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

Frugaldom

Shaz, it's funny you should say about the time & money spent on food as I'm finding it more and more difficult to keep to the budget. We're just back from town and I tried C0-0p, Ald! and C0stcutter for big bags of rice, margarine and cooking oil. Sadly, I am home without the rice as the best buy I could find was £1.19 for a small bag of rice. Cheapest margarine (and largest tub) was C0-0p's St0rk at 82p for 500g and by sheer luck, Ald! had their veg oil reduced to 99p for a litre! :eek: It's hard trying to get to grips with these prices, especially when it doesn't seem any time since we were paying under 50p for each of the above items.

I'm still on target for my 4k challenge but the spending isn't as predicted. Groceries are averaging £32.33 per week when my budget was set at £23! That extra £500+ has to come from somewhere but I really don't know where. My gifts, clothing and footwear budgets combined don't even amount to that much. :rolleyes:

DD's wedding budget has been removed from my cash neutral challenge, Shaz :rotfl:I wish I could neutralise that. For now, setting up Frugaldom is my cash neutral challenge, so the figure you see in my signature is what I have spent on absolutely everything else except DD wedding associated costs.

Bad weather passed by lunchtime, we're back to blue sky and sunshine now. Still feels damp and breezy, though.

skint_chick

Hi everyone I'm back from our frugal camping holiday. It went very well and we came home with some spending money left over. Total cost of the camping, hire car, tank of diesel, and all spending money came in at £440 each. We ate a lot of picnic lunches and bbq dinners but didn't feel like we were cutting back - the weather was so nice it seemed natural to be outside cooking dinner. It sounds like a lot of money but it's our main holiday this year and last year I spent about 6 times as much on holidays:eek:

SM - glad you're ok after your crash

Whitewing - the OU degree is working well for my OH - he only has basic GCSEs and I wasn't sure he would stick it or be able to cope but I'm being proved wrong:o. He's studying geoscience so the starter unit for physical geography would be similar - the maths is very difficult for him as he only has a low GCSE grade in maths and this is his first attempt studying for 14years. I did my degree the traditional way and when I went back part time to do my masters found it tough combining work, life and study. I did history so there is a lot of reading but it's soooo interesting, I also did geography modules and if I hadn't gone down the history route it would have been geography. I think whatever your OH choses OU is very well regarded and studying part time shows he has determination and I think shows more commitment than going to uni when you're 18/19 -it did on my part anyway. Plus you have more commitment to doing well because you're paying for it:D

Taka- that's some impressive commitment to your diet and exercise routine -I wish I was as committed:T

SFT- I'm sooo glad you finally got your keys and I hope you and Mr SFT enjoy many years of happiness. I'm very jealous :jbut excited to see your pics once you get up and running

Michelle - I was in the same position as you but without the kids - stressful career job that was making me seriously depressed and paralysed with fear of change. It has been a huge change for me financially and emotionally adjusting but I wouldn't change things for the world. It's more important to have your health for your children than a career you aren't 100% happy with and that is making you stressed. I don't think at all that it will affect your future prospects - you could always tutor at a later stage if you decided to return to work, or volunteer for activities like after school/holiday clubs.

shaz_mum_of__2

Nyk

Are there any wholefood co-ops in your area or could you start one with all you lets buddies

Shaz

bails

I'm glad it's not just me, I'm really struggling to keep within the grocery budget too! :eek:

I've got my blog up and running, needs a few tweaks and then I'll give people the address :j

Frugaldom

Shaz, our LETS group is in town and I'm kind of off the beaten track, so I'm not really in contact with them that often and haven't made it to any of the coffee mornings so far. That and the fact that quite a few have no Internet access makes keeping in contact pretty difficult. Hoping to get some sort of bulk buying system going soon, though, as I'm sure neighbours along the road and at the farmhouse would be interested in that. Just not too sure how frugal 'Beemer' drivers need to be. :rotfl:

Skint_Chick, glad you enjoyed your holiday, especially if it only cost a fraction of previous ones but was every bit as good. Well done on that!

Bails, you are so mean, we want to see the blog now and get an idea of just how excited you are by the prospect of your worldy travels. Hope you are going to add the link into your screenname here so we can click right through - pleeeeeeeeeease.

SM, no deliveries have arrived, have I got my days mixed up? Any luck with the car situation?

The rain is back, so I have been saved from watering the gardens again. So far, no damage by the winds, although than next door's bird table was blown over. (Have left it down to avoid any repeat or potential damage if winds get stronger tonight.)

DS is away this weekend and all next week, so I'll can have a 'use it up' week and am thinking this would be a good time to follow Shaz in her mini-challenge. I've just done my top up shop, so will try to make meals from what is already here. With almost 65% of my entire year's shopping budget already spent, I need to get my act together, start meal planning, spend more time in the kitchen and less in the garden. Or, up mu income and increase the budget.

Edited in - Sorry Bails, I read that as 'blog needs a few weeks' and have just reread it to see it says 'tweaks'. :rotfl:

bails

It's not my travel blog Nyk, I'll definitely share that once I get it going, this is my 101 blog. Not quite ready to share it yet

slowlyfading

Thought I'd best do an update.

Things are going okay here, I've been reading on here everyday and been updating my signiture. Haven't really felt like posting though, as I'm not doing anything exciting, and am just plodding on at the moment. Yesterday we found out that another close family friend who lives just up the road from us has a lump on his prostate and is having a biopsy today. This has all come about really suddenly, as he only went to the doctors last friday so it just seems like everything has come at once. He had some blood tests and it is cancerous, so today is to see just how bad the situation is. If it wasn't for the bf, I don't know how I'd be getting through this really, everything just seems a bit pointless.

I haven't been spending that much lately, but I still never seem to have any money - it just seems to disappear rapidly! I am going to try and not spend anything on friday, sat or sunday (i'm going shopping tomorrow) and see if i can go til next thursday without drawing any more money out of the bank - but we shall see!

I have been reading all your news, so congratulations, big smiles and (((HUGS))) to those who want them

Sorry this post isn't that positive, I'll be better soon

sf xxx

taka

bails wrote: »

I'm glad it's not just me, I'm really struggling to keep within the grocery budget too! :eek:

Me too - I've got £2.35 left if I'm to stay withing my half year target for my groceries... :eek: :rotfl:

I'm off to start one of my 101 things - go to the Film festival! I've never been before despite living withing reach of it for most of my life! I've been to Melbourne film festival but never the one in my home city! :rotfl: I've got a ticket to the opening night screening of "Away with me" - wonder if I'll see some of the stars? :j

Edited: I just say your post SF ((((hugs)))). I hope the news today is as good as it can be.

Frugaldom

Can someone please post the link to the 101 in 1001 thingy again? In the meantime, I am checking back the posts looking for it to add to the handy links on page 1 here. I may be tempted to update my own list of 'things to do before I'm 40' which later became 'things to do before I'm 45' but with the overseas travel all removed.

slowlyfading

taka wrote: »

Edited: I just say your post SF ((((hugs)))). I hope the news today is as good as it can be.

Me too. They are like family to me, I see them almost every day, and the two girls they have are like sisters to me. I'm just trying not to think about it to be honest, but thanks for the hugs, they are much appreciated xx