Live on £4000 for a Year, 2009 Challenge, part 2

Frugaldom

Well done with the budget, MrDT. I'm keeping fingers crossed for a good weekend.

Lynda - £175 for a wedding licence? Is that how much it is now? Wow! Still, if that's all you're over budget by then it's excellent considering everything you've done over the past year to date.

I forgot to add my end of month results, so here they are:

Item - Amount Spent/Budget - Amount Remaining

Groceries - £698.45/£1,200 - £501.55
Electricity - £495/£1,200 - £705.00
Coal - £107.60/£240 - £132.40
Logs - £120/£240 - £120
Internet - £99.95/£240 - £140.05
Mobiles - £5/£40 - £35
Telephone - £12.88/£160 - £147.12
Clothing & Footwear - £3.20/£100 - £96.80
Gifts etc - £119.24/£350 - £230.76
Extras - 0/£20 - £20
Essential travel - £22.70/£150 - £127.30
Insurance - £47.50/£50 - £2.50
Misc - 0/£10 - £10
Total = £1,731.52/£4,000 - £2,268.48

This is to 31st May. I have spent approx. 43.3% of my annual budget in 41.3% of the time. I am ever so slightly over budget but not as far over as I first thought, especially as the coal bunker is full, log store is full, freezer is full and I have a stockpile of sauces to last into next year. Plus there should be be more veggies available from the garden quite soon. In the meantime, it's eggs, lettuce, herbs and radishes.

PS: My total spend for May was £292.13 This excludes rent, council tax, savings, anything to do with DDs wedding and the set up costs of getting Frugaldom in order. I'm trying to make the Frugaldom set-up money neutral over the year but that's another challenge.

purplevamp

Hi everyone

redglass - we didn't get the lion poo in the end, we were going to get some but we never saw the zoo part as it was really busy at the park and it wasn't until we were in the car I suddenly remembered.:doh: DH reckons it would have worked as it's a bigger cats poo

mrsmc - that's a good suggestion but not sure I want to look after it's "toilet". If all else fails I may do this. :rolleyes:

nyk - best cat suggestion...move!!! I'll do that :rotfl:. Re: omlette-frittata - it seems my omlettes have really been frittatas in disguise, although I cook the filling, add the egg and then put the cheese on top, so maybe I've invented something different, fromlette or omtatta perhaps?

shaz - :T well done on the exams

BigMummaF - I'll look into that scaredy cat plant and not too pricey!

Pauper1 - welcome to the thread :hello:

patchwork - aww, cute kitties, now if they were pooing in my garden I wouldn't mind as much


We had a very lovely day at Chessington yesterday, and so did everyone else by the looks of things, the park was packed :eek:. We went on loads of rides, the kids screamed (in a good way), we got wet, we had all-you-can-eat pizza, we had free refill drinks, and we came home happy and exhausted :j


Anyway, back to the budget...


Expenditure for May

TV Licence 11.95
Gas/Elec 73.50
Home insurance 15.50
Telephone 35.50
Sky 37.50
DFS 42.00
DS1 Bus, etc 24.00
My bus fares 38.00
DS2 & DD bus 7.00
Lottery 10.00
Shopping 297.21
Clothes 1.00
School things 15.00
Christmas/B’day 107.74
Everything else 22.69
Entertainment 3.50
Takeaway 27.60
Interest 2.99

Total 772.68

patchwork_cat

He is the number 1, winingest kitten, but his poo still stank!! He actually wasn't supposed to go out, but the new owners live in the North Yorkshire Moors National Park, so a life of riley for him!

Cats do like newly turned soil, so the advice about the litter tray is good. I don't know where you are, but some also love to go in sand. You aren't allowed to take it off the beach, but when we lived in St Annes it blew into our garden and my Grandpa would take that for his cat.

Also water pistols work, if you spray them when you see them, I don't really like my cats to be frightened, but if they are pooing in others gardens and they don't like it then I would reather a non harming deterrent as you do hear some terrible things.

cw18

patchwork_cat wrote: »

....... but when we lived in St Annes it blew into our garden.

Grief! I used to go to school (Queen Marys) and College (up by the square) in the St. Annes area - and my Mum grew up in Ansdell, so many a trip to the beach at that end whilst visiting my grand-parents in my child-hood (then they spoiled it all with their landscaping project :mad: )

I grew up a little further inland, and spent about 30.5years of my 43 and a bit in the same village..... though I moved out and back twice, so that's actually split into stints of 17.5yrs, 3 yrs and 10 yrs :rolleyes2

bails

Hi everyone, I'm back! Hope you've all had a good week or so and are enjoying the sunshine!

We had a fantastic time in Sardinia, I absolutely loved the sailing and it was surprisingly cheap despite the lavish lifestyle, thanks to the generosity of OH's uncle and aunt :T They loved having us aboard and have invited us back any time :j They have sailing trips planned for the next 5 years already so we'll definitely be taking them up on their offer :T We both want to do our Day Skipper so this challenge will help us raise the funds for that.
Just doing the washing and getting sorted while the plasterer finishes the attic stairs and porch, it's all go here For us now it's Operation Get Travelling Sorted so all stations go over the next several weeks. There'll still be time to fit a small birthday celebration in though I'm sure (and we brought Prosecca back with us especially)

Will try and catch up with the frugal news soon xx

Welcome Pauper1, great to have you with us!
Well done on the exam Shaz, hope the rest go well too.
Lynda, have you set a date for the wedding and I missed it?

patchwork_cat

Cheryl I went to Queen Mary! We are almost the same age,too. You were probably a year or two ahead of me if you are 43. I was in U5 in 1983, then went to Collegiate. Did you live inland of St Annes? Wrea Green? We lived on Clifton Drive North from 13, before that I was a born and bred Liverpudlian! (but don't have an accent - no one believes not all Liverpudlians talk Scouse!)

cw18

Warton, so you're not far off with Wrea Green

and I was U5 for the 1981-82 academic year.

patchwork_cat

Small world! Too many spooky coincidences! My brother took his A levels at college near the square - St Annes Tech? I think. In west yorkshire now and deeply miss the sea! Going to make a batch of thick veg soup, soon. I watched 10 things you neeed to know to lose weight and have decided to make thicker soups instead of thin that I usually do.

mama67

nykmedia wrote: »

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl: Probably with more success than some of the eBay eggs, too!

Potatoes could be a good one for the next hit list, as they are what I am concentrating on growing most of this year. I recently calculated that we got through 100kg of the things over the space of a year plus all the pasta I buy! I'm now thinking I could be cheaper making my own pasta, especially if it's egg pasta. :rotfl:


Nyk, if you think thats high try approx 25kg a month for at least 8 months of the year plus rice and pasta.

slowlyfading

Had some sad news today - a family friend has passed away. He was diagnosed with bladder cancer about 2 months ago, and then last week he went back into hospital and they said it had spread to his liver and brain. a week later, he's dead i'm really upset, and am trying to not go and binge/purge, which would ruin a nsd and make me feel even worse.

today should be my second nsd of the month, which is good.

sorry for not replying to everyone, hope you're all alright.

sf xx