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

Brighton_belle

Quick question: I'm summoning up whatever and re looking at changing internet/phone proider. It would have to be BT I think in order to get a bt line to the house & then I'm committed for 18 months. One thing that concerns me is presumably if I changed this would mean having a new email address. But loads of things I have signed up too (mainly as a reult of MSE) use my email as a password or contact, but I don't have a list of them all. This makes it all seem very complicated. How have others of you handled this?

My own mini challenge is on to get to the end of this month with £44 left. This has to cover essential buses, food and everything. I know I can do it if I really really try; I just want to beable to remain that focussed on this as a priority for the next 13 days.
Still working on next years budget - I think this is the first time I have set a budget, so although I have never had a large income, I've never lived within a defined amount for different categories and always had rainy day savings to dip into. This is no longer the case other than an emergency fund for the house which is virtually untouchable. I really need to get our monthlyfood bill down form current target of £190 to at least £175.
Does anyone know of any better current deal for the Radio times than the 6 for £1 than comes within the mag itself this week.
redglass - thanks for the m pointer re gloves BOGOFF as I have have similar probs and can't touch much without them.
EDIT: just discovered nearest M's is 10 miles away. So won't be rushing there anytime soon.

Feeling a bit too dim & sluggish to respond as I should to all your lovely posts. Hopefully will manage more later.

cw18

Brighton_belle wrote: »

Quick question: I'm summoning up whatever and re looking at changing internet/phone proider. It would have to be BT I think in order to get a bt line to the house & then I'm committed for 18 months. One thing that concerns me is presumably if I changed this would mean having a new email address. But loads of things I have signed up too (mainly as a reult of MSE) use my email as a password or contact, but I don't have a list of them all. This makes it all seem very complicated. How have others of you handled this?.

The email situation really depends on who you're with now....

I used to be with Freeserve (pre-broadband days) which started as PAYG then changed to 'anytime'. When I left them to move onto B/Band they left the account active, but on a PAYG basis. I have to dial-up a connection once in a while (normally do it about every 4 months to make sure I don't forget!) to keep the account active, but as soon as it's connected and loaded a web page I disconnect again -- so costs me 3 minimum local rate calls a year to retain all my old email addresses (and this is the account I use to sign up to web sites, so all personal emails are kept totally seperate).

I was then with BT for B/band from Dec 2002 until July 2007 - when I moved to Orange (partly to bring down the cost by £7/month, and partly to get a cheap laptop out of the deal as well ). BT downgraded that account to PAYG when I left, and the email addresses connected to that are still active -- don't know when they may get turned off, as I don't think I've ever dialled into that to keep them up and running (something I need to check fairly soon, as these are the addresses I use for all my personal emails!) But if it's only a couple of quick local-rate calls a year, I'm not going to bother changing email address with friends and family either.

A lot of b/band services run over a BT line (I still pay line rental to BT, but pay someone else again for calls ATM), so you don't have to go to BT for your B/band.

Another forum I'm on has actually been discussing providers last night, as one girl was ready to throw her BT hub through the window -- and I was interested to see a lot of other people are also reporting having had problems with theirs in the last 6-12 months !!

I'm planning on switching in January (when my minimum contract with orange comes to an end), but will be giving serious consideration to a package that is "all inclusive" in terms of line rental and b/band. We spend very little on calls ATM (£3/month on average), but this could potentially double if we move away from the people we pay for calls now -- and will also bump up DDs bill a fair bit as we're with the same company and get free calls between our numbers for being with the same company.

whitewing

Hello everyone,

I got back yesterday and lurked but was very tired and could feel a wave of depression coming on (I always get very negative if I am mentally tired).

Anyway, had the really most wonderful time with my friend (this was the first time I had spent time with her on our own since her husband died unexpectedly in Feb; although we chat a lot on the phone). I thought it would be three days of chatting nonstop and drinking, but actually we spent a fair bit of that time in companiable silence just 'being' and didn't touch a drop of alcohol. It was very healing after everything that has gone on all year. And, we went clothes shopping. No money off bargains but I did get persuaded into buying trousers for work for the first time in my life. So I now have a new image! I told DH that he will really like what I bought (this was when I phoned him to get him to transfer some money across from the savings account - oops). Had to backtrack a bit, in case DH thought it was sexy lingerie and was too much looking forward to it. Bless him, he's at work today paying for it all, but there were flowers at home that he'd bought because he missed me.

