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

Kittikins

Hi NYK - my problems have come about by ex telling me he's got money problems and is unlikely to be able to pay maintenance (being taken to court by 2 of his creditors...maybe more?!?). He gave me approx £150/month.

I work full time hours in 4 days and today is my day of luxury, well decluttering, as DD is at grandparents til Sunday.

Nursery fees have gone up (4 days a week) but the tax credits won't rise to meet them, as the increase is just under £10 a week...so that rise, coupled with the loss of ex's contribution, mean that my budget is shot to pieces

I also put DD in the village preschool on Friday mornings (£8/week for under 3 hours!) as I wanted her to meet some local children as her nursery is in the nearest town - she loves it as it's next to the 'big girl' school and even if I wanted to take her out after Easter, I couldn't, as they want a full term's notice

My budget used to leave me a tiny bit left over which always seemed to disappear on something but unless ex does his bit, I don't have enough coming in.

Note to self - MUST sell the s*dding house....I have a £150k mortgage on a house I'm trying to sell for [STRIKE]£280k[/STRIKE], [STRIKE]£270k[/STRIKE], [STRIKE]£260k[/STRIKE], now on at £250k but no offers yet The mortgage is so high as I stretched myself to buy this place 5 years ago when I was working in London on a much bigger salary than I now have working locally, but I couldn't commute again (would be 2 hours each way) for practical reasons.

Second note to self - this challenge is no longer something I want to follow, it's a life I'm going to be proud of living. If I go down, I'm going down fighting :rolleyes:

Get so tired of struggling at times Sorry, have really gone on and on here.

cw18

Kittikins -- do Tax Credits take maintainance into account as income when working out your award? If so, have you let them know that your ex has stopped paying you? (Or was last years income still significantly down on last years, that it won't make any difference until April anyway?)

Kittikins

CW - unfortunately they don't take maintenance into account.

Feeling grumpier now, lol, wanted to go and bake a cake but my electronic scales have just broken. Have some M&S vouchers left from Christmas, will go down to Brighton tomorrow and see if they have any (get free parking at the Brighton office at the weekends, so could be a very frugal trip).

Did a stockcupboard storetake last night and reckon I have enough savoury things in the cupboards/freezer to keep us going for a few weeks, so can use the grocery budget to cover some of this month's shortfall

nickynoo08

Kittikins wrote: »

Nickynoo -if you're near a Mr T's, they are doing 5 birthday cards for £1, lots of good ones for little girls, DD has been choosing them for her friends and thinks they're beautiful

Thanks kittikins, i managed to get one for 28p from home bargains;) , but as i have loads of birthdays coming up i might just pop to mrT's to stock up.

Sorry to hear your bad news Thriftylass. The same thing happened me before i fell pregnant with my first. Hugs to you x


got slow cooker on for tea tonight and tomoro, making a chilli. also just made a pan of broccoli and cheese soup for my lunch tomoro yum.

Lesley_Gaye

angelatgraceland wrote: »

Listed a stack of books and a couple of dvds on Amazon so Im hoping to recover some money some time there. Spent on some ink cartridges but managed to get refilled ones which are "full" so I am hoping they are good. Not stockpiling those again though as Ive a habit of buying cartridges bulk and then the printer dies and the manufactures then do away with that cartridge and it gets wasted. Now I figure that the inks actually pay for themselves with money to spare when I print off the odd voucher! So never must I be without inks!

have you ever thought about refilling your cartridges? I have been doing mine for a long time now and it works great, both the black and colour cartridges. I always keep a spare cartridge in the drawer as they will refill quite happily lots of times for months and then on the next refill just refuse to work for some unknown reason.

When they do that, I just change the cartridge to the new one. The current price for 250ml of black ink (the cheapest way to buy it is in the 250ml pack size) is £18.99, cheaper than many cartridges. Most black cartridges hold roughly 20ml. So that would be less than £1.60 per cartridge refill - bargain.

I get them from here http://www.medea.co.uk/jr/prod_info/jr_refill_kits.htm

lingojingo

Thrifty lass, so sorry to hear your news, you and OH take time out to grieve and hug each other.
It happened to me between my two, and though it was true what people said, we did get pregnant again soon after, that was no consolation as I had really wanted the lost baby. It does get easier with time, but you need to take care of yourselves for now.

Well, I made it to work, very tentatively, but now my neck is really aching again. I met the man who cleans the litter and clears snow from the pavements in our village, he told me to be careful as it was really slippery further down the hill, and he'd run out of salt for the paths! He said he was going to try and buy some himself (goodness knows where from) as the council won't give him any more, they've got to save it for the roads. He does a great job and we're so lucky to have him.

mumzyof2

Hello Hvae updated my spends.

Me and children are having pancake day early tonight lol

I posted last week that DS found some plastic in turkey drummers well they wrote to me and it was actually bone.. but sent me a cheque for £15!!
Going to pay it off my debt!!

candygirl

Hi everyone:hello:
Have been shopping in Southport today, and got a few bits for the baby from B&Ms ,as well as an Amazon delivery of 2 books this morning, so that's £30 spends for today:D
THRIFTYLASS i'm really sorry ton hear your news hun, I had a MC when DD was 18 months old:(
MUMZY well done on the £15:T :T

grandma247

just a Quick note to say sorry for your sad news thrftylass.
And what a wonderful result mumzy it was worth complaining.

Janey51

thriftylass so sorry for your sad news.

kittikins you are doing a good job. We are all behind you.