Financial faux pas and other disasterous decisions

Intergalactic_Floozie

What would the £4k consist of?

If it's chocolate, sweets, dresses, music & DVDs I think it's doable.

If it's the other boring sh1te of life, then I'd probably struggle!

moo2moo

No procrastinating then. New month, new challenge. Guess we're starting the bovine challenge tomorrow. Not a clue about the whats, whys or hows but I'm sure we'll come up with something pretty darn hot. I'm thinking 4K to cover everything except the mortgage / rent (possibly council tax .... guess that depends how much I overspend by). Its insane, completely unrealistic, probably totally unachievable once you factor in the weddings and X-mas but theres little point doing an easy challenge, that simply lacks motivation. Especially when you consider all the things I conveniently forgot in my original quick calculations... £400 a year in swimming lessons, £1200 a year in riding lessons (stil cheaper than a horse!), £600 a year in childcare and all the one off things that break or need replacing when you least expect them.

OK brain fart over. £4K to cover absolutely everything except the mortgage and council tax between now and New Years Day. Eeek.

***Note to the Challenge Police*** Project land Rover, OHs fags and OHs many random purchases are excluded from the challenge. I'd fail miserably if I totted them up too. Hes making a fair old effort to cover them on overtime so I'm not too worried at the moment. Everyone needs a hobby. Perhaps next time he'd like to take up knitting or Sudoku.

moo2moo

Intergalactic_Floozie wrote: »

What would the £4k consist of?

If it's chocolate, sweets, dresses, music & DVDs I think it's doable.

If it's the other boring sh1te of life, then I'd probably struggle!

Its the boring sh!te that eats the majority of the money. Chocolate and sweets fall into either "Supermarket" or the "Hot damn I'm having a full blown Crisis" categories.

Not entirely sure what a dress is or why one would be required. Ever.

Music and DVDs come free via Quidco or very cheaply from school fetes. Anyway I'll be far too busy picking blackberries and foraging for foragable things to watch TV. Honest I will. No really. Perhaps not. 4OD here I come.

mooomin

moo2moo wrote: »

No procrastinating then. New month, new challenge. Guess we're starting the bovine challenge tomorrow. Not a clue about the whats, whys or hows but I'm sure we'll come up with something pretty darn hot. I'm thinking 4K to cover everything except the mortgage / rent (possibly council tax .... guess that depends how much I overspend by). Its insane, completely unrealistic, probably totally unachievable once you factor in the weddings and X-mas but theres little point doing an easy challenge, that simply lacks motivation. Especially when you consider all the things I conveniently forgot in my original quick calculations... £400 a year in swimming lessons, £1200 a year in riding lessons (stil cheaper than a horse!), £600 a year in childcare and all the one off things that break or need replacing when you least expect them.

OK brain fart over. £4K to cover absolutely everything except the mortgage and council tax between now and New Years Day. Eeek.

***Note to the Challenge Police*** Project land Rover, OHs fags and OHs many random purchases are excluded from the challenge. I'd fail miserably if I totted them up too. Hes making a fair old effort to cover them on overtime so I'm not too worried at the moment. Everyone needs a hobby. Perhaps next time he'd like to take up knitting or Sudoku.

Eek, tomorrow is soon :eek:

Given that almost £400 is eaten up by my leccy/gas payment, it's going to be tougher than I thought!! I might have to make a spreadsheet...

I was thinking about starting another thread as I'm bored with my diary, so if you want we could challenge away on there, save cluttering up your hilarious diary.

Thoughts?

WorkingHardDFW

Well I am so impressed just thinking about the £4k challenge gets top marks from me. I daren't even total up what ours would be even excluding mort etc the kids many and various activities feel like they cost a small fortune particularly at the start of the term!!

As i say well done for even thinking about it - respect!!

mooomin

I've started a thread for me, I'm going to do maths and see what my figure will be.

Thread is HERE if you wanna pop over and say hiya!

moo2moo

FF - tomorrow is never too soon! Lifes full of the unexpected. Thats what makes it fun. Consider it a work in progress.

