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

Pips_Mum

Welcome 1st time mum :T I have learnt SO much from chatting to the lovely people on this thread, I actually feel guilty about the money and food I wasted before.

JennyBee , yes I think not returning to work too quickly seems to be a major motivation to us all!!:rotfl:

Cant believe how many pages of posts there have been today! Its all too much for me I think I need a lie down!!

the_cat

Crikey - what a lot of posts!! Have skimmed through but will have to go back and jot down all the ideas I need to save another time

Managed another NSD today and got credited with some of the greasypalm sunbingo money, only £15 though rather than £20.
They are closed for the holidays still so can't query it yet. Anyone else have this happen?

Got credit card bill in post so have updated spends for Dec paycheck. If I stick to my budget I can afford to over pay my mortgage by £800,:j
I have transferred it to savings today to make sure that it doesn't get used. I can't tell you how much of a thrill it was moving it into the savings account - sad or what!!

BTW. I have £90 of M&S vouchers to use. Are the food offers for £10 any good? I have avoided them so far thinking they will still work out expensive. Can use some for my mum's b'day pressie in Jan and could stock up on underwear etc (in outlet store which I will visit next week) Any other good value ideas?


Right off to have bath and thaw out. Resisting putting up the heating but starting to get chilly now!:o

sophiesmum_2

Pips_Mum wrote: »

Welcome 1st time mum :T I have learnt SO much from chatting to the lovely people on this thread, I actually feel guilty about the money and food I wasted before.

JennyBee , yes I think not returning to work too quickly seems to be a major motivation to us all!!:rotfl:

Cant believe how many pages of posts there have been today! Its all too much for me I think I need a lie down!!

Nooooo don't lie down, go and run around the block a few times, that baby is much too comfortable in there:rotfl:

cannyClaire

Can I join in this too?

I am aiming for a budget of £4,000 for everything.

I'm not in debt, but need to get some savings behind me this year after having work done on the house last year.

sewbocushions

Hi - my first post to the thread - it's exciting.
My calculations are
TV Licence 140
Phone 108
Life Insurance 120
Gas 804
Mobile Phone 120
Electric 660
Broadband/phone 240
Scouts & Cubs 206.40
Local Paper 95
Groceries 1300
Other 206.60
I'm not doing very well - went to Tesco and spent a fiver over my weekly grocery bill! I really need to knuckle down and get the menus sorted, will need to look at the menu thread to find cheaper meals - and I thought I was doing really well! What do you lot usually do about putting your gas, elec etc on your signatures? Do you do a monthly amount at the begining or weekly? Not sure when to factor this in.
This is such a great challenge and I can't wait to get my credit card paid off and start on mortgage overpayments!!
Good luck everyone!!
x

Marru

Oh my goodness,

I only pop to Cornwall and you fill five pages! So, after 322 miles, 7.5 hours and £56.42 I am back. Ok out of that money I would have needed to spend £25.93 anyway to fill up my car, the rest were the result of the trip. Can you imagine, 50p at the service station to fill the windscreen washer with water :eek:. And my poor car got gritted twice. Those books I took might earn me some money some day or they won't but at least I don't need to put any effort to them anymore.

Anyway, I only managed to catch up with 2 pages so will have to come back later to read the rest, also need to log on to my bank account to see the total damage of the day and update my spreadsheets. But first we are hungry as only shared a plate of chips during our trip (I resisted cornish fudge :T) so better get us fed and DD to bed. Back later...

taka

candygirl wrote: »

oh taka what's the recipe for your cheese n onion bread, it sounds delish:p

The recipe is from my M0rphy R!chards FB breadmaker manual. It uses US cup size (8fl oz) instead of the UK (10fl oz).

Cheese & onion bread

................................................1.5 lb....... 2 lb loaf size
Water...................................... 1 cup....... 1.25 cup
Skimmed milk powder............... 2 tbsp...... 2.5 tbsp
Sugar...................................... 1 tbsp....... 2 tbsp
Salt......................................... 0.5 tsp..... 1 tsp
Onion granules......................... 1.5 tbsp.... 2 tbsp

Mature grated cheddar cheese... 1 cup....... 1.5 cups
Strong white bread flour............. 3 cups...... 4 cups

Fast action yeast..................... 1.5 tsp.......1.75 tsp

Use setting.............................. 1 Basic..... 1 Basic

Its quite nice but a wee bit sweet/cakey so I plan to lower the skimmed milk powder and sugar and possibly add a wee bit more of the onion granules.

cw18

Forgot to mention early -- I got a nice surprise in the post today......

One of my credit card companies decided to send me a £10 M&$ voucher 'for having used' my card. Thing is, it's the same card I got one for a few months back -- but was run by Goldfish then!! (The account has changed hands twice in the last 18 months or so :eek: )

So I don't know whether I should have had this one or not -- but I'm not about to phone/email and question them

So that's an extra tenner for me over and above my £8k, and an extra £10 onto my 'anything else' budget :T

candygirl

taka wrote: »

The recipe is from my M0rphy R!chards FB breadmaker manual. It uses US cup size (8fl oz) instead of the UK (10fl oz).

Cheese & onion bread

................................................1.5 lb....... 2 lb loaf size
Water...................................... 1 cup....... 1.25 cup
Skimmed milk powder............... 2 tbsp...... 2.5 tbsp
Sugar...................................... 1 tbsp....... 2 tbsp
Salt......................................... 0.5 tsp..... 1 tsp
Onion granules......................... 1.5 tbsp.... 2 tbsp

Mature grated cheddar cheese... 1 cup....... 1.5 cups
Strong white bread flour............. 3 cups...... 4 cups

Fast action yeast..................... 1.5 tsp.......1.75 tsp

Use setting.............................. 1 Basic..... 1 Basic

Its quite nice but a wee bit sweet/cakey so I plan to lower the skimmed milk powder and sugar and possibly add a wee bit more of the onion granules.

thanks for that hun , i'll try is asap :A

ilovetea

Haven't spent anything again today so budget is still in one piece:j .

ilovetea x