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

sophiesmum_2

Woo Hoo Postman has just delivered my sprouter:j need to go and get it set up now and put first lot of seeds/beans in to sprout.Also need to put some chickpeas to soak as i want to make some humous over the weekend.


cw - advantage card coupons arrived earlier including one 200 points when you buy 2 botanics shampoo or conditioner - may be some use to you if you haven't finished stockpiling.



First lot of sprouts now in , mung beans, green lentils and chickpeas

Frugaldom

Good [STRIKE]morning[/STRIKE] afternooon. :eek: It was morning when I started catching up with all the posts, so I haven't a clue who said what anymore but I have added the names to the challenger list, so Fallen angel shelley is fallen no more. :rotfl:

It is freezing here but the sun is shining. 2nd January is a public holiday in Scotland, so there's no point in wandering out anywhere further than the garden. I've hung out a washing and HS is outside playing with his new electrical toys, building shelves of some description from all the scrap wood that I had earmarked for kindling. His plan is to shelve the attic for keeping more of his books and arty stuff, so I'm not arguing about that - I don't ever venture into the attic.

I thought that I had better break down my spending to date, so here goes:

Stockpile offers from supermarket - £17.83
Stockpile groceries from Appr0ved F00d - £41.69
Electricity meter top-up - £30
4 prs cloggs (2 for gifts) - £10.33
Box of 40 cards for next Xmas - 50p
Cash to DS to buy a drink for him, DD and SIL2B at party last night - £10

Total spend to date - £110.35
Balance - £3,889.65

I am running my spreadsheet showing the entire £4,000 up front and deducting spends as I go. I have allowed extra columns in my spreadsheet for winnings, cash gifts, cashback etc in the hope of neutralising at least 50% of my annual budget in 2009.

Catch up again soon, nice weather means I can take the rubbish out to the wheelie bin and collect another bag of sticks for the fire on the way back in - it's about a 2.5 mile round trip, so good exercise at the same time. :rotfl:

PS: Re Appr0ved F00ds fans - I got several packs of the pumpkin seed & oat Ryv!ta and they are delicious! VERY more-ish!

HH62

I'm now back from holiday and ready to go. Got home yesterday and managed to spend absolutely nothing yesterday !

I've got a little notebook to write down my daily spending in, will keep in handbag, and I've registered at the spending diary site.

Ideally I'd like to set up some sort of spreadsheet that tells me how much I've got left each time I update it. My budget is £600 a month for everything, for the next quarter. I know that today my council tax has gone out of my bank account, and BT too, so I've put that on spending diary. I know that gives me a running total but I'd love to work out a way that shows me how much I have remaining out of the £600...

Spent so far this month :

BT phone and b/band DD - £ 37.50
Council Tax DD - £ 106.00

Local shop - cash
PG Tips and small milk £1.69

Could have got these cheaper from supermarket but I live in a rural area - the closest is 10 miles away - so I walked 30 mins to the shop to save petrol.
Note to self - organise shopping better so don't run out of the basics.


Will post my budget details in the next few days.

In_Search_Of_Me

Please tell me I'm not the only one who feels someone is trsnspiring against me...discovered a library fine of 19.50 so had to pay that; all updated on spendng diary.com; found my paper diary too so can start keeping to that and not abandon it when I panic this time but stop spending instead! Then made yummy bacon and potato soup for mum (who is visiting for our spa day tomorrow - cant wait facial, hot stones and reflexology - must do toes toight as they're a right state!!) and the hand blender collapsed! Will have to get a new one (tried but cant get it back tog - it just collapses again and with blade whizzing not worth the risk!) as I ude it all the time...am off for a snooze - its safer in there!!

taka

Hello all :hello:

I finally got the courage to try my breadmaker today - its got an ~1hr 10 mins to go and its already making me hungry! :rolleyes: I've a feeling a bread based meal is in order for tea!! :drool: :rotfl:

Impressive haul sm and congrats cw!!

