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

grandma247

Good morning everybody. We will have another busy day today as we finished decorating the front room (paper was bought months ago) We need to do a tip run and a charity shop dropoff today then clean the house. I always seem to have the whole house in a mess when we decorate.
SM your leeks will be fine if you harvest now. If you wait too long they will develop flower buds which is not a major problem but the flower stalks are a bit tough.Let us know how the beetroot is please. I love grated raw beetroot with mashed potatoes so would be interested in leaving some in the ground overwinter. I can't see how they would not be ok.
Whitewing your plan with the boxes is a great idea and should work well.
Boomdocker so sorry to hear about your boiler. We had to have a new one last Feb.our last one was only 3 years old but it was a cheapie in boiler terms although the engineer said they should last 12 years. New one is a condensing boiler so saves us money on gas anyway. still a cheapie though. We decided to get another cheapie until the mortgage is paid off then we will look into buying a better one.
I hope everyone is ok and they are not too far off their target. I will be doing my accounts over the weekend so will see how close it was.
I booked four nights at Ingoldmels for the end of March so will pay that off during feb and March. It was only £64. DS1 and DIL coming with us for a break.
Will catch up later.

1274

Hello all. Just had a total panic attack when I logged into online banking. My balance was down to £47. It's never been that low before. But then I remembered I was doing a zero based budget, where the plan was to spend everything from £880 down to zero (the other £120 goes to holiday and long term savings). So £47 3 days before month end is actually really good and I'm very pleased with myself.

Had a MSD yesterday. That's not a typo, MSD = massive spend day. I took a £15 taxi cos I couldn't be bothered to walk, bought lunch and renewed my train ticket for next month. But the £47 is after all of that came out and as long as I don't do that again for 3 days I'm fine. Psychologically I found from doing the challenge last year, that I need to go on an all-out spending spreee once or twice per month. I guess that's just my personality. So for me the challenge is keeping things in check enough to do that and still manage.

Still not been paid by my customers, so things are tight.

the_cat

Morning all

Nothing major planned for today but will be meeting a friend for lunch so no NSD. We only meet up every few months though so I'm just going to enjoy it

Won a tub of UtterlyButterly yesterday which is handy (I am down to my last 10 :eek: after stocking up at better than half price offer:D ) and also managed to haggle down my broadband costs to £10 a month by pretending I wanted to cancel (aol). Really pleased as I didn't want to move and lose my email addresses. So that's another £55 saved on this years challenge:T The guy said it was a deal they would give all existing customers 'if they asked'. :mad: Grrrrrrrr.. makes me so cross that they punish regular customers like that. If you are with them, give it a try. There are a few tales of success on MSE

cw18

xnatalie81x wrote: »

......and have committed to clearing student overdraft first with any savings from grocery budget going towards that. Along with a payment a day (prob 20p a day as won't miss a £1 every 5days) - have put debts in priority order for any additional payments and this is the first one to get the 'treatment'

Sounds like you're doing brilliantly :T

But I have to ask -- is the student overdraft the dearest of your debts (ie. highest interest rate)? I always understood the student things to generally be cheaper than other forms of borrowing (I've always paid off the one with the highest interest rate first, as that increases the money available to clear debts faster)

nickynoo08

Morning peeps,
Rubbish weather here today, not that it matters cuz i'm not planning on going out today. Having an nsd today and hopefully tomoro too. There's nothing i need to buy so i've got no excuses.
Having a nightmare with little un at the moment. He got really attatched to a particular drinking cup and its now broken, went to town yesterday to pick one up and it was gonna cost £4odd and it didnt last that long. My problem at the moment is he wants THAT cup to drink out of. I've dug out all his old cups and he's refusing to try any of them. I'm hoping he gives in soon.

Todays plan...
Finish painting kitchen
Continue painting front room
put washing away
go on wii fit

:mad: The little monkey has just thrown a cup full of milk because its not his usual cup. Just missed laptop by inches!!!! I'm not amused with him!

xnatalie81x

cw18 wrote: »

Sounds like you're doing brilliantly :T

But I have to ask -- is the student overdraft the dearest of your debts (ie. highest interest rate)? I always understood the student things to generally be cheaper than other forms of borrowing (I've always paid off the one with the highest interest rate first, as that increases the money available to clear debts faster)

A lot of people have asked this and the thing is all my other debts are frozen interest thanks to DMP so this is the only one still attracting charges (albeit very low) but as student status will end in September i need it gone by then or they may transfer it to a normal account, or do something underhand to leave me well and truly stuffled!

Janey51

In_Search_Of_Me wrote: »

Janey love the tales of the adventures with metal detector! Who needs she wee when you can just giggle while peeing behind a bush!! Just make sure you stand with wind in right direction or you get wet ankles!!

Regrettably no bushes...just open fields. Good for the pelvic floor muscles though

Mumzy do you mind telling what percentage of your debts you managed to settle for?

