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

Frugaldom

Hi TTDB, if it helps any, I usually end up completely distracted and get not a lot done most days! And I have forgotten to take something out the freezer for tea AGAIN, despite reminding myself constantly. Walked to post office for work and had forgotten by the time I got back - DOH!

Have now updated my signature to include my new-found friends, the free scratchcards. I'm unable to withdraw any of this money until it reaches £10 in each account, but it's nice to see it mounting up slowly. If only I had started this as a mini-challenge at the start of the year then I could have had about £60 by now

trex170104

Today I had a NSD but it was a fab day.
DS and I went to a playgroup with a friend and her DD. She paid as I paid to take the babies out last week. They spent an hour playing with lots of different toys and wearing themselves out and we all had drinks and biscuits provided. We then all went to the park and then popped to Tesco quickly as my friend had to pick up a few bits but I spent nop money hoorah - DS just had a fun time in the trolley!!
After lunch at home and a sleep for DS we went to another local park and then have spent the afternoon sticking and painting - a very messy concept with an 11 month old but while my kitchen was covered in paint and glitter he had a fab time and OH now has two new works of art for his new office!! DS then had a very long bath, tea and is now with his nighttime friends in the land of nod and I'm working on some proofreading, while OH watches some sport with a bottle of wine! As you can see once again I've been distracted by these forums!! So all in all it was a lovely day - it is so easy to have free fun with little ones.

Marru

Skint_Lynne wrote: »

Hope the toothache is better Marru, mine is just a dull pain right now, hopefully it will go away when I go to bed, it was agony yesterday and has been okay for most of the day. Get toothache free soon, we will soon have a smile like this:D

SL x

Thanks SL and everybody else. Now - which one of you gave me distant healing last night? I had this terrible pain, I took painkillers, went to bed and woke up absolutely fine. I thought that it was because it was long time since I had eaten and in the morning had only yoghurt and banana as not to get it worse again. Called emergency dentist, got appointment for afternoon, they were poking me, tapping my teeth, took x-ray and...couldn't find anything wrong and there is no pain now.

I am so embarrased as now I took an appointment time from someone more needy but also relieved as it could have been a very big job. Also missed one of my favourite lessons. Fingers crossed now that what ever was causing the pain is not going to come back.

I need to get more NSD's in as I seem to be slipping big time by every day having to get something small and ending up with something else with it. I just console myself that I had really rubbish week last week and that despite this week has been better I have been quite tired. I feel like a bear having the need to fatten up and then have a long long sleep. I wish .

I have reporting deadline on Monday so need to get some working time in this weekend but tonight is for chilling out. DD is now having an apple and watching 101 dalmatians but will try to get her to bed by eight.

Everybody have a great evening and successful weekend. Catch up with you again soon.

Marru

PS Sophiesmum: WOW fantastically done with your £2.- savings pot!!!!!

Frugaldom

TRex, that sounds like a most enjoyable day, indeed. It reinforces the meaning of, 'the best things in life are free'. Well done on making the most of it.

I finally got around to some more number crunching to see how the housemove was going to affect this year's budget and have been pleasantly surprised. The main expenses are going to be the actual moving, as we'll need to hire a man with a van, and the expense of putting together a kitchen, as there's not much by way of a fitted kitchen and no white goods at the new place. However, I have managed to make some savings on the current 4k budget to date. here's how it looks at the moment (sorry to inflict this on you all again, but I'm needing some opinions):

2008 budget

TOTAL FOR GROCERIES £1,098 / £980.33
TOTAL FOR GIFTS £400 / £186.32
TOTAL FOR EVERYTHING ELSE £400 / £397.13
TOTAL FOR UTILITIES £1,500 / £1,030
TOTAL FOR HOUSEHOLD £200 / £191.90
TOTAL FOR INTERNET ACCESS £180 / £136.84
CONTINGENCY FUND - £222 / NIL

TOTAL £4,000 / £2,937.51 (Balance = £1,062.49)


