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

charliedavis

Kittikins wrote: »

Thanks Jamiedodger for the link to The Times, DD loves eating in restaurants, my little epicure, lol and hey, any excuse to not be sat at home trying to cook something scrumptious when I have no inspiration has to be good eh?!? :rotfl:

Last night I got a bit down and went on a dating website, had an interesting email from someone whose profile looked great, decided to waste £5.95 on 3 days membership so I could reply....which then also allowed me to see his photos and hear his voicemail....we exchanged a couple of emails but he's one of these bitter and twisted, "all women are cheats and liars because my soon to be ex wife is" people, and I wouldn't want to be the rebound relationship as I'm fed up of that role in life (oh, and he sounded really boring on his voicemail, lol...I'm so shallow!).

So, I'm still feeling lonely and unloved but am also £5.95 down, what a waste!! :eek:

Today WILL be better....we're off to a play place with friends in a bit, then picking up more freebie magazines off Freecycle, if I'm good, I'll ration myself to a couple a month, thus replacing the mags I would have bought, after all, most articles don't really date or if they do, its quite funny to see how attitudes have changed, and being grossly overweight, not like I keep up todate with fashion!!

Hoping that today will be a low spend day, sure I'll buy my friend a coffee as she's paying for us to go to the play place but will just get tap water myself

Would really recommend a book called the Surrendered Single to all singletons - it really helped me when I was single for 6 years. Probably also about £5.95 and you get a book to keep for it!

fizzel81

Morning

hugs purple sparkles i hope she is better soon

back from boots, i used points for eye drops for ds3 and got 2 little amazon xmas boxs for 244 points each used 987 points and have 8992 points remaining

i then spent £6.15 in asda on bread yeast to go with the 12 bags of bread flour i have, a can of polish, 4 lots of yeast boxs, milk, 2 bottles of pepsi (naughty but buy 1 get 1 free) a 40p trifle so not too bad

85p into pot and £43 of my £50 taken out remaining

lingojingo

HH62 wrote: »

But the worst shock was about my passport. It needs renewing. It costs £72 to renew them!! :eek: .

I'm just about to renew passports for me and DD, but not taking it out of the challenge budget because I'm counting mine as a work related expense (I'm going to Paris in March because 4 students from the autistic provision in the school where I'm a support assistant are on the trip) and DD needs hers so she can go on an exchange to Spain with college, since she's doing Spanish A level and intends to continue Spanish (with maths:eek:) at uni I consider hers 'work' related too. Otherwise we'd have postponed getting them until a holiday abroad was planned, which wouldn't be this year.

edited to send hugs to purple sparks and her mum ((((((((((((((((((((((())))))))))))))))))))))))

Marru

Jumble-Bee wrote: »

:hello: slinks back after a very long absence....

WOHOO!! JB IS BACK!!!

sophiesmum wrote: »

Marru if he gets started on his dogs he is at it all day, very interesting learning how they train drugs dogs and dogs to search for corpses etc,and also how they do the obedience and tracker dog training, but believe me if you have heard it as many times as I have you will not bring the subject up:rolleyes:

PS I still have about 10+ apple, rhubarb, gooseberry and blackberry crumbles in the freezer:p

Even better - oh you teaser...:p

JennyBee wrote: »

Just a small rant...why, when I try and do my OH's car insurance do they have "Chicken Sexer" on the list of occupations and not "Buyer"????

JennyBee I have recently had problems of finding my occupation: book seller, mystery shopper, dog walker, student, match better, bingo freebies grapper... Ok so I settle for respectable accountant. :rotfl:Impressive work with your insurance renewal :T

Janey51 wrote: »

Today I am reconstructing my house after my visitors have mostly gone.
My DIL had been sick on my bedroom floor following inebriation on NY night :rolleyes:
Cat had left a deposit upstairs after they left him locked in house while they went out and then one of the guests trod in it and walked upstairs distributing unmentionable odours everywhere :rolleyes:

Dishwasher is clogged with something

They used all my T bags :rolleyes:

Had a dance competition on NY night and have spilt red wine on my carpet :rolleyes:

OMG!!! :eek::eek::eek:, You should get them to pay/clean/sort it all out!! Too bad they are too big to get grounded.

