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

bails

Oh CONGRATULATIONS SFT, I'm so happy for you!!!! (sorry Nyk!) :j:j
Sorry I missed the party, I'm not very well so was curled up under the duvet. But I'm having a belated mint tea to help you celebrate :beer:

Dreams do come true, we're both living proof

Happy moving in and I can't wait to see the photos xx

Blimey Nyk, you do get so much for your money!! I love the views from that house, sigh.

Got to go as OH is about to cut the power off for DIY...

whitewing

TTDB - that's really exciting about how close you are to paying off your mortgage. If you don't mind me asking, how much is that that you need to overpay, or any other juicy details. I find it much easier to be inspired by otherpeople's actual stories of how they did something with real figures.

Hullo everyone else. Blue skies and sunshine here and my brother gave me a widescreen TV yesterday (secondhand, of course, but am very pleased nonetheless). Wasn't on my personal list of priorities but is on our 'proper' list. DH still wants to buy a really decent one new at some point (blow! I thought I could have crossed it off) but at least we can save up in small increments now, and I won't feel guilty if I don't spend my tax refund on a TV.

Frugaldom

CW, livestock pics are on my link when you click on the name but I'm afraid it's a bit like a blog, sorry.

Zoe, glad the potatoes are flowering, veggies growing, chooks laying, sounds great there.

TTDB, congratulations on being this close to clearing the mortgage, you must be so excited about it! I think if it was me, I'd be sooooooooooooo impatient getting that last year out of the way, it would be driving me crazy. Good luck with the final leg of the journey.

Hope you're feeling better soon, Bails, just stay in the duvet until you're well again

Whitewing, my tax refund is a tiny amount this year, I may be able to get a few bags of poultry grain with it so I guess that means it's chicken feed! :rotfl:

Off back out into the garden again - HS has almost finished clearing bird corner and the space it's revealing is much bigger than I was expecting - big enough to fence it off and grow my climby things. :j I've been busy fencing after wing clipping, and am now constructing 'something' around the patio at the front of the greenhouse. Will update my blog site with pics later.

Hope it's still warm & dry wherever you are and I hope the move is going well for Mr & Mrs SFT.

ram_murdock

Hey everyone

Havent been able to keep up this week as my phone internet is still not working properly although it has been a nice afternoon catching up on all the posts.

Good news on the housing front...developer has lowered his price by £5k to help me with my mortgage application!! Just waiting on the bank to approve it now....trying really hard not to get my hopes up.

Bad news this week is that my employment contract is not going to be renewed at the end of August. So that gives me about 10 weeks to get job hunting.

Dont know if i am wise going ahead with the house purchase when i might not have a job from september although i will still have my wee 15hrs per week part time job but i feel it is the right time to make this jump.

Fingers crossed again.....

Congrats SFT bet you are so happy to be finally moving in.

SM i'm glad your ok...you were lucky not to be seriously injuried in a pile up.

Off to make my frugal shopping list and to think some more regarding my employment situation.

slowlyfading

congratulations sft :j :j :j

Pips_Mum

Oooooooh think I over did it last might at your party SFT :beer:
Woke up this morning with a horrible banging headache so sorry if I did anything embarassing everyone :rotfl::rotfl:

cw18

ended up back at DD's this afternoon / early evening.....

Arg0s botched up the delivery of a chest of drawers that consisted of 2 boxes (she got the carcass for one size and drawer fronts for another). Apparently they can't collect returns of / do exchanges on small items at a weekend, and she can't get anyone (myself included) to sit in at hers from 12 noon until 6pm on a weekday due to everyone having a school pick-up to day - and that's the shortest 'window' they can give her for a 'small item delivery' :mad: So I ended up picking her, my GDs and the boxes up, and running them down to a store to get it all replaced. I took the opportunity to grab enough dog food for the next couple of months though (stores are on the same complex), so it wasn't toooooooo bad having to do this.

I then took the opportunity to have a chat with her about my finances - and her "chipping in" towards my costs of having my GDs round school and the car costs for picking them up on school days (and extra lifts she asks for like today that I may not have been able to combine with an errand for me).

