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

Penny2myName

Been doing my maths ready for next year and have figured out my challenge money if not my budget. Since i have 8.66 deducted from benefit for social loan, till around June next year, I have rounded my final figure to £5200 (actual figure is £5203.64)

Child Benefit £2282.80 Will cover ALL Bills and gifts
Income Support £2917.20 (rounded down) Will cover Food, Clothing, Toiletries, Cleaning, Household, Animals and Other.

School costs are going to come from my maintenance which I am not including, which leaves my Child Tax Credits for debt repayments and savings. As not including regular savings in challenge for 2009.

Frugaldom

Back again, I've been busily free cycling as much as I can and finally decided that the old computer needed re-homing as it wasn't going to attract any buyers from about here. I listed at 2.41pm and have 3 enquiries already.

Found a few great offers on H-M-V, so I'm going to do some Chrissie shopping whilst the chicken is cooking for dinner. Haven't found any codes that work, so I'm guessing I'll need to be happy with cashback from cashback site, cashback from cc and free delivery. Unless anyone can show me further savings? I'd love the complete boxed set of The Good Life but WOW! What a price IF you can find a set. :eek:

mama67

fayjmck wrote: »

Hiya reading this and very interested, are any of you able to do this with oil fired central heating? I spent about 2k on oil last year I think as well as 40-50 electricity and 80 a month on logs and coal just to keep warm and cook muttering and counting up - um a big chunk - my fuel costs must be in the region of 3k a year - and I dont think we were very warm!!!!! We rent, we have no alternative fuel except solid fuel (but I am working on it!!)

Went back to the original posts and seriously thinking about it for next year - I have a meagre stipend anyway but the thought of it going further is very tempting.

Without being a pain, how are the fuel costs mounting up?

Hi Sophies mum - not stalking you honest!!

Hi, Sorry I'm a bit late posting a reply;

I use oil for water and heating but also have a open coal/log fire in one room. We do not have mains gas.

We spend £55 p/m (£660pa) on oil but this does include an annual service as well and £60 p/m (£720pa) on electricity; we also spend approx £250 pa on coal, wood we collect from wherever. Total overall £1650 approx.

This is for a 3 bedroomed house, with 2 adults and 2 boys with all the usual playstation and Wii consoles etc.

I cook with electricity, run the dishwasher daily and the washing machine at least daily sometimes more.

cw18

mama67 wrote: »

Total overall £1650 approx.

:eek: That's scarey :eek:

I'm currently paying £870 a year for my g&e in a 4 bed detatched with 2 adults and a 17 year old (so as good as 3 adults), and a 19 year-old home on leave about 6-8 weeks a year. And this is paying £10-15/month more than they asked for, so should be able to reduce it to £700 a year without getting into debt (currently £140 in credit).

(We do then have servicing/maintainance on top of that, which is currently £200/year -- must shop around and see if I can find cheaper, as our BG contract keeps going up while I see them advertising it for not much more than half of what we pay!!!)

Skint_Lynne

nykmedia wrote: »

Back again, I've been busily free cycling as much as I can and finally decided that the old computer needed re-homing as it wasn't going to attract any buyers from about here. I listed at 2.41pm and have 3 enquiries already.

Found a few great offers on H-M-V, so I'm going to do some Chrissie shopping whilst the chicken is cooking for dinner. Haven't found any codes that work, so I'm guessing I'll need to be happy with cashback from cashback site, cashback from cc and free delivery. Unless anyone can show me further savings? I'd love the complete boxed set of The Good Life but WOW! What a price IF you can find a set. :eek:

Nyk, I know you will probably have done this already, but check out P l a
y.com as well because they are usually cheaper than H M V. I've found them to be really good.

