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

whitewing

cw18 wrote: »

What a fabulous memory

See, I love this thread. It is so inspirational. Not only do people do completely new things all through their lives, they also work hard and achieve with them.

And the love that shines thro, is inspirational too. Much of what you challengees do in your daily lives is so nicely geared around other people. Like Janey's mum keeping her dad company. Such a lovely image now in my mind of pure companionship. You should all be extremely proud of yourselves this Monday morning.

thriftylass

good morning all

I started my £4000 a year test run on Oct 6th. But I think I need to redo my signature and shift my start date back to the 1st of Oct. I feel it's a bit like cheating otherwise, because I already had a Tesco delivery, £20 electricity and some other stuff spent by then. And if I want to find out where my money goes to make a proper budget for next year I'll better make those changes.

P.S. just changed my signature. Think I have to raise my test run budget a bit (thought I would probably try anyway for 5000 rather than 4000 next year). Quite happy with the grocery spent, my fall down is probably going out and the little things here and there. But I'm writing them all down (what a difference that makes to see it all listed on my note pad) and hopefully can cut that impulse buying down.

Mollymop5

Janey I'm loving your mums daily memories.Please keep them coming

cw18

thriftylass wrote: »

..... my fall down is probably going out and the little things here and there. But I'm writing them all down (what a difference that makes to see it all listed on my note pad) and hopefully can cut that impulse buying down.

Definitely makes a difference once you start writing them down. I plug mine into a spreadsheet (need to keep mine long term for personal reasons, and less likely to lose them this way than on paper as long as I get into the habit of regular backups), and when I started doing this a few months back it scared me to see what I was "frittering" even though I thought I'd pared our budgets to the bone :eek:

Gave up writing it down a week into the first couple of months (have another 6 or 7 weeks before I actually need to be keeping records at this level), but last month I made myself carry on right to end...... and still had a nasty shock even though I'd questioned every purchase.

Still too much being "frittered" this month really But it's an improvement on last month once I deduct the 12 months worth of flea and worm treatments for the dogs (bought on line giving a 60% saving) and loads of dog food (bought about 7kg last month, and have already bought 60kg this month). It does also include some small Christmas presents this month, but unfortunately anything and everything that isn't essential to the immediate welfare of myself, DH and DS has to go into that column!

MrsHayes

Mollymop5 wrote: »

Janey I'm loving your mums daily memories.Please keep them coming

Me too.

Morning all hope you had good weekends and made the most of the sunshine? Not much new to report, I would have had a no spend weekend however Dh in his infinite wisdom overfilled the van with plumbing stuff to take to my mum and dads and managed to crack the windscreen :eek: so we had to have autoglass out and pay £75 to have it replaced. Apart from that I have just got on with my sewing and baked a carrot cake for my mother in laws birthday. My mum very kindly fed us all weekend and bought me a scarf that I had said I liked

Next weekend will be an expensive one as we are going to Blackpool in fancy dress for my best friends birthday. Fortunately Dh is going as a builder which he already has clothes for and I am reusing an old halloween costume and going as a cat. We are also going in my friends car rather than the minibus so we only have to give a litte for petrol. I won't be drinking so its cheap for me however Dh wants some money for beer but I've told him when its gone its gone!

Feeling abit fed up at the moment but I don't know why. We are not doing too badly for money. Almost all of the birthdays are out of the way, the van is going up for sale at the end of the month, the work on the house is nearly done, we are on track with our savings for frugalmite....I can't seem to put my finger on why I feel like this as I have no reason to. I am sick of work and feeling stressed out here so maybe that is it. Hope everyone else is ok xxx

Ps. Nyk I was convinced he was a boy from day one so I'm glad my instinct was right and although I had no prefernce either way I think Dh secretly wanted a boy so its all good

Frugaldom

Full moon alert so watch out for those 'tetchy' moments of boredom and frustration this week.

Nothing much to report here except LL has been on the phone asking if it's OK to use our phone number so he can start looking for new tenants! :mad: I reminded him about having, by law, to register as a landlord or risk being fined £5000 and I honestly didn't understand a word of his response. He certainly never mentioned getting any of the essential repairs done!

We STILL haven't heard anything from the estate agents about a moving date and, for some weird reason, there's no reply at any of their offices! I'm getting really nervous now, as there's no public holiday that I'm aware of and no recorded message or answering machine on their phone number! We've already lost one estate agent in the area to financial meltdown - am I just being overly paranoid or would anyone else be panicking at this too? :eek:

I've had another email stating that someone paid for goods on Saturday but I haven't received any payment into my account, so am wondering how long to leave it before complaining. The payment was done as 'instant' straight into the account, so I expected to see it there this morning whe bank hours began.

I can just tell that today is going to be 'one of those days'!

Skint_Lynne

I would be like you as well Nyk, I hate believing anything is happening until it has actually happened IYKWIM?

I'm like that with anything financial and with jobs etc, in fact with almost anything. I am job hunting at the moment and have stopped telling people anything about it, I believe that you can tempt fate when everyone knows what's going on. Also, my dad tells everyone everything, and this includes if I have an interview, so mum's the word now!!

Just back from costco (again), it's my sister's birthday and had to pick up her cake, it's a lot quieter there today, not as many trolleys to collide with

Speak later,

SL x

sophiesmum_2

SL -Costco's birthday cakes are one of their best buys:D definately £10.99 well spent. We get these for all the oldies birthdays as they are big enough to get 40+ slices out of them easily;)

Janey - loving mums memories - chuckling at her "biggest bag" trophy:rotfl:

NYK - we have everything crossed for you for a trouble free move:rolleyes2

whitewing

Oh yes! yes! yes! I got my £5 M&S voucher from directline too. Was getting quite jealous as you lot had yours.

Skint_Lynne

sophiesmum wrote: »

SL -Costco's birthday cakes are one of their best buys:D definately £10.99 well spent. We get these for all the oldies birthdays as they are big enough to get 40+ slices out of them easily;)

Janey - loving mums memories - chuckling at her "biggest bag" trophy:rotfl:

NYK - we have everything crossed for you for a trouble free move:rolleyes2

Yeah,

they are really nice sophiesmum. I am afraid you have turned me into a costco junkie, I am scanning all the prices to see if they are cheaper than outside.

My brother uses it a lot, he gets the chicken breasts, he said the halal ones are nicer than the normal, so will try these, they are the special offer this week, stocked up on the kitchen rolls and oj yesterday. I usually get tropicana, but I had the princes one this morning, I didn't notice a lot of difference to be honest, so there you are, money saved already.:D

I'm going to get the bacon next time too, you won't have tried their sauasages, I know you make your own, how do you do that, u must have a mincer!!

SL x