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

grandma247

Hi just popped in to say I found this fantastic site more soup recipes than you can imagine. Two caught my eye portuguese green soup and red pepper soup which is like a recipe I have been searching for for ages simple but tasty. I am going to try and make both tomorrow.
I made grapefruit thick cut marmalade yesterday and have some fine cut and some for jelly soaking ready to make tomorrow too. A very dear friend brought us two carrier bags of grapefruits on Friday so I only had to put sugar at £1.10p for 2 packs and some lemon juice to it.
I hope you are all feeling ok, hugs to those that aren't.
AEB I will be thinking of you on Tuesday.

Blairweech

Hey all,

BB - Love the idea of a master to-do list but have never got around to doing it. Might try it out this week

Bails - What you are doing is a true eye opener - the relative cost of things we take for granted here in the West is extraordinary when you stop to think about it

Have had a fairly good weekend, was working yesterday then today just chilled out - went shopping and for a lovely walk round the village

Oh...I did start my house deposit and emergency fund Have been reading How to get what you want in life with the money you already have (read it before, fantastic book) and I realised that I have been on and on about buying a house for 4/5 years now and I am no closer. So, I put £10 each into 2 savings accounts and will be saving £10 a week for my house deposit and £10 a week in my emergency fund from now on. I know it is only a tiny amount but it is more than before!

Have been keeping a running total of this months income/expenses. At the end of week one it is:

Total Income: £231.46

Spent Overall: £469.15

Spent on 4k Challenge: £74.15

Spent on Grocery Challenge: £38.03

So far, this is proving really useful - as I get paid weekly, I struggle to know exactly how much I earn/spend, but now I can keep track. Don't know why I have not done this before :rolleyes:

cw18

Well, my 'Snacks Stats' have got worse!! I went back through everything in my other classifications, and realised I had other items (jam in preserves, and cream in dairy) that wouldn't have been bought if they weren't being used with "disallowed" snacks - so those have been moved across into Snacks and bumped the figures!!

(I've also managed to lose £2.42 of shopping with a 'real' value of £5.23 - so am going to have to try and figure out what I've accidentally deleted later this week! Fortunately this latest number crunching isn't being done in my main budget spreadsheet )

I'm now showing £169.65 spent on snacks (with only £62.58 of it now showing as 'allowed'), which were worth £435.65 in total (£84.50 for the 'allowed' ones).

So Snacks as a total now answer for 17.8% of my total spend, and 25.01% of the 'real values' :eek:

But if I take the 'disallowed' snacks out of all my sums, then the snacks equate for just 7.4% of my spend, and 6.07% of the real values - MUCH more acceptable.

My disallowed amount over 35 weeks equates to an average of almost £13.26 a month - and, as an average, calculates to £159.07 a year. Compared to my annual budget of £159 for feeding my elder son while he's home on leave, that's a major :eek: at the waste of money

Brighton_belle wrote: »

I only buy snacks with cash.....

I would imagine most of mine has been paid for with cash - most Whoopsies are bought that way purely as they're part of the smallest shops

I don't think i buy any snacks with our main asda shop.

My 'allowable' snacks often get bought with the main shops - but I rarely seem to be tempted by 'naughties' then - probably 'cos rarely do a main shop at a time that's likely to turn up any decent Whoopsies :rolleyes2

Never buy in biscuits or crisps at asda.

crisps aren't even included as 'snacks' in my spreadsheet - they have a category all to themselves (and make up a further £43.86 spend, with none bought in clearance)

What do you buy as snacks?

As it stands it includes......
Biscuits (which includes chew bar things) - spend £38.81 / value £146.59 - allowed £1.74 / £1.74 which were bought for birthday teas
Cakes - spend £34.20 / value £70.83 - allowed £16.31/£16.31 which were bought for birthday teas
Cheese - B@bybel and Strings - all allowed as mostly for GDs after school - £6.79 / £6.79
Cheesecake - £2.87 / £11.27 - none allowed
Croissants - £1.36 / £7.70 - none allowed
Custard Powder - to go with sponge puddings I (mostly) already had in - 'disallowed' as will be sponge puddings in the future - £1.41 / £6.09
Cream - £7.41 / £18.46 - all disallowed as bought to go with scones and cheesecakes that have been disallowed
Fruit Loaf - £0.65 / £2.64 - all allowed as DS and I share this, but I don't tend to use it to replace fruit/healthy options!!
Ice Cream, Sauces, Sprinkles, Cornets, Wafers, Lollies, Pops - £36.10 / £61.31 - £33.28 / £53.21 allowed (wafers not) as this is DS's main pleasure, a 'once in a while' treat for GDs, and I enjoy a lot of fruit better with ice-cream :rolleyes2
Jelly - £2.83 / £21.55 - all disallowed as only eaten as an 'after thought' (or still in cupboard!)
Maltloaf - £2.80 / £2.80 - all allowed as this is bought for DS. 10 so far this year (in 35 weeks), so not excessive - and his face does light up when he sees it
Mousse - £0.49 / £0.98 - dithered where to put this, but wouldn't ever have bought it had it not been on clearance.... and would have eaten fruit had I not had it, so it's disallowed
Nuts / Fruit & Nuts - £3.81 / £3.81 - allowed £1.29/£1.29 as bought for kids to take as 'emergency rations' when they went hill-walking together last month
Pavolva - £1.50 / £3.00 - disallowed as was a total pig out while watching TV one evening
Jams - £1.62 / £1.62 - disallowed as only used with scones (that are also disallowed)
Soup/Salad Croutons - £2.88 / £2.88 - could easily cope without them
Sponge Pudding - £0.56 / £2.76 - disallowed
Sweets - £21.84 / £67.24 - disallowed
Evap Milk - £3.00 / £3.00 - disallowed as I'd rather have ice-cream with my fruit, so it's languishing in the cupboard!!!