I am gutted because I had sold 4 books on Amazon (profit £17) but discovered there has been a leak from somewhere above the bookcase (set into side of fireplace) where my books were filed and they are ruined. Luckily, they seem to be the only ones. I have had to refund the buyers and move all the books :mad:

Big review of budget for January today before I update my sig.

I have registered t get a Boots Advantage card. Suddenly realised how much I was missing out on when I was shopping with my friend and she had loads of points to use for presents. It's not that I spend a lot on Boots but I may as well get anything going free

I am going back to work week after next....7 months after DH died. Quite nervous but I need to try. I will only do half days for the first 3 weeks and then go to Occ Health to see how I am doing.
It will boost my income by about £300pm :T

xnatalie81x

Have just helped my xmas 2010. Avon is offering free delivery today only if you enter code DELIVER at chechout so ordered 3 sale items and a 4 for £5 deal and that is xmas pressie for sister1(face mask and bubble bath2.25/5), sister2 (face mask and bubble bath2.25/5), mum (bubble bath1.25/5) and mother in law (bubble bath and handcream2.75/5). All for 8.50 lol. The bubbles are normally £4 each but 4 for £5 right now so will make them all a pamper box with home made decorated boxes (saving all wrapping paper) Max spend on each person listed is £5 - tight i know but i am getting brilliant bargains so will get about 4 good items each!!!!!! And they will love it!

As transaction won't clear card for a few days, it is coming off my feb budget (180 for xmas or 15 a mth) and will save the other 6.50 in case i see anything else for 'em

bails

Morning all, just caught up. I think I'm going to struggle to remember what I wanted to reply to so sorry about that!

Rubbish about the books Janey, glad all the others seem okay though. I heard yesterday that metal detectors are one of THE toys for 2009 - get you, being all fashionable! Really hope work goes well, the money will certainly be nice I'm sure x

Feedback sounds very promising Marru, keeping everything crossed it works out x

Boilers, they're so expensive aren't they?! We have a back boiler (I know, I know!) but can't afford to rip it out at the mo. It's a real shame as it has a hideous fire infront of it (covered by a radiator guard thingy) and a big tank in the bathroom cupboard, which would be perfect space for a shower. One day...

Think your attitude is the right way to go SFT, it is so hard when you have to work closely with someone you really don't get on with though x

1274, your way of budgeting seems to be working well for you :T I guess we sort of operate on this principle too, as we count down and when the money's gone from our joint account we don't spend any more til 1st.

Hope your boxes idea works Whitewing, let us know :T

Sounds like you're becoming a storage demon Nyk :T I can't believe you only have 4 rooms for the 3 of you :eek: We're making a 6th for the two of us :whistle: I know we are very spoilt at the moment though as we'll have our own 'rooms' - mine is an office for all my paperwork and soon also a place to rest during the day; OH's will have barely anything in it to counteract my clutteredness :rotfl:and will be used for tai chi, yoga, meditation, music and general hibernation

Run out of time as I really must get on with the day - OH is putting up our map :heartpuls and then working on the attic; I'm putting away some clutter I sorted a couple of days ago, off to the Dogs Home to get some cheap cat milk and lesson planning. Oh, and viewing that house at 4pm;). Looking forward to working out my monthly spends over the weekend, I'm rather excited about it

Have a lovely day everyone x

skint_chick

Here's what I've been up to this morning - it's for mother's day as my mum loves ducks - so she has somewhere to put hot dishes instead of the dodgy cork thing shes been using for 25yrs! Will be finishing it later after I go to the park to see some real ducks.



Having a really bad day - hence the mosaic morning to try and clear my head. HR rang to ask me to return from sick leave (against their occupational health doctor's advice!) so they can finish my discplinary -and told me they still have a few questions for me. I ended up in tears on the phone explaining that they have had confirmation in writing from the person who caused this whole mess that I have done nothing wrong. Why would I risk going back to possibly be sacked? And if they offer me my job back I might let myself be talked into going back which isn't what I want.

Is it wrong to stay off on sick leave til my pay finishes? The doctor says not, my friends and family agree. I start my new job next week - my doctor has given me the all clear to go ahead. And I've seen another 2 days a week position that's similar to my old job but a lot less stressful and I'd doing mostly admin stuff I started off doing 8years ago. But there will prob be 800 applications :mad: I'm going to apply because it will fit in with the research job and I'll still only be working about 15days a month. And I'll get the social contact with people I'm missing now.

NSD today - defrosted last of Xmas turkey and veggies last night and made more turkey soup for lunch today and tomorrow, dinner is korma from freezer.

I am so grateful to all of you for how you've made me feel so welcome and encouraged me to figure out what I really want from life. I am so pleased with my new life - at the weekend my mum was showing me her garage full of stockpiles and I realised I was turning into her!!!