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

Frugaldom

Good morning frugal friends

Welcome back Ddraig! Glad the Internet problem has been resolved.

Skint Lynne - crepes are dead easy to make and are very popular in this household as snacks with all sorts of stuff rolled up inside them. My fave is sliced banana and ice cream or sugar & lemon, but also enjoy them with syrup.

SF - well done booking the holiday but as for the student loan, :eek: I thought they had a minimum fixed rate to help make them more affordable? £1000+ just in interest? :eek:

SM - I hope you're feeling a bit more upbeat about things today, it's awful trying to concentrate on one thing when something else is niggling away at you. I hope everyone is well. How are your parents doing?

CW - I haven't analysed the budget, yet, but did investigate the £2000 trade-in for 'bangers' as I've been talking about the eco-friendlier cars with low road tax for some time. Had a brief look at the tax and ISA allowances and only question that springs to mind is - if benefits or pensions are means tested, does an ISA affect your right to claim? I fed my figures into the 'entitledto' website and qualify for not a penny in benefits even if I lost all of my income! (It has dropped considerably over the past year.)

Chickwatch due to begin, hopefully, tonight as I'm waiting for a few pheasant eggs to hatch. Fingers crossed here.

cw18

nykmedia wrote: »

CW - I haven't analysed the budget, yet, but did investigate the £2000 trade-in for 'bangers' as I've been talking about the eco-friendlier cars with low road tax for some time. Had a brief look at the tax and ISA allowances and only question that springs to mind is - if benefits or pensions are means tested, does an ISA affect your right to claim? I fed my figures into the 'entitledto' website and qualify for not a penny in benefits even if I lost all of my income! (It has dropped considerably over the past year.)

According to the paper, the £2k for the car scheme is a 'fiddle'. It's only open for a small window (mid-May 2009 - 1st March 2010), and only until the money set to one side for it has gone (apparently a maximum of 300,000 drivers) -- plus the government is only coughing up £1k for each, with the other £1k being paid for my the car companies. And the paper says they already tend to discount more than this, so can use that as their contribution -- meaning you really only get the £1k from the government.

As to ISAs and means tested benefits. As far as I can see (and have seen while claiming!), the interest on ISAs isn't declarable as an income to Tax Credits (they want to know your taxable income (ie. what you tell Inland Revenue about), but you have to declare the value of your ISA for any benefits, as it's money you can use to live off !!!

Have checked the NI credits for grand-parents -- starts April 2011, which is fine by me. The child has to be 12 or under - also fine by me. But you have to look after them for at least 20 hours a week, and I only have my GDs for just over 17 hours (though I'm sure DD would happily let me have them the extra 3 hours) and only for school term time as well. So to get this, I'd have to have them at least 2 days a week during the school holidays too -- meaning an extra 26 days a year I'd have to collect them, and DD and GDs would be 1-1.5hrs later home with them needing collecting from here !! So looks like the scheme's no good for me

cha97michelle

Thought i'd pop my head round the door to say hello. I think it might be a week or so since i read/posted. We finally got the car fixed which came in at £440. We haven't done anything yet about ringing the council for a claim form. I guess that will depend on if DH gets himself organised to do it or not, so some nagging from me required.

We are both so busy though at the moment. Work is taking up most of my time. DH is having to pick up the slack at home. DS2 has also been teething really badly so waking us up in the night. Thank goodness i only work part time and the weekend is almost upon us again.

I've managed to keep up to date with my washing, and make sure we have a cooked meal every day but that really is about it. DH has been tempted by takeaway so it has been hard to resist but we have. I can see it will be hard though to stay motivated, and i haven't sorted out what we spent last weekend yet, which was a bit but essentials like shoes for DS1 and me for work, DS2's birthday pressie, mini greenhouse. I did do it frugally as possible by using my birthday cash, using up £40 of vouchers i earned online, and swapped a MnS credit note for some pop socks and a dine for £10 deal. We got a chicken which fed 4 of us sunday lunch, went towards soup for 2 adult meals and 4 kids ones, did omlettes and another evening meal for us although i can't for the life of me remember what.

I'm going to try today the pie filling from AF, and get on with some more washing, i think we need a trip to costco though as i am supposed to be taking something into work tomorrow. Saying that, i could leave it till Monday then we'd have goodies for a few days rather than have to eat in one day due to weekend.

Anyway, kids need me so i'm off. Hugs all round x

Frugaldom

Thanks CW, I did read the bit about the timeframe and 'only whilst funds last' type bit. I haven't seen much more about it, so still don't know what went up; I'm assuming pretty much everything did - must check price of TV license, although I've managed to get out of paying that by refusing to have a TV. HS and DS won't do without, so they can pay for it.

Cha, I made chicken pie last night for dinner, I'm almost through my first pack - only 13 more to go! :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl: I keep burning the bottom of the pot whilst cooking the stuff, though! It tastes alright, I guess. everyone ate it without any complaints but I soak it for an hour before cooking it. I think I'll try doing chicken supreme type thing with some next time. I have to learn to love the stuff, I accidentally bought 7 cases thinking it was 7 kilos!