As you'll see, I haven't touched my contingency fund at all yet, but that's mainly because I managed to reduce my broadband package from £24.99 per month to £19.99 per month and then the company dropped the price a further £5 to £14.99 per month, so my overall saving has now increased to £120. Just as well, really, because my 'Everything Else' spending has been more than I had anticipated - clothes, shoes, kitchen appliances, household appliances, gadgets, need I say more?
Anyway - no fitted kitchen with mod cons at the new house and I don't use the cooker in this house other than for grilling or baking (I bought a double hotplate). I mostly use the hotplate, microwave, slow cooker, steamer and toaster, so I am now wondering if I really need to spend £200+ on an actual cooker right away?

I already have a fridge and a freezer plus the tumble dryer that I hope to sell as it's no longer used since getting the dehumidifier. (I also have a sandwich toaster.)

I'll definitely need a washing machine, but have seen a brand new one for £149 plus delivery that gets quite good reviews on Ciao, plus there's cashback available if I go through one of the sites and extra if I also use a cashback card. I guess my main question is, can I make the move without it impacting on this year's budget? It's like another mini-challenge morphing before my eyes! :rotfl:

cw18

I rarely use my oven these days, but my microwave is a combi so I use the oven facility of that instead (it takes my largest pyrex casserole dish or my roasting dish -- one of the metal ones with a domes lid -- without any problem at all).

The only things it's been on for in the last few months have been

• oven chips (the 'chip' baking tray won't fit in the combi, and when I tried putting them on a standard tray that does fit they didn't cook properly 'cos the qty needed for the three of us meant they weren't nicely spread out)

• baking (my one attempt at bread with using my bread maker -- never again -- or muffins) - but I fill the oven with as many tins/trays as possible when doing this
• pizza - 'cos DS and I like the huuuuuge ones that are too big for the combi

but if I moved to somewhere that didn't have (ours is built in!) or the element in it blows (more likely ATM), then I don't think I'd panic to buy one/get it repaired.

andromache_2

*sneaks back in*

hi everyone! :wave:

Remember me?! For those of you who've joined this challenge in the past couple of months, I'm a now-second year (:eek:) uni student who followed this challenge for the academic year 07/08 in order to save for a holiday this summer (and not go too hopelessly into debt!). I got back a while ago now but things have been busy and I was out of the habit of posting here... sorry I've read most of the thread since I've been away but wayyy too much has been going on for me to comment on everyone individually and I would probably forget something important. Suffice to say that you're all wonderful :T and I've been willing you on in all your frugal and life adventures as well as commiserating when things have been difficult. In particular, bad luck on the redundancy whitewing but I have no doubt that you'll walk into another job soon. I've been really touched by the stories of your Mum, Janey; I was asking my mum questions about her dad recently (he died when I was 13 and was a lovely sweet man) and realised there was so much I didn't know about him; I think it's so important to preserve these memories about someone's life. I wish you continued grace & strength in handling this difficult situation.

Sooo... the holiday was fabulous I went with OH and it was lovely to spend so much time with him & do so many new things together since normally our time together is limited. We started in Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, went up and down the country (it was a bit illogical but the cheapest way of doing it!), saw the famous temples at Angkor, then went to Ho Chi Minh City, travelled up South Vietnam stopping at towns on the way, then hopped over into Laos just south of the Vietnamese former DMZ, then went down to Bangkok for a few days and finally spent a week enjoying one of the southern Thai islands before heading back to Bangkok to get our flight home. I think some people here would have appreciated the prices :rotfl: Our cheapest room was $2.5 and our most expensive was $13, which we stayed in as a treat because it was a lovely quite posh hotel which was charging cheap prices since we were there in the low season. We ate in 'expensive' tourist restaurants for most meals at $2 a head but when we had street food it came in at more like $0.30 a head... not bad eh! Anyway, it was an amazing experience - I loved seeing so many different countries and 'doing it on the cheap' was I think the best way since we had so many opportunities to talk with the locals; we made a point of going into the local bars and finding people who spoke English so that we could talk with them about everything from the Vietnamese government to the Cambodian education system to the Premier League! Definitely glad I did it. I think spending money came to about £500 in all including visas on top of £550 on flights for the 9-week holiday, but I also spent another few hundred pounds on some lovely things like paintings, clothes, and gifts which were going for a song out there. We bought one quite expensive painting between the two of us which we want to hang in our house one day to remind us of the holiday :happyhear