Well I managed to have a NSD yesterday and have only had DDs going out today so not too bad so far. I will be getting my hair cut tomorrow, however, so that means I need to leave the house and spend money. :eek: :rolleyes:

I'm also trying to do a store cupboard / freezer stocktake and work out what I need for the month. I'm hoping its just going to be fruit / veg / dairy I need so can stock up a bit on special offers like the baked beans (if tesco ever has stuff in stock :rolleyes: ) for the next few months.

eilo1007

Hi everyone and Happy New Year!

Yestarday was a no spend day as nothing was open (I'm not counting the £3.50 chip butty and £3.50 vodka and coke at the Ceilidh I was at on hogmanay as it doesn't count if it happened before bed (this is a rule that only applies at new year)). Today will also be a no spend day.

I did phone Virgin and reduced my package to free TV (down from XL package), Evening and weekend calls free(down froam all landlines free all day) and have kept my broadband at the lowest speed
- that means I have saved £120 this year and we are only on day 2. I may miss my TV package for a while but I'm sure I'll get used to it. I can always put it back up in August when I get my pay rise.

I'm off to make steak pie now before the steak goes off.

Cathc you all later and good luck with the frugal endeavours
Eilo x

Kittikins

Hello everyone, wow, we're all busy bees aren't we, good to see some NSDs but I've not managed one....

DD and I went for a swim this morning £1.25 (I have a monthly swimming pass at £22.50 which means this morning's swim cost me approx £86 as I've not been for a while, oops!!). She came out ravenous as whilst I had taken some raisins, I'd not thought ahead to bring more substantial snacks/lunch.

We went over to Shoreham M&$/Mr T's for a bit of a ride out and desperately needed new bath mats and ended up buying McD's fishfinger happy meals to assuage the hungry little beast's roaring tummy, lol....which I'm costing at £2.30 as I had a £2 refund for something from last year in Tesco's. As we're non-meat-eaters, I reckon fishfingers and (unfortunately) salty chips with water/milk for 2 of us for £2.30 wasn't too bad. Just wish I'd made some bread last night and had taken a proper packed lunch instead. Maybe tomorrow...when we're going to meet friends at a play place in the morning (her treat, she says, here's hoping!).

Looking at bank account, my water bills have come out (need to check the beginning of the thread to see if i count these in my £4k) and my TV licence of £11.95, so feel like i've spent loads already.

*EDIT: just realised I can keep the water bills out of the figures, yay. Think I do need to sit down and work out my full costs of everything, house insurance, water, Ctax etc etc to see if there's really much left over after paying all the essentials, never seems to be *

Luckily all our M&$ spends were "free" as I was given £100 vouchers from various sources at Christmas, so have been enjoying the sales bargains - whilst hating the hustle and bustle of the place and the fact they don't have enough till points, even on a quiet day you have to queue, it's as irritating as the post office to me!

Anyway, rant over, DD is mithering for me to be "mummy" and her "bobo" from the HUG book (a favourite game, lots of cuddles on the sofa)

cw18

sophiesmum wrote: »

cw - advantage card coupons arrived earlier including one 200 points when you buy 2 botanics shampoo or conditioner - may be some use to you if you haven't finished stockpiling.

haven't tried those yet (have a few bottles of other makes in ATM), but happy to try them

where did the coupons come from? I've never had anything in the mail from them (other than notifications of sale preview events in the stores - and those have been few and far between)

sophiesmum_2

I get some every couple of months in the mail - if you arent getting yours send an e mail to the customer services online - they were really helpful when I contacted them about something.

There are always others such as 150 points on £20 spend, double points coupons etc so worth getting. Next time Ds wants phone topping up £20 I will use both of the above and get 310 points for topping his phone up:j

you can contact advantage card desk on 0845 124 4545. Also check online that you have updated your details.

mama67

sophiesmum wrote: »

Leftovers are a major foodgroup in this household SL:rotfl: :rotfl:

Sm, I found a quote a few years back by tracey Ullman

"My Mother only served up leftovers no-one knew what the original meal was"