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

cw18

redglass - yes you're right. whilst the money remains in an ISA all interest is tax free, but move it out of an ISA (even for a day) and you can't reinvest it on top of the allowance for the current year -- if you move it from SW it has to be done as a proper transfer in order to remain a tax free investment......

shaz_mum_of__2

My Final figures for Feb are:

Groceries (inc cleaning and toiletries )£ 315.06 but more than liked but i have done the shop the week coming up )

Gifts and occasions £47.11 (inc valentine day takeaway)

Inurance £381.80 (lives and caravan )


utilities (inc gas,elec,water,phone ,broadband , tv licence etc) £103.62

Clothing £13

Leisure (lotto,RSPB,eating out,wine, hobbies) £61.17

Total £921.76

a bit more than i wanted but the caravan insurance is a once a year thing and was £300 but because of this challenge it has been paid in full with cashback rather than paying monthly DD with a fee

On the whole i am happy as i mentioned befor £600 spare money on payday and that has never happened before !!

Cooking a restraunt style meal for hubby as it was his birthday in the week and he spent it passing a kidney stone in A&E ......ouch ,no baby sitter so a frugal night in

Hugs and wishes to all that want/need them

Nyk do we get to see pics of the finished kitchen project? any news on the eggs?

Shaz

skint_chick

Redglass - you're not usually allowed to combine transfers of lump sums with regular saver isa's because some peeps have £25k+ in their cash isas from saving since ISAs started. But there are ISAs out there which allow you to transfer in lump sums and not add to them if you want to do the regular saver one and have your existing savings separate.

Although the regular saver ones sound good you only get the high rate on each month's money ie if you do full £3600 for April 09 you would be getting interest on £300 May 09 £600 etc so it's not interest rate on full amount for the full year. Usually doesn't work out that well just sounds good getting 7% etc when rates are so low.

If you want to PM me with what you're considering I used to work in finance and can answer any q's you have/ explain the advantages and disadvantages of the options you're considering - I know what you mean about worrying after you've decided.

Another thing you need to consider this time of yr is the length of time the transfer takes -prob around 3mths - and you don't earn interest while the money's in "limbo" it's likely the transfer won't turn up til April/May time it'll be in a huge pile of transfer applications on a bank employees desk.

Mollymop5

The end of another month and still hanging in.
Nyk are you still in contact with Janey? how's she doing.I've missed her posts on here.

Brighton_belle

sounds good ISA advice skint chick - one thing though, when I transfered my ISA last autumn to Natwest, they guaranteed that I would get interest from the day I filled in the transfer forms at their branch, regardless of how long it took for it all to go through, and I did.

Just had an interesting afternoon as 'exhibit A' in a Dr's exam at the local med school (prod this patient and tell us what's wrong with her). Any way, this is on topic becasue a) I get given a £20 voucher for my efforts for WHsmiths that will cover my nephews 21st this year:j and b) they provided a free lunch, AND at the end they invited me to take as much as the left over sarnies and muffins as I liked as they would only be thrown away. I didn't need to be told twice, being a good forum member:D . OH now has a significant number of muffins for his packed lunches next week and we'll have a very sumptuous sarnie and HM soup supper tonight:A .Oh and I also took 3 left over bananas too.

How are the drawer's progressing SM? The pebble top idea sounds lovely.
Thanks for the great smilie - really makes me laugh so keep having to look at it.
Mr DT - now that's what I'd call a full on, triple geared grown up spreadsheet:T .

redglass_2

SkintChick, thank you, I'm about to PM you.

purplevamp

As promised, here's my monthly spends

Expenditure for February
TV Licence - 9.95
Gas/Elec - 92.50
Catalogues - 74.68
Home insurance - 19.48
Telephone - 35.50
Sky - 36.71
DFS - 42.00
DS1 Bus, etc - 24.00
My bus fares - 31.10
DS2 & DD bus - 6.60
Lottery - 10.00
Shopping - 383.73 (£198.74 more than Jan:eek: )
Clothes - 0.00 :T
School things - 6.00
Christmas/B’day - 29.52
Everything else - 59.20 (incl. 2 child's haircuts @ £15 - shocking!)
Entertainment - 63.78 (incl. 3 tickets to Mickey's Magic Show in April )
Interest - 18.83 (:mad: as I'd paid off most of o/d)

Total - 945.580

I'm quite shocked at this amount, mainly the shopping as this is about £100 more than my average months. Could be all those £1.30 cucumbers I've been buying.

savingfortravel

Hi Everyone!
Had a great frugal day in London. Saw Ken Stott in Arthur Miller's A View from the Bridge, he was amazing, got a standing ovation. Our tickets were paid from Theatre Vouchers from last year's class parents. Our train tickets were £14.60. We picked up our free Body Shop Chocolate (thank you Sarah) and ate that in the interval. We had 2 for 1 pizzas at Pizza Express, and we had a sneaky drink so that came to £7.75 and I went and bought a theatre programme (which was very good) for £3 so it came to £27.35 (£24.35 for OH) all in which is excellent.
Am collecting the title banners from the Sat Times, got 4 need another 4 so I can get my £20 off meal at Pizza Express. Might use that when we go down to Cornwall for our honeymoon.
Have another viewer for our bungalow tomorrow.
Off to read the posts.
SFT

slowlyfading

:hello: everyone

Well, I've updated my totals for Feb and I seem to have spent SO much more than Jan, and its a shorter month! :rotfl:oh well, March should be better as I'm away for 9 days so won't be spending much! I've got to rein in a bit though, but I blame it on the bf :rolleyes:

I'll have a catch up in a minute, hope everyone is okay. Sending big (((HUGS))) to those who want/need one.

sf xx

Vixstar

Back again - twice in one day must be a record for me!
Still not ready to fully join in but have decided to set myself a budget for the next couple of months. Should be okay with a monthly target as at the moment most of my fixed outgoings are similar each month. Am being a little wimpy and using a fairly generous target but it is less than I have spent in either Jan or Feb and should give me at least £1000 for savings. It also means that I'll be more likely to suceed, feel encouraged and reduce my budget a little more. Will let you know how it goes.