I have now fallen deeply, deeply in love with my husband. Having been a single parent for so long, there was always part of me that loved him to pieces, knew I would fight tooth and nail to keep him from leaving but also knew that I could survive without him.

Since my break away and the redundancy, I have changed. Now I know that I could not manage without him, and that every action I take is for us as a unit.

(Massive hugs for Janey at this point. I am enjoying your memories of mum very much. )

Frugaldom

Good afternoon all
It's sunny here and, of course, I didn't put a washing on last night because it had started raining again. :rolleyes: I've done my 2 scratchcards (45p between them today) and my www.hungersite.com clicks, I've sent off some work to the post office, it's some sort of holiday weekend here and I still haven't found out what it's for, only that the post office is closed on Monday.

On the subject or reducing Internet packages, I have had the same connection for over 10 years now because they just keep reducing the costs. I started off in the days of 9.6k connection on a local rate number plus monthly membership fee. Then it became 1p per minute (was costing me well over £150 per month in 1999 for dial-up connection at 56k, due to the work I do. Then they brought in 'all inclusive' at around £30 per month. All of the above was excluding line rental (at that time it was around £21, it's now £10.50) and telephone calls. We now pay £14.99 per month for 24/7 wireless broadband for all 3 of us in the household and weekend telephone calls are included in the £10.50 telephone charge. It's quite amazing when you think about it. :T HOWEVER - the new house doesn't appear to have a phone line installed, so BT needs to send out an engineer to connect a new line, at a cost of £124.99 + vat! :mad: I can't understand this, as the last tenants have had Sky in practically every room and there's a phone socket! Anyone got any ideas? I can't contact the last tenants to ask because they left early in the year and the place has been lying empty ever since.

Welcome back, whitewing

Brighton_belle

Thanks cw18, that was really helpful. I'm back to thinking I may be best staying where I am for the time being! (I think I would have to go via bt initially as they would pay to put a line in if I signed an 18months contract with them. Other providers aren't an option without a BT line). But yet the mention of internet problems brings out the stress:o . I think I need to wait until my current lodgers have left, when ever that may be, as the whole thing is complicated by them signing up to a much bigger package with virgin with TV & bigger broadband for them, off their own back but within my bill etc which makes it difficult for me to negotiate anything with virgin. When they leave (and i hope for not for ages, as they're great) I will cancel all their stuff and have a clearer picture of options for me.

Lovely post whitewing.

whitewing

Nyk,

Do a separate post in the Phones section about your socket issue. There are BT/ex-BT engineers knocking around there who were very helpful when I had a BT issue.

sophiesmum_2

BB
If the lodgers have a good broadband service could you not set up a wireless network and share costs with them??

Like Nyk we have 3/4 laptops in the house working off one wireless network on broadband.

Frugaldom

Thanks, Whitewing - I did check the phones section thinking I could get a bargain but, sadly, MSE's 'buy before December' seems to be a mistake that should read, 'buy before end September' I've emailed the support team here to let them know it's out of date.

Price of bread - the cheapest loaf in our area is now 75p :eek:
So much for impending recession and the prices of wheat and oil coming down! :mad:

sophiesmum_2

Been to town tody and spent £4 on socks for myself (6 pairs) and £2.25 on brgain fruit and veg from the market. I got a huge bag of crrots for 25p and lots of other stuff and 6 free range eggs. Now making carrot and lentil soup in slowcooker which will do for lunches, and have just started some flapjacks in remoska - DD gone mad for these lately. So £6.25 to deduct from totals. Also filled up my car (99.9p) which was £43 but this was covered by my petrol expenses I just got paid from work so technically not a spend:D

Off for a swim and jacuzzi soon, then having a late tea with OH. DD out again:p

Enjoy the rest of the evening everyone.

Edited to apologise for missing A's as my letter a key fell off a while ago and is playing up.

trex170104

Another NSD day today but another fun-filled day with OH and DS. He is doing so well with his walking he took 10 steps on his own today. It's his 1st birthday next Sunday so I think he might be walking completely on his own close to that.:j
Have decided that I am going to try and pay for our summer holiday through clubcard vouchers so can take this off my budget for next year. We have quite a few saved up already and I've called for an application for the clubcard plus account so that should help.
I'll update my budget and post in a minute...