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Live on £4000 for a year - part 4 (Oct - Dec 2008)
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Mumzy, free bingo on Thursdays is Galabingo.
Cha97Michelle, we have done a 21st birthday party/engagement party for 100+ and a birthday party for 4 y.o in the past couple of months. Kiddy buffet is easy - finger foods or any variety you can think, triangular sandwiches, savoury snacks suitable for the age group, mini sponges iced in a variety of colours, fresh fruit salad, carrot sticks, diced cheese, cocktail sausages, juice, milk shake & flavoured mineral water (there's always one who doesn't allow sweet drinks) and my favourite - marshmallow top hatsTo top it off, you can make the 'goody bags' and personalise then to each child attending - always 'posh'! You could also do some savoury 'adult' type dishes like savoury rice, cous cous, pasta salad and fresh salad so that you have plenty of variety. We did buffet for 100+ for about £1 per head if I recall correctly. And if you are buying any party decorations etc, don't forget to go via cashback sites.
And have fun!
I reserve the right not to spend.
The less I spend, the more I can afford.
Frugal living challenge - living on little in 2025 while frugalling towards retirement.0 -
Hey well done to all you mums out there organising home parties - my little one is 1 at the end of this month and that is exactly what I plan to do. Let's face it they don't know whether or not you've paid £100's to hire a hall or not so what's the point? As long as the have a few friends, some toys and some yummy food they will love it and probably be tired and ready for a sleep after about and hr or so anyway!!
Have decided today not to use my tumble drier anymore unless the weather is so awful I can't use the washing line and even then I am going to use airers and radiators first [once the heating is on of course]. Did not know just how much electricity they use. Also I make all my own bread as it is much nicer and a much cheaper way of having all organic bread rather than buying it already made BUT my breadmaker is also an electricity guzzler so I am going to make bigger loaves or larger dough batches and freeze half of what I make everytime so it lasts longer.
This challenge [and the make £1000 in 100 days challenge] is brilliant it really makes you think about how much money we waste everyday and how much more frugal we can be without missing out.
BTW can I ask a few questions I am new to the whole forum thingy and have no idea what all the abbreviations mean. I'm guessing OH is other half, but what is DH, and DD?0 -
cha97michelle wrote: »Our other big expense this month is DS1 is going to be 2, and we will be having a little party at home, which i am trying to frugalicise by baking myself, but i am afraid there is a culture of expectation amongst the 'snobs' i socialise with, and i may be looked down upon for it a bit, but i am going to do it anyway.
My three had most of their parties at home, whereas most of the ones they were invited to were at activity venues (Wacky type), but the children seemed to really enjoy the traditional games (talking school age here, so a bit older than your DS) and mine never complained about it being that way.
The best game I ever did was a version of Beetle. They built up a flower on the front of a card from sticky paper shapes I'd cut out (stalk instead of body, flower centre instead of head, petals instead of legs, leaves instead of feelers, but we kept the eyes and mouth so the flower had a face) and once we had a winner all the others finished them off before I helped them write their names inside (think it was elder son's 5th, so reception class aged children). They then took them home with them to give to their Mum's the following day, which happened to me Mothering Sunday.
Loads of comments came back from the Mums on that one the following week (via my parents who did the school runs for us), and it seemed that it was the one game the children couldn't stop talking about !!!!Cheryl0 -
trex170104 wrote: »BTW can I ask a few questions I am new to the whole forum thingy and have no idea what all the abbreviations mean. I'm guessing OH is other half, but what is DH, and DD?
DD - darling daughter
the one that confuses me is DS1/DD1 type. On the forum I use this always means the elder/eldest son/daughter, but I've seen it used on here where it means son/daughter aged 1. My DS1 is 19, and my DS2 is 17, so very confusing !!!!Cheryl0 -
DH - darling husband
DD - darling daughter
the one that confuses me is DS1/DD1 type. On the forum I use this always means the elder/eldest son/daughter, but I've seen it used on here where it means son/daughter aged 1. My DS1 is 19, and my DS2 is 17, so very confusing !!!!
Cheers
That's much clearer now
x0 -
Tryingtodobetter, I have a complete break down of all my 'known' expenses, just as you have, and I split them into priorities and then allocate them sources of funding, like mini challenges within my overall challenge.
For example, if you receive child benefit for 2 children, that should give you £1500 per annum, so I would allocate that to everything that is associated with the children such as hobbies, clothes/footwear, entertainment, Christmas and birthdays etc. (Yours amounts to £1654, mini-challenge to keep it within £1500 by making a few pressies or saving coupons, vouchers or cashback to make up any difference)
Definately going to try and do it this way, I do like a challenge!!
If you are struggling to pay debts, look at what can be reduced or cancelled, such as Sky (saves £311 a year) and telephone bill (drop to lower package and only make calls at weekends (saves £140 a year) so that takes you down to £12,418 per year.
No debts thank goodness. I would love not to have Sky but this is the only way we can recieve any sort of TV signal.
