Live on £4000 for a Year, 2009 Challenge, part 1

JAMIEDODGER

phew! this thread moves so fast!!!:D

Went to chichester today to buy ds2 some new school shoes, managed to get him a pair of lonsdale all black trainers £14.99!!! really pleased with this!:D

Spent £1.60 on parking, had a mooch round other shops, but didnt see anything I wanted or needed:) Picked up some herbs on the way home and spent another £1, will update signature in a mo...

Had a nice relaxing bath this evening as my back is still playing up! Now chilling with a glass of wine and catching up on todays posts!

Also edited to say:

Signed up for a new contract for landline and broadband today....saved myself £215.40 for this year:T

slowlyfading

hello everyone!
Well, I've had a strange day. I was at work from 4 til 7pm so that wasn't hard, and I spent the day tidying my room.
I'm feeling though, as me and mum had a huge argument before. She keeps saying I don't do enough around the house and that I'm not thoughtful and that I am basically taking the !!!! by living there. So, I'm fed up.
Hope everyone else has had a good day.
sf xx

trex170104

WOW SOOOO MANY POSTS!!!
I haven't been on here for a few days and it has taken me so long to get through all the posts but it is addictive once you start. So far this year I have been busy buying this years bday and xmas pressies in the sales, and with 'free' boots points that I'd saved. I have so many people to buy for including 17 kids, not including my own DS but have done all the kids for the year, and most of them for xmas plus most of our friends and family for birthdays for the year except really close family. Have decided to keep a list in my purse of people I still have to buy for and then when I see a bargain I can mark them off my list. I've never done this before but it is brilliant how much I am saving. Have got lots on Boots cos I had lots of points saved up and lots from the book people [fab for kids especially].
So far have not had to spend any money on food and I don't forsee haveing to spend any for a while - all the stockpiling last year is really paying off. Also had a few NSDs which is great - I'm going to put a certain amount aside in savings for each NSD at the end of each month to make them even more worthwhile.
At the mo I'm awaiting an email from a student from Spain who stayed with us for 10 days in Dec for an intensive English course [for which he paid us £1500 - which was fab]. He wants to continue his English lessons online [£20 a week for an hours work] which will be brill cos he'll pay in 12 weeks stints so this will really help with our savings. He is emailling to confirm this week so fingers crossed - he is also hoping to come back for another intensive course lter this year [again fingers crossed].
Am just wondering is there a website that tells you all the offers on in various supermarkets? Thanks Nyk so much for the Approved Food link - much of the food is similar to Home Bargains and the prices are amazing.
Hope everyone has had a good frugal day - am now off to read Kath Kelly's 'How I lived on a Pound a Day for a Year'

lyndasharp

SF, maybe your Mum had had a bad day and was just looking for something to complain about? Hope you get things sorted out between you soon.

The money transferred to my solicitor fine. Got a call an hour later to say the sellers of the house want to delay it a bit as they have lost the rented place they really wanted. Grr. So we're still exchanging contracts tomorrow but the move date is now 30th Jan. I'm not particularly impressed but there's not a lot I can do about it. As i won't be paying any bills this month I went shopping on my way back from the solicitors and bought a pair of trainers. They were £22, but were the only ones that felt comfortable! They come out of my 'everything else' budget... which now has less than £40 left for the rest of the year. Think I might be borrowing a bit from some of my other budgets for that one....

whitewing

I'm still here but can't keep up at the moment. Still trying to be good and not spend (except on heating unfortunately).

bails

Sorry to hear about your mum SF, maybe Lynda is right? Can you have a chat with her about things? Hope you sort it out soon x
Frustrating about the house delay Lynda but it'll be yours soon :T What are the trainers for? (being nosey )

Trex, that intensive course sounds like a FAB idea, how did you find them? Maybe I could do something similar, would really help my back to work plan for next year as I need to make some money during the hols. Thanks for any help as ever x

One more lesson tomorrow then got Marru's monkey here all weekend. The closest OH and I have come to a 4 year-old is when we were one :eek::rotfl:
Bath and early night for me, I'm shattered. Night all x

whitewing

Awww. Hope you have a fun weekend 'aunty' bails xx

Marru

bails wrote: »

One more lesson tomorrow then got Marru's monkey here all weekend.

WOOHOOO!!!!!

Marru is going to a nice weekend course and staying the Saturday night in the working farm and eating full English breakfast on Sunday morning without the sound of someone calling "Mummy!" Bliss. Thank you sooooo much Bails

SF: sorry to hear about your day, I think Lynda is right and it is just one of those situations when we tend to take out our frustrations from our nearest and dearest.

angelatgraceland

Just contacted Approved Foods to find out whats happening. Had email back 15 mins later! Apparantly my order was left for the boss to sort out and sort of got delayed because Id repeated a few items down the list and they werent sure about it so didnt ship. So now have reassured them that is is correct and to go ahead! Unfortunately they dont seem to have a button for "empty cart" so I couldnt start over again and had problems because I was jiggling the order around to get the best value out of the postage. Still-I will know next time! They seem very helpful :+)
DH has a filling and an extraction at dentist tomorrow so that will set back the budget from "other" total. Allowing £100 and he is taking it in cash-I think it costs about 80-90.

trex170104

Hiya Bails
I already knew the student. In Nov 2006 my husband and I taught in Spain for 10 days and we met him there. This is the only reason I accepted his request for a course as we knew him and he knew our little one andwas very good with him. I knew I needed to have time to do the normal baby stuf I do so we fitted this in around his course - he wanted plenty of private study exercises which he did in his room so it all worked out very well. Let me know if you do decide to do this I could give you some more info on the type of stuff I did with him. Have you ever had homestay students with you? If you have a spare room, with space for a desk and internet access this is always a good earner too - Ihaven't done it myself but I organised this for the language centre in one of the universities I taught in. I think families get about £16 per day.