On the savings front - I am trying not to spend any more on food until we've used up some of what's in the freezer. We're also eating our own freerange eggs every day now, so that's a bit of a saving, too. :T We've had 26 eggs produced in 15 days between the 2 hens and they have hardly made a dent in the sack of feed because they're out pecking around all day. Brilliant things to have, even if a bit addictive. I think I'm now running as a small poultry farm. :rotfl:

shaz_mum_of__2

Don't think i have posted for a while but have been reading

all ok here student grant paid and transferred to ISA and still £400 leftover money this month despite the MOT costs we incurred

Feeling really positive going into may (am i the only one??)

Everything in the garden is blooming and it feels like summer is only round the corner i really hope it is !!

Take care

Shaz

sophiesmum_2

Shaz, I hope summer arrives soon too. Today I am feeling very positive:j, one or two things that have been niggling have almost been resolved and I feel like I can focus again on all things frugal:D

Draig - Good to hear from you again,

Michelle - Don't try and be superwoman with the frugalling and working full time and seeing to the children. Just do the best you can without exhausting yourself. Once you get back into the swing of being at work again you can introduce some things back into your household routine, but in the meantime don't crucify yourselves over an occasional takeaway etc. Good luck.

Nyk - lol at the pie filling error.

sophiesmum_2

Today has been another spend day:rolleyes:

life insurance DD out £14.49 and £19.95 on a paper logmaker.

So another £34.44 to deduct from totals.

On a positive note I have 10 OU text books to put on Amazon later, these usually sell well so should top up my extra spends fund with those over next few weeks, will also declutter the bookshelves at the same time if I sell them.

cha97michelle

Yup - my pie filling stuck a bit too :rolleyes: Sounds like you need to love it nyk. :rotfl:I'm sure you could change it a bit by sticking different things in it. I've gone for a bit of frozen spinach and sweetcorn, but it looks like a splash of white wine or some cream might work with it. I managed to order 30 boxes of baking boy cakes last time i ordered from AF. Thankfully they limit it to 2 boxex. What would i have done with 900 cakes?

Sophies mum - thanks for thinking of me. I am letting some things slide. Instead of baking some cakes myself for work i bought some from costco. With takeaways i want to avoid the downward spiral of eating them then having no energy and feeling rubbish, I've already noticed this week i've eaten less fruit and veg and drank less water. I'm thinking health as well as wealth. Plus after Easter, my suits only just fit.

Anyway, know i have started the path to frugalness i would feel too guilty when we have perfectly good food that only needs a few minutes to sort with a bit of thought and effort. Plus the garden looks like we'll soon have lettuce from it at least. Everything else is doing really well too.

Off to do some work. Take care everyone x

savingfortravel

Hi Everyone!
Loved the last few days back at school with the children. But feel so tired. Still almost the weekend.
Healthy eating is going well but am planning to use my Daily Express Fish and Chips voucher tomorrow. We don't have many take aways.
Interesting to read SM/SL positives lists. I think you are all doing brilliantly. Might give my list some consideration.
Enjoy your evening.
SFT

cw18

I've only used the pie filling once so far -- and DS managed to summon up the courage to tell me he wasn't impressed by it (he doesn't often complain).

However, when I pointed out that when I make a big saving on one meal (chicken supreme using this) it leaves more cash to 'overspend' on other meals (such as the pizza and chicken enchilladas he particularly enjoys). He mulled this over for a few seconds, and then said fine on one condition...... and that condition was that I don't use the pie filling as a starting point for the enchilladas :rotfl:

Had to point out to his that the pie filling is a creamy sauce, but enchilladas are tomato based -- hence not a likely scenario at all :rolleyes2



Well, I've just updated my spreadsheet for this month -- and have realised I've lost a receipt from 13th :eek:
I remember going as I was there with DD as she headed homewards after they collected Easter Eggs from here, and I remember 3 of the things I bought that day - which I've added to the spreadsheet - but don't have a clue what the rest was!! What I've remembered equates to around £2, but I seem to remember the total being closer to a fiver!! I know I haven't intentionally thrown the receipt away though, so I'll have to keep my eyes peeled for it and add the rest in at a later date if I find it!!

I've discovered another drawback to leaving it so long between spreadsheet updates though (this is my first this month!) -- one receipt dated 3rd tells me I bought 2 x "Mr Fines Sau" from S'flds..... but I don't have a clue what that was !! I've checked my cupboards for anything relatively new it might be (plus my freezers and a couple other spots I've got some stuff stock-piled at the moment), but nothing seems to tie in to that description at all
ETA: Just figured out what they are!! Only taken me 6 hours..... Suddenly clicked that was the day before my GDs b'day party - and it was frozen cocktail sausages !!