SL x

taka

Hello from fffffffreezing Scotland :hello:

The rain has now eased off somewhat and is now actually falling rather than being violently dashed against anything silly enough to be outside and my windows have now stopped rattling and letting in strong breezes! My flat soooo needs better fitting windows and general draught excluding measures. :rolleyes: I currently am resembling the michelin man with 3 jumpers on . My heating has finally had to go on but its not really heating much! We even had hail yesterday! I made the mistake of trying to squeeze a trip to the bank in before my mindfulness group yesterday and in the space of 3 minutes got absolutely soaked. 5 mins later or earlier it was sunny and I'd have been fine! :eek:

Warning rant ahead... :rolleyes:

Well I'm spending half of today researching a new accounts as I've finally had it with the incompetence of HBOS. Not only did they fail to sort out (or even record ) that I was having a problem with my savings account a couple of weeks ago but I have discovered and confirmed they have still not changed something that should have been sorted over 7 years ago to do with my current account. :mad: Apparently telling them multiple times (and making a formal complaint 1.5 years ago on a related matter is not enough to fix it :eek: :mad: :wall: I'm sooooo out of there.... One would think they would actually want to keep low risk, small mortgage, no other debt type people with increasing savings as customers in times like these but nooooooooooooooo :mad: !!!!!!s!! :mad:

Ok you can look again... rant over!!

I'm off to find warming comfort food... :rolleyes:

purplevamp

I have some measuring cups, not sure if they're American or not but the measurements are:-

1/4 cup = 60ml 2 oz
1/3 cup = 80ml 2.7 oz
1/2 cup = 120ml 4oz
1 cup = 240ml 8oz

And just for fun a "stick" of butter is the equivalent of 4oz

cw18

Well, I've had a "fun" afternoon doing some number crunching (nothing better to do with my time, and the weather is such that I really don't want to go out). Been through everything I've used for our main meals so far this month (including today) and costed up in terms of todays prices.

Actual cost to me has been £37.46 -- almost all the meat and a lot of the veg have been Whoopsie items

Been onto the Tesco site, and costed up as if I were to order enough now to repeat these 25 meals, based on what I would have picked up prior to my latest cost-cutting exercise (and I've only costed what would be used, so part packs left in the cupboards/freezers aren't part of this)..... total cost £58.47, which also includes loads of value products as I used to use loads of these already.

So that's £21 (or 56%) higher than what I've actually spent !!!

Some of this is due to increases since I bought items though - on top of the value beans having gone up from 20p to 29p, I also spotted the value tuna is up from 34p to 48p :eek:


But while I was doing this I noticed value items are creeping back onto the site -- and there wasn't anything I'd normally buy the value of that wasn't available as such..... including the chopped tomatoes (even if the prices have gone up!)

Do you think they had a lot of complaints/had a lot less on-line orders while these items were missing?

Penny2myName

Always wondered what a stick of butter was.

mama67

nykmedia wrote: »

I'm back again - I got an even BETTER deal! Asd* has just quoted (and I have accepted, post dated to estimated date of entry) £47.50 for the full year! If I go via cashback site, there's £68 cashback!

Yes, this is for a full year. My current & previous policies cost me a fortune - £55 with £35 cashback and £84 with £75 cashback, so they are getting better, don't you think Remember that's just contents insurance, not buildings insurance, thank goodness. We rent, so the buildings insurance is the responsibility of the landlords.

Just had my Buildings and contents ins renewal through, and although it was cheaper than what we had been paying, did a bit of a search through the comparison sites, best I could find with almost identical cover was Mr S which was £80 less and gave £45 cash back; so I phoned our company and said I had been doing a search and could get this cover for blaa blaa what could they do for me.

They phoned back approx 2 hours later with a quote which was £100 less than the renewal because they had neglected to add in the loyalty bonus discount as we had been with them for 8 years, so although it is still £25 more than the Mr S would have been including the cash back, we also get another years loyalty add on again next year and it is the better cover of the 2.

Just goes to show that making a phone call can make a saving. so we are going to be paying £15 p/m less at renewal than have been. This is now £30p/m combined compared to £45p/m combined with unlimited re-build and unlimited contents.