debtfreeitseasy

My insurance for my car just cost me £1000 thats a bad start and it costs me £250 a month for petrol, whey Im at £4000 basically already.

cw18

With figures like that, I assume you use the car for work (or a very long commute). Most people ignore work related expenses, so wouldn't count these costs. I count my car in as I don't have a job, meaning it's a "luxury" item - and one I need to weigh up carefully next year as to whether I can afford to continue running it (a 12 month bus pass that can be used anywhere in Greater Manchester on any bus would be around £300 cheaper over a year!)

bails

Blairweech wrote: »

Bails - What you are doing is a true eye opener - the relative cost of things we take for granted here in the West is extraordinary when you stop to think about it

The thing is Blairweech, what we're paying for rent isn't even what locals pay, it would be even less. Here a teacher's starting salary is 4,500 rupees a month (about £36) so you can imagine what 'unskilled' workers must have to live on. Add to that unemployment figures which are incredibly high so one worker may have to support his entire extended family and it's very hard to imagine how difficult life must be. And that's only the financial aspect. We are so so incredibly lucky!

Loving your number crunching Cheryl, it's great to be back on board again

BB, I use a similar system for my work lists and it was always pretty good. Helps to have it all contained in a book rather than random scraps of paper!

Thanks for your support re the honey OH is repentent and has been forgiven (the money's coming out of his individual budget). He did point out that he doesn't drink beer or buy other luxuries and wanted it for his health, so that's his choice.

Right, off to get ready for work, see you later!

lyndasharp

bails wrote: »

Ooh, Lynda's getting chickens too?! :T We're turning into a virtual farm indeed! Happy belated 18h to your son Shaz, glad the party went well. I never think of you as being old enough to have an adult son, isn't it funny how we can't tell these things online.

I'm sure I've asked before but when's the wedding Lynda? Brain like a sieve :rotfl: Well done on the rings!

Unfortunately the course was cancelled. They gave the most unusual reason I've ever heard - 'we've lost our ponies and have to go and find them'. I really hope they managed to track them down!!! :eek: We're probably going to reschedule for a fortnights time.

Sold two more ebay things - someone asked me to add a buy it now option for them :j Another few pounds in the kitty. H2B's finally listed his box of computer bits too, so that will be some more stuff out of the way (I hope).

The wedding is on 13th March, so we're just coming up to the 6 months to go point! Our neighbour is now engaged too, :jfor him and his OH.

We got lots of gardening done over the weekend, planted the garlic bed in the front of the house, and went shopping instead of going on the chicken course. We've now got lots of Christmas and Birthday presents sorted, including the most difficult one, my FiL-to-be's 75th birthday present.

I found the list of covenants for the house, no mention of livestock so chickens shouldn't be a problem. Caravans and trailors are banned though - not that our neighbours seem to take much notice of that

Frugaldom

HELLO!

Sorry not to have been responding to everyone but please take it as read that I am now up to date with all the posts and accept my sincerest sympathies, hugs, congratulations, amazement and appreciation as appropriate. (And anticipation at hearing if Aeb gets 3 girls tomorrow!)

I haven't posted my end of month figures for August, so will get that done today when updating my spreadshettt for weekend spending. It wasn't too bad, to be honest, as nobody would let us buy them drinks and insisted on buying ours. :T Most other things were paid in advance, apart from taxi there and back. I ordered 4 of us a coffee whilst waiting in the hotel in the morning, but stuck that on ex's tab - sorry, but nobody asked if I was his ex or his current wife so I graciously accepted hotel manager's offer to 'tab it for later'. :rotfl: As my entire share of the wedding was saved for in advance, it shouldn't really affect my overall 4k budget, but a few items have slipped through the net. I'll filter them out as I update the figures, then transfer them to my everything else accounts.

The garden is so much emptier and quieter with 8 chickens gone and the ducks are still standing around the gate expecting to greet the postman and get their siggy biscuits from him. They could be waiting for a while, as there doesn't appear to be any post today! :rotfl:

Friend who was bringing breadmaker arrived breadmakerless (mwaaaaaaaaaah, sob, sob) because the order hadn't arrived before she had to leave to travel down here. I'll need to wait a bit longer for that, so ended up buying several more reduced loaves to keep us going for a bit longer. Fingers crossed that it arrives this week.

For those of you who know me, I've loaded a sample of DD's wedding album onto my Faceb00k or else feel free to email/PM me for the link. DD and DGD both looked spectacular and all the kilties behaved themselves - there was no 21 bum salute, thankfully! :rotfl: We drank a toast to absent friends, both those who are no longer with us and to those who couldn't make the trip to the wedding. It was a great day hampered only by mu inability to boogie - fat ankle did get squeezed into the new shoes but wasn't quite strong enough to cope with the dancing. (Well, not until the soothing effects of alcohol had kicked in much later in the night, but I really do think the pain-numbed ankle improved with that little bit extra dancercise. :rotfl:).

SM sends her hellos and will be back online with us very soon.

I'll be back to further catch up once I've updated my spending sheets.

shaz_mum_of__2

morning all

Just booked my 40th birthday trip in December
off to Lille and Bruge to the christmas markets .....we get picked up locally and taken by coach so the theory is it's stress free :T

Got a bargain really and cashback though TCB but no cashback CC as there was a fee which outweighed the gain

I hope it snows it will be so romantic(ds is not coming);)

sophiesmum and grandma -Hoping to pick up some preserving jars too everyone else will be loading the bus with booze and i will have empty jars:rotfl:

AEB- good luck for today we all know you will be too busy to post but hope you know we are all thinking of you

bails

Yes, thinking of you aeb, hope all goes well x

It's very quiet on here these days isn't it?