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

andan

Happy new year to everyone, hope everyone is having a great start to the New Year and it sounds like everyone is raring to get going with this challege. Am sure the more experienced challengers amongst us will be happy to take us under their wings!!

Well i have started the challenge with having the heating on low, i would try and get away with not having it on, but its just too cold.

I am also using up storecupboard food today, including having a bacon buttie for breakfast, bread is about to go off so will toast it and bacon needs eating up as it has been open long enough.

We will be having turkey for tea and it will be used for extra meals for the next few days no doubt!

Also, after seeing the news this morning regarding the cost of fruit and veg set to soar, i will look at what seeds i need to get to begin growing my own.

Kittikins

Happy New Year everyone - I'm a serial lurker, was signed up to the challenge last year and fell off the waggon within about.....ooooooo...let's say a week to be generous!!

However, I'm been plotting and preparing over recent weeks, reading and admiring everyone's plans and the awesome sense of friendship and community that shines through here, and reckon that I should stop sitting on the fence and get active, join the happy crowd!

I'm 37, divorced with a gorgeous DD who rules the roost....£4,000 or £4k + CHB should be plenty for us, but I am dreadful at buying "bargains" or just being darned lazy and "treating" myself because I feel lonely/bored/sad/ worthless.

This has got to stop, whilst I'm a real bargain hunter, the cupboards are full to bursting with yellow stickered dented tins and the like, I still have no real savings and am now on an interest only mortgage with no repayment savings in place, so basically renting a house which I have to pay to maintain/repair...

Hope to stick to my guns and be a regular poster here

JAMIEDODGER

morning all and happy new year:T

SM - you are so super organised!! I am aiming for a NSD too, I am going to try and keep track of all of my NSD's this year.

CW - you have reminded me, I need to do a cupboard inventory today, I am planning on a fairly small shop for january and am hoping doing an inventory will stop me from buying extra stuff that I dont need, I find its also helpful when trying to meal plan!

January - welcome to the thread!:D

I will be making a trifle for tea tonight, although im not sure what we are going to have for main course....:rotfl:

The jam tarts I made yesterday afternoon have all been eaten by the children, so I might make some twinks later this afternoon.

Lunch is going to be snacky leftover bits to use up the last of the stuff from the last few days:) I am making an extra effort this year not to waste any food!:D

I may make up a chicken soup today too:)

Hope everyone has a great start to 2009 and good luck for the new challenge:T

JAMIEDODGER

welcome to the challenge kittikins:D

cw18

Well, so far I've got washed and dressed, washed the pots from the last 2 days (terrible I know, but with only 2 of us here it doesn't seem worth wasting hot water and washing up liquid to do it any more often than that ) and listed the contents of one cupboard......

Another 5 full cupboards and 2 part cupboards to go -- then a fridge (that's possibly next!), two freezers, and then as much food as I can find scattered around the house (I'm another with boxes of non-perishable bargains wherever I can find room :eek: )

I'm sure I'll still be adding things to my 'start of year stocktake' in 6 months time as I uncover boxes though :rolleyes2

So far I've discovered I have enough soup to have this with my lunch every day this month -- and still not use it all up (As long as I only have half a tin at a time instead of the full tin I normally have -- important as I also want to lose weight, but still have butties alongside even with a full tin of soup!)

tryingtodobetter

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE :beer: :j :beer: :j

I've just totalled up my spends for December and I did it I came in under £5000 for the year :j :j

I think I'm going to go for an all-in budget for this year as it will be easy to track spends this way. Still got to work out the figures but it will be somewhere round the 14-15k mark.

Its my birthday soon and I would really like a good frugal/self sufficiency type book can anyone recommend one?

Hope everyone has a good day.

TTDB.x.

Naomim

Hi everyone, I hope to join in with this challenge this year although £4k will be too tight for us I feel so I think I'm going to start at £6k this year and see how we get on... I need to get DH into the frugal way of living slowly :rolleyes:

There are three in our house, two adults and one child.

Exclude:

Mortgage
CT
Home/buildings ins
Car costs
Childcare
Lunches
TV Licence
Gas/Elec
Debts

Include:

Groceries £200 pm
Telephone (inc bb & free daytime/evening calls) £22 pm
Mobiles x 2 £45 pm - training DH to call landlines from landline! lol
Sky £68 pm - DH huge footie fan!
Clothes - £250 per year - DS grows fast and whilst most stuff bought 2nd hand, shoes from Clarks are at least £35 a pair!

Total £4206

so I'm buffering in another £2k to cover DH's football season ticket, car & motorbike repairs & Christmas/birthday presents.

We should be well under...

Fingers crossed

Happy New Year All.

Naomi x

January20

Right, so I've crunched some numbers - and read a few posts on this thread which made me realise I'd forgotten some things in my initial calculation :-(

My budget for this year will be £3000 and this include: bt, mobile phones, all car costs ie mot/ services/ petrol/ insurance/ breakdown cover, electricity and food and toiletries for 2 adults (DD is 16) and a cat (although cat doesn't use many toiletries...)

I'm sure I've forgotten something as this is very low so will probably have to amend later!

And HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!

redglass_2

No spends yet, possibly because I'm still in my dressing gown (but with the internet that need not be a problem of course :rolleyes:).

I'm going to make a Janssen's Temptation today: a bit 70s but so what, I still love it and it's so frugal....

Hi JennyBee, I'm in Glastonbury. Whereabouts are you?

JennyBee_2

redglass wrote: »

Hi JennyBee, I'm in Glastonbury. Whereabouts are you?

I'm near Martock