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

sophiesmum_2

How is the stocktaking going cw??

Masomnia

sophiesmum wrote: »

I like spending money on good quality things that I will appreciate, that is the thing with this challenge for me. I can save money on the other stuff that doesn't matter much and free up cash to use on stuff that is important to me. Kitchen stuff is my downfall - I will quite happily eke out the food budget for the year and then think nothing of spending £100+ on new food processor etc if it is fit for purpose and good quality/value. Being frugal in some areas lets me have a better quality of life and frees up the cash to spend on what matters to me personally.
If that is a £30 pen for you, fine, just make savings elsewhere to compensate;) enjoy your pen and don't feel guilty.

Thank you, good post!

cw18

sophiesmum wrote: »

How is the stocktaking going cw??

I've listed the contents of 4 full cupboards (out of 6) and 2 partial grocery cupboards (out of 3). Have transferred the first of the full ones into my spreadsheet, and found costs for most of the stuff.

(Bit worrying that neither Mr A nor Mr T has prices for 11 of the items though DD suggested this means I need to check the bbe dates on them, but I've no intention of slinging them as I know I've not had them that long!!!)

Still got my fridge and 2 freezers to do as well -- and then a gradual pull out and list of scattered boxes of non-perishables :rolleyes2




Have been working with DD on her budget tonight (by phone and email), and she's now getting worried -- which is a first !!! Rather pleased about this, as I think she's finally realising she needs to work on her finances before she goes totally under :T

Before she calculates figures for what I have under my 'grocery' and 'anything else' categories (which will include clothes and shoes for her girls, and the shoes aren't cheap as it's one area we won't compromise), she's already down to only having £73/week left of her income -- and this doesn't even allow for the fact her Tax Credits is about to drop, and it could be by as much as £25/wk!! This reduction is due to pulling elder GD out of after school club to come here instead -- but though it looks like she'll be worse off, she'll actually be £6.70/week better off (as she only pays 20%, and the reduction is the 80% she would have got from Tax Credits to cover the rest). So she probably only has £45-50/week for food, clothes, shoes, emergencies, treats etc :eek:

I'm a tad concerned though, as I think this change is also the first since younger GD qualified for pre-school vouchers (and moved to pre-school for 3 days/week at the start of November), so there could be a further £30+ reduction for that !!

Once she's priced up her groceries, the next thing is to see what she's budgeting for cooked meals each night -- but a quick glance at her menu plan makes me think it'll not be cheaper than I was proposing to suggest she contributed in order to eat here. Plus eating here would save her on her gas and electricity (not needed for cooking, nor for heating/lighting as early each evening). I've actually been really cruel and made her work seperate budgets for breakfasts, lunches and teas -- my reasoning being she needs them all for weekends or when she's off work, but not when she's at work and the girls are at school/nursery. Haven't yet said I wanted them to see if my 'scheme' would reduce her outgoings

andromache_2

*phew*, I've finally caught up! Really glad to see everyone so enthusiastic for the new year's challenge

savingfortravel wrote: »

Hi Andromache...whats the story???

SFT

Hi SFT! Sorry for taking a while to reply, having two threads has been too much for me! It seems we share a passion for travel I'm a student at the minute so I'm on a low income but I am also aware that the era of 4-month summer holidays will not last forever, so I'm trying to make the most of it while I can. I did the challenge last year in order to be able to afford 9 weeks in SE Asia with my OH... we went through Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos and Thailand and it was amazing :T We did it on a teeny budget, too! Because of the challenge last year I was able to put over £1000 into my 'graduation savings' pot, spend about £1300 on that trip (I never did add it up properly) and still have about £700 over to put towards a trip this summer... if you'd told me that at the beginning of the year I would never have believed you!

Still trying to decide what to do this year... I'll have a bit less time because of work experience and needing to fit around OH, but there should still be a good 6 weeks for us to get away somewhere. I really want to go to S America but OH isn't so keen, mainly as he's worried about it being too expensive and too dangerous for me (tho I think he would prob go if I really insisted ). We loved Asia last year so we're looking at maybe north Vietnam (the bit we missed) and south China, or maybe Malaysia/Singapore/Indonesia. Or even India - not copying, bails, honest! I don't really know just yet, hopefully we'll sit down sometime soon and weigh up the pros and cons of each place. The main thing we are worried about at the moment is that the dive in the pound will make it all very expensive; we were lucky this summer in that we were still getting about $1.97 to the £ so it was still very cheap. Decisions to be made! Forgive me if I've missed it, SFT, but what's the plan for your 2010 trip? It must be a great motivator!

OK, this is already a ridiculously long post, but I did promise that I'd put my budget on this thread to mark the start of 2009... I'm actually doing this challenge by academic year (so beginning of October 2008 to end of September 2009) since I'd already started a personal version of it in October 2007 before the 2008 thread was born. However, this seems like a good point at which to evaluate how things are going so far, so here's the budget as at the end of 1st Jan 2009. The general answer is that it looks pretty bad in terms of % of budget spent vs % of year gone by, but I'm fairly happy with how the individual categories are going and I'm pretty sure I can salvage matters...

