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

mama67

cw18 wrote: »

grandma - I had that email as well. So I wandered off for a look around the site, and of the 8 or 9 items that interested me all but 2 were out of stock !!

I didn't think there was as much choice on the site as when I first looked before Christmas

If they are still in the list then AF will be getting more stock in, so it will be a case of checking back to see.

1274

As of today (or tomorrow when my transfer clears) I have paid off my mortgage:j

I'm not the best (understatement of the year) at budgetting, or controlling my spending, and I deserve a place in Nyk's doghouse for the buying nice things for the house spends I have had over the last 2 weeks but still ... :j

It's partly down to you guys, and partly down to the MFIT challenge, so everyone on here has my heartfelt thanks. I'm typing this from a home that no one can ever take away from me and you can imagine how that feels :jMore importantly, as I'm a contractor, the amount I need to earn to clear my overheads each month has halved. If interest rates hadn't gone down so much, my overheads would now be a fifth of what they were when I joined MSE

Thank you all. If anyone is up in London and wants to pop by my MORTGAGE FREE flat, PM me

Now, back to the hard work of living on £16K and trying to build up some savings ...

sophiesmum_2

Good evening frunchkins:D

Wow everyone has got exciting things going on in their lives at the moment, new jobs, new houses, new puppies- I am feeling quite left out:p

Not much to report here had a quietish day at work, decorators still here so are the paint headaches:rolleyes: Had a good afternoon with the oldies, did the chair based exercise class with them then we did a guided meditation for relaxation - first time I have done one with them and they loved it - I wasn't sure how they would take it - the one I used was based on the ocean with waves, whale noises etc but it went down well. Will have to look out some more for them.
Tortilla press and corn tortilla flour arrived so will have a go of that later.Need to find a container to store the 5kg bag of flour in, and make a space in my storecupboard.

General frugal aims for today;

• storecupboard lunch and tea
• reduce, reuse,recycle one item-
• do something nice for me - meditation with oldies - 1/2 hour peace in working day;)
• do something nice for someone else- meditation with oldies
• fitter not fatter - swimming later,chair based exercise class
• try out tortilla press:D

Todays frugal meals;

• frozen berry smoothie
• celery sticks stuffed with tuna mayonnaise,,tomato and cucumber salad
• mushroom,onion and bacon omelette for me ,chicken salad tortillas for OH

Fruit and veg portions;
2 fruit, 0 pulses,4veggies,:D

Expenditure or additional income

No spend day:D


Remaining target cash for first 6 months food spends - £246.34 left from budget of £400 for first six months.
Extra income generated £152.43 /spent £33 / left £119.43

taka

Wow...!! Its all going on here! Thanks for the lovely comments everyone!

SFT - good luck with the potential house! :T
Skint_chick - Congratulations! :beer:
Bails - I hope you puppy to be gets the all clear and the stolen puppy is found.
EFC - I hope your sciatica improves soon.

Still smiling but slowly but surely wanting to [strike]kill[/strike] [strike]torture[/strike] [strike]leave my boss to do it all and see how he copes[/strike] go mad at my boss...

Part (!!) of my job it to train people if necessary but training/supervising is all (ok and a conference) I have done for weeks at work and its not going to let up any time soon. I'm sure the students/staff I need to train/supervise are breeding behind my back... I'm currently training 4 people (or would be if there was enough hours in the day and they all needed to learn the same thing at the same time :rolleyes: :mad: ). Its got to the point that my boss is now having me train up person 4 in how to do the experiments I was supposed to be doing but never have time to do... :rolleyes: :rotfl: Ermmmm... see above...:eek: :wall: :rotfl: I was only supposed to be looking after 1 person... :rolleyes:

Hmmmm and here is me wanting to have a serious career/change of focus in my job type conversation with my boss! :think: Maybe he has worked this out (not told him yet) and he is just keeping me super busy so I can't ask anything too awkward (sp?) :rolleyes: :rotfl: Hmmmm... He owes me a very, very large drink :beer: :rotfl:

grandma247

nykmedia wrote: »

Wonder how long that would last? :rotfl: I'd need to start selling toffee to make it pay!

Sell lots and lots of jam and marmalade:D

sophiesmum_2

Well done 1274 - must be a lovely feeling:T :T :T

savingfortravel

Congrats 1274...What an amazing achievement!!!!!!!!!!!! SFT

boring_beige

well done skint chick & 1274.
hope everything works out with your puppy, Bails.
Taka, all you can do is try to talk to your boss and hope you get what you want.
I managed to get my bedroom walls wiped down but the really need to get repainted. the zip i've been going to replace for about six months has been done today as well, it was a lot easier than i thought.
some reduced veg i bought on friday became soup to freeze. i'm fairly sure i'm the only person eating carrot, swede and yellow split pea soup. i'll chunk any veg in with whatever peas/lentils i have and i normally comes out okay.
i'm trying to knit my way through all the wool i have but have remembered a half finnished cross stitch kit i want to finnished but i must knit another green glove to make up the pair first.

ram_murdock

ah just lost a really long post.... i hate it when that happens!!

SFT - good luck with the house hunting. I live in a rural village and would really recommend it!

Skint chick - congrats on the job and paying of the loan and money. i think i will sit down at the weekend and allocate any extra money i have to paying off my student loan or towards my new car fund.

1274 - congratulations on becoming mortgage free!! what an achievement!:T

Redglass- congrats on your weight loss too! I'm aiming to lose a stone in 12 weeks. So far have lost 6.5lb and its week 6. On track but i think it'll be harder as i get closer to my target.

Off to see the BF tonight and out with the girls to see confessions of a shopaholic tomorrow night!!

Quick question - Bought some chicken fillets tonight from the butchers - was £2.39 for 2. would tescos or asda be cheaper?

Also have been good and been on the power plates twice this week!! I'm definately noticing the difference and feeling fitter! :j

Anyhow hope you all have a lovely evening!!

angela110660

Quote -Window cleaner came yesterday which I'm glad about because windows were awful after the snow :eek: . Coupled with the fact that we live on a main road and the car fumes - they were a bit 'mingin' (as my DD2 would say) :rotfl: . I am counting this in £4K as it's not a necessity. But, I'd rather get someone in to do it than risk DH up the ladder :rolleyes: .
Have to share this as I felt really sad today - I cleaned our windows on Sunday - came home today and found 2 dead blackbirds on our path a male and female. Not a mark on them but think they flew into the porch door and died - my hubby said must have been my fault for overshining those windows!!