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

Brighton_belle

kindofagilr wrote: »

Maybe I can join in half way through the year? like to start on July 1st with half my budget to spend (if that makes sense)

Definitety do that: I started on 1st July last year and treated the rest of the year as a practice run, honing my bugetting skill/record keeping. So once you are in your house, start keeping records of things and what hidden expenses there mght be that you haven't thought of. And post here as much as you like - you don't need to have 'officially joined'. Goodluck - it is so work it and we have fun along the way.

Loopy - that was a shocker. Well done for not panicking.


Better start doing my March/1st quarter end accounts...

taka

(((( Hugs)))) loopylou - I hope your OH can find something soon.

1274

Here is my breakdown for Q1 2009:

Cash withdrawals £130.00
Eating out £46.25
Big purchase £3,888.89
Entertainment £3.91
Gas & Electricity £167.55
Groceries £375.39
Hair £101.80
House £179.64
Medical & Dental £191.51
Mobile & Internet £85.36
Travel £160.00
Water £16.25
Work lunches £59.24
Grand Total £5,405.79

Without the big purchase (not confessing to it here LOL) I would have spent £1,517. And I could get that down a bit by deducting the business portion of Mobile & Internet and Travel costs. But Groceries are truly alarming especially given that these are for just me and no pets and I also have £60 worth of buying lunches at work as well :eek:. I'm also sure that I've spent more than £4 on entertainment but no idea what the real figure should be.

Off to update sig and try to live off £2,594 for Q2

cw18

Just finished my accounts for Q1, and am really pleased with the figures :T



I've done a few minor adjustments to my spreadsheet....

the red figures under 'Spent' are where I'm currently over budget

I've added an extra couple of rows at the bottom that relate to my 'once a year' bills. From this I can see that £57.88 of my current £231.54 underspend is due to the annual bills still to come !!

Of the overspends :-

the phone/broadband one is due to having changed packages, which means the first month was dearer and I also had a couple of 'one off' charges

the mobile one is due to the fact I'm currently on contract, but have costed to change to PAYG (at a fraction of the cost) from August

the presents is due to having bought in some for later in the year, and also due to spending almost £58 on elder DS's birthday rather than the planned £30 :eek:

breakdown and road tax are the 'one off' bills I've already paid

groceries is due to stocking up - will possible still be over at the end of April, but then hope to have very low spends until July (after S'flds close until Mr M open)

Toiletries/cleaning is over as I bought enough toilet rolls to last us a few months. I don't normally buy more than 18 at a time, but I came across an offer of £2.99/pack or 2 packs for £5 so I stocked up.


ETA: Just realised some of my figures may look a bit 'skew-wiff' as they're not 25% of my totals.

The main one is groceries (which impacts the totals, and it's the fact my 'budget to date' is over the £2k you'd expect for 3 months that's really flagging this up) as I've only built in feeding GDs until the start of the Summer Holidays, and now work my monthly budgets based on exactly how many days I have them (and elder DS is home - which is already 33 days of the 84 I'm allowing for in the year). For those who are wondering, I have some hidden columns that I add the numbers of days in, and then do calculations based on those to get my 'budget to date' for the category.

andan

My challenge is going well, haven't really done a budget for this challenge as such, just my usual cost custting and money stretching.

My total for spends currently stands at £1167, which i am pleased with as this includes all my petrol costs, four new tyres, mot and car insurance, plus gas and elec so feel that spends are pretty low considering.

Cycled to work today for the first time in an age and plan to do that much more now, which should help curb the finances, plus food mystery shops lined up so plenty of free food!!

Great to see other peoples budgets and how well everyone is doing.

skint_chick

I've totalled up my spends for the first quarter and I've spent £1303.01:eek: :eek:
I have got enough heating oil for the summer and had to buy work clothes for new job so I should be better behaved next quarter! I've made an extra £2324 of income from work on top of my regular job - very pleased with that as it covers my annual insurances - household, life and rental properties, car tax, insurance and tyres, holiday and Christmas and birthdays already So any extra money I make next quarter is for debtbusting.

nickynoo08

Thanks for your advice everyone. Nyk when you put it like that i dont feel so bad about wanting to leave. I know i'd feel happier and i know i'd be able to keep our budget under control better. I think i'll give my boss a ring tomoro and see if i can have a chat with her.
No more spends for me this month. I think over all i didnt do too badly. Next months plan....
Food - £130
Treats/clothes/entertainment - £60
ISA/saving for car and xmas - £60
Total - £250

Vixstar

Well I set myself a target all in budget of £1200 for the month and it looked like I was only going to be £80 over - which as the month included two weekends away and a trip to Alton Towers I was quite pleased with. And then a larger than expected DD came out which meant my budget was blown But now thanks to a spending diary and a spreadsheet of ever increasing complexity I can see where I'm going wrong. I'm going to try an all in budget of £1200 again this month, i theory I should come in under but I'd like to keep the flex as I may have a trip up to Scotland this month that I had thought had been cancelled. I'm also going to set a mini challenge of buying no new clothes this month as way too much of my budget goes on them!
On a positive note I have managed to buy myself a cash neutral Nintendo ds, quite exciting saving up for something and working out which was the cheapest way to go when previously I'd have just bought it using my wages.

slowlyfading

Evening everyone!

I love love love it when the evenings are lighter for longer, and today has been lovely and sunny so it really does feel like summer is just around the corner. I can't wait! I've been really good today - I've been on a friend's trampoline! in the sunshine, it was free exercise (googled it, apparently for 30 mins on a trampoline you can burn off 210 cals!) and it was so much fun. I haven't laughed like that for ages so I'm feeling pretty good today. Its still lovely and sunny now and I can hear the birds outside. I might go for a walk on the beach later.

I've updated my sig and the spends for March total £222.13 which is more than I would have liked, but I'm still under budget, as my budget is £250 a month. So yay :T I'm going to try and aim to get April under £200, so I have a bit more of a cushion for later months, so we'll see how that goes. Mum's going out to see dad on saturday, so she's away for 2 weeks so I reckon that most of that will be low or nsds, as I'm going to be at work, and then just at home, so that'll help

loopylou - sorry to hear about your DH, I hope he finds something soon xx

MrDT

Very busy at the moment so no time to reply properly sorry, just posting my figures:


(click for bigger image)

Total spent in March (excluding rent, c tax, commute) - £230.78 - Last minute electric topup and unplanned takeaway (kitchen all packed!) pushed me over the £200 estimate.

Extra earnings credited to bank account in March - £133.84 - Delayed payments mean that April extra earnings should be off to a good start, but March was nowhere near totally offset in the end!

First quarter weigh-in:

£725.55 spent
£363.66 extra earnings banked

£3,274.45 remaining from £4k budget
£3,638.11 remaining including extra earnings offset

Things are going very well so far, but the first quarter will always be a cheap one for me - no stockpiling, don't buy gifts far in advance, no holidays early in the year etc. No way will I be so frugal the rest of the year, but so far I am confident I won't fail and will be under 4k on December 31st 2009