Category.......% spent..Budget...Remaining
Uni materials..86.32%...£200.00..£27.37 (shouldn't need this hopefully)
Food...........20.09%...£450.00..£359.60 (doing well here I think )
Entertainment..26.31%...£400.00..£294.76 (going to try & pay for mini-break to Spain here as well )
Clothes etc....64.13%...£300.00..£107.61 (got some sales bargains :cool:)
Make-up........100.00%..£32.48...£- (umm, overspent by £2.48, moved money across from toiletries budget & am now not allowed any more... I have plenty!)
Toiletries.....49.64%...£47.52...£23.93 (have stocked up on a few things so don't need much more)
Hairdressing...0.00%....£25.00...£25.00
Gifts..........57.05%...£200.00..£85.90 (have almost done this year, will use the extra to snap up bargains for Xmas 09 as and when)
Extra-currics..60.45%...£200.00..£79.10
Travel.........31.50%...£150.00..£102.75
Household......19.76%...£25.00...£20.06
Health.........22.52%...£50.00...£38.74
Mobile.........29.90%...£150.00..£105.15 (£15 a month contract which I hope to reduce when I get a new one in Feb)
Stationery.....58.20%...£75.00...£31.35 (:mad: photocopying! Need to buy some more printer cartridges so might go over-budget here)
Fines..........0.00%....£10.00...£10.00 (All library books returned on time so far... )
Charity........N/A......£-.......£- (have volunteered lots of my time though)
Bits & pieces..33.36%...£185.00..£123.28 (includes several bike locks after breaking two :rolleyes:)
TOTAL..........42.62%...£2500.00.£1434.60
Days passed....24.38%...365......276

So like I said, the figures don't look great, but I think overall it's going OK. I've certainly paid to do lots of fun things this term including travel around the country, go to Latvia, go to a West End show, see friends, and keep up with my academic work, so I'm not feeling deprived.

For completeness, my extra-challenge spends have been £100.37 on going to see OH as we're long-distance during term-time, which is nowhere near as high as I thought it would be, though I have been quite savvy in getting free/reduced tickets through various avenues, and £65 on a new suitcase from my Christmas money.

Bedtime I think Happy New Year everyone and thank you again to nyk for coming up with this inspirational challenge.

looby-loo_2

sophiesmum wrote: »

I like spending money on good quality things that I will appreciate, that is the thing with this challenge for me. I can save money on the other stuff that doesn't matter much and free up cash to use on stuff that is important to me. Kitchen stuff is my downfall - I will quite happily eke out the food budget for the year and then think nothing of spending £100+ on new food processor etc if it is fit for purpose and good quality/value. Being frugal in some areas lets me have a better quality of life and frees up the cash to spend on what matters to me personally.
If that is a £30 pen for you, fine, just make savings elsewhere to compensate;) enjoy your pen and don't feel guilty.

DH and I differ, he buys branded

cw18

looby-loo wrote: »

I've just spent my 'savings' on an electric slicer for bread, joints, onions, etc. Brilliant for slicing homemade loaves, I wish I had bought one years ago.

That's something I've long hankered for, but I've never heard of one that gets good 'all round' results....... can I ask which one you got? I want one primarily for HM bread and for joints (so I can make my old sandwich meats),

angelatgraceland

Still a few insomniacs online with me tonight I see? Ive always fancied a slicer-the only gadget I think I never got! Enjoying my HM bread right now as the last one I made-from a breadmix was quite salty-not great at all!
Just realised that my sons driving lessons also need to be budgeted for! £30 pw so not good new. I knew there were things Id overlooked! I will still keep to same amount though-it will make me try harder!

fizzel81

Good morning to all

not sure why im up this early i think it was the smell riseing from the slowcooker, i now have what looks like a decent stock for soup and tomorrows dinner.

all this garden/growing talk makes me want to get my garden sorted even more, but its sooo cold out there, next week ds is bak and school, ds2 to preschool and ds3 back mon/tuesdays, i will then get 2 days weekly to first sort the garden and then get trying to grow something, think i will need to rope my brother in for some help, silly question does it really matter what soil you have for growing? as i know there all different, is currantly whats grass ok just to plant into or is there much prepping i need to do, have lots of plans just need to action them.

i also need to see whats here to ebay, not mega cluttered but still enough for me to get a fair amount listed throughout the year.

todays menu is
porridge for me (makeing jut with water)
weetabix for the boys
toast for nick (i think)

Lunch im not quite sure yet the soup may not be ready

Dinner is chicken and veg pasta bake, using some of yesterdays leftovers (ie chickn and some veg) and then the pasta and a sauce

im now off to get into action

2NDTIMEROUNDER

Goodmorning to everybody. Hope the New Year is treating you well, already!:)

I had an unexpected visit from my father yesterday, he wanted to spend the day with me and friends. He is 75 now and he is getting very sentimental and its very eye-opening for me regarding what time brings to us. Puts in perspective my trying the damn hardest to make the best of life. NOTHING BEATS GOOD HEALTH.

Have managed finally to sort many gadgets and things I no longer use to put up for sale on ebay. Should get at least 250-350 for them so a boost for the Cash Isa. Had my first NSD yesterday and I am quite surprised on how easy it was. Plan to have many of these during 2009!

Finally, my thought for the day :

Live in terms of your strong points. Magnify them. Let your weaknesses shrivel up and die from lack of nourishment. -William Young Elliott

Have a good one!:D

Paulgonnabedebtfree

*Vikki* wrote: »

Hi can I join in please? so its £333 a month to live on then I take it from reading the posts, 4k a year. Im up for it!

Don't forget the 33p on top of that. You may end up needing it.