So that was that. And how did last year's challenge go?? Well, I think I went over the £2700 in a shopping trip in the last week of September, but for once I did actually *need* and not just *want* the new shoes Anyway, I'm quite happy as I think that's not bad going. My expenses notebook and my spreadsheet don't quite coincide so I'm going to go with the spreadsheet since that one says I spent more.

Sooo, this is my budget (hopefully) for the coming year:

Expenditure category....Last year....This year... Spent so far
Textbooks...............£234.25......£200........ £140.84
Food....................£338.92......£450........ £31.78
Entertainment/Alcohol...£351.73......£400........ £17.15
Clothes, shoes, etc.....£369.83......£300........ £6.50
Make-up.................£28.54.......£30......... £0.00
Toiletries..............£53.64.......£50......... £3.50
Hairdressing............£26.00.......£25......... £0.00
Gifts...................£246.85......£200........ £0.00
Societies...............£208.19......£200........ £35.00
Travel (+ bike repairs).£124.10......£150........ £0.00
Household...............£133.98......£25......... £4.94
Health..................£49.68.......£50......... £0.00
Mobile..................£183.23......£150........ £0.00
Stationery..............£130.40......£75......... £0.00
Fines...................£47.00.......£10......... £0.00
LDR travel..............£204.56......n/a - see below
Charity.................£4.50........what's left/volunteer instead
Contingency/bits........£11.30.......£185........ £0.00..
TOTAL...................£2746.70.....£2500....... £239.71

The one big change I am making is excluding LDR travel from my budget this year. This is because OH is much further this year and visting is £60 a pop _pale_. The main problem with this is that he will decide as much as I will how often our visits are so it's quite a large, unknown cost that I don't have that much control over; it could be anything from £200-£700. I also don't want to limit the amount that I see him for the purposes of this challenge if I do have money in the bank which could technically be used to pay for it. I'm therefore going to continue with the holiday work, cashback challenges, Amazon/ebay selling and general mse'ing which generated the money for our holiday this summer and that money (along with what's left from my student loan after my rent) will have to pay for LDR trainfares as well as (hopefully!) a trip somewhere next summer. Hope that makes sense! I will also obviously limit the cost of the trips as much as possible - I'm hoping to do a couple of projects which place me in that area and would involve my travel expenses being paid, and of course have signed up to the First Great Western deal in Martin's e-mail with both my e-mail addresses Unfortunately there's no real saving to booking in advance unless you book about 2-3 months ahead and we are both too busy in termtime to do that.