Hate to disappoint you WorkingHardDFW but I didn't exactly put a lot of thought into it. I merely lurked on the 4K a year thread thinking wow and wow and wow again and then thought I'll give that a whiz and then did the maths and went Eek. Followed by the no time like the present thing. If I gave myself a start date in the future I'd be tempted to cheat rather a lot and stockpile everything I could think of to make my chances of success a little greater than they are at the mo.

Will need to hijack !!!!!! spreadsheet idea in the hopes that I don't overlook anything. Being old fashioned and computer illiterate (can't even put funky links in - instead resorting to the whole htttp bla bla bla) my version is likely to involve a pen and paper and lots of different colours raided from the DDs colouring box as thats where anything out of the ordinary seems to migrate to.

mooomin

Fancy links 101

1. Copy the link you want to use. For example https://www.bbc.co.uk
2. Post a wee message on the MSE forums and type some kind of interesting thing like "Click me for funtimes"
3. Highlight the text you have just typed
4. Click on the picture above where you're typing that looks like a globe with a paperclip on it
5. A little box should pop-up. Paste your link into this.
6. You should have something that looks like so:

Click me for funtimes!

moo2moo

Another eek moment. I pulled up my top secret SOA from 1-1-09 the figures from that for the same categories equate to £1537.77 a month. I fear I may be delusional. Either I really have reduced by average monthly outgoings by a third over the past nine months or I've seriously cocked up my maths. We'll find out which it is soon enough.

moo2moo

OH left for work at 4am. I've abandoned any hopes of going back to sleep. Random numbers are buzzing round my head and I keep remembering I've forgotten things - just minor ones- like my birthday making four birthdays not three before the end of the challenge. Then theres the October half term holiday that we've decided to utilise as an actual holiday rather than a week off work decorating or building walls or other fun filled (mostly destructive) things. Clearly I really didn't think this through - again. Still there are only three places where I can realistically reduce my expenditure in such a short period of time and have a notable effect.

Fuel - Coal has gone up again this year. 50kg sacks were £9 two years ago, £13 last year and they're currently at £15 a sack and likely to go up again. I've found a log supplier who will deliver a truck load for £120. Even if a truck load only last 6 weeks its likely to work out cheaper, especially if I split the logs down into kindling as I really really really resent paying £10 for 4 teeny boxes when I can split the same amount in 30 minutes providing we already have the logs. Means I need to do this before OH decides to be helpful and buy them from the Country Store. Have also been squirreling away timber left over from things at school which would otherwise have been binned.

Supermarket - spends seem to be creeping up and up and up, partially because OH cooks during the week and favours the cardboard box approach. Mostly though because we drink far too much. I forsee a trip to the Old Style recipe archives in search of stuff I can cook in bulk and freeze. Will need to find space in the freezer first though and the enthusiam to cook. Guess I should bake for the DDs lunchboxes too to cut down on premade treats. They're more than happy making gingerbread men and the likes but its so much easier to chuck in a pack of this and a box of that at Mr. Ts. Maybe thats one for this afternoon assuming I can get away with leaving school early enough to have some afternoon left. If I was really keen I'd get my derriere in gear and do it now but its not yet 5:30am and I'm really not that enthusiastic. I need to talk myself around.

All things unnecessary - well thats pretty much everything else. I really don't need any clothes or shoes. OH definately doesn't (apart from trousers for the dreaded wedding). The DDs have more stuff than I can wedge into their drawers although thats mostly hand-me downs, hopefully they'll only need school shoes and wellies and I can ask the Grandparents for wellies for X-mas.

The wedding pressie list has been updated and includes a £35 chopping board, an £8 potato masher and a matching £8 silicone spoon. Theres no way I'm blowing £50 on a set of 6 utensils. Firstly thats really not what I'd class as a wedding present and secondly because they're outrageously overpriced. Still not having any inspiration about affordable alternatives. OHs not being particularly helpful either. May suggest we visit the outlet village and purchase a canteen of cutlery assuming theres something sensibly priced yet expensive looking in a presentation box as part of their last on ein shop end of clearance discontinued line sale. Better still I may just go on my own that way no one else can be tempted by anything unnecessary from any of the other 119 outlet shops on site.

Off to stick more laundry in the washing machine en route to making yet another mug of coffee.