Sorting out: MS has free online tutorials for excel have a look HERE

Purple_Sparkles: Hope your mum will be well soon. I just love you for what you did for your rescue dog.

SF: Hope you had a lovely time last night!!!

FrankieM: If you could get hold of a slow cooker it is so easy to make lovely soups in it

I am one of those people with colds and now it has gone into my eyes. I have appointment with my GP on Monday anyway so hopefully he can give me some drops. So I am not going to be too ambitious today. If I can sort out the kitchen that would be great. So 2 NSDs for this weekend planned. I can't wait for DD to go back to nursery. What ever I cook she doesn't like it and I know that in the nursery she polishes off everything in record time so there is one worry less for me.

Sunny day here, hopefully also where you are!

Marru

MSHAWX

Hi,
Can I join in again?
I started it last year and then lasped as other things took over but now with the credit crunch et al I need to focus again.
Must spend some time going back and reading all the postings.
I have set a figure of 175.00 per month on the grocery challenge, I need to now work out disposible income before I do anything.

MRSMCAWBER

Morning all

Well my 1st weeks weigh in went well -I have lost 5 1/2lbs :T ..and my change tin has gained another 102g

We nipped to the NAAFI and got some bargains

1. 2.5 kilo pork joint with crackling from €13.97 :eek: to €3
2. 6 packs extra special sausages from €2.99 to €1 a pack
3. 10 slices extra special ham from €4.29 to 70c
4. 4 jackets from €1.89 to 50c
5. 6 large bananas from €1.89 to 50c

so a total spend of €10.70 .. a whoopsy saving of €29.28 :j ... so there goes my very first spend ...
I have the pork wedged in the remoska for dinner tomorrow and lots of slices for the freezer
the sausages are all in the freezer too

lunch is tiking over now -bubble n squeak in the other remoska to be had with the leftover HM chicken pie from yesterday:T

Just need to make some white bread for hubby and granary for me..then Im going to sit and do some more crafting

Im hoping that is my spending done for a few days.... we were at -10 this morning -so tucking up in the house with knitting and mugs of tea seems like the order of the day :j

right off to update my signature and my spreadsheet :A :rotfl:
have a great day everyone

JennyBee_2

MRSMCAWBER wrote: »

Morning all

Well my 1st weeks weigh in went well -I have lost 5 1/2lbs :T ..and my change tin has gained another 102g

I hate to sound cheesy but you really are very inspiring! I got a letter through from weight watchers the other day asking me to come back and join again but I didn't think 8.5 months pregnant was the time to do it! Although....I'd have one hell of a loss one week wouldn't i?!!:j

carolbee

Morning to all from a beautiful sunny (cold and frosty) coastal Kent

I am re-arranging my household book, checking all renewal dates are in it etc and nibbling leftover mince pies etc from the freezer.

out to dinner tonight, and am going to take a bottle from our stock and a re-cycled box of xmas choc, as I would have gone and bought these before, I am going to 'pay' myself back into the appropriate budget, what the opposite of a NSD?

am de-cluttering, but I never seem to have much luck on ebay, may try the local shop/paper, trouble is have lots of decorative 'stuff' and at the moment in my normal 'New Year let's clear it all out of the way' mode.

a big pat on our collective backs to all for such a good start, I love this thread with all the tips on it, not sure if I will have time to go back to work!

Happy New Year all

andromache_2

JAMIEDODGER wrote: »

hope this works:)

Times Online

Thanks Jamie I'm home long enough to collect 8 vouchers for free! Think I will save them to take OH out for our anniversary in April in London as there's not much in either of our university towns. :beer:

kittiej

Kitti my best advice would be to stop looking for a mate. It's when you least expect it that people enter your life.

I find that's also true when I'm looking for something around the house - I can never find them. It's when I'm not looking that things reappear, usually in the most obvious places as well.

Well I've made a dent in my £4k, I had to buy diesel

I had a nsd yesterday and tomorrow will be, just not sure about today.

I would like to increase the number of nsd so eventually I only have to spend money once a week, don't know if it's achievable though.

Talking of 5 diaries, I spotted some 2008 diaries in the cupboard in work so I might ask the boss if I can have them. As long as I use them for dates and ignore the days they will be fine, just have to cross out the 29th Feb though lol!