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

boring_beige

My target was £1200 excluding keep
spent in June £127.65
Spends to date £669.85

Work is still interesting with people on holiday and sick. Someone from another store came into help and this always makes me start questioning things. i keeping thinking of how things could be made easier, i doubt that anyone but me would think so.
Still trying to use up wool i already have. i've even started to keep track of how well i'm doing on a project i'm hoping this will keep my focus instead of jumping to the next before the first is finnished.

Well done everyone who is still under half their budget.

Vixstar

Well I'm over a bit on my first month's budget for this challenge, but I'm sure it'll balance out. Was very tempted to raise my budget again but have decided against it as that would be too easy and would eat into the savings that I am doing this challenge for. So must try harder next month (think I'll be saying this a lot!) though have hopefully identified a few areas where cut backs will be possible without any pain.

On a positive note my cash neutral holiday fund has been boosted by a bingo withdrawal and I'm hoping for a quidco payout. And I've only got a couple more tasks to add to my 101 list - then I've got to decide whether I have the nerve to blog it.

savingfortravel

Nyk-Need some help. When we lived in our 3 bed bungalow our energy bills (gas and electric) were £76 per month. Now we live in 1 bed cottage with no radiators-just multifuel burner and some storage heaters (with lounge/dinning area/kitchen/bathroom/small conservatory downstairs and bedroom upstairs). Have got a summer fuel promotion and could buy some of our taybrite now (think that is what it is called). Any ideas how much we should order? We have no idea.
Probably won't get free wood this year but are keen to make paper logs-trying to save all scrap paper at school. Kids in my class are collecting up the pine cones-got 2 big bags. Should they be collecting sticks as well? What kind?
Can you help with some guidance? Thanks


BB-Don't know if you read but we popped into the Badger's tea room at Alfriston-had delicious and very expensive breakfast.

Bails-Wow, things are really starting to happen for you! Glad you enjoyed Glastonbury.


Have a great evening
sft

ilovetea

Another month gone and still have £109 left of my "allowance" for the first 6 months. Have a small stockpile of food in the cupboards and freezer,but it's all cold weather food .Have seemed to be living off salads and fruit lately and managed to loose 7lbs.This is the time I wish I had a garden to grow my own stuff,but I haven't so no good moaning about that.
Next month I hope to break down my spending,hopefully cut down on my figures.
Thanks for all the tips and inspiration

ilovetea x

cw18

Time for my mid-way report - and my boring details to record my own personal thinking when I look back at this post later in the year.......



This shows an underspend against half my annual budget of a whopping £652.96

As ever, the category titles in red are my 'one-offs'. These account for £564.75 of the £4k budgeted for in the first 6 months, but I've only paid out £219.49 so far - so £345.26 of my underspend is due to these

So that makes my underspend £307.70

Where the budget figure is in red, I've altered it since the end of last month - whilst still maintaining my £8k total figure.

Dog Expenses has been dropped from £400 to £275 - made possible by the dalmatian settling happily onto a cheaper (still additive free and low protein) food.

Petrol has been dropped from £500 to £300, which is a closer relection of where I anticipate being at year end. However this means any car repairs will be paid for from my 'anything else' for now, and I'll have to reassess whether to give them their own budget after my service/MOT at the end of July.

Toiletries/Cleaning has increased from £109.50 (30p/day) to £146 (40p/day). The main reason for this increase is the discovery that I can almost certainly extend the life of several carpets by using my carpet cleaner on a regular basis - meaning I need to purchase shampoo for it.

So I'm left with £288.50 to find a new home for - which has been added to my anything else, increasing that category from £415.28 to £703.78



The 'Spent' column figures in red are where I'm currently over budget.

The overspend on Phone/Broadband should continue to decrease each month - overspent due to changing to a cheaper provider early in the year (meaning the first month was more expensive), and with a set-up fee also involved.

The overspend on Mobile is due to being tied to my contract still. But I'm changing to PAYG when that ends in the first half of August, so the overspend should start to drop after then.

Dog Expenses are an overspend again, as I've bought enough food in June to get us through to the end of August (and hopefully into September). I also picked up a dog guard for the car from A!di yesterday for £9.99. I don't often take the larger dog out in the car, but would like to be able to take him out further from home to try different walks. However he won't 'stay put' in the car unless there's another adult to keep him firmly in place, so this hasn't been possible. I'd priced up dog guards and decided I couldn't afford one, but this was was a lot cheaper so seemed to good an opportunity to pass up on

Breakdown Cover & Road Tax will be straight at the end of December, as these are one-offs I pay in January :rolleyes2

Toiletries/Cleaning overspend is due to the purchase of carpet shampoo :eek: I bought one bottle of the (expensive) official type to see how I got on, and as it seems to be saving the carpets I made a bulk purchase of a (much cheaper) one from the auction site. But I may recoup some of the cost of that in August, as DD has a week off work that she intends to use to blitz her house - and she's asked me to go and do her carpets for her, on the understanding she pays for the shampoo used

The overspends (ignoring the one-offs that are overspent, for which I've "borrowed" from the ones yet to pay) come to a total of £143.47. So if I were on target for these (which I still hope to be at year end), that would push my underspend at the mid-way point back up to £451.17.

I then have £117.43 'in the bank' for Council Tax (which is an end-of-year figure I know of with accuracy) due to the 2 non-payment months of Feb & March, which brings my actual 'below target' figure back down to £333.74. This is out of a 'budget to date' for non one-off spends of £3462.67, so equates to 9.64% of that figure - which I actually find quite worrying. Could I really have been that far out when I stabbed a 'best guess' at my budgets If I maintain this underspend, then it means my overall annual budget could have been set to just £7400 with a small margin (£62) for comfort (but nothing for car repairs) !!!!

slowlyfading

I have been looking at my budget tonight, and I am doing really well, though not wanting to jinx anything :rolleyes: My budget was £8.21 a day, which works out, as today is day 180 at £1479.45. I have currently spent £1285.22 so I am £194.23 under budget so far! July is going to be a funny month, as I'm NOT going to count holiday spends in my total for now, and see what happens. Purely because I want to have the best time, and not worry so much about money, if you see what I mean?

The hand is feeling a bit better, thanks to those who send well wishes

sf xx

Skint_Lynne

Hi everyone,

I can't believe that tomorrow is the 1st of July.:eek: I am hoping for a fresh start challenge wise and will get the 101 list kicked off for real. I'd better get a move on with this as it won't be long till christmas.:p

I have not done as well as I'd hoped re: keeping accurate figures etc due to losing my notebook but I do have a lot of positives which are:

Knowing the difference between wants and needs.
Using food to it's full capacity - ie keeping leftovers and not wasting anything - also, baking etc.
Having a stockpile of food and toiletries.
Checking to see if I can get discounts from anything.
Buying presents in advance - very convenient as well as moneysaving.
Being adventurous and trying things that I wouldn't have done before.
Thinking before spending.

Although I am not 100% there yet and am way behind a lot of you in the frugal stakes, I have come a long way since I found this thread. I have been posting on here for around about a year now and you have all made me very welcome. I have had a lot of hard times this year due to the shop not doing well and you have all helped without knowing it. This sounds corny, but I do think of you all as friends and I am really glad that I have found you all. Thank you all very much.:beer:

Frugaldom

The new thread is here

:j Brand new thread for part 3 - see you all there soon abd good luck for the next leg of your frugal journey. Well done to all who are still with us and thank you for being such great challenge companions. :T

Dreams can, and do, come true - you just need to work your money and make things happen, even if other events catch you unawares and make it all seem pointless. Frugaldom Rules! We shall overcome (all debts).