Her initial reaction was that when I offered to have them she didn't realise I'd expect her to pay - at which I pointed out I'd offered for this school year before DH passed away. When I explained I was talking of her contributing from September she relaxed a bit, and once I explained how my finances are going to stack up through 2010 and 2011 (and into 2012) she could see where I was coming from.

So she's agreed that what I'm asking for seems fair, and has agreed to "cough up" :T

I reckon this should cover her share of the car costs over a year, food and drink for my GDs before/after school, activities/toys for them to use here (don't spend much, but still needs covering), plus make a reasonable dent into (if not totally cover) the extra gas and electricity I use due to having them here (I tend to boost the heating more for them than I would for just me and DS, and they also like the TV for an hour most mornings plus a couple of evenings), Whilst it's almost impossible to calculate with 100% accuracy the extra it costs me to have them here, I think I can accurately account for enough of it to satisfy anyone should questions get asked (by benefits offices - or whoever it is who makes sure that anyone being paid to provide child-care is fully registered)

I also pointed out that I'm going to continue to explore options for alternative income - whether that be child-minding, fostering, a local job (which could be hours that don't fit with doing school runs just as easily as hours that do), or moving away for a job (or to take over/start a business) - so there could come a time where whichever option I plump for means I'm no longer available at all. She looked slightly startled when I mentioned the possibility of moving well away, but didn't react with any of the 'but, but, but......' things I'd expected. And she could also see that by coughing up something to me now she won't see quite such a large drop in 'disposable income' if/when she has to start paying for registered child-care.


So all-in-all, I guess I've had a pretty good day - even though I've done next to nothing around the house that I had planned

savingfortravel

Pips_Mum wrote: »

Oooooooh think I over did it last might at your party SFT :beer:
Woke up this morning with a horrible banging headache so sorry if I did anything embarassing everyone :rotfl::rotfl:

Pips Mum-Well we weren’t going to say anything about you doing the funky chicken in Nyk’s garden but…

Thank you everyone for your warm wishes about our move..we’ve been so lucky today having 10 family friends (aged 13 to 73) helping us move in. At about 6 o’clock tonight Mr SFT and I decided whatever was left could wait until tomorrow. So we’ve sat outside on our agricultural land looking over the field, eating our supper, toasting our first night (had beautiful weather here) and watching the sunset together.
Now sitting in our cosy lounge (no need for multi-fuel burner) listening to the bird song outside.
Am so, so happy..feel so lucky too.
Might manage another trip to our local this week….be a shame not to.

sft

taka

savingfortravel wrote: »

Pips Mum-Well we weren’t going to say anything about you doing the funky chicken in Nyk’s garden but…

Thank you everyone for your warm wishes about our move..we’ve been so lucky today having 10 family friends (aged 13 to 73) helping us move in. At about 6 o’clock tonight Mr SFT and I decided whatever was left could wait until tomorrow. So we’ve sat outside on our agricultural land looking over the field, eating our supper, toasting our first night (had beautiful weather here) and watching the sunset together.
Now sitting in our cosy lounge (no need for multi-fuel burner) listening to the bird song outside.
Am so, so happy..feel so lucky too.
Might manage another trip to our local this week….be a shame not to.

sft

:T:T:T:T Not jealous at all... *sob* :beer: :beer:

Are you staying there tonight or it it a bit to chaotic to stay in at the mo?

Frugaldom

Good morning Fruguys and gals

It's another warm and sunny day here in Frugaldom, so I'm hoping that when this dry spell breaks that isn't it for our summer!

I'll need to pick up some basic essentials from Ald! but I'd like to get bird corner planted out today, too. The sun hits is first thing in the morning and it's sheltered on 3 sides by the garage, the shed and the drystone wall, so the artichokes should do really well in there - no more pampas grass, HS has hacked it to the ground and, short of burning it out, there's nothing more we can do to it. I've already moved 4 potato barrels into the space and then I'll make a border so I can get some compost down before planting the artichokes and fencing the entire corner off from the hens & ducks. I'm determined that we'll succeed in growing enough veg to last until next summer but the artichokes won't be ready until then, as they are a long term project.

Hope you all have a great day and those of you who have gardens or allotments manage to get into them.