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

sophiesmum_2

cw18 wrote: »

£1340 on DD averages to just under £112/month

Does the extra £38/month really give you enough to cover your food as well as everything else

The £150 is after the DD's have been paid.;)

ilovetea

Yes sorry, It is £150 a month and the DD's that go out.:o
Hope to have quite a bit left over to put in my sealed pot at the end of the month.
The rest of my "income" is going to stop in the bank as pretty soon I'll like to have new carpets.
Sorry for the mix up.

ilovetea x

Paulgonnabedebtfree

2NDTIMEROUNDER wrote: »

Paaaaaaaaaaaaaaaul show up mate. She has said (for now)!!! ONLY FOR NOW!!! Paaaaaaaul???? :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

I was out in the town centre earlier on and my ears started burning. Then I come back and see this. I was definitely male the last time I could see past my belly but you never know what my recent change of diet might have done to me .
I hadn't realised that nearly everyone on this thread was female. It's just not always obvious with many of the non-gender specific names. What is refreshing for me is that a lot (though by no means all) of my debt was triggered by not standing my ground when I lived with an extremely frivolous woman a few years ago. The refreshing bit is to see that there are so many women who are genuinely conscientious about the household budget. I realise that frivolity and prudence (god, I hate that word) aren't gender specific but at least the stuff I read on here has gone a long way to restoring my faith in the other half of the human race.
Bring on the challenges of 2009. I welcome them.
There are areas where I will need some support and a big one for me is to maintain a healthy, balanced, vegetarian diet, whilst utilising my newly acquired freecycle freezer and eating within a budget. I also wish to lose a fair bit of weight. These things clearly go together and I would greatly appreciate support. I'm in a lot of debt. I feel that I've just started to turn the corner. There have been times when I have felt like Canute trying to stem the tide. These past few months, I have finally started DEcreasing my debt on a month by month basis and have nearly all my unsecured debts in fixed rate loans and reasonably priced LOB credit card deals. Leaving aside my mortgage for a moment, I have 45 grand of unsecured debt to clear and I am staying ahead of it (just !!) . I realise that there is no quick fix but I have set the London Olympics as my target date to clear this debt. So I'm going to be around for a long time yet !!
I'm not doing these challenges for fun. I'm doing them because I must. I know I make light of things in some of my posts but the reality is that I have this debt and I can choose to be miserable about it or I can face life with a smile.
It's hard to adequately express the gratitude I feel for this website. Not only am I grateful for the many useful budgetting tips but I am immensely grateful for the feeling of being supported. I have finally been able to break my isolation and to come in from the cold.
I do have a real-life social life. I don't live my whole life on the internet. I don't have huge numbers of friends but the ones I do have are friends of real quality. They are people who value me for who I am rather than what I have or haven't got. I feel the same about them. It's quite funny really because I have a couple of pretty wealthy friends and I have friends who can't pay their gas bills. My friendships are not based on what I see as the usual social limitations. My life is richer for it even though my bank balance isn't so great.

I know I've rambled a bit but just thought I would intro myself a bit better than I've managed up to now.

savingfortravel

Hi Paul
I'm with you on the healthy vegetarian meals. I'll let you know what I find out. Also agree about friendships being about who people are not what they've got...You sound like a man of real integrity.

Hi Bails.
Tried to send you a private message but you're full up. Let me know when I can. Whats all this about India!!!???

Hoping to make a parsnip soup tomorrow, using some of the monsters OH pulled up from the garden.

Keep up the great posts everyone!!

Hi Andromache...whats the story???

SFT

little_miss_moneysaver_3

ilovetea wrote: »

Yes sorry, It is £150 a month and the DD's that go out.:o
Hope to have quite a bit left over to put in my sealed pot at the end of the month.
The rest of my "income" is going to stop in the bank as pretty soon I'll like to have new carpets.

Sorry for the mix up.
ilovetea x

It all sounds great. Makes perfect sense to me.
New carpets eh? People will start talking you know:rotfl:
I also hope to have money left over at the end of the month to go into the sealed pot!
Good luck with it all

LMMS x x x

redglass_2

Hi Paul
I was moved by your post and just wanted to say it's so encouraging to see somebody facing up to their difficulties and making real progress. Well done. (Sorry but I'm not a fellow male, just another of these females hiding behind odd names )

kittiej

I'm a veggie and I love vegetable lasagne, vegetarian chilli and Saturday night curry night yum.

I also love vodka but we won't venture down that path, well not on a Monday anyway ROFL

cw18

Ahhhh! It was this bit that confused me.....

ilovetea wrote: »

so therefore my total will be £1800 a year

especially given the way I run my bank accounts. My money goes into one account, and I transfer enough into another to cover my DD's, so I'd count that as 'pulling' money

Frugaldom

Hi to ILovetea, thanks for posting a breakdown of your finances. I understand it as income being around £374 per month, direct debits amounting to just under £112 leaving a balance of £262 (ish) for groceries, debt repayments/savings (depending on circumstances), gifts, clothing etc but you are going to try to stick to £150 per month for this. Hope I got that right Have fun with the challenge, it's not a competition of any description, so it is easy to set your own rules. The name of the game is becoming/remaining debtfree and enjoying life in the meantime.

SM, sorry the poultry rearing units you visited were such awful places, I would be really annoyed at seeing anything like that and would probably not stop until something was done about it. (Umm... that's why I ended up with so many animals in the past ) I don't often watch the documentaries, as they are usually edited to suit the programme makers' agendas, but I don't watch Hugh whatsisface either, as I find some of his 'ideas' a bit cruel as well. I'd be no good as a fulltime self-sufficient person, as I'd never be able to kill anything.

Paul, thanks for showing face when we need you, just need the others to pop in to confirm that there's a possibility of males making it past the 1% of challengers on here. :rotfl: I am also guilty of having a non-gender specific username, but NYK has been verified as Scottish and female.

Edited in - I've just come off the phone to my mum and I ran the idea past her about next year's gifts all being homemade. She thinks this sounds like a great idea, as long as she can use her little work bench that I got her this Christmas.:rotfl: (All the members of my family are a little bit [STRIKE]mad[/STRIKE] eccentric). I agreed, so she's offered to attempt to make me a hedgehog house for the garden if I print some patterns and plans for her as a Mother's Day gift. And she has requested a folder similar to the one I made for my gran at Christmas!:rotfl: I'm definately opting for handmade gifts and cards in 2009, but have set aside a small budget for materials and extras. Sisters will be a little more difficult to convince on this one, but I'm sure I can talk them around, especially if they ever get around to signing up to the MSE newsletter reminders I keep sending them. :rolleyes:

I now need to update my budget again, as one of my new year's resolutions is to stay warm. This, of course, means allocating more to electricity and will also encourage me to walk more, whilst collecting extra firewood. This, in turn, should help with the 'get fitter, not fatter' regime.

ilovetea

cW18 "pulling money":eek:
At my age I have trouble pulling my socks up!

ilovetea x