlate fudge cake (DS reward for not wetting bed last night) even tho i been planning on making it for a bout 2 weeks now but shhh he doesnt know that.

Have a good day x

cw18

:j got my £5 M&S voucher from Direct Line today :j

Wasn't sure what I'd use it for when I went through the process of getting it, but have realised today that the jeans I bought recently (and the first I've had in about 3 years that fit properly) came from there..... They're only a couple of months old (if that), so they will hopefully have some in stock still -- and I'd already been considering getting another pair or two at the end of this month so I can try line drying them (instead of using the tumble dryer!).

Given they're what I wear for dog walking (which is my job Tues thru Fri), I can regularly have a couple of wet pairs needing drying during the winter -- and as I only have two pairs at the moment that means I don't have a dry pair left !!!

So that's £7 instead of £12 for an extra pair of jeans for me, which will then hopefully help to reduce our electricity bill as well -- thank you Direct Line :T

Frugaldom

RebekahR wrote: »

Last weeks budget was £78-80 and I spent £38.60 on food and £28.00 on clothes. I have £12.20 left over unspent! Nice start for the christmas budget ;-) This weeks budget has started again at another £78-80 until next Friday.

Hi Rebekah, I need to cut in here and issue a little word of warning as I think you may have misunderstood this challenge. The £4000 is for everything over the year but we don't pay everything weekly. Some weeks you'll only need food, other weeks you'll have bills to pay, so it averages out over an entire year. I can't remember what you said your budget was, sorry, nor can I remember what you are going to include, but please don't spend anything that's left over out of your weekly amount or the challenge won't work and you could end up running short. This is not a weekly challenge, it is for a full year. Don't mean to sound like a scolding mother but I don't want you thinking there's extra money and then finding out you forgot to budget for a major expense.