Thanks for taking the time to respond it is good to have feedback and someone elses unbiased opinionCredit Card Debt
2019 - £7520
2023 - £1975
Pay Debt by Xmas #290 -
Good afternoon frunchkins and HRH's:D
Thanks to my stockpiling and veggie growing etc I have managed to save quite a lot on grocery budget which has been the main reason for coming up to last quarter under budget:D
Anyway have decided to have a splurge on some furniture. I have been looking at some lovely leather dining chairs in a local shop for over 6 months now. Originally they were £150 each (need 4) just recently they dropped to £100 each and this week they have a discount offer on which takes them to £65 each - bargain!!! Can't resist them any longer so will be spending £260 out of my £4000 budget to get them:eek: . Thanks to this challenge I have the cash freed up to go and get them and still be on target, it also made me too [STRIKE]tight [/STRIKE] frugal to buy them at the original £600 so has saved me a packet:j
Also have the tv licence to renew this month so big deductions to make from totals, will update my sig later.
Funnily enough I am doing a kids party tomorrow night - It is a kid's and BIG kid's party - I have invited the local 7ups youth club (7 -11 year olds)for a party with my oldies to help build bridges between the generations. Lots of jelly,cakes, sarnies, ice creams, crisps etc and plenty party games,pass the parcel etc, and party bags - my oldies can't wait:rotfl: One of my ladies has never been to a children's party - even as a child:eek:
Afterwards the kids are going to entertain us with some songs etc which they have been practising. Should be fun 20 kids and about 25 oldies.0 -
Sounds brilliant SM! And well done you michelle on NOT booking bouncy castle etc - that sort of pressure must be difficult but if you start how you mean to go on, you are at least not setting yourself up for your own kids over blown expectations in the future.
Thanks to those who posted their buget breakdowns - and for those who give feedback on them - it's helping me look at mine too.
Redglass -meant to say thanks for your feedback/support on the freecyle let down: appreciated.
Nyk - slightly belated but I appreciated the initial reply you gave to CW18 re valuing yourself as a skilled housekeeper. That gave me a slight but significant positive shift in how I see myself and what I am trying to attain, especially as I am unable to work more than about 12 hrs a week.
Just to remind people, where appropriate, you can take in a lodger and under the IR 'rent a room scheme' the first £4250 is tax free:j . This is what we do. It's probably fairly unusual at our age (40's) to have to make up our bed every night in our sitting room in order to rent the double room to someone else, but it enables us to manage on my income (OH's income is out of the picture at the mo(long story, shall we just kindly say he has 'money issues').
Have just been double checking Oct budget and I've got to find an extra £30 from somewhere for the books to balance, so that this month's mini challenge for me: what can I cut out...
Was at a friend's last night and there were 4 of us and I watched in horror as they made 4 individual mugs of tea with a tea bag each - I had lots of:eek: 's going off in my brain: don't they realise that they could have saved money by using just 2 in a teapot for the four of us:rotfl: .
Glad you had a good day yesterday bails.I try to take one day at a time, but sometimes several days attack me at once0 -
I've paid my credit cards for the month -- but haven't paid off as much as I had initially planned to
I've lent my younger son £45 instead -- but £20 of that was essential as he still isn't getting his EMA which he is going to use for bus fares and dinners -- and he's just about spent all of the paper round money he had saved up. The letter that came from them this morning said they're experiencing delays so looks like it could be a long while before it comes through yet too! And he could need more before it gets processed, so I need to make sure I have a small 'slush fund' for it to come from.
The rest of it was for an MP4 player. He had his eyes on an MP3 player (can't remember whether it was £30 or £40) as soon he started college, but said at the time it would have to wait for the EMA to come through. Anyway, I offered to lend him the money this morning as he has the best part of an hour on the bus each way 4 days a week which is what he wanted it for, but he's good with money and I know it will come back as soon as the EMA hits his bank account. He also hasn't once asked for a loan, and even lent me some cash over the summer when I had a tricky week !!
So we went on-line to order -- only to find it's gone up to £65 :eek: I then mentioned I'd seen an MP4 player in Aldi last week, and they still had them in yesterday at £30, so we headed down there before his bus to college (afternoon only on Thursday) so he could have a look... only to find it had been reduced overnight and is now £25.
So DS is a happy bunny today. And at least I know the money will be coming back at some point......
Oh! And the flea/worm treatments I ordered for the dogs yesterday afternoon arrived this morning -- really, really impressed with service, especially given how much I saved on it too...... Hubby was amazed when he saw what was in the package, as he thought it was only available from the vetI guess we [strike]penny pinchers[/strike] money savers will check out anything and everything to make sure we're getting the best price
Cheryl0 -
Brighton_belle wrote: »Was at a friend's last night and there were 4 of us and I watched in horror as they made 4 individual mugs of tea with a tea bag each - I had lots of:eek: 's going off in my brain: don't they realise that they could have saved money by using just 2 in a teapot for the four of us:rotfl: .Cheryl0
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