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

slowlyfading

sophiesmum wrote: »

SF - Sorry about bf's gran, xx

Thanks SM xx

skint_chick wrote: »

SF- I would say to your BF that if he'd like you to go you're available but if he'd rather it was a family thing that you'd like to contribute to flowers/donations - he probably hasn't thought about it or might not want you to see him upset.

I hadn't thought of that, thanks

Lost 2 pounds at Slimming World:D

Congrats

missal

How would i go about joining at this time in the year?

Thanks

Missal

grandma247

missal Nyk will probably be online in the morning so she will probably see your message then and let you know.

Frugaldom

Good morning frugalites and welcome, Missal. I'll add your name to the challenger list but it would probably be best for you to use the rest of the year as a guide to working out how much you really spend in comparison to what your real budget actually is. With a bit of a practice run, you should be fully prepared for the start of the 2010 challenge.

Nothing much to report from my corner of Frugaldom. It's still horrible weather outside with high winds making it impossible to work on garden or chicken coop projects. Heading out to see DGD start her first day at 'big school' then I need to go to the farm shop and collect hen feed. I'm already seeing this as part of my 4k spending next year, as this year should see out all the initial set up costs (I hope) and things should progress quicker after DD's wedding. Sadly, there will be no ISA filled this year but at least there's no debts incurred, either.

Had a look at the preserving thread - great link, thanks. Not too sure what the point is of going out and buying stuff especially to make into jams and chutneys, though, as it's much cheaper to buy them mass produced if you are on a strict budget. However, preserving whatever free or homegrown food you have available, that's a completely different matter - that's a necessity in my book.

Hope everyone is well and I'll catch up as soon as I can.

cw18

missal - I second Nyk's suggestion to use the rest of this year as a 'practise run'. I don't think it was far off this point last year I came in on the challenge, and it was really useful to get to grips with it all before setting proper budgets. Some areas were way off what I expected, but others not far off - though I'm still tweaking all my categories on a monthly basis, just to make sure that where I've unavoidably overspent on one (due to things such as out-of-hours vets bill !) it doesn't impact my total as a whole.

If you worked on £4k/year you should - as of first thing this morning - be left with pennies under £1480 (if I've got my sums right - I reckon we have 135 days left out of the 365 for this year?)

thriftylass

Good morning,

I'll just pop in briefly and will catch up properly tonight.
Just had a thought while walking to work. BF borrowed a few quid of me yesterday (again-:mad:) and that made me realise I probably haven't spent as much as in my signature. I have to check my spreadsheets, but I think the months he borrowed money I didn't put it in the spreadsheet and then when I noticed the let's say £100 difference between my bank balance and the table I put it down as fritter money, stuff or night outs . Can't wait to get home now and double check, but I'm pretty certain I made that mistake a few time and this should bring my spending totals down

See you later

shaz_mum_of__2

Hi Missal and welcome

I spent 6 months practicing last year too but still joined in on the thread as much as possible and didn't feel so shell shocked once i started proper and you will have started to save money too.

Shaz

shaz_mum_of__2

Nyk could we add a post near the begining or a link to the mse things we do so that new people can see the different ways we make/save money without having to trawl 2 yrs of threads ?


for example i personally

use comparison sites
use cashback sites
use cashback credit cards
stooze(see martins guide)
bulk buy basic foods like flour and rice
use mysupermarket to compare grocery prices
bake cakes and biscuits
grow veggies
sell books on amazon/green metropolis
play free bingo scratchcards
joined an online lets group
use freecycle
skip dive(much to my families dismay)
forage wild foods

etc etc

What do you think?

thriftylass

shaz_mum_of__2 wrote: »

Nyk could we add a post near the begining or a link to the mse things we do so that new people can see the different ways we make/save money without having to trawl 2 yrs of threads ?


use mysupermarket to compare grocery prices


What do you think?

I think that's a great idea.

Shaz, do you use mysupermarket to shop or just to campare. I noticed yesterday it doesn't actually pick like for like i.e. I chose MrT value cubbed lean beef and that was compared to MrS organic cubed beef rather than MrS own. That happened with quite a few products when I tried yesterday. Am I doing sth wrong?

cw18

I tried using them for comparisons a couple of times - and gave up!!

I check Mr A and Mr T on-line, and now have Mr M in walking distance to cross check their prices. Also kills some time for me :rolleyes2