I'm also going to include a quick comment on some of the other categories above - please feel free to skip this as it's as much a record for myself as anything and I don't want you to waste your time :cool:
Textbooks: These will actually be more expensive this year than last due to the modules I've picked but I managed to make and save £50 of Waterstone's vouchers from pigsback last year, found £4 book tokens in a drawer, and a City law firm is giving us all £60 towards the cost of books... now why are they so generous I wonder
Food: I'm going to redouble my frugal efforts in this department this year, but it's getting more expensive anyway (loads of basics lines seem to have been discontinued!!). Also, I'm hoping to go up and stay with OH at his uni for a bit in the holidays which means that I will have to pay for my food while up there (rather than having it free from the parents at home) which will also be expensive since he only eats in hall and doesn't have a proper kitchen so it will be difficult to reduce costs while I'm there.
Entertainment/Alcohol: A girl's gotta have fun though I'm hoping to get a fair bit free this year as second year is the year a lot of City firms spend money taking us out to dinner and giving us free drinks in order to persuade us to work for them!
Clothes, shoes, make-up, toiletries, hairdressing: This is pretty generous (though less than last year!) but I don't want to set a budget I know I'll fail.
Gifts: The 07/08 budget included some of this year's Xmas gifts bought in the sales so I'm hoping gifts should be less.
Societies: I want to join a few new societies this year so that means membership fees, as well as travel contributions to go to competitions and things.
Travel: My lovely mum has said she'll give me money for a bike though I can't get one just yet as there are very few second-hand ones about at the beginning of the year! Other than that I need to pay for general train fares when I'm home in London.
Household: This shouldn't be much this year as I already bought the stuff I needed for my room last year.
Health: A dentist's check-up, a few prescriptions and some cough sweets...
Mobile: My 18-month contract at £14.99 a month expires in 6 months' time; I'm hoping to get them to reduce it to maybe £9.99 a month for the same package if I don't ask for a new phone...
Stationery: I ran out of printer cartridges just before exams last year and so spent a fortune on new ones from the high street to print revision notes. I'm hoping to be more organised and get cheaper ones online this year.
Fines: I'm sure I'll lose something...
Charity: I've signed up for a few volunteer projects so I don't feel too bad about excluding this from my budget.
Contingency fund: For things that don't fit into other categories and for if (when) I exceed my budget in the other areas.

Sooo I know it's not as frugal a budget as some but I think it will enable me to participate properly in uni life while still making me watch the pennies so that I have money left over to spend on LDR train tickets, a holiday this summer, and savings for postgrad studies.

Phew! That was ridiculously long, I hope no-one actually read it all it was like 3 months' worth of posts all stored up! I'm hoping to become a fully-fledged posting member of this challenge again so hopefully future posts won't be quite as *me me me* as this one! It was good to get this year's budget straight in my head :cool:

Best wishes to all :A

Frugaldom

Thanks CW, I have stuck a 'wanted' on freecycle for a cooker, as I don't want to be rushed into making what I consider is a major purchase and then seeing it cheaper in the January sales. I want to take my time and get the best value for money, so substituting with something like a 'Remoska oven' isn't a solution either. We'd miss the homebaked biscuits, bread, pies and pizzas, but everything else gets cooked in other ways. I'd possibly miss the grill for bacon and the oven for turkey and stuff like lasagne. Hmm... more thought needed here.

Edited in - Welcome back Andromache! It sounds as if you made it a trip of a lifetime and thoroughly enjoyed it. It was an absolutely amazing budget for a 9-week holiday and I hope you managed to get loads and loads of pictures. If didgital, make the most of the cashback and offers for free prints when you sign up, start filling up those albums.

sophiesmum_2

Welcome back Andromache:D

Glad you and OH enjoyed the travelling, Vietnam sounds an amazing place to visit:j and the cost of stuff sounds very frugal too:D

trex170104

Ooo forgot to say I am going to pick up a free cosytoes for DS from freecycle tomorrow and have also agreed to get some free homegrown g=cooking apples once they've been picked and bagged - very exciting to be getting FREE stuff!!

redglass_2

andromache wrote: »

*sneaks back in*

hi everyone! :wave:

Good to see you back again, Andromache! It's lovely to think that even when people aren't posting, they are still with us.
I'm starting to feel excited/scared about next year. Excited about joining up for real, and also by the suggestion that we could put our £4k up front, if we had it. (I imagine myself funneling everything else into a savings account, OMG, that would be AMAZING.) Scared because I've found it surprisingly hard to keep accurate weekly accounts this year, you'd think it was straightforward but I often managed to make a mess of it.

I've dug over a sizeable portion of my lotty. It's slow work without help and I don't think I will ever defeat the dreaded couch grass, but come spring I'll be ready to plant out the beds! I have a half-term week coming up and I'm going to build a woodshed out of pallets and out of the remains of my old sofa (it had a pine frame). If it comes out OK (big if)I'll post a picture.