Live on £4,000 for a year - 2009, Part 3

Frugaldom

Good evening

Final round up of the night. It's getting dark here and there's nothing more can be done in the garden. The number of hours spent there should mean it's looking amazing, however, most of the time is spent clearing up after the feathered friends and watering veggies in the hope they grow quicker than the ducks & chickens can eat them. :rotfl:

SF, your £80 spend wasn't too bad considering how restrained you have been since catching the frugal bug. When's the holiday?

Good news on the 'who is number 3?' on the baby front. Met a friend in town today who I hadn't spoken to for a couple of months and :eek: she's number 3! Very, very unexpected and she had been in denial, hence reason she hadn't mentioned last time I spoke to her. No denying it now, though as there's no hiding it - she's due in 10 weeks! :rotfl:

SM - Kettle will be on for your arrival and freezer will have a gap ready and waiting.

Gave up trying to get rice so cheated and have placed an order with App F00ds to include plenty of 10p savoury rice. Managed to cram as much as possible into a £5.25 delivery but still couldn't make it to £30. Will update the totals as soon as the order has been processed just in case anything's out of stock.

Brighton_belle

Away for 24+ hrs and we're up to page 6 already:D.
Lovely news whitewing:T.
Been doing my accounts and I've spent just under £2000 of my allocated £4000 budget in the 1st 6th months. However, I must stress that it is not quite the 'virtually all in budget' of Nyk & a few others so though I am very pleased with myself, I do not warrent uber frugalista status.It is my budget for absolute essentials though (food for 2, utilities, essential hsehold goods & repairs,cleaning products, toiletries for 1,presents,bus/taxis,B ins,phone,internet tv etc,) so I am certainly doing way better than I would have been if i wasn't doing this challenge. I have got a little lax with recording my cash spends this last month - I still can work out that I come in under the 2000 but can't 100% allocate all cash spends in the last month to the right sections. Must do better.
Things like haircuts/clothes/hobbies/outings/car costs /non essential extras & savings for these and the unexpected, come out of the rest of my income, all closely monitored and budgeted for. Ultimately these are luxuries rather than essentials. Budgetting enables me to make better choices for my quality of life, keeps me debt free and putting away money in savings where I can.
The good news is that since getting a cashback card last xmas I have earned £25 in cashback so far, by using the card for every transaction I can, and then immediately transferring paying to the card with online banking, so never get caught by a forgotten spend.

Had a great time away - Tues eve saw us on a guided moth walk in Chichester harbour by night; saw some incredible specimins, so beautiful and varied; why do butterflies get all the glory? Then wed morning we were off on a guided tour of the Cathedral's grafitti; a facinating history lesson and I found one they hadn't yet recorded:D.
Parents really lovong my lemon drizzle cake I turn up everytime I visit now (part of 101 challenge); Mum's stopped buying lemon slices at Tesco's as she says my lemon cake is far superior:D. It's so simple to do but the biggest of gestures i've been able to thank them for everything with.

sft - I saw you had breakfasted at the badgers - not had their bkfast before, just tea and something scrummy.

slowlyfading

nykmedia wrote: »

SF, your £80 spend wasn't too bad considering how restrained you have been since catching the frugal bug. When's the holiday?

A week tomorrow! :j :j

I'm SO angry. :mad: I bought a camera today, tried turning it on this evening and nothing. After a LOT of attempts to get it to turn on it did, but now won't accept any memory cards, and keeps freezing. Needless to say I'm going to travel the half an hour journey to take it back, which is a waste of petrol but the only chance i'll have to do it, and i'm going tomorrow morning before I go to work at 12. The worse thing is, on the receipt it says exempt from 30 day guarantee but if it doesn't work, surely that doesnt count?! GRRRRRR.

and breathe.

sophiesmum_2

Take it back, you won't have a problem. Even sale goods are supposed to be fit for purpose.Is it Arg0s? If so the 30 day exemption doesn't apply on lots of electronic stuff i pods etc as someone could then use it and take it back, but your statutory rights are not affected. So return it asap.

cw18

slowlyfading wrote: »

The worse thing is, on the receipt it says exempt from 30 day guarantee but if it doesn't work, surely that doesnt count?! GRRRRRR.

and breathe.

It's only exempt from any 'additional' right to return within 30 days it you change your mind

If the goods are faulty, then you can still take them back even beyond then

If it's the store I suspect (A**os), then you should still be prepared for a fight -- though your problem seems more obvious than mine was.

I bought an MP3 player from them - probably about 5 years ago. Used it for a week or so, having put it onto a 'random' setting almost as soon as I loaded music onto it. I then loaded on a couple of Webber musicals, which I would imagine most people would want to hear in the correct order - but there was no way I could get the 'random' setting to cancel :eek: They initally told me it was 'excluded' from the return policy, at which I pointed out it wasn't if it was faulty. They then said they couldn't take it back as they couldn't resell it 'cos the screen was marked. Um..... has been in a pocket which I've been walking a dog - but as it's faulty they shouldn't be trying to resell it anyway :unsure: After the lass had been to speak to a manager twice (who was "unavailable" to me) I was offered vouchers as a 'goodwill gesture'. I refused point blank, and offered to report them to Trading Standards - at which point I got my money back in full I then went and bought an alternative player in a different chain of stores.........

Frugaldom

Good morning, just a quick hello and then signing off because of the storm here.

Picked more strawberries this morning (before almighty storm arrived), have DGD arriving this afternoon staying over, so it looks like we'll be baking if we can't get outside, and the rest of thism morning, I think, I should catch up with housework, as can't stay online and risk frying my connection (again!).

Have a good day and well done BB - your budget is pretty much the same items as mine barring there are 3 of us here, so EXCELLENT progress for you!

lyndasharp

Went and stocked up on wine last night at Mr T's, after seeing Martin's email. They had run out of the best deals on the wine, but we still managed to get almost 700 clubcard points for a £50 shop. We only actually spent £10 though, as we had £35 in gift cards from taking out their home insurance, and £5 in money off coupons!

H2B didn't get the promotion at work :-( He did get some tips on how to do better in the interview next time though, so hopefully it's been good practise at least.

whitewing

lynda,

If he didn't get that job, it means there is a better opportunity just round the corner!

Savvy_sewing

My dwarf beans, (Only 3 plants survived) have finally got a few beans on show! I didnt think that there was going to be any, the insects are devouring most of them.
The carrots and onions are looking stronger though. Watering them like mad while I am here. Problem is I go away at the weekends and they get drought if it doesnt rain. DS disappears and nothing gets done in the garden. Have to change my weekends to only going on one night. However I am away on my holiday for nearly a week on Thursday, (EEK I havent done anything towards that yet apart from the money), and DS will have to step up to the mark if the weather is like it has been. Although it looks a bit overcast here at the moment. Perhaps its about to rain. I will have to go and open my curtains, as I can hardly see. (I have white tab top curtains, curtousy of the landlord), that I used to keep the sun out, and the cool in.

Blairweech

Lynda - Sorry your DH did not get the promotion, glad he got good feedback though

Okay, I have some news...

I have a place booked on an open day at a potential university I am thinking of going to next year, to study Agriculture and Land Management (with the view to becoming a Charted Surveyor). It is newsworthy because I have been thinking about this for 2 years, and I have finally done something about it! It isn't until September, so a while yet, and it's only an open day, but still a *massive* deal to me.

In frugal news, I got fed up of gloop and just gave in and bought (cheap) washing powder. I missed the smell, everything was turning grey, and my machine was beginning to smell funky. Oh well, I will try HM laundry powder next!

Hope you all enjoy the rest of the day!